On a fine, clear Sunday morning, Lily Evans woke as suddenly as if somebody had yelled in her ear.
She had woken up from a vivid dream – 'Nightmare, more like,' thought Lily wryly – in which Molly Roxhand, the Marauder fangirl, had tried to convince her that she and James were made for each other and that they should get together. She had insisted more emphatically than strictly necessary that she did not like James and that they would not make a perfect couple.
Now Lily was awake, but feeling too lethargic to get out of bed or even to sit up. She tried futilely to go back to sleep, but after a few minutes wondered how she could have slept through the enormous racket the birds were putting up, twittering outside.
Yawning, she sat up; even as she did so, a tattered, dog-eared book fell in front of her face, missing her nose by an inch. She stifled the scream that nearly made its way out of her throat; she did not want to wake up anyone else.
She prodded the book cautiously with her wand, but nothing happened. It seemed to be safe.
She picked it up hesitantly, but nothing happened. She realised that she was holding a tattered copy of 'Advanced Potion Making.'
Flipping the cover, she realized that there was no name. Lily noticed that someone had scribbled all over the book, making corrections here and there.
Eyes lighting up with curiosity, she sat down and began to read.
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All through that day, Lily was flipping through the tattered textbook, flipping it open at random places and reading the interesting things the owner had scribbled in. There were corrections and shortcuts to potions, and some jinxes and spells as well.
Sirius and Remus were still trying to research in vain for a cure for James who was still blissfully wandering around the school with 'Lily'.
The fact that James was wandering around the school randomly talking to and snogging his broomstick while being constantly tailed by Peter – who was following James on Remus' orders and not being particularly subtle about it – was generating some odd rumours.
The most reasonable and logical ones were that Peter was gay and in love with James – and jealous of the broomstick – and that James was a broom pervert.
Anyway, Sirius was looking seriously serious as he very seriously searched for an antidote to the seriously mucked up Felix. In fact he was so serious (of course he's serious, he's Sirius!) that it was seriously-
"Levicorpus!"
AAAHHHH!
Lily smiled in satisfaction at the two house elves suspended in the air.
"Hey!" squeaked Dobby.
"Put us down!" added Winky.
"Only if you quit it with those 'Sirius' cracks. They're driving me crazy!"
"Fine," said Dobby seriously. "We seriously will not make serious 'Sirius' cracks anymore, seriously!"
Winky opened her mouth to say, "Siriusly, we won't!", but before she could, Lily raised her wand threateningly and she shut her mouth.
"Fine, can you let us down now?" begged Winky, giving Lily her best house-elf eyes.
Lily melted. "Okay," she said reluctantly. "Liberacorpus!"
Both house elves fell with a thud and went off to the kitchens for some butterbeer.
Remus and Sirius had watched the whole exchange in mild surprise.
"Who were they?" asked Remus curiously.
"The authors," said Lily off-handedly.
"And where'd you get that awesome spell from?" enquired Sirius.
"This book," said Lily, showing them the tattered copy of 'Advanced Potion Making'.
Remus took the book and flipped through it. "Wow, the owner must be really good at potions," he said, looking at the dog-eared pages absent-mindedly. "They've written in heaps of shortcuts and antidotes and stuff that wasn't there."
Sirius shrugged. He wasn't really interested in some potions prodigy when James' life was in danger. Suddenly, one could almost see the light bulb above his head. "Moony?" he asked slowly.
"Hmm?"
"Did you say there were antidotes that weren't in the book before?"
"Yeah, why-" Remus gasped in understanding. He quickly flipped to the page on Felix Felicis. Lily and Sirius peered excitedly over his shoulder.
"Yes!" Remus pointed triumphantly at the page where an antidote for Felix had been scribbled, judging from the ink which wasn't faded like the rest of the book, very recently.
They both pored over the antidote scribbled in the book; it was very complicated. Though there were some ingredients like unicorn tail hairs and beetle eyes and knotgrass that they had in their potions kits, there were many ingredients required like Acromantula venom and dragon blood which were not available to students and were only found in the Potions Master's private stores.
"It has to be brewed and then left to mature for three days before it'll work," said Lily, feeling panicked. "That means we only have-"
"-two more days to get the ingredients together," finished Remus.
"How on earth are we going to get those ingredients?" asked Sirius, feeling dejected at this point. "Slughorn will never part with rare ingredients like those!"
"Unless…" Remus and Sirius both turned to look at Lily.
Seeing where this was going, Lily shook her head and said stubbornly, "Oh, no. No, no, no. No way."
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"Hello, Professor Slughorn," said Lily brightly, beaming at the teacher who had looked rather surprised to see her.
"Miss Evans! What a pleasant surprise!" exclaimed the round Potions professor, his grey walrus-like moustache quivering as he beamed back.
"I came here to give you this, Professor," said Lily holding out a box of what she knew was Slughorn's favourite crystallized pineapple.
"Why, Lily! Thank you very much! I hope you're not bribing me into helping you with your essay!" Slughorn winked at her, and took the box. "Why don't you come in, Lily?"
Lily stepped into the Potions Master's office. The place where the potions ingredients were stored. There was a very comfortable-looking velvet-covered armchair behind the desk and many boxes of chocolates and of course, crystallized pineapple.
"Professor?"
"Yes, Lily?"
"I was wondering…could you tell me about-"
The blood drained out of Slughorn's face and he barked entirely too quickly to be plausible, "I don't know anything about Horcruxes; no respectable wizard would and I am no different!"
Lily, feeling puzzled and bewildered asked, "Why would I ask you about Horcruxes, Professor? Anyway, I came to ask you if you could help me understand how Acromantula venom and dragon blood work together to make such powerful healing potions. I know we've covered it in class, but I wanted to get a more in-depth study on them, to help with the N.E.W.Ts. I want to be a Healer, you see," finished Lily earnestly, lying through her teeth. She actually wanted to be an Auror and had felt that way ever since Voldemort had killed her parents.
Slughorn ate it all up though. The colour soon came back to his face once he realized Lily was not after knowledge of Horcruxes and just wanted some help with Potions theory.
"Well, it's really quite complex, you see…"
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"Got them!" cried Lily, triumphantly brandishing the most difficult potion ingredients.
"Well done, Lily!" said Remus, relieved that it had worked. "But I'd really like to know-"
"How the hell did you get Slughorn to part with his precious potion ingredients?" asked Sirius incredulously.
"Simple," replied Lily. She had intended to coax the ingredients off Slughorn by saying a load of waffle about how she would really like to explore the theory he was telling her by actually experimenting with some venom and blood.
Instead, a far more intriguing idea had occurred to her after she saw how scared Professor Slughorn seemed of Horcruxes. Lily herself knew what Horcruxes were due to taking extra-advanced courses in Defence Against the Dark Arts (her best subject). So she had just…
"…told Slughorn that his Acromantula venom and his dragon blood were the last remaining Horcruxes of the Dark wizard Grindelwald. Of course, he was terrified and practically shoved them in my arms when I said I had a friend whose dad was an Auror who could destroy them," finished Lily modestly.
Remus and Sirius smiled appreciatively and Remus clapped his hands and Sirius cracked his knuckles. "Well then, time to get to work."
-----
Meanwhile, our clueless hero James was wandering around Hogwarts with his girlfriend, Lily. Or so he thought.
James was annoyed. Very annoyed. Very, very annoyed.
The reason why he was annoyed? Because Peter kept following him around even after he had told him to get lost and give him and Lily some time alone.
James needed to lose him. And fast. If only he had his Nimbus with him. James sighed. It had whacked him around the face the other day and he hadn't seen it since. James ran to the school's broom shed. Yes, for Quidditch brooms. No, not to perve on them.
He grabbed Lily's hand and dragged her along as well. She didn't say anything, which seemed very unlike her. She had been very quiet lately. She seemed to have become even skinnier as well. And she had developed a tan. James didn't know how since it was the middle of winter and she was a redhead. Redheads just didn't tan. Oh, well. Time to worry about that later. Time for Operation Lose the Rat.
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"Tell me again why we are brewing this potion in broad daylight in the middle of a girls' lavatory," said Sirius sceptically. "Don't you think we'll get caught?"
"No," scoffed Lily, lighting a special, waterproof fire under a toilet seat in a cubicle. "No one ever comes in here because of Moaning Myrtle."
"Who's Moaning Myrtle?" asked Remus curiously.
(A/N: So as not to repeat the whole CoS movie scenario…) "She's the ghost that haunts this bathroom. I don't ever come in here if I can help it. It's awful trying to go to the loo with her wailing at you."
Sirius and Remus nodded, looking slightly confused, but they were soon cutting up knotgrass and measuring out dragon blood as per Lily's instructions, until…
"BLOODY HELL!"
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Dobby: MUAHAHAHAHAAA, cliffie!
Winky: We is loving ending on "BLOODY HELL!"
Dobby: Cookies and firewhiskey to those who guess correctly…
Winky: The possibilities are even more endless this time around!
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