Well, here we go, and about tine too I hear you say. Well, I think you'll probably have to get used to the waiting – I'm just starting exam revision, and I've been made a shadow-prefect, so I'm crazily busy at the moment. I'll try and update as soon as I can.
The first year should only last another chapter or so – I've got pretty much everything I want in there. There are still six more years to go, though!
I hope you enjoy this chapter – once again, the transfiguration lesson hijacked the chapter – my muses are obviously fans!
Chapter 14 – Mice-cream
It was actually quite amusing, Lily reflected, watching Remus struggle for coherency, when he was usually so eloquent. He stood stock still, jaw flapping, staring at her.
To say Remus was shocked was an understatement. He'd hoped for the best and prepared for the worst, but never envisaged anything like this. Lily's mask was incredibly beautiful, and made her look different, somehow – he couldn't put his finger on it. Stronger, maybe, older, definitely more mysterious.
"Snap out of it, Remmie! It's just me – I'm no different." Lily said cheerfully, evidently getting rather impatient with his staring.
"Yes, Lil, whatever you say. Let's just get on the train."
***
Lily was getting really rather exasperated with the tendency of her peers to gawp, point and whisper when she passed. She constantly fought the urge to snap at them that they should be used to strange occurrences – they were witches and wizards, after all.
She'd enjoyed the incredulous, curious stares of the students for a day or so, but now the novelty had worn off, she was becoming easily irritated by it.
Apart from this minor annoyance, Lily's term was going brilliantly. She had begun experimenting with the singing charms, and although progress was slow, she'd managed to levitate her desk in Charms, which Professor Caravette had been overjoyed with, even though it had left a small crater in the classroom floor when her song had faltered. They'd also begun flying lessons, which had been somewhat surprising…
***
Lily was rather apprehensive about flying lessons. The sixth years had been entertaining themselves the night before by telling the first years horror stories about flying accidents and broom related injuries. Although Lily was sceptical about many of these tall tales, she believed enough of them to be more than a little nervous as she mounted her broom for the first time.
As she kicked off from the ground, she shut her eyes tightly, certain she'd fall – but she didn't. She felt the wind whipping through her hair, the gentle motion of her broom – and she tentatively opened her eyes.
The view down onto the grounds and the castle was breathtaking. Lily stopped her broom in mid air and looked around, enthralled. Everything was so small!
She took a deep breath, and headed back down as the teacher had instructed, and suddenly her fears evaporated. She shook out her hair, grinned mischievously, and headed downwards in a steep dive, barrel rolling as she went. And at that moment, she fell in love with flying. It was wonderful, it was magical, it was… freedom.
She looped the loop as she land, and smiled widely as she pictured her next flight. It took her several moments to register the slightly flabbergasted faces of the other students, and the furious visage of the Flying Instructor.
"Sorry – I got a bit carried away…"
***
"Come on, Lils, we'll be late for Transfiguration." Remus brought Lily out of her breakfast daydream, and they headed off.
Kitty McGonagall was late, as ever, and by the time she arrived. The classroom was chaos. Somehow, Sirius had managed to turn one of the desks into an apple tree, and most of the students were currently varying heights off the ground, clambering around the branches trying to grab as many apples as they could. As Kitty entered, the smallest Gryffindor girl, Charlotte Llamar, lost her grip and tumbled out of the tree. Kitty rapidly transfigured one of the desks into a cushion beneath her, to break her fall, before turning to the rest of the class, ordering them out of the tree, and returning it to its former state.
"That's quite enough of that. If you want to scrump for apples and break your heads in the process, do it in your own time, not mine." She scanned the class for guilty faces, and immediately picked out the culprit. "Ah, Sirius Black. That'll be another detention – trying for my record? Now, what was I going to do with you today? Oh, yes – mice to icecream. It's such a hot day – if you can make something edible, you can eat it, and cool down a little – how's that for motivation?"
Lily grasped her brown field mouse by the tail, and looked at it rather sceptically. The heat really was oppressive, and Lily's hair was stuck to the back of her neck, trickles of sweat crawling down her back. If she had to transfigure a rodent in order to cool down, then by Merlin, that's what she'd do.
She replaced the mouse onto her desk, where it scampered away from her fingers. She stared at it intently, fixing its image in her mind, and closed her eyes. Then she envisaged the icecream she was craving, and overlaid the images, as Kitty had told her. When the two images held in place, she sang a note – just a single, pure sound. She opened her eyes again.
"Dammit!" The mouse was still a mouse, now sniffing inquisitively at her bottle of ink.
"Rem, why do I suck so much at Transfiguration?" Remus opened his mouth to reply, but Kitty McGonagall, approaching from behind, beat him to it.
"You don't, as you so eloquently put it, 'suck' at Transfiguration, Lily. You know your spells are more complex than what the others are doing. Remember, song charms are about emotion – you have to want it, Lily."
Lily smiled weakly, sighed, and returned her attention to the mouse. It had begun nibbling thoughtfully on the corner of her Transfiguration textbook. She watched as it wrinkled its nose, and brushed a shred of paper from its whiskers. She closed her eyes, but she could still see the mouse as clearly as when they were open. Again, she imagined icecream, and when the separate images were clear in her mind, she superimposed the icecream onto the mouse. The image flickered, as her doubts emerged, but she refused to let it fade. She held the two images tight together, until they no longer were separate images. They combined, and somehow, for an instant, the mouse and the icecream were the same thing, and Lily could see both existing at the same spot at the same time, yet she couldn't see where one ended and the other began. This time, when she opened her mouth, she poured her feelings into the note – her fatigue at the heat, her longing for icecream, her she stubborn will that the mouse would be icecream.
She felt Remus's hand on her shoulder, and shook herself out of the trance she hadn't even realised she'd fallen into.
"Look, Lils – you did it!"
Lily turned to her desk, and there, melting slightly onto her Transfiguration book, was what was unmistakeably an ice lolly. Although still mouse shaped, its tail had stiffened and straightened, holding the icecream as a wooden stick usually did. The mouse itself had turned from brown to a pale pink, and as Lily picked it up and began to eat, the success of her transfiguration was clear, as she savoured the taste of strawberries.
"Well done, Lily. I knew you could do it," said Kitty. Lily grinned at her, and looked around the classroom. Although her mice-cream was by no means the best – Sirius and James had managed a banana split and a knickerbocker glory respectively – she was overjoyed that she'd managed it at all. Her very first transfiguration – unless you counted the disastrous first lesson, of course. A feeling of elation bubbled up inside her, and she beamed so widely it was rather surprising that the top of her head didn't fall off.
***
Lily's high spirits had by no means faded by the evening. She bounced around the Gryffindor common room, full of excess energy, until the glares led Remus to suggest they went to the library, before the other students resorted to homicide to quieten her. Once out in the corridors, though, Remus had no clue what to do. With Lily in her current state of hyperness, there was no way they'd be allowed within a hundred metres of the library. In the end it was Lily herself that solved the problem.
"I know, Rem – let's go prank someone! Do let's! We haven't pulled anything for ages - I'll be quite out of practice at this rate."
Remus considered the overwhelming arguments against this plan, resolutely decided to ignore them, and agreed.
"OK, Lils – what's the plan?"
***