This chapter is dedicated to the wondrous J. K. Rowling, a goddess in her own right. I think she deserves it. Also, whoever put me on their favorites list, you get a dedication, too. Thanks! See the A/N at the end for the rest of my gratitude. I love you!
Also, this is "Halloween" revised. It's overall a better one, I hope: errors corrected, dialogue added, the works. Not much, but I hope you like it.
Chapter 6—Halloween
It was dark. Lily found herself surrounded by this cool, damp gloom, lost and terrified. She wandered manically in a blind panic, ignoring the scrapes she endured trying to find her way out. Suddenly, she turned what she could only assume was a corner, following what little spark of light she could see. Then a cloud lifted from over her eyes and she was rooted with fear or some magic spell; unable to try and help or run away.
Twenty feet in front of her, but seemingly unable to see her were three shady figures: A man, a woman, and a child. The former was standing over his female counterpart, beating her viciously, deaf to her screams. Until it all stopped. The woman lay unmoving at the feet of the boy, who looked about Lily's age, although she couldn't tell, as his face was in shadow. He seemed familiar, though. He was staring with blind eyes, unable to believe what he had seen.Murder. His mother's murder! He let out a shriek in his pain that almost knocked the frozen Lily backward, but she still couldn't move. Then the man slapped the boy in the face, screaming at him to shut up while pulling out his wand. Lily found her voice and her limbs as she made her way to the pair.
"Stop!" she'd cried. "Please stop!" But then the man turned his wand on her, and peered at her through two gaping holes where his eyes should have been.
Lily bolted into consciousness, struggling to control her labored breathing before she woke up everyone in the dormitory. She lay on her back thinking about the dream, the recurring dream she'd had so often during the two months since she'd found that letter. The boy in her dream was obviously Severus Snape, and the hateful man his father, but Lily was petrified that the dead woman of the dream may actually be a reality, because the blood had never been as dark or the screams as clear as they were that night.
'Relax,' she told herself. 'It's just a dream. It's Halloween that's been making you so crazy. After the celebration, you'll be fine.' She normally loved Halloween, but as a new witch, she was a little bit nervous because everything about it now seemed much more real. But it would be fun, she knew, with all of the decorations and the food, not to mention quite a show she was hearing rumors about that would be put on by the ghosts. And pie.
"Chocolate pie…" she whispered softly, trying to keep that thought in her head as she wafted slowly back to sleep.
Lily, for the first time since arriving at Hogwarts, awoke to the sound of Valerie screaming. It was odd to be the torn from sleep from such a shriek when so often she caused it in her many attempts to wake up Valerie every morning: with water or music or even live spiders.She scrambled to find the opening in the hangings around her bed, hearing the other girls doing the same.
"Valerie?"
"Are you okay?"
"Where's the fire?"
"AHHHH!!!" was Valerie's only reply.
Lily burst out first and saw what Val was screaming about. It was her new—
"RED AND GOLD STRIPED HAIR!!!" Valerie cried out, her face matching her stripes.
"Oh…my…god!" Jakirah, one of Lily's new friends, shrieked. "Valerie? What did you do to yourself?"
"I didn't do it!" Valerie whined. "I don't know who did."
"Well," said another girl, Kristen, who was the eternal voice of wisdom, "Try washing it out. I mean, we still have a while 'til breakfast; I don't think you'll be late. Here, Lil, Jaki, come help."
They followed, trying all manner of things, even the bottle ofMrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, but to no avail. They quickly fixed themselves up and forced Valerie into her uniform before facing the problem again.
"I think its fading," Lily tried. All she got were looks. "Or not."
"What do I do?" Valerie whimpered.
"Why don't you just wear your hat all day?" Kristen asked, trying to be helpful.
"Ew! No way! I'd rather be striped."
"Well," Jakirah put in, "Then, you could just leave it. I mean, don't you want to be different?"
"Different?" Valerie was skeptical.
"Yeah. It'd be fun. I mean, it's better that Slytherin colors, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but I could never be this different and live to tell about it."
"No time like the present for learning, then," Lily said.
Valerie groaned, but allowed herself to be pushed out of the door and down the suspiciously slide-like stairs to the Common Room, where apparentlysomeone—or rather some three—had been breaking and entering. It wasn't just the slide that told the identities of who committed the hair-massacre, but also the couches, where James, Remus, and Sirius were waiting smirking, whispering, or even laughing openly. The name Valerie seemed to come up often.
"Wow, Val. What'd you sleep on?" Sirius said with mock innocence on his face, causing James to snicker as Remus fought back a smile.
"You! You filthy, wormy b--" Valerie was cut off when Kristen and Jakirah caught her arms to keep her from pouncing on her harmless, yet guilty, "friends."
"Valerie, let me handle this," Lily said. "I don't trust you. Hold them, please."
The other girls grabbed the boys to keep them from moving: Kristen had Remus's tie, Jakirah had James's long, unruly hair, and Valerie had Sirius in a headlock.
"Ow!"
Lily worked fast, borrowing Valerie's idea and pen, and writing quickly in silvery greenMr. Treaflow's Brightest-Colored, Singing, Washable Voice Activated Marker: For You're One-Day-Only Voice-Locked Messagesall over each boys face. She grinned at the result as she traded high-fives with the girls and returned Valerie's fabulous marker.
The boys broke free of their respective holds and ran over to a mirror in the corner. Seeing nothing, they smirked, and were about to say something when Valerie growled and started toward them, so they just shut up and ran.
Oh, what a fun day that was. Valerie's hair issues lay forgotten as they concentrated on enjoying every last bit of their well-earned revenge. It started out with a bang. The boys had arrived at breakfast minutes before the girls and were already munching on enough food to make a dozen house elves drop dead out of the happiness of having served so well. They were too busy stuffing their faces even to talk, for a while.
When Valerie, Lily, and their friends walked in a few minutes later, it all began.
"Hey, Valerie, nice hair!" was heard coming from all over the hall, especially from the Slytherin table.
"Yeah, Val. That demented zebra look is really in this year," James said. Suddenly on his face, green letters formed into the words 'I'm an idiot and should be in Slytherin.' To add insult to injury, not only was that written on his face in luminescent lettering, but also being sung out operatically from the ink itself.
That was just the beginning. Any time James, Sirius, or Remus opened their mouths, the same thing would happen over and over, much to the boys chagrin. It was fine during History of Magic, where they were mostly sleeping anyway, but during Double Charms, where they were learning a new spell, levitation, it was particularly painful. By the end of the day, Valerie was perfectly happy again, maybe even proud of her hair, while the boys were practically to the point of going to McGonagall and asking her to turn them all into turtles just so they could hide in their shells. They had endured endless teasing, not to mention murderous stares and threats from Slytherins because of the insults written on their faces. Not to mention that the five of them: Lily, Valerie, Sirius, James, and Remus, had all gotten detentions, Jakirah and Kristen only losing 15 points each.
"Alright, truce?" James yelled over the spell. "We're really sorry. Will you take off the spell; I can't hear myself think, even!"
"You think?" Valerie said, acting shocked. Just then, Lily walked in through the portrait hole. "Lily, we may have seriously done something to him: he's beenthinking." Lily gasped.
"You're funny," James said. Valerie smiled, pleased. James walked up to Lily was a forced look of innocence on his face. "Will you talk to her? I'm really very sorry, and I was thinking--"
"Yes, I heard," Lily quickly shot back. Valerie gave an appreciative laugh, as did Sirius and Remus, who were watching the scene almost as one would watch a movie.
James forced himself to continue, now facing Valerie. "As I wassaying," he said pointedly, "I'm sorry. Please get this stuff off my--" Sirius cleared his throat loudly, "—our faces, and we'll get that stuff out of your hair.
"Done," Val agreed.
"This way, please," James said, bowing in the direction of his dormitory. Valerie raised her eyebrows. "We have the antidote, oh striped one." Lily smirked and followed her friend to the most chaotic dorm in the castle.
Arriving up at the top of the boys' staircase, Lily suddenly felt like Dorothy fromThe Wizard of Ozfor a moment. Right in the beginning, when her house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East, Lily can only imagine how messed up the house must have been. This room was a lot like that. Lily even thought she saw a munchkin, but at second glance realized it to be Peter, the short, squat boy from the kitchen exploits on her first night at Hogwarts. He had been tagging along after James, Sirius, and Remus for some time, idolizing them, and they were just starting to really take notice of him.
"Isn't it spectacular?" Sirius gloated.
"It's insane." Lily and Valerie were shocked. In their dorm, it was usually a bit messy, but it didn't look like the battlegrounds of Troy. In the girls' room, mostly you could find magazines, robes, schoolwork, and the occasional wand or cat, but in the boys' dorm, any single item in this mess could have eaten every one of Kristen's cats and still had room for Yannick the phoenixandher owner.
"Thisis adorm?" Valerie was shocked. "It looks like a garbage dump."
"Yeah, yeah," James replied.
"It's a masterpiece." Sirius grinned. "But Pete, don't just sit there. Get up and greet these two lovely ladies." Peter rolled his eyes and shuffled out, a flicker of a smile on his face.
"God, just fix my hair before I pass out. What is that smell, bubotuber pus?"
"Yeah. We're planning on using it in some of our more complex pranks. Follow me." James headed off to the bathroom, followed by Valerie, Lily, and then Sirius and Remus. The bathroom looked almost more catastrophic than the actual dorm room, but it was hardly even worth mentioning anymore. Lying on the sink in the bathroom was a bottle markedHavor's Hardly-Humble Hai- Hue: The Antidote.
"Alright, now you have your antidote. Just for insurance, fix us first. Ireallydon't trust you two." Remus was pretty smart, because, truth be told, Lily and Valerie didn't trust themselves either.
"But I wanted to leave you this way for the feast," Lily fake-whined.
"Yeah. What's scarier than the Slytherins?" Valerie put in.
"Well, that git Severus Snape, for one. He knows more curses than I've evenheardof," James said. Lily got a sudden sinking feeling somewhere in her stomach.
"Andhis hair is so greasy it could be an ice-skating rink." Everyone laughed but Lily, who felt suddenly sick. They couldn't know about that letter or her dreams, but still.
"Lily?Hello?How do we get this stuff off?" Sirius was done laughing and was back to business.
Lily jolted back to reality. "Oh, yeah." She picked up the first clean washcloth she could find. "It's called a little bit of water--" she ran that washcloth under the faucet "and a little soap." She then poured the soap onto the washcloth. The boys were dumbstruck at how easy it was.
Valerie laughed. "So how does this stuff work? 'Cause if my hair stays this way I'll kill you."
"Just wet your hair and rub it in. Just don't miss any spots."
"Great. Now let's get out of here!" Lily and Valerie ran, eyes watering from the smell, into their dormitory, where they had their first breath of fresh air in minutes.
By the time lunch ended and it was time for their afternoon class, Defense Against the Dark Arts, both Valerie and the boys were talking regularly again, anger mostly gone, because now both of their heads were clear. By the time the feast rolled around, they were chatting animatedly about Snape again, who seemed to be James's particular nemeses.
"He is such a….a troll!" James exclaimed as they walked the halls—almost expertly after those two months—to the Great Hall for the feast. "I mean, I accidentally walked into his compartment when I was trying to find one on the train over and he tried to curse my head off. I swear, there's something wrong with him!"
Lily knew that there was, and had decided while listening to this conversation to try and talk to him, or help, or something. "Hey, you guys, I'll meet you in the Great Hall, okay. Save me a seat."
She ran back up the marble staircase to her dormitory, then finding what she was looking for--under her pillow where she had left it--she retraced her steps to the feast. She walked over to the Slytherin table, trying to find Snape, but she didn't see him anywhere. Her friends, however, did see her, and dragged her outside to talk to her.
"What the hell was that? Why are you talking to the Slytherins?" Lily couldn't tell if her friends were mad or worried.
"I was just—hold on, I think I see him." Lily ran off down near the lake, where Snape was sitting under a beech tree near the lakes edge, reading. Lily walked up to him as her friends ran after her, and he stood up, wary.
"What do you want, Evans?"
"Um, well, I think this is yours." She handed him the parchment. "And if you ever want to ta--"
Snape grabbed the parchment out of her hand and then pulled out his wand so fast, Lily didn't even know what to expect. "Stay out of this, mudblood.Nafalee!" he cried, jabbing his wand out. Lily was thrown so far back with the power of the spell; she landed in the lake, and because of the spell, couldn't even fight her way free. She couldn't breathe! She was going crazy, her lungs were burning, andshe couldn't even breathe.Everything went dark as she sunk lower and lower.
Just a comment. Jakirah and Kristen are Lily and Valerie's roommates and have been the whole year; I've just never seen fit to mention them before.
Also, the Lily/James/Valerie "You think, he thinks…" is based on a very memorable and funny scene inWicked. I doubt I did it justice. But I didn't write it, Winnie Holzman did.
Well that was fun, throwing in a little terror/mystery, girliness, pranks, Halloween (well, there would've been, but Lily seems to be missing out on the feast now, isn't she), and the rat. What will she think of next?
Thanks, quitesirius! You make my stories better, and you even stillreviewed. Read her stuff!
Also, just today as I was in the mood and had the time (I was in Israel for weeks and working, so give me a break.) tofinallyupdate (by the way, I probably won't update very often, but much more often then this), I discovered that this story is on some people's Favorites lists. I am so incredibly happy that few things short of…well…getting taken off of those lists could ever bring me down. :-D. I want to dance, or sing, or ask 'what the hell is wrong with you people?' But thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
quitesiriusThank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!PadfootHoshi(who is lazy, lazy)Thanks! I love your reviews. They inspire me. I don't know why.KadyRillaWholiThanks! I'm glad you thought it way funny. Some of those stories were even true, at least partly. But the cat mafia, that was all me!reena-blueThanks a ton! I'm glad you like it, and I'm sorry about the Sirius/wand thing. Maybe he grabbed James's? Or has some unseen talent? Um, well, if you like accurate, go for either this generation, because it's fun to write on, or maybe something completely new, like (I can't think of examples now, sorry) maybe a scene that the books just skip over. You know, make them real but also accurate (if that makes sense). Keepreviewing and I'll be sure to read your story when it's up.
Pleasereviewsome more. It quite makes my day!
Up in chapter 7- Reactions to the spell, the lake, and a nicely plotted revenge.