Chapter 10:
Lily went onto the train and sat down in an empty compartment followed by Emmie, Palliva and Kerry. They sat down and immediately started talking about their plans for over break.
"I think that my family's going to go to Scotland for a couple of days near the end of break," Palliva said, "But nothing more than that. Then we'll all go over to my grandmother's house for Christmas Eve and I'll get to see all of my cousins. Most of them are French and go to Beauxbatons not Hogwarts."
"Beauxbatons?" Lily asked, confused.
"It's another wizarding school," explained Palliva.
"There are other wizarding schools besides Hogwarts?" Lily asked, astonished.
"Of course there are!" exclaimed Emmie. "Did you think that all the wizards in the world went to Hogwarts? There are only forty students in our year and two hundred eighty in the entire school. There are many more wizards than that in the world. There are hundreds of wizarding schools in the world—Beauxbatons and Durmstrang are the nearest to Hogwarts, but my father once met somebody in the Ministry who went to a school in China."
"Well, I guess I didn't think that every wizard in the world went to Hogwarts. I just hadn't pondered the matter much. I makes sense now though that there would be a lot of other wizarding schools." Lily said.
Just then, the compartment door opened and Rachel and Kaitlyn looked in. "Do you mind if we sit down?"
"Don't you wanna sit with Potter and Black?" Lilly asked, coldly.
"Rachel said they aren't riding the train with us." Kaitlyn said.
"I bet Rachel has to break everything down for you, doesn't she?" Emmie said, and everybody but Rachel and Kaitlyn burst out laughing.
Kaitlyn just shrugged and Rachel said, "So can we sit down or what? Everywhere else is full."
Lily shrugged and moved nearer to Emmie so they would have room to sit down. "So Lily," Kerry went on as if they hadn't been disturbed, "What are you doing over the holidays?"
"Erm…well…nothing much. My sister, Petunia, will be gone in with a friend in Hawaii for the first week, so it'll be just me and my parents." Lily began.
"Ooh, that's gotta suck." Rachel interrupted.
"No, actually I'll rather enjoy it. I have so much fun when my sister's gone, and just thing, she'll be gone for an entire week."
"Yeah, so it'll be just you, with your parents breathing down your neck." Rachel said.
Lily shrugged, "It won't matter much. I never get in trouble much anyways, when Petunia's not there to provoke me."
"Oh…" Rachel said. "Well, I'm going to have quite a lovely Christmas…" With that, she launched in to a monologue that seemed to take hours of everything that she was doing over vacation.
It was Thursday night, the first night of break, and James, Remus and Sirius were starting right away on trying to find their way into their room. They knew that there was another way into that room—there just had to be. They searched all along the perimeter of the room, but found no clues, no trace of a trap door, and the usual door remained locked.
"Why don't we just get give up? Dumbledore's made it impossible to get into." Sirius suggested when he was about tired of looking.
"No. There has to be an easier way in." Remus said. "If there were an emergency and they didn't have a chance to do whatever you had to do to open the regular door, answer the sphinx's riddle and do whatever other crap they had to do, they'd need a quicker way to get there. Besides, you're the one that was all into this before. Now you're just willing to give up?"
"I think that you've got a point Remus, they would need an easier way to get in." James said. "But wouldn't they just apparate in?"
"You can apparate or disapparate on school grounds. It's in Hogwarts a History." Remus explained.
"You've read Hogwarts a History?" James and Sirius asked at the same time, dumbstruck.
"No, Lily has and she told me." Remus said defensively.
"Evans has read Hogwarts a History?" Sirius still looked shocked. "I mean I knew she was weird, but that books got at least two thousand pages."
"Remus, you're probably right about there being another way in here, but it's almost one. I think that we should give up on it tonight." James suggested.
"We'll have to do a lot of careful planning before we come back again." Remus advised. "Otherwise it won't be worth wasting our time for."
Sirius, Remus and James continued to look for another way into the room for the next couple of days. However, they had no luck. It was now Wednesday, Christmas Eve, and Remus still wasn't back from home. Sirius and James hoped that he would return quickly, they were much better off with him helping them. Without Remus, James and Sirius would just wander the castle aimlessly.
Earlier that night they had seen McGonagall entering through the door. They had planned on squeezing in after her. She, however, shut the door right behind her, as though she had suspected something of the type. James and Sirius then retreated upstairs again to search for more clues. The problem was, they didn't know what they were looking for. Remus always seemed to know. Whenever they would ask him what they were looking for, he would just answer "Anything out of the ordinary or mysterious." However, they didn't know what he meant by that.
James and Sirius had given up by now.
"This is useless." Sirius whined.
"I agree." James said.
With that, both of the boys bang their heads on the table in front of them at the same time, Sirius grabbing a hold of the candlestick in front of them and banging it down. After they did that a trapdoor opened beneath them and they rolled down a slide and into the secret room.
Lily's break had gone pretty well so far. She had gone shopping for her Christmas presents in the Diagon Alley the day before. She bought Emmie a necklace with a heart pendant that changed from gold to silver, depending on what you were wearing. She bought Remus some candy—she wasn't sure what else he would want. She bought her mum both a pair of silver earrings and some hair-ties that adjusted to the right size for your hair. Lily's mum had her thick red hair, and they both knew what it was like to have hair-ties either snap or not fit well. She did exactly know what to buy her dad—he was usually hard to shop for. He was one of those people who always bought things for himself when he wanted them. She decided to have her mum take her to Magna Multi Media later to buy a gift certificate for him.
Lily decided to get ready for the party tonight. She was going to wear the dress that she wore for Halloween. Emmie had said to dress in Christmas colors and she figured that white was close enough. Anyways, Christmas red and green contrasted badly with the color of her hair. After that, she put on a pair of reindeer antlers, that way she looked somewhat festive.
Emmie's parents came to pick her up around five. When Emmie came to the door the girls exchanged presents. Emmie had gotten her a pair of silver earrings and a matching necklace that looked really good with what she was wearing—so she decided to wear them. Emmie opened her present from Lily and shrieked in delight. With Emmie's red and white dress and Santa hat, the necklace turned silver. They both said "thank you" to each other and retreated out the door and to the party.
The party was one of those that your parents would have dragged you to. It was mostly filled with parents, talking and catching up. The few kids that were there were just sitting in random chairs, bored out of their minds. Lily, however, found the party rather enjoyable, mostly because Emmie was there. Lily spent about an hour trying to explain to Emmie why muggles cared for television. She was in the middle of explaining some of her favorite shows when they heard a noise from above.
"That's funny," Janelle, the host of the party, said, "I wasn't expecting anyone else. I'll go check and see who it is." Janelle then went up the stairs. Lily and Emmie stood downstairs listening. A flash of green light came from upstairs, they heard a scream and a loud clunk.
When Sirius and James got through the doorway, one look around told them that they should probably get out of sight, and quickly. They dashed behind a statue and into a closet. The room was packed full of many different witches and wizards including Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Agrippa. Dumbledore was standing in the front of the room, waiting for silence.
"You probably are not aware," he began, in a hushed tone, "that there was another attack tonight—the largest attack yet. It was on a muggle house where they were throwing a Holliday party. I also have the grave duty to inform you, that two of our students were there."
A deadly silence fell across the room, and Sirius and James exchanged frightful glances from within the closet.
McGonagall was the first to speak. "Who was it? Were they hurt? Are they going to be okay?"
"The students attending were Emmeline Vance and Lily Evans. As for whether they were hurt or not, I do not know. Dorcas, do you think that you could report on this article for the Daily Profit?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes, I think I can, sir." Said a tall skinny witch with glasses and her honey blond hair pulled back in a tight bun.
"Good. Make sure to investigate every detail, but don't tell the readers too much. We don't want people more worried about these things than they have to be. Just make sure to tell them how to avoid these situations. Also make sure to find out if Miss Vance and Miss Evans are alright." Dumbledore told her.
"Don't worry, I will sir." Dorcas said obediently.
"Good, now that that is settled this meeting is adjourned. You may go now." Dumbledore said to the entire room.
With that everybody got up from the couches and armchairs they were sitting in and filed towards the door. Sirius and James waited until they were all gone, before following suit.
Lily woke up in a small shed outside of Number 9 Swiffstin Lane. It took her a moment to remember were she was and what had happened. Then she had the flashback of the flash of green light, the scream of Janelle, the clunk of her body falling to the floor. Lily still wasn't exactly sure of what had happened—all she knew was that the situation felt uncomfortable, so she and Emmie ran out the back door and into the shed.
Lily opened the shed door and walked outside. She shivered as she looked up and saw a green skull hovering above what used to be the house—now, however, it was a pile of rubble. She walked up and went through the empty door frame. She shrieked when she looked around—there were dead bodies everywhere. She knew that if she and Emmie hadn't left she would be among this lot. Her head started spinning and she lost balance and fell backwards. She flinched, expecting to hit the ground, however, somebody caught her.
A/N: So that's chapter 10! I was going to make it cover the next part too, but it just seemed like the perfect opportunity to leave you guys hanging:P If you guys have any comments or questions, please review. If you don't, please review anyways:)