Chapter 5 ~ Arrival and Departure
"Lily! Lily wake up! WAKE UP!!"
"AHH! What? What's going on?!?!....Oh! It's you two! Scare me to death why don't you!" It looked like she hurt their feelings. "...sorry guys...you know I'm not a morning person!" Lily was woken by Ashley and Kristy shaking her, both of whom were early risers.
"Well your lucky that we remember to set out alarm clocks or all three of us would be snoozing through the first day of classes!" Kristy informed her.
"I know...you're way ahead of me...I guess I had better get up and change now."
"Good idea! Breakfast starts in 30 minutes! Better hurry!"
Lily quickly jumped into the shower and threw on some jeans and a red top to go under her Hogwarts robes. Red clothes rarely looked good on redheads, but any color looked fantastic on Lily. She was just that naturally pretty. "OK! I'm ready!" She walked out of the bathroom to see her friends dressed nicely with their hair brushing just below their shoulders, set in place by sparkling headbands. "Wow! You both look nice!"
"And you look...so...uh..." Ashley stuttered, trying to find the right word while looking at her mass of hair, thrown into a pony tail without the use of a mirror and her 'not-so-sharp' everyday ensomble.
"normal..." Kristy finished her sentence. "Lily...why don't you ever dress up a little? Wear some eyeshadow? Enhance your natural features?"
"WHY? It's not like I'm trying to impress anybody! You know better than anyone that I'm not a self-conscious person at all. If the only reason someone likes me is for my fashion sense, I give them every right to ignore me!" Lily told them confidently.
"You amaze me Lily! You have three good friends who just happen to be boys...GOOD LOOKING, POPULAR boys if I may say so myself, and you're not willing to try to snag one?"
"Ashley, if you want to go out with one of them, be my guest! I'm not hogging them to myself! Don't worry about me! I'm perfectly content...go get yourself a boyfriend!"
"Whatever floats your boat, Lil. Just mark my words, those boys drool over you!"
Lily laughed and pulled them downstairs to go to the Great Hall.
As soon as they entered the crowded room, all the heads turned to eye her like she was a celebrity. She just raised her eyebrows at them and took a seat next to Sirius. "Isn't it considered in the magical world, rude to stare at people?" She said loudly enough so that most of the hall heard her. Many throats were cleared as their heads went straight down. Lily could hear Dumbledore chickling lightly.
"So! Good morning Sirius! Remus! James! Looks like it's going to be a nice day today!" She looked up at the ceiling to study the sky. It was an almost cloudless baby-blue.
There was a polite chorus of "Good morning Lily!"'s.
"I wonder what we have first..." She asked them while cutting her strawberry shortcake pancakes.
"We'll find out in a minute...here comes McGonagall..."
"Potter, Lupin, Black, Johnson, Marcelo..." She threw the schedules in a clump for them to retrieve in the middle of the table, landing in a basket of muffins. "Here you are Miss Evans!" Strangely enough, she smiled and handed Lily her schedule.
As soon as she left, Lily thought outloud. "I don't get why people think they have to treat me like royalty around here! The Sorting Hat only made a mistake!"
"It didn't 'just mess up' Lily...That's NEVER happened before! You're going to be put into books!"
"whatever...it's just weird. I'm not used to getting lots of special attention. Now what class do we have first?..." She opened her envelope but James beat her to it.
"YES! Defense Against the Dark Arts! We have your uncle first Lily!"
Lily and her friends hurridly cleaned the food off their plates, went back to the dormatories to get their books, and walked quickly to class. They wanted to get there early so Lily could talk to her long-lost uncle and so they could all get good seats.
"What did Dumbledore say his first name was again? I remember that it was something kinda of different..." Kristy asked.
"I think he said it was Odysseus. I've never heard that name before," Remus answered.
"Me neither!"
"Yes, his name is Odysseus! My family is a HUGE fan of Homer. My mother even thinks that we're related somehow," She said proudly. "But I highly doubt that, though."
"Who's Homer?" James looked at her, waiting for an answer.
She laughed. "You don't know who Homer is??" ALL 3 boys shook their heads 'no'. "He's only one of the most famous authors of all time!"
They all stared at her like 'you mean to tell us that u expect us to be big readers? Yeah right...'
"About 3500 years ago, he wrote a mythilogical book called The Odyssey, Odysseus being the main character. You would probably like it!"
"Oh cool! Are there boggarts and dementors in it?"
"No! Of course not! This was a made-up world." She started to tell them practically the whole book... "Instead, there's gods, goddesses, cyclopes, sea-nymphs, sirens,..." Lily was explaining all the characters when...
"Leave me alone will you!?!? HELP!" Someone bellowed from down the hall.
Lily, James, Sirius, and Remus took off down the corridor with Ashley and Kristy following close behind. As they rounded the corner, they saw Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy ganging up on a scrawny, little boy with dirty brown hair against the wall.
"I'm warning you! Don't EVER say something like that to me again!" Severus said to him.
"HEY! What do you think you're doing, Snape?" James demanded.
"No one deserves to have slime like you touch them! No matter who they are! They might get a disease! You're just as bad, Malfoy!" Sirius yelled. The boy looked at them with extreme gratitude.
"And who are you to tell us what to do?" Malfoy asked, an evil, disgusting gleam in his eyes.
"We'll just have to make sure that Dumbledore finds out about this little incident then...unless you get out of my sight right this second! My eyes are hurting from looking at you!" Lily told them, threateningly.
Snape and Malfoy knew that she wasn't kidding around. "You haven't gotten the best of us yet!" And they high-tailed it out of there.
When they left, Lily rolled her eyes annoyingly and muttered, "Talk about jerks! They're just as bad as Glenn! Snape looked like he has never seen a bottle of shampoo in his life! Yuck!"
"What a greaseball!" Kristy agreed.
The boy was still shuddering when he walked over to them. "Th...thank you! I thought they were going to beat my face in..."
"Well, you're lucky because they would have!"
"I know...thank you...so much!"
"Don't worry about it. They're slimy gits anyway. Just stay out of trouble and away from them. We have to get to class..."
James turned around and started walking away as fast as he could without seeming rude, and his friends followed him to the DADA room while the boy left in the other direction.
Once they were out of sight, they all started to run to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom on the 5th floor. They had to get there fast if they wanted a chance to talk to the new professor. Finally, they arrived out of breath at the door. It was really tiring, running up 4 flights of stairs when they're constantly moving and changing directions!
"Whew! That was a workout!" Ashley panted.
"Tell me about it! My calf muscles are killing me!" Lily agrees.
"That's why you need to get in shape like us three!" Sirius and the guys started flexing their muscles jokingly.
"Oh shut up!" Lily shoved them through the door to see a smiling face.
"Hello Professor!"
"Good morning Professor!" They all greeted him.
"A little early are we?" His eyes twinkled when he looked at his neice. "Hello Lily!"
She smiled brightly and ran over to him. "Hey Uncle Odysseus! I haven't seen you in such a LONG time! I can't believe you're a wizard!"
He chuckled as she hugged him. "Yes...it has been quite a while. I was just as shocked when I saw you at the sorting! But I always thought that you had magical qualities in you...ever since your Great Aunt Belinda was squishing your cheeks and that bowl of gelatin dessert came crashing down on her head!...That still makes me laugh just thinking about her reaction!"
Lily giggled. "I don't remember that, but I'm sure it was funny! OH! By the way, these are my best friends Kristy, Ashley, Sirius, Remus, and James!"
"Nice to meet all of you! I'm sure we're going to have lots of fun this year!"
They all smiled, liking the fact that Professor Evans acted more like their friend than their teacher. Soon, students started flooding into the classroom, so they sat down in seats in the front. It suprised Lily that James, Sirius, and Remus sat in the front with them because they told her that they'd want to always sit in the back so they could pull pranks on the teachers without being seen. 'They must really like him if they're willing to control themselves for him...' She thought to herself as her uncle began the lesson.
"Good morning class and welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts! This is one of the most difficult, yet fascitnating and important subjects there is! You will be happy to know that textbooks are used very little in this class." Everyone cheered. "Keyword being 'little' as there will be written assignments once in a while." Their 'yea''s turned into 'awww....''s and Professor Evans chuckled. "But, this is a great study because brains are not the most essential nesessity, although it does help. What we need, students, is LOTS of skill! I'm sure many of you have this astonashing trait and our goal is to enhance it!"
Lily smiled tremendouly, remembering what the Sorting Hat had told her...'You, my dear, have the greatest amount of bravery and SKILL that I have seen since Godric himself...' This pleased her immensly, clarifying that she'd be good at this subject.
"The other neat thing is that the only sure way that you can advance in your self-defense is through hands-on practice!"
"Cool!" "Neat!" "This sounds like fun!" "Sounds sort of dangerous to me!" "This is awesome!" The whole class was very excited. Even thought some of them were nervous, they still couldn't wait to start.
Professor Evans spent the rest of the classtime telling them what they'd be learning and doing the whole year. "Our next class together is not for 4 days...Thursday...and I promise you, we will have fun! I have a special lesson planned, but it is a surprise so you'll have to wait!" He left the class with a real cliffhanger to ponder over when he said, "Class dismissed!"
Next they had Herbology in Greenhouse I so they had to hurry up, but when Lily double-checked her schedule to make sure, she groaned loudly. "Great! Herbology is with the Slytherins! What fun!"
"Oh...happy happy joy joy!" Remus added sarcastically.
"Spiffy...."
"How peachy keen....this just makes my day!"
An hour and a half later, they all sighed with relief when a younger Professor Sprout announced that they could leave. There wasn't a one of them that could have been gladder when she made sure that they Gryffindors were separated from the Slytherins. They were on different sides of the room and if staring contests were fatal, over half the class would be having their funerals.
Professor Sprout obviously noticed that they weren't paying attention to her speech on the mandrake uses because she was awful enough to assign them a report on the origon of mandrakes on the first day of classes...3 feet long!
"That woman is such a witch! 3 feet! Sheesh!" Kristy exclaimed furiously once they were back out on the grounds, heading towards the castle for lunch.
Sirius, James, and Remus eyed her weirdly, not too familiar with the muggle definition of the term 'witch', when someone came up behind them saying "HI GUYS!", making them jump clear out of their skin.
They knew exactly who is was without even turning around, each of them thinking the same thing...Great...leave us along will you?... The person, knowing he was being ignored, walked around in front of them. "HI!" He said again.
Yep, they had all assumed correctly. It was the scrawny kid from the hallway that they had 'saved'.
Remus was the first to say anything. "Hi...uh...um, what did you say your name was again?"
"Peter! Peter Pettigrew!"
"Hi Peter..." The rest of them mumbled, hoping to soon get rid of him. Peter on the other hand, was thinking of something else...
"I know all of you! You're all smart and popular! I was just wondering if I could be your friend of just hang out with you or something! I mean...you did save me and I should do something for you...plus, I don't have any friends right now because Severus and Lucius told everyone in my house to stay away from me....I'm not sure why, but..."
Everyone was exchanging glances that said 'When's he gonna shut up? Could he possibly talk any faster?' Peter didn't quite noticed this, so he continued talking at the speed of light. "I could also use some help with homework and getting around the castle since it's so big and ..."
Just then, Snape and Malfoy came up behind Peter. "I thought I told you not to hang around with trash like..." Malfoy didn't even get a chance to finish because Peter's hand had gone up into the air and came swiftly down across his face. Peter's eyes got as big as saucers. He couldn't believe he had just done that, being the normal scardy-cat that he was! Snape and Malfoy just looked at him and then started to walk away, Malfoy rubbing his cheek.
James turned to Peter and smiled. 'Wow...he just slapped Malfoy! ... Welcome to the club, Peter!" and he gave him a high-five.
The next few days went by fairly quickly. Lily, James, Sirius, and Remus became good friends with Peter who was very thankful. It was so weird because Peter was so much different than the rest of them. Neither Ashley nor Kristy took a liking to him, so they basically just talked to him whenever they had to. They didn't trust Slytherins.
Unfortunately, not nearly all their classes were as exciting as DADA. Herbology was a bore, and Potions (also with the Slytherins) was taught by Professor Sycreus (SEE-cree-us) Snape, Severus' father who despised all Gryffindors. That made this class pure torture. Lily like all of her other classes. Professor Figg who taught Care of Magical Creatures, she thought, was a very brilliant person. She knew just about everything about every animal on the planet, including normal muggle animals. Professor Loritz was a rare find. According to all older students, he was the first ever who could actually make the History of Magic interesting. Lily figured that Dunbledore would keep him hired for a long time, considering the whole school couldn't wait for his class because he took his classes on tours of the gigantic castle pointing out historical areas. This was pretty fun.
Finally...it was Thursday, the day of their Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
"Good afternoon class!"
"Good afternoon Professor Evans!"
Everyone was immensly anxious about todays 'special' lesson, and they were hardly able to sit still. "What's the surprise, Professor?" A chubby kid asked eagerly.
"Yes! What is it?"
Professor Evans merely grinned. "Follow me, students! And please keep up!" They all exited the room quickly and walked in a big bunch behind him. He led them through the castle and onto the grounds. "Now...everyone line up along the lake, about 10 feet back from it...yes, right there is fine...good! First, I must explain this creature to you. It is very magnificent, yet very dangerous and rare..." The class nodded tentatively. "The Hippocampus is a sea monster, its head being the head of a horse. It has no legs, but two arms that work as flippers to glide gracefully and with tremendous speed through the water and has a useless tail. Also called the Hydrippus, Hippocamps are said to pull the chariot of the Greek sea-god, Poseidon and is deemed 'the king of all fishes'."
"Wicked!"
"Awesome!"
"I have been informed by Professor Dumbledore that a Hippocampus does indeed reside in this lake, so we may get to see it today...if someone here is picked!"
"Yes!"
"Cool!"
"But...we'll just have to hope! These creatures are VERY cautious, only coming to the certain few that they feel are worthy. If any of you want to, you may, one at a time, advance forward and try to get its attention."
James immediately stepped towards Professor Evans. "Good James! We'll let you have a go at it! Now here's what you must do..."
"Remove your shoes and stand at the edge of the lake so that your toes are barely in the water...yes! Perfect! Before the Hippocampus will come anywhere near you, it has to be sure that you possess (sp?) certain powers and strengths to reassure its safety."
"How do I do that?"
"Why...by magic of course! Take out your wand, circle it around your head, concentrate with all your might, and say 'Traitseus Aratalium!' This spell will travel from your brain, down your body, through your toes, and into the water, letting it know your special characteristics. If it think you worthy, it will rise to the surface, come to you and bow its head, and will then let you pet it. Do not do nothing more than stroke its head! If it suddenly feels threatened, we will have a crisis on our hands! NO sudden movements, lest you scare it! Got that? Ok...you may begin!"
James took a deep breath, closed his eyes, circled his head with his wand, and yelled "TRAITSEUS ARATALIUM!" There was a faint swarm of blood-red mist surrounding him and then it dove into the lake. He stood there waiting, still waiting..."
"James, I am sorry. It must not feel protected enough." James sighed heavily and walked back to his place between Sirius and Lily. "Who else?" SIrius went next and the same exact thing happened with him. Remus was after him with no luck as well. About 80% of the class had made a failed attempt and everyone was looking doubtful to seeing a Hippocampus. "Do I have any more takers? If not, I'll give it a shot. Anyone??" They all signaled him 'no'. "Well, if your sure you don't want to..."
"James! What are you...!?!?" James had just nonchalantly shoved Lily forward. She hadn't wanted to do it, knowing that she'd be just as much of a failure as everyone else. Unfortunately, the professor say her before she could step back.
"Good! Come on Lily! I was hoping you'd try it! Come up here!"
It was too late to back down now. Everyone was already watching her, waiting for her to start. She caught James' wandering eye and gave him a revengeful stare. Fine James, if this is the way you want to play...let's play! I'll show you! I'll show everyone that I can do it!
Professor Evans saw the look in her eyes. It was the same gleam that her mother wore quite frequently when she made her mind up to do something. Yes...her knew that look all too well. "Lily! Just try your best!" He whispered the next part. "I was really hoping you'd volunteer. Just don't get your hopes too high..."
"Yes uncle!" Well, that just shows how much he believes in me! He doesn't even think that I can do it! Prepare to be amazed...
She closed her eyes and performed the spell. "TRAITSEUS ARATALIUM!!!!" All she thought about was how much she wanted to see a Hippocampus...feel it...and prove herself. The other students stared wide-eyed at what was happening. Steam began swelling up out of the ground around her feet, entrapping her in fog. Bright green sparks and mist were surrounding her body. Her head started to pound, feeling as if it were on fire, but it strangely didn't cause her a headache. She could almost feel the magic flowing through her veins. She became invisible to everyone else from the thick fog and emerald sparks. Please work! Please come to me Hippocampus! I promise never to hurt you...please!
She just stood there, completely frozen, doing nothing but thinking, wishing, hoping, praying...
The whole class seemed to be leaning forward with reverance towards Lily who was scarcely breathing. Time, in their case, had practically ceased until...
"AHH!!!!" Her classmates screamed suddenly, covering their ears with their hands out of reflexes. Lily also jumped at the overpowering crash of thunder, which completely broke her concentration and botched her spell that was going so well. Everyone calmed down fairly quickly and just then, an immense flash of lightning, filling the sky with a patternless zig-zag, bolted overhead, coming just as 'out-of-the-blue' as the previous thunder. It only took about 5 seconds after that for massive rain drops to come flooding down onto the freshly-cut grass.
"Students!" Professor Evans yelled over all the commotion. "Hurry! Run back to the castle and head up to the classroom! It is impossible to finish the lesson out here!"
Lily dashed out of there just as she heard his permission to leave, silently thinking 'Oh that's just terrific! I thought I'd actually get the hippocampus to come to me and it decides to downpour! Stupid thunderstorm! Just ruin the afternoon why don't you!?!?!?'
They all continued running, 100% drenched all the way through when they finally reached the front oak doors and closed themselves inside, away from the rain and life-threatening lightning which had already set a pine tree blazing with wild fire.
The first year Gryffindors all retreated to the safety of the classroom, everyone bummed out with the turn of events, Lily most of all. It's hard to imagine how dismayed she was about the spell not given a chance to finish and reveal it's results, and her classmates weren't exactly being very good encouragment...
"Wow Lily! You almost got the Hippocampus to come! Too bad it started to rain..."
"Yeah...too bad..."
"Rotten luck, Lily. Just think...that may have been your only chance to ever see a Hippocampus!"
"Uh....thanks.....I guess...."
"Lily, you almost did it! We all wanted to see a Hippocampus so bad! You should have volunteered to give it a go earlier so it would have worked!"
"Geez! You all sure know how to cheer someone up!!!"
Those were just a few of the short, annoying, nerve-racking conversations that were shot Lily's direction, and her replys to them.
Her friends were a different story, thank goodness. They wasted NO time in informing her of the news that just about made her hit the ceiling with supreme happiness...
"Lily! Lily!! LILY!!! You will NEVER guess what we heard when we were eavesdropping McGonagall and Snape!!!"
James, Remus, Sirius, and Peter had been running throughout the castle, desperately trying to find Lily. The 'lost' was now found in the last place the boys had suspected...the library. They were panting to the extreme, but were silented when the librarian, Madame Pince shot them a threatening look.
"Let me guess..." Lily began, smiling and looking up from a book that was quite thick and looked to be written in Greek, one of the many languages that she could read and understand. "McGonagall and Snape, being nonchalant rivals, have secretly been dating for the last 6 months, and now Snape's proposed and they're getting married on one of the Apollo spacecrafts, heading towards the moon to raise their kids with Neil Armstrong?" Her eyebrows were raised with immense ammusement and she had an entertaining grin on her face.
"Woah! That would be SO cool! Expecially considering those muggles in NAPA just first landed on the moon last year. The first couple in space...I just don't get how these muggles do it without magic...I mean..."
"SHHHH!!!!!" Sirius was thankfully interrupted by James, or else he would have gone on babbling into the night. Everyone laughed while Lily just rolled her eyes. "Anyways....here's what we REALLY overheard..."
Lily scooted over her stack of books to let the guys lean in towards her, so as not to be overheard.
"So...we were sneaking into Snape's office today to uh..." James was searching for the right word.
"BORROWING!!" Remus helped him out. They all knew that Lily disapproved cheating of any kind.
"Yes! We were 'borrowing' a copy of the notes that he had made us write down today, but we were uh...occupied with another matter."
"Uh---huh---" She nodded doubtfully, but urged him on, none the less. "Go on..."
"Glenn was released from the Hospital Wing today, about an hour ago. The 5-day glue charm finally wore off."
"Oh great..." She moaned. "The prank sure was fun while it lasted, but now everything's gonna be back to normal..." She sighed heavily.
"No!" You could see the delight written clearly on Remus' face as he yelled that. "That's what we're trying to tell you! He's leaving!!"
"He's what!?!?!?!?" Lily jumped up and screamed, receiving the 'final-warning' glare from Madame Pince.
"He's leaving Hogwarts! His father heard about this little prank of ours and now he's being sent to a wizarding school in Canada because his father hopes he'll get more respect from his peers there. McGonagall was telling Snape because Glenn's in his house." Peter informed them.
"YES! This is wonderful!!! I'm so happy!"
They all chatted gleefully for a long time until Pince finally had to kick them out of the library for being 'much too noisy', so Peter left them and they went up to the Gryffindor Common Room for a long night of endless laughter, talk, food and candy to celebrate with, and exploding-snap which luckily, didn't wake anyone else up.