Italics are dreams/flashbacks.
Wish Upon A Falling Star by Thoughts and Pondering,
Chapter 24: Wish Upon A Falling Star.
"You can really see the whole world from up here!" Lily laughed and flicked some of her hair behind her back. "Or enough of it, anyway." She exhaled loudly. It was a warm summer's night, and it didn't feel much cooler at midnight. She reached around James, who was perched on a chair beside her and swung the telescope her way. The stars were spread over above them, little shining pinpricks on a black background. There were no clouds.
James smiled. "We don't need to see the whole world," he said softly. "We just need to see the stars as well as the moon… and finish this astronomy essay we didn't finish earlier this year. Professor Sinatra said she wasn't going to extend it for us any longer."
Lily grinned widely. "Imagine you telling me to do homework. Thought the day would never come, eh?"
"We need to trace the moon patterns now…" he mumbled, twirling the telescope from Lily's grip and looking through it himself. "It's a quarter moon…I can't tell where it is, since I can't see it…"
"How do you know, then, if you can't see it?"
"D'you need to see something before you can know it?" James asked, stepping back from the telescope to wipe his glasses. They had accumulated a thick layer of fog somehow, and he irritably hunched down to wipe them with his sleeve. As an answer to Lily's inquiring gaze, he mumbled, "Sirius thought it would be…amusing…to put some sort of charm on my glasses. M'never going to leave them on my bedside table again."
"What are you going to do then?"
"Sleep wearing them."
"See better now?" Lily asked as James pressed an eye to the telescope again. "I still can't see the moon…wait is that a shooting star?"
Curious, Lily stood on her tippy-toes and craned her neck to see into the direction James was pointing. "I see it!" she exclaimed excitedly. She saw the shining object make its way majestically across the sky. "Maybe it's just a satellite or something," she said a little dubiously.
"A satty-what?" James questioned. "Never mind. It has to be a star. Look!"
The star was quickly making its descent, and was nearly about to escape Lily's view.
"Make a wish upon a falling star, Lily," James whispered in her ear.
Her mind suddenly felt devoid of any thought, and she just stared numbly at the stars. How many galaxies could be out there? Could there be another universe outside of the universe?
"No." She shook her head. "You saw it first. It wouldn't be right."
"All right then." James grimaced slightly, and he gazed at the stars, talking inaudibly under his breath.
"What did you ask?" Lily asked inquisitively.
"If I told you, it wouldn't come true."
"Like on a birthday cake?" Lily asked, remembering back to the last time she had had one. She had been six. She had never been terribly fond of cake.
"Yeah," James answered. "Like a cake."
Lily smiled again, and took another sweeping glance at the stars. "Hope your wish comes true," she whispered.
James just looked Lily straight in the eyes and simply said, "So do I."
Thinking that her pillow felt extraordinarily hard, and rather like wood, Lily pushed herself out of her bed. Except that it wasn't her bed. She had fallen asleep at her desk, correcting…she looked at the pile of essays that were in danger of dropping off the table. She was meant to be correcting the fifth years' essay, about the founding of Hogwarts. It had been a popular topic lately, ever since the message on the wall, but since they had been no more attacks, and certainly no mysterious disappearances, all the hubbub was dying down again.
Shifting the pile of papers back to the middle of the desk, she put the half-empty pot of ink atop the parchment as a paperweight, and stood up, stretching her cramped arms above her head. Her arms ached, since she had been resting her head on them all night. Sighing, she pushed back her chair, which made a horrible scraping sound on the stone flagstones, and stepped backwards.
It was mid February, and all was well at Hogwarts. Since there had been no more word about the Chamber of Secrets, the extra security measures had been lifted. She had overheard some of the teachers say that they were sick of shepherding the 'little sheep' around.
Harry, Ron and Hermione had a month worth of detentions that had ended a couple of days ago.
The weather had gradually gotten better; it was now no longer so very cold, merely chilly. Even so, Lily wrapped her cloak around her shoulders tightly. She had a picnic basket underneath her desk, filled to the top with food, and of course it also included a picnic blanket. How one could have a picnic without something to sit on was beyond Lily's comprehension. You'd get dirty, sitting on the ground.
It had been a week since Lily had visited Sirius with her usual bundle of goods. Today these included of some various items of food, a clean sheet and a pillow case. If someone came across a seemingly stray dog with a half empty picnic basket and a couple of sheets, they would think (Lily hoped) that some people had not bothered to clean up after enjoying their food in a rather dank and smelly cave, and the dog was simply there to salvage the scraps.
She made her way quickly down the staircase, it was six-something in the morning, and the sun was just rising. Birds were singing, but she ignored them. She wasn't one to commune with nature. She didn't spend much time outside nowadays, at least not in the earlier hours of the morning. She clutched the basket harder as it threatened to drop out of her grasp. She had gotten the food she needed from the house-elves in the kitchen. House-elves were always an agreeable bunch. She guessed they were taught to be that way.
Walking briskly down the cobbled street, she swiftly made her way to the stile that would lead her to the cave. Remus had thought of the location. They had needed something secluded, yet it couldn't be impossible to get to. He had chosen here. Pushing a few tree branches that were hanging in front of her face, she entered the small opening to the shallow cave.
She gently set the basket down on the dusty cave floor. She saw Sirius walk cautiously in, still in his Animagus form of a big black shaggy dog badly in need of a haircut. He caught Lily's eyes and she winked. He transformed in the blink of an eye.
"Thanks Lily, I've been ravenous."
"I would have come earlier…" Lily started, but Sirius stopped her.
"It doesn't matter. It's here now. Rats," Sirius grimaced, "aren't the most delectable source of food."
Lily started to open her mouth again, closed it, and instead took out the red and white checkered picnic blanket and spread it out. She sat down cross legged on the blanket.
Sirius raised a grimy eyebrow. "You're making quite an outing out of this, aren't you?"
"Well, I decided you may want some company today."
"It's Valentine's day today," Sirius mentioned. "I've been taking copies of the Daily Prophet that have been thrown out around the village. That's how I've been keeping up to the date."
"Well, just so you don't get any misconceptions, there is absolutely nothing romantic about this setting." She took a whiff of the air. "It smells like feet in here."
Sirius crossed his arms across his chest and said in a mock dejected voice, "Well I'm sorry the air in here isn't aromatic enough for your highness…" As Lily sent him a glare, he replied, "Come on, Lily…you know I'm joking."
Lily smiled and opened the picnic basket, and took out a loaf of sliced bread and some turkey slices. This she passed to Sirius, who accepted them gratefully. He pushed a ham slice between to slices of bread and stuffed them into his mouth and began devouring quickly and messily.
"Don't forget to chew before you swallow," she said absently, as she searched down at the bottom of the basket bottle of Butterbeer.
"Ivont," he said incoherently, his mouth full of turkey. Swallowing loudly, he asked, "So how are things going at Hogwarts?"
"They've decided to lift the security measures because there's been no attacks, since the Creevey boy. The governors decided that there are better things for us teachers to be doing, instead of doing mundane things like preventing our students from being murdered."
Sirius started to say something, but halted to burp loudly. "Maybe that attack was just a freak of nature or something…"
"And maybe the security measures were actually preventing any attacks from being made. But there's nothing I can do about it, and I'll accept that, for now."
"And if anything weird goes on, you'll start doing something about it?"
"Well, yes…if I see anything suspicious. Hopefully there won't be anything odd going on. Maybe…hopefully…" She glanced at the watch on her wrist, and gasped. "If I don't get going now, I'm going to be late for class."
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Class on a Sunday?" he asked, slightly confused.
Lily stared at him. "It's not Sunday."
"Well, excuse me for living in a time-warp." Sirius smiled and delved into the picnic basket.
"Don't worry about it, I was thinking it was Sunday too when I woke up this morning." She hiccupped slightly, the result of gulping down much too much butterbeer at a time.
"Thanks again Lily!" Sirius said, his voice slightly hoarse.
"Don't mention it." Lily waved her good-byes, still clutching her butterbeer. She exited the dank, feet smelling cave and breathed in the fresh winter air outside. It felt good. She wondered why she didn't spend much time outside. She came to the conclusion that she was uncomfortable being around too many people at one time. She always had been.
She wondered what was going to happen today. Lockhart had said he was going to plan some 'surprises'. She couldn't help but feel a little bit queasy about what those might be. Anything involving Gilderoy Lockhart and a plan would be enough to make anyone feel a bit queasy. That man was a walking disaster without having a plan!
But when she walked into the Great Hall for the first time that morning, she instantly shielded her eyes as pick confetti, shaped like little love hearts, floated from the pale blue ceiling-sky above her. Lockhart was standing up, making some sort of announcement. He had some dwarves next to him, with golden wings and harps, making him look very much like Cupid.
"…they will be delivering cards to people all through the school day..."
Couldn't he think of a way to celebrate Valentine's Day without disrupting lessons? She sighed, and left the Great Hall as every-one else proceeded to do so.
All through the day, the wing-wearing dwarves delivered Valentines. Just before lunchtime, Lily became extremely irritated when her class was interrupted for the twenty-fourth time, and ended up locking the door to the classroom with a quick charm, only unlocking it again when it was time for lunch. She could the dwarves banging on the door and yelling loudly, but frankly, she didn't care.
As she was heading to class after lunch, she heard one of the dwarves singing out a rather horrible Valentine's rhyme. "…I wish he was mine, he's really divine…" In the middle of it all, and clearly the one the unfortunate the one the dwarf was reciting to, was Harry. His cheeks had become blushed and he was struggling to pull away from the dwarf, he tripped over his feet and the onlookers were laughing even harder. Lily did not tell them off and yell at them to go to class, as the bell had just rung, but she was too busy standing there with a rather knowing look on her face. "…the hero who conquered the Dark Lord."
The dwarf stood aside and let Harry up after he finished his delivery. A rather embarrassed looking Harry picked up his bag, which had split in half sometime during the encounter. One of his ink bottles had cracked open, leaving a huge amount of dark blue ink blotches all over his books.
Since class was meant to begin a few minutes ago, Lily ushered the watching people to their various classes. She watched as Harry gathered his belongings and scampered off to class. Lily smiled at him and turned around to go upstairs. She needed to get up three floors as soon as possible. She disliked being late. With a sudden burst of energy, she raced up the staircase, and onto the second floor hallway. Even though she was running late, something stopped her.
She wasn't sure if it was the ankle-deep water on the floor, the petrified body on the floor, or the fresh blood on the wall retracing new words over the ones Filch has spent ages trying to clean off. "THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS IS STILL OPEN. IT IS TIME FOR THE MUDBLOODS TO END!" She wasn't exactly sure what wasn't quite right with this picture, but it made her stop. She felt something cold trickle down her spine. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. She knelt down to see who the petrified person was.
When she turned his body over, she recognised who it was. Nathian Lythdan. The obnoxious boy in her third-year Ravenclaw class.
"P-professor…is h-he alright?" Next to her stood Ginny Weasley. She fitted into the picture quite nicely, holding what seemed to be a dead rooster in her hand.
No, something was definitely not right at all.
0
0
0
0
0
Ok, I'm sorry I haven't updated in…has it really been a month? First I got writer's block. Then I lost my plan. Then I found my plan. Then I found out the plan needed revising. Well, I'm sorry, and I hope it doesn't happen again. (and it shouldn't, since one of my other stories is a chapter away from completion.
Next Chapter: Ginny and Hagrid venture into the forest. A curious Lily follows them. More attacks happen. Lily comes across the diary.