For a long time nobody was able to speak. After what seemed like ages, Selene broke the silence.
"Say something," she said, her voice pleading. "Don't stare like this." Lily found her voice. "Er -- hi," she said, attempting to keep her voice level. She found she couldn't, and so she barreled on. "Selene, what are you doing here?! How the hell --"
"It's a bit of a long story," she said meekly. "I knew I'd see you eventually -- I don't know where Dumbledore's office is, and I figured you could take me there. I couldn't rightly turn up during dinner. I need your help," she said desperately, looking at each of them in turn.
Alice nodded slightly. "We'll go find the Headmaster," she said. "Stay right here."
The girls save Selene silently went down the staircase to the common room, and found the male Gryffindor sixth years staring at them. James was holding a silvery cloak.
"She'll be needing to see the Headmaster," he said, thrusting the cloak towards the girls. "Keep her hidden in this. Go ahead and take her to Dumbledore's office. His password is Sugar Quill."
Wordlessly, the girls ran back to Selene, told her their plan, and proceeded to Dumbledore's office.
He wasn't there upon their arrival, so they went ahead and sat down. Lily had a million questions she was bursting to ask, and she had a feeling the other girls did as well, but they all knew that it would be best to wait until Dumbledore was there.
After approximately ten minutes of waiting in tense silence, Dumbledore came into his office. He wasn't at all perturbed that they had found the way in, but when he saw Selene, Lily saw his eyes widen slightly before he spoke.
"Good evening," he said gravely. "I trust you have something important to relate to me?" Selene, looking very anxious, nodded.
Sir," she began, "I just turned up at Hogwarts because I had nowhere else to go. I know there's been a lot of talk about me and my family, and I guess I came here because I figured I could tell you the truth. This is the safest place I could think of."
"My family," Selene hesitated, her eyes darting from one person to the other. "My family has been helping Voldemort."
There was a slight intake of breath around the room, but the other Gryffindors took Dumbledore's lead and continued to look intently at Selene, inviting her to continue.
"It's not like it was by choice. He -- he threatened horrible things. He didn't curse us, but I think it would be better if he had. He said he would capture and then kill family friends -- the Prewetts and the Greathouses, for starters. He mentioned all of you -- I don't know how he knows your names, but he does. And we couldn't take that risk. My parents couldn't dare to have all our friends die. We joined him," Selene continued, her voice shaking slightly.
"They must have known we were both a powerful and weak family. Powerful in magic, weak in what we stood for. We only considered the people we loved, not all the people we had to hurt."
"I never wanted to...." She seemed unable to finish her sentence, so she started over, this time speaking directly to Dumbledore. "My parents didn't want me involved; they told me to run away. And I did, and the first place I could think of was here, with you. I know I'm not safe, because Voldemort will be looking for me now, but I know you have to know this truth, Professor. I'm just...I'm just so scared, sir. I hate all of this. I had the choice we made. I hate the options we had. I hate the fact I don't know if my parents are safe. I hate that my parents are voluntary but unwilling slaves to Voldemort's twisted mind. I can't tell you how much I've thought about this and how sick it makes me." Selene's voice was bitter. There was no trace of the girl Lily once knew. This was only the shadow of what Selene had been before her life had been mangled by Voldemort's powers of persuasion.
There was a long silence following Selene's speech. Finally, Dumbledore looked at her and said, "I trust you."
Relief flooded through Lily. She had never known Dumbledore to have flawed judgment, and hearing that made her swimming mind slightly more at ease.
"Rest assured there is an association of people working against Lord Voldemort," Dumbledore told the group. "They are scheduled to have a meeting this New Year's Eve, but in light of your news I will move this meeting to the 27th, which is as soon as I can possibly expect all the people to gather. Please understand how serious it is that nobody knows you are here, Selene. The consequences of you being found could be drastic. There is indeed no safer place for you than Hogwarts at present. I ask you to stay confined in the girl's dormitory." He paused, looking from girl to girl in front of him. "Does anyone else know about Selene's arrival?"
"The boys," Renee said automatically. "Peter, James, Sirius, and Remus."
"See that they do not tell anyone about her." The girls nodded, and Dumbledore paused slightly before continuing. "It would be best if you did not mention to anyone the group of people I mentioned earlier. Do your best to forget I've told you about them. As far as you are concerned this group does not exist."
"But, Professor," Vesta said eagerly, "We're not frightened; perhaps we could join this group. I know we're all willing to help the Wizarding community in any way we can--"
Dumbledore cut her off. "I don't doubt the valor of anyone here," he said, a small smile on his face. "But this group that you have never heard of is comprised only of overage wizards and witches, which means none of you would qualify. I am afraid I could not endanger any of my students so much as to let them join such a highly perilous organisation as this. Indeed, I cannot even talk about it very much due to the amount of secrecy and peril shrouding this association."
The girls knew he was right, and frankly they were too steeped in thought to argue. Before the five girls left the room, Dumbledore called after them, "This is a good turn of events after all. Selene is once again with her friends at Hogwarts, and the Potters can now host their New Year's Eve party. They were quite put out when they heard that this nonexistent organisation was to be holding a meeting at their house the night they had planned one of their fabulous parties."
Lily giggled slightly at Dumbledore's ability to keep such a light mood on situations so unexpected as this. The girls helped Selene under the Invisibility Cloak and were about to leave the Headmaster's office when Alice spoke up.
"Er, Professor?" she asked. He turned to look at her, waiting for her to continue. "Could I sign up to stay winter holidays?"
"Me too," Renee added quickly.
Dumbledore smiled. "Hogwarts is always welcome to you," he said, his eyes dancing.
xxx
In the initial days of winter break, the girls tried talking to Selene about her experiences while serving Lord Voldemort. They found, however, that it was very difficult for them to do so. Selene was very reluctant to talk about her days in service to the Dark Lord, few though they were, and her roommates knew it must be difficult enough for her already. Christmas had been a very sorry occasion, as Selene had been hoping to receive at least some word from her parents, and had gotten none.
"Think about it," Renee whispered to Lily one morning as Selene grabbed the Invisibility Cloak, on loan from James Potter, to go and shower. "She was helping the most evil wizard, and she ran away from him. She must live in constant terror -- you know, that any moment Voldemort will get her. I know I do."
Lily nodded. "I have this mental image of him bursting through the dormitory door and taking her and doing curses on all of us...I know it's silly, because when do convicted mass murderers burst through Gryffindor Tower? Still, I'm terrified it's going to happen."
"I think Dumbledore's going to move her to an even safer place after he talks to all those people at the meeting tomorrow," Renee told Lily. Tomorrow was the twenty-seventh, she realised with a jolt.
Lily didn't say anything, but she knew it was understood. Nobody wanted Selene to leave, even if she was a danger to their safety. They were her friends and had become extremely protective of her during her stay.
For most of winter break, Lily was either working in the common room on her massive pile of homework for the holidays or in the dormitory keeping Selene company, a favorite pastime of the girls as of late. On New Years Eve, they had Renee and Vesta go down to Hogsmeade while Alice and Lily stayed with Selene (who was hardly ever alone). They picked up some butterbeer, candy from Honeydukes, and a few small crackers at Zonko's to have a nice dormitory New Year's Eve party.
Selene smiled for one of the first times when she saw the butterbeer. "I miss this stuff," she said, taking a bottle.
"Yeah, it's good, isn't it?" Alice said, smiling and grabbing a bottle as well.
Lily checked the clock on the dormitory wall. "A minute to midnight," she said. The noise from the Gryffindor common room party drifted into the dormitory, and she was glad she was up here celebrating with Selene rather than down there, running away from James Potter as he attempted to kiss her at midnight, like last year.
"Ten, nine, eight, seven --"
Lily looked around at every bed, happy that there was a person to occupy each.
"Six, five, four, three--" She joined in with the other girls and the people downstairs.
"Two, one, Happy New Year!" they all screamed, popping their crackers, more bottles of butterbeer, and opening packages of candy (New Years Kneesocks Bites, Limited Time Only).
Their party ran quite late. Around four in the morning they ran out of supplies from Hogsmeade and Alice and Lily snuck down to the kitchens to pick up some more food. The sixth years were all considerably pleased with themselves, because the common room party had only lasted till two before Professor McGonagall, complete with tartan hairnet and frilly nightdress, had come in raging that they clean their trash up and go to sleep.
By six, they had all fallen asleep and woken up very early all things considered and quite late for normal Hogwarts students, at eleven.
"Do you know any charms to make yourself awake again, Lily?" Vesta asked, yawning.
Even if Lily had known them, she would never have been able to remember it. She was so tired her brain felt like it was fogging up. "Nope," she said, stretching her arms. "We'd better get dressed, though...maybe this afternoon we can take a nap or something."
They all nodded and Lily and Alice headed downstairs to the bathroom so they could shower and prepare for the day.
They were halfway across the common room when they heard someone call them.
"Dumbledore wants to see us all. You might want to get everyone in your dormitory to come along," Sirius told them. Lily and Alice knew "everyone in your dormitory" meant "and bring Selene along in the cloak."
No longer tired, and instead very confused, Lily went to gather up her friends before heading to Dumbeldore's office.
When she got there, she saw the four boys sitting by Dumbledore's desk, and Dumbledore standing next to his magnificent phoenix Lily had always admired, Fawkes. He was reading what appeared to be a letter, and as he finished his attention turned to his students.
"Ah," he said, and Lily, looking carefully at his robes, noticed they had smoke burns in them. Fully confused, she snapped her attention back to the Headmaster's face.
"Something rather unexpected happened last night at the Potter's New Years party," Dumbledore said gravely. Alarmed, James looked at him questioningly.
"Death Eaters -- I assume all of you are familiar with that term," A chorus of nods met Dumbledore's questioning gaze. "Death Eaters decided to have a bit of fun and crash the party."
"They didn't!" James cried, shocked and angry. "That's my house! My parents! Their friends!" Dumbledore held a hand up to silence him.
"There is a secret organisation most of you know about that must be kept a secret," he said. "They were going to be having a meeting last night, but due to recent events," he glanced at Selene, "I moved it to the twenty-seventh, and let the Potters have their party. Apparently, though, nobody informed the Death Eaters of this change, and so they, no doubt thinking they would find a meeting of important anti-Voldemort people discussing very important things, instead found practically the whole Ministry counting down to midnight."
Although Dumbledore was smiling, Lily could not find the good nor the humour in this. Although it was rather bold of her, she asked, "Well, then, why are you smiling?"
"A number of reasons, actually. First of all, nobody attending the party was hurt. Second, we managed to capture more than half of the Death Eaters. Third, we managed to have some escape."
"I fail to see how that's a good thing," James said loudly, apparently taking the attack at his house to heart.
"It is indeed a good thing," Dumbledore said gently. "You see, instead of crashing a meeting, these Death Eaters crashed a party. The Death Eaters that escaped are probably at Voldemort's side right now, telling him that their information was incorrect, that no such organisation exists, that there is nothing to worry about." There was a pause as Dumbldore's nine students processed this information.
"So for now, the Dark Lord thinks that, although the Ministry members are threats, there is no organisation for the express purpose of defeating him, and therefore is going to be more lax?" Vesta wanted to clarify.
"Exactly," Dumbledore said, smiling still. "True, one of the chandeliers in your house was dropped to the ground, James, but other than that and a bit of ruined clothing," he glanced at his robes, "things are going splendidly."
James looked personally insulted that the Death Eaters had crashed his parents' party, shot curses at his Professor, and broken one of his chandeliers, but he fixed his eyes on Dumbledore and said, "I guess it's all for the best, sir, if no one got hurt. I mean, there will always be new clothing and chandeliers, won't there?"
Lily almost lost the ability to think heartless and demeaning thoughts about James Potter for that moment.
x x x
A/N: I'm so so so so sorry that I've taken so long. It's Act Up taking away all my time and energy of writing. But I've finally got a chapter up, so please review if you can. Thanks to blackangels and Rosie eisoR for reviewing the chapter previous. Oh, and Rosie, thanks for all your pointers. I'm glad I've got someone British telling me what they really say. I personally dislike the word snog too, so I'm glad you guys don't say it too much. That means I don't have to write it too much.
Also, this chapter's title is taken for an awesome band called Flogging Molly. Everyone go listen to them.
That is all. ::bows::
"Say something," she said, her voice pleading. "Don't stare like this." Lily found her voice. "Er -- hi," she said, attempting to keep her voice level. She found she couldn't, and so she barreled on. "Selene, what are you doing here?! How the hell --"
"It's a bit of a long story," she said meekly. "I knew I'd see you eventually -- I don't know where Dumbledore's office is, and I figured you could take me there. I couldn't rightly turn up during dinner. I need your help," she said desperately, looking at each of them in turn.
Alice nodded slightly. "We'll go find the Headmaster," she said. "Stay right here."
The girls save Selene silently went down the staircase to the common room, and found the male Gryffindor sixth years staring at them. James was holding a silvery cloak.
"She'll be needing to see the Headmaster," he said, thrusting the cloak towards the girls. "Keep her hidden in this. Go ahead and take her to Dumbledore's office. His password is Sugar Quill."
Wordlessly, the girls ran back to Selene, told her their plan, and proceeded to Dumbledore's office.
He wasn't there upon their arrival, so they went ahead and sat down. Lily had a million questions she was bursting to ask, and she had a feeling the other girls did as well, but they all knew that it would be best to wait until Dumbledore was there.
After approximately ten minutes of waiting in tense silence, Dumbledore came into his office. He wasn't at all perturbed that they had found the way in, but when he saw Selene, Lily saw his eyes widen slightly before he spoke.
"Good evening," he said gravely. "I trust you have something important to relate to me?" Selene, looking very anxious, nodded.
Sir," she began, "I just turned up at Hogwarts because I had nowhere else to go. I know there's been a lot of talk about me and my family, and I guess I came here because I figured I could tell you the truth. This is the safest place I could think of."
"My family," Selene hesitated, her eyes darting from one person to the other. "My family has been helping Voldemort."
There was a slight intake of breath around the room, but the other Gryffindors took Dumbledore's lead and continued to look intently at Selene, inviting her to continue.
"It's not like it was by choice. He -- he threatened horrible things. He didn't curse us, but I think it would be better if he had. He said he would capture and then kill family friends -- the Prewetts and the Greathouses, for starters. He mentioned all of you -- I don't know how he knows your names, but he does. And we couldn't take that risk. My parents couldn't dare to have all our friends die. We joined him," Selene continued, her voice shaking slightly.
"They must have known we were both a powerful and weak family. Powerful in magic, weak in what we stood for. We only considered the people we loved, not all the people we had to hurt."
"I never wanted to...." She seemed unable to finish her sentence, so she started over, this time speaking directly to Dumbledore. "My parents didn't want me involved; they told me to run away. And I did, and the first place I could think of was here, with you. I know I'm not safe, because Voldemort will be looking for me now, but I know you have to know this truth, Professor. I'm just...I'm just so scared, sir. I hate all of this. I had the choice we made. I hate the options we had. I hate the fact I don't know if my parents are safe. I hate that my parents are voluntary but unwilling slaves to Voldemort's twisted mind. I can't tell you how much I've thought about this and how sick it makes me." Selene's voice was bitter. There was no trace of the girl Lily once knew. This was only the shadow of what Selene had been before her life had been mangled by Voldemort's powers of persuasion.
There was a long silence following Selene's speech. Finally, Dumbledore looked at her and said, "I trust you."
Relief flooded through Lily. She had never known Dumbledore to have flawed judgment, and hearing that made her swimming mind slightly more at ease.
"Rest assured there is an association of people working against Lord Voldemort," Dumbledore told the group. "They are scheduled to have a meeting this New Year's Eve, but in light of your news I will move this meeting to the 27th, which is as soon as I can possibly expect all the people to gather. Please understand how serious it is that nobody knows you are here, Selene. The consequences of you being found could be drastic. There is indeed no safer place for you than Hogwarts at present. I ask you to stay confined in the girl's dormitory." He paused, looking from girl to girl in front of him. "Does anyone else know about Selene's arrival?"
"The boys," Renee said automatically. "Peter, James, Sirius, and Remus."
"See that they do not tell anyone about her." The girls nodded, and Dumbledore paused slightly before continuing. "It would be best if you did not mention to anyone the group of people I mentioned earlier. Do your best to forget I've told you about them. As far as you are concerned this group does not exist."
"But, Professor," Vesta said eagerly, "We're not frightened; perhaps we could join this group. I know we're all willing to help the Wizarding community in any way we can--"
Dumbledore cut her off. "I don't doubt the valor of anyone here," he said, a small smile on his face. "But this group that you have never heard of is comprised only of overage wizards and witches, which means none of you would qualify. I am afraid I could not endanger any of my students so much as to let them join such a highly perilous organisation as this. Indeed, I cannot even talk about it very much due to the amount of secrecy and peril shrouding this association."
The girls knew he was right, and frankly they were too steeped in thought to argue. Before the five girls left the room, Dumbledore called after them, "This is a good turn of events after all. Selene is once again with her friends at Hogwarts, and the Potters can now host their New Year's Eve party. They were quite put out when they heard that this nonexistent organisation was to be holding a meeting at their house the night they had planned one of their fabulous parties."
Lily giggled slightly at Dumbledore's ability to keep such a light mood on situations so unexpected as this. The girls helped Selene under the Invisibility Cloak and were about to leave the Headmaster's office when Alice spoke up.
"Er, Professor?" she asked. He turned to look at her, waiting for her to continue. "Could I sign up to stay winter holidays?"
"Me too," Renee added quickly.
Dumbledore smiled. "Hogwarts is always welcome to you," he said, his eyes dancing.
xxx
In the initial days of winter break, the girls tried talking to Selene about her experiences while serving Lord Voldemort. They found, however, that it was very difficult for them to do so. Selene was very reluctant to talk about her days in service to the Dark Lord, few though they were, and her roommates knew it must be difficult enough for her already. Christmas had been a very sorry occasion, as Selene had been hoping to receive at least some word from her parents, and had gotten none.
"Think about it," Renee whispered to Lily one morning as Selene grabbed the Invisibility Cloak, on loan from James Potter, to go and shower. "She was helping the most evil wizard, and she ran away from him. She must live in constant terror -- you know, that any moment Voldemort will get her. I know I do."
Lily nodded. "I have this mental image of him bursting through the dormitory door and taking her and doing curses on all of us...I know it's silly, because when do convicted mass murderers burst through Gryffindor Tower? Still, I'm terrified it's going to happen."
"I think Dumbledore's going to move her to an even safer place after he talks to all those people at the meeting tomorrow," Renee told Lily. Tomorrow was the twenty-seventh, she realised with a jolt.
Lily didn't say anything, but she knew it was understood. Nobody wanted Selene to leave, even if she was a danger to their safety. They were her friends and had become extremely protective of her during her stay.
For most of winter break, Lily was either working in the common room on her massive pile of homework for the holidays or in the dormitory keeping Selene company, a favorite pastime of the girls as of late. On New Years Eve, they had Renee and Vesta go down to Hogsmeade while Alice and Lily stayed with Selene (who was hardly ever alone). They picked up some butterbeer, candy from Honeydukes, and a few small crackers at Zonko's to have a nice dormitory New Year's Eve party.
Selene smiled for one of the first times when she saw the butterbeer. "I miss this stuff," she said, taking a bottle.
"Yeah, it's good, isn't it?" Alice said, smiling and grabbing a bottle as well.
Lily checked the clock on the dormitory wall. "A minute to midnight," she said. The noise from the Gryffindor common room party drifted into the dormitory, and she was glad she was up here celebrating with Selene rather than down there, running away from James Potter as he attempted to kiss her at midnight, like last year.
"Ten, nine, eight, seven --"
Lily looked around at every bed, happy that there was a person to occupy each.
"Six, five, four, three--" She joined in with the other girls and the people downstairs.
"Two, one, Happy New Year!" they all screamed, popping their crackers, more bottles of butterbeer, and opening packages of candy (New Years Kneesocks Bites, Limited Time Only).
Their party ran quite late. Around four in the morning they ran out of supplies from Hogsmeade and Alice and Lily snuck down to the kitchens to pick up some more food. The sixth years were all considerably pleased with themselves, because the common room party had only lasted till two before Professor McGonagall, complete with tartan hairnet and frilly nightdress, had come in raging that they clean their trash up and go to sleep.
By six, they had all fallen asleep and woken up very early all things considered and quite late for normal Hogwarts students, at eleven.
"Do you know any charms to make yourself awake again, Lily?" Vesta asked, yawning.
Even if Lily had known them, she would never have been able to remember it. She was so tired her brain felt like it was fogging up. "Nope," she said, stretching her arms. "We'd better get dressed, though...maybe this afternoon we can take a nap or something."
They all nodded and Lily and Alice headed downstairs to the bathroom so they could shower and prepare for the day.
They were halfway across the common room when they heard someone call them.
"Dumbledore wants to see us all. You might want to get everyone in your dormitory to come along," Sirius told them. Lily and Alice knew "everyone in your dormitory" meant "and bring Selene along in the cloak."
No longer tired, and instead very confused, Lily went to gather up her friends before heading to Dumbeldore's office.
When she got there, she saw the four boys sitting by Dumbledore's desk, and Dumbledore standing next to his magnificent phoenix Lily had always admired, Fawkes. He was reading what appeared to be a letter, and as he finished his attention turned to his students.
"Ah," he said, and Lily, looking carefully at his robes, noticed they had smoke burns in them. Fully confused, she snapped her attention back to the Headmaster's face.
"Something rather unexpected happened last night at the Potter's New Years party," Dumbledore said gravely. Alarmed, James looked at him questioningly.
"Death Eaters -- I assume all of you are familiar with that term," A chorus of nods met Dumbledore's questioning gaze. "Death Eaters decided to have a bit of fun and crash the party."
"They didn't!" James cried, shocked and angry. "That's my house! My parents! Their friends!" Dumbledore held a hand up to silence him.
"There is a secret organisation most of you know about that must be kept a secret," he said. "They were going to be having a meeting last night, but due to recent events," he glanced at Selene, "I moved it to the twenty-seventh, and let the Potters have their party. Apparently, though, nobody informed the Death Eaters of this change, and so they, no doubt thinking they would find a meeting of important anti-Voldemort people discussing very important things, instead found practically the whole Ministry counting down to midnight."
Although Dumbledore was smiling, Lily could not find the good nor the humour in this. Although it was rather bold of her, she asked, "Well, then, why are you smiling?"
"A number of reasons, actually. First of all, nobody attending the party was hurt. Second, we managed to capture more than half of the Death Eaters. Third, we managed to have some escape."
"I fail to see how that's a good thing," James said loudly, apparently taking the attack at his house to heart.
"It is indeed a good thing," Dumbledore said gently. "You see, instead of crashing a meeting, these Death Eaters crashed a party. The Death Eaters that escaped are probably at Voldemort's side right now, telling him that their information was incorrect, that no such organisation exists, that there is nothing to worry about." There was a pause as Dumbldore's nine students processed this information.
"So for now, the Dark Lord thinks that, although the Ministry members are threats, there is no organisation for the express purpose of defeating him, and therefore is going to be more lax?" Vesta wanted to clarify.
"Exactly," Dumbledore said, smiling still. "True, one of the chandeliers in your house was dropped to the ground, James, but other than that and a bit of ruined clothing," he glanced at his robes, "things are going splendidly."
James looked personally insulted that the Death Eaters had crashed his parents' party, shot curses at his Professor, and broken one of his chandeliers, but he fixed his eyes on Dumbledore and said, "I guess it's all for the best, sir, if no one got hurt. I mean, there will always be new clothing and chandeliers, won't there?"
Lily almost lost the ability to think heartless and demeaning thoughts about James Potter for that moment.
x x x
A/N: I'm so so so so sorry that I've taken so long. It's Act Up taking away all my time and energy of writing. But I've finally got a chapter up, so please review if you can. Thanks to blackangels and Rosie eisoR for reviewing the chapter previous. Oh, and Rosie, thanks for all your pointers. I'm glad I've got someone British telling me what they really say. I personally dislike the word snog too, so I'm glad you guys don't say it too much. That means I don't have to write it too much.
Also, this chapter's title is taken for an awesome band called Flogging Molly. Everyone go listen to them.
That is all. ::bows::