Wish Upon A Falling Star: By Thoughts and Pondering
Guess who's finally got a computer. Me!
Disclaimer: Just in case you've forgotten, I don't own Harry Potter.
Chapter Twenty Two: The Big Black Dog.
"What about the Muggles that died?"
Harry shrugged his shoulders. He didn't know. It happened when he was fifteen months old. But Lily couldn't help but feel that the Muggles had been lied to, cheated out of the chance to know what really caused their loved ones deaths.
Draping herself with her cloak, she made her way to go downstairs to investigate then. Harry smiled, having finally gotten dressed.
Lily smiled back. "Well scurry off then." Harry nodded and ran out the door.
Making her way downstairs in a civilized manner, she walked briskly down the two staircases required to reach the girl's bathroom on the second floor. When she arrived there, both McGonagall and Snape were waiting, Snape looking in a foul mood, a scowl plastered across his features.
Then again, Snape always looked like he was trying to lay a very big egg. This wasn't much of a difference. Snape opened the door, as he was closest to it, and went in, his black robes billowing after him. So much for ladies first.
Lily had been in here before, in her school days. It was a bathroom in a detiorating condition. Some of the mirrors were cracked, some of the doors were not fitted with basic locks, some of the toilets were without seats, and some of the taps simply didn't work at all.
"See anything suspicious yet?" Snape asked, in a rather grumpy.
McGonagall did not look rather happy with Snape today as she tartly replied, "Yes. I see a male in a girl's bathroom."
Snape ignored this, and the ankle deep water as well as he made his way to the taps. Turning one of them, he remarked, "This one never works." He demonstrated this by twisting it anti-clockwise then clock-wise.
Lily looked closer at the rusting tap, and ran a finger over the side. Curiously enough, she found a small snake engraved on the side. "Look, there's a snake here!" she exclaimed.
McGonagall, who was searching a toilet cubicle, came out of it, pinching her nose in a delicate manner. "There's some sort of potion brewing in there."
Moving towards the tap Lily indicated, she tripped over a loose tile in the floor, losing her balance, she fell into Lily's outstretched arms, waiting to catch her former Transfiguration teacher. She did not brace herself hard enough, however, and was knocked backwards into the uncracked mirror above the sink, which shattered when Lily's right elbow dove into.
Lily was for a second mildly aware of pain, but it did not last. Thinking she had just grazed her hand, she took the hand covering her injury, looked down and immediately wished she hadn't because she nearly fainted. A piece of glass from the mirror lay deeply just below her wrist, dark red blood, so dark it was nearly brown, flowed from it slowly. It didn't hurt. It must have cut a nerve.
Feeling extremely queasy, she clutched the side of the sink for support, her hand leaving a bloody fingerprint stain on the side of the crumbling white repetacle.
McGonagall looked at Lily in alarm, moving quickly to the young woman's side. "Place it under running water," she ordered sternly, shifting her square glasses as if to look at Lily's bloodied wrist better.
Lily was feeling faint, and leant against the next sink and turned to tap shakily with her other hand. She put the wound under cold water, still leaning against the sink for support.
Snape moved to the tap with the snake marking, frowned, and started muttering something like, "The serpent. Salazar Slytherin's mark."
McGonagall, however, was not paying any attention to Snape's mutterings. She was watching Lily's cracked mirror with a thoughtful expression on her face. Looking from Lily's cut wrist to the shattered mirror, her lips drawn into a straight thin line, she kept whatever was troubling her to herself.
Snape came over, after having looked in the cubicle McGonagall had moments before. "There's an illegal Polyjuice Potion being brewed in there. It is up to the final stages of completion. As the Headmaster predicted, the illegal activity surrounding this bathroom has been naught but some troublesome students brewing illicit potions. How they managed to come across the recipe is a mystery to me...although by the quality of the potion, I would suspect it would be the work of a NEWT level student."
Lily nodded, though the information had gone through one ear and vacated through the other. Her face was as white as chalk, and looking through the gaps of her bloodied hand, she thought she was going to die from blood loss.
McGonagall opened her mouth, and closed it. Feeling that the moment was right, she asked, ""Mrs. Potter, how many times have you broken mirrors in the past?"
Lily was still looking at the blood flowing slowly from her wrist, but eventually replied, "I broke one when I was two…another when I was five, then eleven, sixteen, and one just before I died…"
"Have you heard the old wives tale if you break a mirror you receive seven years bad luck?" McGonagall asked, looking slightly curious.
Lily felt strangely like a guinea pig which had been transformed into a guinea fowl when she answered, "Of course I have."
"Diviners have been trying to prove that every time you break a mirror, the number increases by one."
Lily tried to comprehend this information. "But…once…when I was sixteen…my mum died ten days later, not ten years."
McGonagall pursed her lips and shook her head. "It is thought that it could be days, months or years."
"Why?" Lily asked, pushing all her weight onto the sink.
"It's a myth, Miss Evans. Even all myths and legends lay down their roots in facts. You, of allpeople, shouldknow that. But according to our esteemed Professor Trelawney, the bad luck can be broken by a wish upon a falling star."
Lily racked her brain, but couldn't remember wishing upon any falling stars at any point of her life. "Are you sure?" she asked, looking at the older woman as if she had the answers written on ink on her face.
"It is but an untested theory, Lily."
Snape looked at her as if he had just acknowledged Lily for the first time. "Evans, give me that." He grasped his wand from his pocket, and moved it, muttering unspoken words and making it dance complicated patterns above her hands. The wound closed slightly, the blood flow became less. "You should soon pay a visit to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey will be able to do a better job. Foolish wand waving is not my forte."
McGonagall sighed through her nose. "Only you, Severus, would call it 'foolish wand waving.'
Snape ignored this however, since the door had just opened. A female's feet splashed on to the puddles covering the tiles.
"Paying a visit to the bathroom, Granger?"
Flinching as her robes swept the damp floor, Hermione Granger composed herself and swept some of her bushy brown hair behind her ears and said in a fast, quavery voice. "I-I really need to go to the toilet, so I rushed in here…"
Snape was looking at Hermione so intensely that Lily was half scared that he was going to bore a hole in her skull. "Don't lie to me, Granger."
Sounds of footsteps from the hall filled the room, sloshing as they reached the flooded part of the room. "Hermione, checked the potion?" Ron Weasley panted without looking up, his cloak dangling in a rather dangerous position around his neck as usual.
"So it's your potion, is it Weasley?" Snape asked, his greasy black hair framing his pale pallid face, "Pray tell me, do you usually routinely arrange to visit girl's bathrooms?"
Ron went green in the face, and looked down at his shoes, ignoring Snape's words. Hermione, however, had paled to a level that could rival Lily, and was shaking her head madly. "I-I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding!" she squeaked. "I haven't been brewing any potio-, oh, God, now I've done it."
Snape, who seemed to be enjoying this all too much for his own good, said, "Let's wait for Potter, shall we? The Dream Team dare not get separated?" he said mockingly.
Hermione paled and looked out one of the small high windows, letting in some more of the mild December sun.
Lily, with a horrible sinking feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with the cut on her wrist, moved to the side, a little bit, so she could see the potion out of the corner of her eye. Definitely Polyjuice.
And true to Snape words, Harry came running in only moments later, clutching a book in his hands, but skidded to a halt when he saw Hermione and Ron standing in the doorway. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Potter, you amaze me with your abundant amount of ignorance." Snape was clearly stalling for the right moment. Lily felt her hand go clammy and sweaty.
"Obviously, your parents never taught you proper manners to use in common society. Oh yes, I forgot. You didn't have any parents to teach you."
Feeling like someone had put some red cellophane in front of her eyes, she took some gulping breaths of air in. She could not lose her temper in front of students. She could not lose her temper in front of students, especially not Harry. She could not show how much those words hurt. Feeling the back of her eyes prickling, she tried to maintain a constant pitch as she walked up to Snape, looked him right in one of those dark, tunnel like eyes, and said, "I would make sure that the subject of your conversation is not in the same room next time, Severus. But I won't make a childish retort to your juvenile insult. I'll do the adult thing and walk away."
She was a banana. She was maturing.
Walking a little more briskly then was necessary, she nudged pass the 'dream team' and into the corridor. Feeling woozy from the blood escaping from her wrist, she went to the marble staircase. She wanted to be outside right now. She wanted to breathe in the frigid winter air, she wanted to feel the cool sun on her face, she wanted…wanted…to catch a snowflake with her tongue. She didn't know why she didn't go to the Hospital Wing. Possibly she just didn't want to get poked and prodded by Madam Promfey like an invalid. She could do the charm herself…if only she hadn't sliced her wand arm.
"Professor, did you get my pres--, are you alright?" Cho Chang was passing by with a group of her friends. Brushing back some of her long silky black hair, she walked forward. "What happened to your wrist?"
None of Cho's friends made comments; they just shifted uneasily in their places.
Not wanting to feel like a cripple, she blew them away. "I'm fine. I've just had a bit of an injury, is all."
She made her way out of the big double doors at the front of the castle, breathing in the cool frigid air as she did so. The cold stung against her wrist, which was still oozing out droplets of blood. They fell onto the white snow, leaving small crimsons stains on it. Feeling dizzy, Lily slumped against the castle wall, her head in her knees. Her mind was spinning, she felt very faint. She had underestimated the cold outside.
Letting go, she let the tears fly. She hoped there was no-one nearby. She hated to cry in front of strangers. She liked to put on the happy, every-thing's-going-to-be-alright face, and live under the pretence that nothing ever went wrong. It was the perfect façade.
Feeling snow fall on hair, she moved to brush her hair. Something cool and wet licked her cheek, wiping away a strain a tear had left behind. Was it a tongue? A dogs' tongue? Looking curiously to her left, she saw a shaggy black dog, tongue out and panting heavily. Dog…why did she feel like she was missing something? Didn't James once say something about a dog? "The deal with our nicknames? You know I'm a stag Animagus, that's why I'm Prongs, Padfoot, better known as Sirius, is a big, black dog with padded feet, and while Moony is not an Animagus, he gets his name from his little furry problem, you know, the werewolf one?"
Could this dirty, flee-filled dog be Sirius Black? Gasping, she moved for her wand in her robes. But her head spun again, and she lost her balance, slumping back against the wall, hitting her head slightly as she did so. As her vision swum, she saw a Remus-like blur in the distance. Hoping that it was Remus was back from an uneventful Christmas lunch, she called out, "REMUS!" before her vision darkened completely, her face falling straight into the freshly fallen snow, sounds of footsteps running towards her lost against the pounding of blood in her ears.
Flashback.
"Girls! Stop that!" Her father shouted, wearing nothing but a fluffy white bathroom towel.
"I was in here first!" A sixteen year old Lily growled.
"My dear, darling, red flower, no amount of watering is going to erase that putrid aroma that constantly encompasses you." Wielding a beam of the broken towel rack, Petunia Evans walked out of the bathroom, hair dryer in one hand, hair brush in the other. She set the beam down on the floor. "I, on the other hand, have my important dinner with Vernon tonight…I think this is going to be it!" she squealed excitedly.
"What's it?" Lily asked curiously. "The night you confess your undying love to an obese hippopotamus?"
Petunia twirled a strand of pale blonde hair around her finger and rolled her eyes. "Grow up, freak."
Cheerfully, Lily picked up the stick. Listening, she heard what she thought were her father's footsteps preceding back to the kitchen. Raising the beam above her head, she readied to swing it. "Looks like this Petunia may need some pruning!" she yelled as she swung it.
Petunia dodged it, slipping into the bathtub as she did so. The wooden towel rack beam hit the mirror above the sink sharply, breaking into millions of pieces.
"GIRLS! WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?"
Lily woke up, breathing heavily through her nose. She felt cold beads of sweat on her forehead, and wiped them with a clammy, bandaged hand. She flexed the fingers on the wrist of her injured arm. They tingled, like pins and needles. Opening her eyes hastily, she saw the rather dark Hospital Wing, lit by only one candle, flickering in its basket.
She moaned out loud, but she was alright for now. Someone must have brought her here. Turning over she fell asleep again.
"Me do it better than you!" squealed a five-year old Petunia. Two-year old Lily lay on her stomach next to her older sister as she drew a messy line of lipstick all over her sister's face. She held up a small, glittery blue hand-held mirror so Lily could admire her work. She leant against the foot of the worn double bed.
"Gimme that." Lily said, reaching out for the mirror. Petunia stepped aside, holding it above her head, tauntingly out of Lily's grasp. Lily stood unsteadily to her feet. Stretching her short arms as far above her head as they could go, she still wasn't tall enough to reach the mirror. "MINE!" she yelled, stamping her feet up and down.
Petunia stood up higher, stumbling in her mother's stilettos that she was wearing. "C'mon, little red fwower, you'll have to do better than that!"
However Petunia thought Lily was going to react, it was not this. She tackled her sister to the ground, the mirror precautiously dangling out of Petunia's hands. They slipped, hitting Lily on the head. Lily fumbled to catch her prize. "I catched it!" she exclaimed happily, as she tripped over the hem on the velvety dress-up dress she was wearing, falling flat on her face, the mirror going flying, through the door to the tiled hallway area, and shattering into pieces. The noise scared her, causing her to shed big crocodile tears. "MUMMY!" she yelled. "P'nia broked it!"
Lily woke up, panting. Was that a real memory? She had been told of the time she when she was a teen, but she had never remembered it so vividly.
"You're awake now. Good." Madam Pomfrey bustled over, carrying two pillows under her arm. She put them behind Lily's back, forcing her into an upright position. "You're wrist should be fully healed within a day. You should have come to me immediately, instead of dilly-dallying outside with Mr. Lupin and his dog." Holding out a bottle of jasmine-smelling potion, she poured it into a goblet conveniently placed on her beside table. She handed it to Lily, who sniffed it warily.
Madam Pomfrey sighed, pushing some loose strands of hair back into her hair net. "It's not that bad, you know."
Lily eyed it. The purple fragrant smelling liquid inside seemed to be frothing. "I'll take your word for it." She gulped it down, and fought the urge to spit it back up. Swallowing heavily, she forced the foul tasting substance down her throat.
When she drank it, she felt like someone had unlocked a door in her brain. She felt like she could hear the lock opening. "What do you mean, Mr. Lupin and his dog?"
"He was with a dog when he brought you up here." She was pointing her wand at a vase of flowers, lilies, she noticed, on her bedside table. The water rose in the vase.
"What sort of dog?" she asked.
"A big black one," she said vaguely.
"Can I go soon?" Lily asked. She needed to see Remus. She needed to find out the truth about this whole "big black dog" thing.
"In a minute. Drink this." She handed Lily another vial of the bubbly liquid. "I don't want you to faint on your way back. I gave Mr. Lupin a bed I your room. He seemed anxious to speak to you."
"If you don't feel well anytime over the next few weeks, do not hesitate in coming back, alright? Take that bandage off after four hours; the bleeding would have stopped by then."
Lily nodded, jumping out of the bed and noticed she was wearing the baggy pajamas that usually came with an overnight stay with the hospital wing. She didn't care if she ran through the castle at six in the morning in the middle of the school holidays wearing bedclothes. She had to see Remus, especially if he was alone with a though to be murderer.
Not stopping to even say good-bye to a startled Madam Pomfrey, she rushed up the staircase. Luckily none of her students were up this early, but she still wished she had the pretence of mind to put on a pair of slippers or something. Every time she took a step, the flagstones of the floor made her feel like she was dousing her feet in icy water.
Running and panting, she made her way down the hall to her quarters. Barging through the door, she saw Remus sitting on the couch with dark circles under his eyes, indicating he had not slept all night. He was twirling his wand idly between his fingers, and did not look up to face Lily until she had closed the door behind her.
Looking up at her, he did not beat around any bushes. "Lily, we have a problem."
Looking at the dog that was curled up in the corner under the roaring coffee table, she replied, "If that's who I think it is, yes Houston, we do."
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This chapter was meant to be longer, but it was actually meant to be part of the last chapter…but it's a good length anyway.
Next Chapter: Diaries and Detentions: In which Lily and Remus interrogate Sirius, Harry has a month's worth of detentions with Lockhart, Ron with Snape and Hermione with Lily, and Lily finds Ginny Weasley at the scene of the crime clutching a stolen diary…
We made my review ambition for the last chapter. (which was 152, not 162) Let's try for 161 in total. That's only 9 reviews! I have faith in you! Review responses up already.
Thanks for reading, and til next time,
Thoughts and Pondering.