Once Upon a Miserable Girl's Plight...
Disclaimer Read this and weep, for I am not J.K. Rowling and thus have no secrets to give you about anything concerning Harry Potter. The plot is mere speculation on my part and the characters most definitely do not belong to me.
Chapter Eight: Lurking in Dangerous Territory
May, Sixth Year
I swear; James Potter is a nutter. His behavior has become more erratic over the past months; ever since I saw him nursing those bruises back a couple of months ago. I only notice because he's in my house, Gryffindor. It's not like I care or anything... It's just very...curious.
Oh, Alice had been going on for months about how, in Potions (as she was his partner for the year) he kept bringing up subtle references to me. I felt the need to point out to her again that he was probably trying to figure out the best way to black mail me; after all, I had seen him with those odd bruises.
"Come 'on, Lily, it's not like that," she chided me over dinner once while she helped herself to some stuffed turkey. "He's really sweet when he mentions you. It's almost like he's shy about it."
"Shy? Potter?" I held the urge to snort in my mashed potatoes and said, "There's not any room for him to be shy. He's too busy being arrogant."
"Not anymore," was her candid reply. "Not since—"
"I know, Alice," I interrupted, starting to become very bored with this conversation. "Not since last year, when my little insult parade in his honor 'changed him'...Supposedly."
She laughed at me. "For someone so observant, you're quite blind half of the time."
I knew better than to feel insulted by that. Alice never said anything out of spite or anything that she didn't truly believe, so if I was as naive as she thought, who was I to try to correct her? Besides, I knew I would never get too far.
But anyways, Potter seemed to be quietly tracking me these days. Like in Potions class, when his eyes always seemed to stray in the direction of Severus Snape and me while we worked on our potion. Actually, in today's class, his friend Sirius took the liberty of coming over to us, punching Snape in the shoulder and then whispering something stealthily into his ear, wand out. I swear that if Sirius is telling him something to help in causing Severus' untimely death, I will hex him. As much as I hate Snape, I need his help to pass Potions. After all, you cannot to a partner potions project with only one person. Couldn't he just wait to seek some sort of twisted revenge (no doubt, that is probably what it was) until after the term was over?
So that night in the common room, after Alice had retired to the dormitory, I wasn't as surprised as I might have been to hear three invisible voices whisper around the portrait hole while I pretended to be buried in my reading.
"Is it safe to open it now?" One voice whispered nonchalantly.
"Yeah, I think so, Padfoot," another voice, though more hoarse, piped up reasonably.
I watched curiously out of the corner of my eye as the portrait hole opened slowly and cautiously. I glanced around. For a bunch of Gryffindors, you would think I wouldn't be the only one who spotted something going on by the common room entrance. How receptive they all were, really.
"No one on the map," yet another voice timidly stated.
Then it hushed up. I hastily set my books aside and hurried over to the closing portrait. If I opened it quickly and quietly, I just might catch them before they decided to do something stupid. I climbed noiselessly out of the common room and listened intently for footsteps.
I could hear them, but only just. Obviously they had snuck out like this before because they barely made a sound as they walked through the vacant corridors. I made sure to keep an eye out for teachers because I figured that it would be pointless following them if I was the one to get caught.
The footsteps stopped briefly at the Entrance Hall and I moved into the Great Hall, behind the great wooden doors and stood in silence. My breathing was heavy. What was going to happen next? Was this where they were going to stop? Were they going to pull a prank on someone? It was like they read my mind; the answers came so fast.
"What?" the first voice said.
"Snape," the second replied in a mixture wonder and alarm. Suddenly, I recognized it as James' own. "Snape is just outside the castle. He looks like...," his voice faltered. "He looks like he's headed for the Whomping Willow."
My eyes widen in complete shock. What could he have possibly been thinking? As much as I hated to think it, that tree could kill him. I knew from Potions class that Snape was no idiot. A prat, maybe, but not completely stupid.
He must have been provoked, I thought. But what could it have been? Could it have been what Sirius said earlier to him?
I contemplated going right out to them and telling James. He would know what to do.
I would have debated with myself further on the subject of James, but they three of them had started speaking again.
"Was that what it was in Potions?" James asked incredulously, not bothering to keep his voice down. "You were telling him how to get past the Willow?"
Personally, I figured that even if he had told Snape how to get past it, he would still get injured and badly. Did anyone remember what happen to Davey Gudgeon back in third year?
"Padfoot." Another voice came that I assumed to be Peter Pettigrew's, "I know you joked about it once...But, I... I never thought you were serious."
"Yeah, well, Snape deserved it," Sirius said rashly as I creaked the door open to see them and witnessed Sirius step out from what was probably an invisibility cloak, push open the huge door and step outside.
"Well, you're an idiot," James said in a harsh voice, taking the cloak off himself and Peter. "And he's about to find out about our friend."
And with that he rushed out the doors and sprinted down the lawns toward the Whomping Willow. I had no idea what to do at that point. Should I expose myself or rush out to help? I chose the latter as I watched Peter hurry out the great doors as well.
Once I reached the doors and was out on the grounds, Peter and Sirius were nowhere to be seen. I did, though, spot James once I got to the lake and watched in horror as he tried to fend off the Whomping Willow. It was the most brutal thing I had ever seen and I almost had half a mind to scream at him to get away... If only I hadn't been so shocked. Luckily, a few moments later the tree froze and I saw James disappear under its trunk.
As if to wake me from my trace, I heard a deafening howl and a loud, chilling scream.
It was coming from the willow.
There was a large, black dog whimpering frantically next to it and a few seconds later I saw James emerge again with a very white and stricken looking Severus Snape.
"Is that what you wanted?" he yelled in the dog's direction, but Sirius was still missing. "Are you happy now?"
But I didn't even attempt to listen for Sirius' answer because, as I watched Snape run up the path and past me, (though I don't think he noticed me) towards the castle, something else caught my eye. Something big and massive, making its way through the trunk of the Whomping Willow...
This must have been what Severus saw, I thought dimly as I stood there stupidly.
I was looking at something I had only seen pictures of in Defense Against the Dark Arts class. A real, live werewolf.
My heart my pounding faster than a bloody time bomb.
Running away seemed like a good idea but my feet stayed planted to the ground. I must have been too surprised to actually, you know, physically move. Would've been a bright idea, though.
"Evans?" James' voice called out in shock as the dog barked madly at him and pulled him out of the werewolf's path. Unfortunately, that left me free for the taking.
The creature didn't notice me at first. He was a bit busy figuring out exactly where he was, I think. But once he had that sorted out, he realized I was there and probably saw that I was pretty dumbstruck. Luckily that great dog that had pulled James aside before engaged his attention by clamping its jaws around its leg. The huge wolf howled in pain as he was starting to get dragged away. I stood there, still being my stupid self, unmoving.
Then, quite suddenly, this immense stag showed up at my side, poking me in the shoulder madly as though beckoning me to get on to get away.
I didn't even take the time to think if I should really trust another beast that could, quite possibly, trample me to death or something. Instead I swiftly jumped on its back. It cantered away from the danger so quickly I didn't even have a chance to look back and figure out which one of the animals was howling in pain now.
It only stopped when it had reached the castle and dropped me there safely. I sat on the steps of entrance doors feeling severely shaken. The stag paused for a second, as if it wanted to say something to me and I looked into the dark pools of its eyes and saw…what looked like concern. It made me feel almost like I had to justify why I had been caught in that kind of situation to it.
Our eye contact was only broken as we heard another howl of pain and could see the shadowy figure of a werewolf being desperately pushed back into the hole at the trunk of the Whomping Willow.
It must have been the horrified look on my face that made him do it, but once it was sufficiently clear that the werewolf was no longer out in the open, the stag revealed itself to be none other than James Potter.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his eyes searching my face for a sign that I was all right.
I feebly attempted to smile. It didn't work too well.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Peter hurrying up the pathway with Sirius, who was walking fine, but bleeding quite a bit on his arm.
James narrowed his eyes in anger as he saw Sirius and quickly pulled me up by the arm, leading the way through the entrance doors. "Everyone under the cloak," he said roughly.
Sirius gave him a feeble look but no one said a word. In fact, the whole way up to the Gryffindor tower, it was silent. It probably would have been unnerving for me, had I not felt so shaken up by what I had witnessed.
Once we got through the portrait hole, the talking started, though.
"Prongs, I—"
"Save it, Sirius," James said shortly. He was clearly very angry with him. "I'll hear about it later I'm sure. Your brilliant idea of how this all made sense in your head. But right now, I have to go keep Snape from telling everyone in the school about what Remus is."
I made like I was going to go up the dormitory steps but as James turned around to leave he spotted me.
"Stay here," he said softly before he left through the portrait hole. "I need to talk to you as well."
I stood in shock. Why would he need to talk to me? Well, yes, he would probably want to make sure I didn't go around talking about the werewolf and…
Had he just said that the werewolf was Remus?
How could that be? Remus was nice and… Oh…gone at least once a month… Suddenly it all made sense. Including the fact that Remus couldn't possibly have as many dead relatives as he claimed he did.
I sat so deep in my thoughts, pondering all of what had happened tonight and all its ramifications, that I didn't even realize Sirius and Peter had left for their dormitories until James came back about an hour later.
"So the prats left, then?"
I looked up and was surprised at how nervous he was beginning to make me feel.
"Yes, I suppose." I started to find my voice, as I sat there on a couch, "Snape isn't going to tell anyone about Remus, is he?"
"No," James replied, looking almost…weary. "Dumbledore talked to him about it."
"Oh," I said blankly. I wasn't quite sure what else to say or why I cared if people knew about Remus or not. I just guess it was because he'd always been nice to me, as a Prefect and all, and it would be devastating if people found out. Everyone would inch away from him in the corridors, probably send him death notes or something and I couldn't bear to see someone so nice be a victim of prejudice. It wasn't like he had chosen to be that way…
"You aren't going to say anything either, are you?"
He looked anxious, almost like he wasn't sure if he could trust me. I didn't blame him. I hadn't been to keen on him so far.
"No," I responded as he visibly breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good," he said and he sat down next to me. I think this was the first time all night he had gotten the chance to relax for a moment.
It struck me then just how old he looked. Normally, when I thought about him, I thought of his childish antics and how he used to hex people in the hallways but now I thought about how he pulled Snape out of the tree, desperate to get him away from danger. And this was how he treated someone he loathed. It almost made me…admire him. Because the more I thought about it, I wondered if I would be willing to risk my life like that for someone I couldn't stand and honestly, I didn't know what I would do.
"But you're okay, right?" he asked me and again the worried look that seemed glued to his face tonight crept onto it again. I noticed him starting to get up from his seat, wand out. "Because if you aren't, I'll just curse Sirius—"
I grabbed his arm to keep him from going up to his dormitory and reeking havoc on his best friend.
"I'm fine, honestly."
He looked at me, almost questioningly, but sat back down again. I noticed how weird it felt to be holding onto his arm like that and dropped it from my grasp immediately.
"It was my fault anyway," I said and looking out the window bitterly, I continued, "I heard you all leaving the common room and I was just stupid enough to follow you outside."
"You're not stupid," he chided me in a voice that almost mirrored one my mother used to use on me.
I smiled slightly and glanced at him. "Well, now it's debatable."
He laughed softly and smiled as well. "I always thought you were funny."
"Me too," I said, feeling odd at the way I was staring at him. I couldn't seem to avert my eyes away from his. It was like when he beckoned me as a stag to get on his back so he could lead me away from danger, now he was beckoning me to look into his deep, hazel eyes…
I felt myself falling… And as he leaned in (most likely scenario: to kiss me), I finally got myself to turn away…
But I couldn't help but think, after I had rushed away from him and up the dormitory steps into my room, that I was finally beginning to feel something I hadn't felt so strongly since I had looked into my mother's eyes. Though it was a bit different… And it scared me more than I'm sure my mother would have ever hoped it would.
A/N- To Queen of Duct Tape- If you like stories where people play match-maker, read my story Marauders' Match-making Inc. It's not nearly as depressing as this one (most people say it's quite funny). Sorry, a little shameless self-promotion there... And I love the phrase, "But I digress" as well and I will try not to make you cry. LoL. Thanks for your reviews; they're always a treat to read.