Disclaimer: none of this is mine.
The next morning, they seven friends went down to breakfast, Lily James and Sirius immensely tired, and the others merely shocked by the story that they had fed them when they awoke to find their friends safe in their beds. They had only left out one detail; what they had each seen when they had stepped into that room. However, the three of them had hardly shared those facts with each other, James and Lily too scared to touch on them again, and Sirius too ashamed. He did, however, treat any conversation with Wormtail with added caution, and the small boy got scared when he caught Sirius staring at him pensively every so often, but, apart from that, they had been trying their hardest to forget about the visions all together.
James and Lily walked into the great hall hand in hand, and tried to hide their puffy eyes as they looked over to the Slytherin table. Snape's jaw dropped open in uncharacteristic surprise, and he dropped his greasy, superior air for a moment as he gawked at the fact that Lily Evans was alive, well, and most importantly, standing upright in the great hall hand in hand with James Potter.
James' grip tightened on Lily's hand, and she tried to silently urge him to calm down, though he didn't really get the message. Reaching his hand into his pocket, James focused hard on an incantation in his head, and pointed the wand in Snape's direction, hidden in the folds of his robes.
Snape stoped, and chocked for a moment on his pumpkin juice. For a moment James thought of leaving it at that, but realised a second later that that would hardly be a punishment.
To Severus Snape, pain didn't really matter. He had been hurt before, and he could always go to the hospital wing…he had nothing that he cared about for James to hurt…except for his pride.
Snape stopped chocking, and leapt up into the table. McGonagal gasped, and Dumbledore looked politely confused. The teachers and students all fell silent as Snape began to sing and dance, skipping up and down the table, sending plate and goblets flying unceremoniously to the ground.
He sang a wordless song, with high pitches that he seemed to try and reach but missed, and he attempted a pirouette or two, before falling flat in front of a sixth year girl, when he seemed to come to his senses, and creep off the table, muttering curses under his breath, and taking great care not to take his eyes off the ground.
The whole hall erupted in laughter, and James and Lily looked down at their food and ate quietly, sniggering inconspicuously. Sirius roared with laughter.
"You shouldn't have done that James." Lily hissed at him.
"After what he did? I could have killed him, be glad that I only made the bloke dance!" James whispered back angrily.
James, Lily, Remus and Ella sat in History of Magic, James' head lolling dangerously on the edge of his desk, his eyes drooping lower and lower, Lily giving him a sharp kick under the table when it became too noticeable. When this would happen he would give Professor Binns a thoughtful nod, and proceed to copy Remus' notes in a scrawl of shorthand before resting his head on the table once more. Lily yawned. This could probably be a good subject, if it weren't taught by such a boring teacher…Lily thought, yawning discreetly so that she wasn't made fun of by James.
"Legends…" The professor said, a slight groan in his voice, "I dislike this brand of teaching, although Dumbledore thinks that it is wise for you to study the unknown. Only for a small period of time, of course…but as you are an exceptional class then he feels it necessary to at least touch on the subject. James' head rose off the desk, and he looked at Binns, bleary-eyed. Lily's heart was racing. Her hand rose slowing into the air.
James shook his head, and pulled it down.
"No Lily! We agreed that we wouldn't do anything about that until we left here! We are asking any questions…"
"I know we did! But this is much too good an opportunity to give up! And besides, even if we do find out something, it's not as though we'd go flying off to find the bloodstone tonight-"
"Not as if we'd be flying off to find it at all!" hissed James, with a sad glance over at Remus, who was oblivious to the nature of their conversation.
"James! I need to know, and I promise, we wont do anything else until we've left Hogwarts. But this may be our only chance-"
"Miss Ethans." Said professor Binns, gliding over to where James and Lily sat and peering down at them with his wrinkled, translucent face, looking stern. There was no choice for it now. James gave her a grin smile of assent, and turned his face away from Remus, who was looking mildly curious.
"Sorry sir, we were only wondering if you could please tell us of the legend of the bloodstone?" Lily said, attentively. Binns looked highly affronted. His knowledge on these matters was actually considerably large, however, he rarely liked to display it, and the facts of the legend that Lily Evans spoke of was one whose facts were all too specific for Binns liking. He took a deep breath, however, and began to speak.
"Some of you might have heard of this. I don't know, maybe it's before your time, but…well, not far from here there used to be two villages."
Lily let out a small yelp of shock. He had begun the story with the words 'not too far from here' James put his head in his hands and groaned. He did not want Lily to go getting herself into trouble. Remus and Ella looked at each other in surprise. But it was nothing to how the two of them felt as Binns continued with the story…
"Yes yes, two villages, and then one day, thousands of years ago, legend has it that they fought over a stone-"he said, none dramatically, as though he were an irritable parent who wished his child had chosen a shorter story before bed time.
"What sort of stone?" asked Ella, interested. The Professor rolled his eyes.
"The magic of rocks and the sort is hazy, and I do not buy the mumbo jumble that divination teachers and others of the like ramble on about these days…"
"But if they fought over it sir, then it had to have been powerful." She pushed. The professor let out a great breath of frustration, and continued slowly.
"Yes yes, I suppose that that is what they believed, if we event chose to believe that this story is real. It is merely a fairytale, told to-"
"Yes professor, but what did-"
"It was said to purify the blood, and protect the wearer to some extent, and to cure those infected with the bite of a werewolf." Remus froze, and Ella grasped his hand under the table tightly as Lily continued to press for details.
Remus looked at James, but he wouldn't turn around. He didn't want to see the look on Remus' face. It was obvious that Lily had heard of the story before…
"But the towns sir? You said that they were near here-"
"I guess that they were. There are many towns out in the mountains. At any rate." He cleared his throat and stared around at the rest of the class, who had all eyes fixated on their teacher. Binns looked startled. This had never happened before. But he also didn't think it wise to tell them too much and send them searching for a legend in the mountains near the school…
"But then the legend goes that when they tried to finally touch the stone, instead of it being powered by their will power and good intentions, it's effects were turned backwards, and the stone and the warriors fighting for it vanished, as though the stone had swallowed them up."
Remus breathed out slowly, and gave a James knew that if he were to turn around at that moment then he would see a very stern look on his friends face.
"So, all the good things that the stone was meant to do were reversed? It did the opposite?" Lily said, looking Binns in his transparent, shimmery eyes. Binns rolled them.
"Yes, yes, I suppose that it did. I told you all that I didn't like this sort of history." He said, groaning.
"Ok, now why the hell did you two know so much about that rock?"
"Stone."
"Whatever!" Remus groaned, standing before Lily and James as they sat on the lounge in the common room, looking up at him sheepishly.
"Because we…well we found…we wanted to…"
"It won't work! It's a legend! Ok? A story! You heard Binns, it's not true!"
"Maybe Remus! But it might not be!" said Lily, pleading him with her eyes.
"No Lily!"
"But I-"
"No!" he yelled, and ran up to their dormitory, slamming the door behind him.
Ella smiled at them sympathetically, and followed Remus up the stairs. Sirius and Dani stood in the doorway, having just come through the portrait hole.
"What was that about?" Dani asked, sitting down gingerly next to Lily. Sirius flopped down opposite them, and stared up at James.
"Is Moony ok?"
"Yeah. He's all right, it's just that…don't worry; it's a really long story. James, can we go for a walk?" asked Lily, on the verge of tears.
"Sure, come on," he said, standing up, grasping her hand bracingly.
"James! I know where it is!" she cried, sobbing into his shoulder. James looked confused, before hugging her closely.
"How? How do you know?"
"Somewhere near here? And if all the effects were reversed…" she pulled away, wiping her eyes, and looked at James waiting for him to come to the same conclusion that she had. He didn't.
"Please keep going Lil, I feel like an idiot."
Lily giggled. "Well, the bloodstone changes people back from being a werewolf, doesn't it?" she said slowly. James nodded, eyebrows raised.
"Well,
wouldn't that mean that when it did the opposite to people it
changed them into werewolves?" she said, staring at James with a
triumphant look upon her face. James' eyes widened, as his eyebrows
were lost in his hair.
"You mean Chestervalle?"
"It would make sense, wouldn't it?" she hissed at him, and he triumphant expression was changed to that of sadness. "But we can't do anything until after school, I know."
James' triumphant smile also slid from his face, and he took Lily's hand again.
"Thank you." He whispered in her ear, and they went back up to the common room.
Argh. I am getting so frustrated. Hope u liked this chapter, thanks 4 all ur gr8 reviews! I get so excited when I get reviews! O yay-luv Ella xXx