James sat on his bed in his boxers and rolled out the parchment in front of him. The side facing him was so ordinary it could barely keep his attention apart from the eyes. Obviously they weren't green in his sketch but there was something incredibly beautiful about them all the same. He flipped the picture over to look at the one on the other side. The real Lily Evans, he reminded himself. She looked so different and yet the same. He wondered why?
Sirius wandered in a towel wrapped round his waist as he rubbed his short black hair with a towel. "Shower's free," he walked over to look at James' drawing, "that's a really great sketch and one beautiful woman," he said grinning. He clapped his friend on the back, "so who's the lucky lady?"
"What?" James looked confused.
"You were only staring at the picture like you wanted to marry it," Sirius replied, grinning and ducking the pillow James threw at him.
"No," protested James, "it's not like that at all! I just find her fascinating she's so...peculiar."
"Peculiar?" Sirius raised an eyebrow, "right, whatever you say my friend, whatever you say."
James glared at his best friend, but knew him well enough to know that once Sirius had gotten an idea into his head not even a wild hippogriff could shake it out of him. All that would happen would be that Sirius would grin wider and wider as he, James, got more and more irritated.
There was a loud squeak and then a crashing noise as Peter fell out of bed. As James and Sirius burst out laughing, Peter emerged from under his duvet, his face flushed with embarrassment. An irritated grunt came from under Remus' duvet,
"Shut up!" he moaned, "Aren't you lot ever quiet?"
"Silence is only for those who have nothing to say," Sirius informed him cheerily, pulling off his friend's cover with a sharp yank as James helped Peter untangle himself from his sheets.
"Hey!" protested Remus, sitting up and frowning at Sirius, who was grinning manically.
"You'll be late if you don't get up soon anyway Moony," James said as he headed for the bathroom.
Remus shrugged, "I guess so." He turned to face Sirius, "And silence is for those who have nothing worthwhile to say, by which account I'd say you should never say anything!"
Sirius just laughed and turned to Peter, "have you seen my shoes?"
Half an hour later the two of them walked down with Peter and Remus for breakfast. As they came down into the common room Professor McGonagall came in, her face pale, "have you seen young Patrick Couronne?" she asked.
"Little Paddy?" James shook his head, "sorry professor, we've only just come down. Your best bet is to try breakfast"
She nodded and walked back out of the portrait hole.
"Why do you think she was looking for him?" asked Peter.
"I don't know," replied James thoughtfully, "but from the look on her face, I'd say it wasn't to award him 50 points."
Lily and Saffron arrived at breakfast to find the atmosphere somewhat muted. Several copies of 'The Daily Prophet' were scattered up and down the house tables and people were bent over them, muttering quietly. As they sat down one of Saffron's friends, Tony, turned to them.
"Take a look at this," he said, handing over a copy of the newspaper. Its rather melodramatic headline had only one word, 'Murder'.
This reporter finds himself unexpectedly vindicated in his caution to the rest of the Wizarding world over the recent troubling events. Last night, at a reunion dinner eight witches and wizards, were all poisoned. Among the dead are the Couronnes, the Brownings, the Eliotts, Larry Herring and Louise Fletcher.
They were killed by a potion known as Hades Draught, a despicable potion that melts the insides of the person who drinks it within minutes- one of the most painful deaths known with no known antidote. The same mark was found in the sky above their homes as all the others, a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth like a tongue. This time however, a wizard has been captured and has been made to confess.
Unfortunately he did not live long enough for Ministry Officials to get much out of him. But what we do know is that these incidents are all committed by a Dark Arts faction calling themselves Death-Eaters, their symbol they leave as a trademark wherever they murder anyone. Their targets are what they call, 'those with impure blood'. Surely now the Ministry will have to recognise this growing threat within the Wizarding Community. The Minister for Magic has yet to make a statement…
The article went on to describe the incident in more detail and make more sweeping comments. But Lily's mind was divided between two things. Firstly the Courrones were Paddy's parents and she felt so sorry for him, she knew he was an only child. And secondly, the potion, Hades Draught could only be made with highly illegal ingredients, all very difficult to get hold of. But the most difficult was blood from a living unicorn at the full moon. It could hardly have been a coincidence. It just couldn't be. She found herself wishing hard that it wasn't, because if it was then that meant it was partly her fault. If she hadn't been so secretive about the whole thing and told Dumbeldore or someone about it then maybe this would never have happened. But, then again, she reasoned, what could have been done to prevent this even if they had known of the unicorn's blood she had seen taken that night?
She put her head in her hands thinking. Should she tell someone now? She thought not, it wasn't as if it would even make that much difference. It wasn't as if she even saw the person who did it and the damage was done now. Surely any advantage that would have been gained from knowledge that blood had been taken by that hooded figure was gone now. Better to keep it a secret. But what about poor Paddy? He was a sweetheart, always so bright and cheerful. She closed her eyes painfully, how would she be feeling if that had been her parents?
"Lily?"
She looked up, "Hmm?"
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, just I feel so bad for Paddy-one of the first years I tutor- his parents' were killed in that," she gestured to the article.
Saffron nodded sympathetically, "and Graham Browning's parents." Graham Browning was a Slytherin who, unsurprisingly, was absent this morning. "And the Eliott's have- had," she corrected, wincing as she put it into the past tense, "a little baby, my mother was best friends with Kerry Eliott at Hogwarts, we went to visit them last time James and I were back home. In fact all of those people were at the school the same time as my mum."
"It's such a mess," Lily said sadly, "how could anyone do something like this? It's completely beyond my understanding!"
Saffron nodded, "pure evil."
"What does it mean by reunion dinner do you think?" Lily asked, poking her finger at the relevant line.
"Well they all knew each other at Hogwarts, you see they all came from Muggle backgrounds and Louise Fletcher, well, she was the Hufflepuff prefect when my mum was a first year- became Headgirl in her final year my mum said. Anyway, she ran this kind of support group I suppose you could call it, for Muggleborns. She was Muggleborn herself, and found that there was a lot of things that those from Wizarding backgrounds did that made Muggelborns feel excluded or less important. Not that they did it intentionally, but she made it almost a personal mission to show that Muggleborns were just as good and should never feel otherwise."
"She sounds like an amazing person," Lily murmured softly.
"Oh she was," Saffron agreed fervently, "my mum idolised her at school, she'll be gutted when she reads this!"
"What did she do when she left Hogwarts?" Lily asked, sipping her tea.
"Well, something in the Ministry, I'm not really into politics and that kind of thing, so if Mum did tell me what she went into I've forgotten. But I'm willing to bet all the money in my vault that it was something to do with Muggleborn Rights." She frowned, trying to remember something, "she had this motto, a Muggle said it first I think, but she loved it so much she adopted it herself….what was it again?... 'No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent', I'm not sure how much I agree with that but-"
"- Elenor Roosevelt," Lily added.
"What?"
"Elenor Roosevelt, that's who said that," Lily said.
"Oh….who's that?"
"She was the First Lady-" Lily paused, trying to think of how to put it into words Saffron would understand, "she was the wife of the ruler of America a long time ago."
"Oh, I see."
After breakfast Lily and Saffron headed back to their common room to pick up their books for the morning's lessons. As they walked along the corridor a small shape came running out of a room to their right and knocked into to both of them.
"Watch it!" shouted Saffron, staggering backwards.
"Paddy?"
Professor McGonagall came out her room, "do you know him well?" she asked.
Lily understood her meaning at once, "Take care of my lessons this morning please," she said, thrusting her bag into Saffron's arms before running off down the corridor after Paddy.
She tore down the corridor and rounded a corner to collide with someone tall, knocking them to the ground.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she apologised, her hands on his warm chest she pushed herself off, colouring slightly.
"That's ok," James replied getting to his feet.
"Look, I've got to go- I really am sorry," her words tumbled over each other as she hurriedly apologised and started to run along the corridor again.
"What's her hurry?" asked Remus.
At the top of the marble staircase she paused and saw him run outside. Clattering down the stairs she followed him.
"Paddy, wait!" she called, "please, wait!"
He paused and turned towards her. His big blue eyes were filled with tears and his lower lip was trembling.
Catching up with him Lily drew him into a tight hug. He burst into tears and she stroked his soft blond hair, whispering soothing noises, 'poor kid!' she thought.
Eventually his tears subsided and they sat down on the grass.
"I'm so very sorry," Lily said sadly, "I can't even imagine what it must be like."
He wiped tears from his face, "you won't…say anything about me-you know?"
'Why did guys always think that crying was shameful?' she wondered with a flash of anger, Paddy shouldn't have to feel he's doing something wrong in crying over the death of his parents'! "No, of course not," she replied comfortingly, "nothing you say to me now will be repeated."
He nodded and there was a long silence before he said slowly, "It was my mum's birthday next week….I'd bought her this box of special chocolates from Diagon Ally, she'd never had them before, they were only brought out recently. But I think she would have liked them…."
Lily felt a lump form in her throat, "I'm sure she would have loved them." She squeezed his hand.
"You know I got top of the class in Charms in that test you tutored me for."
"That's great Paddy, really great. Your parents' would be proud of you."
He nodded and sniffed. They were silent for a while, just sitting there Lily holding his hand, wishing there was something more that she could say-anything to make it less painful for him.
After a while Paddy said, "why do you think it happened?"
"I don't really know," she answered truthfully, "sometimes bad things happen and there's nothing that you can do to change them, no matter how much you want things to be different."
"Maybe there's no point in trying then," he said gloomily, "why bother to try and make things different if you can't?"
"Because it's worth trying, and sometimes there are things you can do to help. Maybe not huge things but small things and they can be just as important. Like being there just to listen when someone you care about is upset, or helping someone when they're struggling with something, or lending someone money when they haven't enough. Maybe one person can't change the world, but you can change the world for one person."
"My mum used to say that," Paddy croaked and sniffed again, then he spoke again his voice fierce and impassioned. "I hope that they catch the people responsible for this and punish them!"
"I'm sure they will. And I promise you Paddy, that I'll do everything in my power to bring the people that did this to justice. Whoever this leader is, one day I'll make sure he will pay for all the hurt he's caused, I swear it to you," she said fervently.
He nodded, giving her a small smile of gratitude. That small smile amidst a time of great sadness from the young boy sat beside her was often a reminder in the times to come of what she was fighting for.
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A/N: Ok people I have one word and I bet you all have amazing telepathic skills and know what it's going to be! Yes, you were right- REVIEW!! ^__^