Author's Note: Hey, all! New chapter, and it's 19 pages long. Haven't had a lot of time to write lately, what with school and harbouring missing persons in our house Saturday night. Yes, it is what it sounds like. We didn't know they were missing until Dad decided to get hold of the one girl's parents to make sure they knew where she was, and discovered that the address she gave me didn't exist. (She said she was an artist, and we exchanged addies in order to send prints of our art back and forth. So much for that. :P)
Anyway - thanks to everyone who reviewed; here's to hoping that this next chapter brings more of the same. Quidditch, Wet!Snape, and Idiot!James all await. Have fun, and try not to destroy the furniture.
chapter nineLily returned to Hogwarts accompanied by a snowstorm so strong that it threatened to waylay the Hogwarts Express on its tracks. She and the other holidaying students made it safely to the school, however, riding on the heels of 1974. Lily noticed several of the upper years looking distinctly hungover.
And now they had arrived at the station. Lily was bundled up in what seemed like metres of wool, but as soon as she stepped off the train the devious cold wormed its way through the layers of cloth to tease and nip at her skin like a spiteful lover. The snow blew past her scarf and gloves and hat, working its way into the gaps between fabric at her wrists and her ankles and her throat. Her breath caught against the weave of her scarf, condensed, and soon frosted over. Not minutes after disembarking from the train had her lips begun to chap.
Cordelia's arm was linked through hers for warmth, and Lily could hear the other girl cursing the storm under her breath. Lily caught a giggle in her throat. The cold was almost unbearable, but the sheer power of the storm quickened Lily's heart like an exclamation point and made her feel alive and excited again. It was a different kind of excitement than what she usually experienced over the holidays; it was a momentary feeling to which she really couldn't put a name.
The wind blew them into the main hall, doing violent things to the flames of the torches on the walls. Lily ripped her cap off, freeing a tumble of wavy red hair and sending wet snow to the ground in clumps. Her cheeks and nose were red from the cold, and her green eyes sparkled. "Cordelia, you look like a snowman," she said, tugging at her friend's arm.
Cordelia growled something unintelligible and unwrapped her scarf, which had been wound many times around her neck. "Merlin's bones," Lily heard her grouse as her movements knocked snow down her collar.
"Filch is going to have a heart attack," Lily said merrily. "Look at all this mud! Oh, the Christmas decorations are still up… fancy that…."
"Hey, Evans!"
Lily turned to see James Potter And Company approaching. "Oh, hey, Potter," she said. "Black. Remus. Where's Peter?"
"Oh, around," said James with an offhand shrug. His knit cap was pulled down around his ears, holding his glasses in place; curls of black hair had escaped their woolly confines, however, and James tugged a stray lock out of his eye. "Have a good Christmas?"
"Lovely, thanks…. And thanks, boys, for the presents; I've got yours in one of my trunks, and I'll get them to you as soon as I unpack. I couldn't get hold of a single package delivery owl at the Office."
"Yeah, the holidays are dreadful," said Sirius, concentrating on rubbing the snow out of his damp black hair. "Lucky thing I have my own bird."
Sirius was interrupted as Cordelia arched up on tiptoe to wave at Eliza, who was leaning over the banister, looking down at the crowd in the main hall.
Lily turned back to beam at James, and she caught him staring at her. Noticing her return his gaze, he jumped slightly and blushed, turning away with a harsh cough.
"Did you have a good time at your parents', Remus?" Lily said, directing her attention to her other friend instead. Remus looked especially chilly, guarded from the chill by only a heavy cape with a hood whose tail was so long he had wrapped it, scarf-like, around his neck. He was wearing a new pair of gloves, though, which Lily was glad to see.
"A very merry Christmas," Remus answered, and his tone was too merry for the look in his eyes. Lily pretended not to notice, though she wondered what the glumness in his expression indicated. Remus wasn't usually morose; he could be pensive at times, but he never seemed downright gloomy. She wondered really how his holidays had been, and remembered her decision not to pry into the boys' matters.
The group pulled together and they made their way up to Gryffindor Tower.
Lily gave Cordelia, Eliza and the boys their Christmas gifts later in the common room. For James she'd gotten a Kennilworthy Whisp book for Sirius, a paperback Louis L'amour novel in the hopes he'd begin to enjoy reading a genre other than high sea adventure; for Remus, she'd found a collection of Muggle fairy tales and folklore with beautiful and grotesque illuminations, and for Peter, who had been showing promise in Defence Against the Dark Arts the past few months, she had bought a book of intermediate jinxes and counter-jinxes.
To Cordelia, who, despite her tomboy attitude, actually did show interest in such things, she gave a small bundle of Muggle makeup – exotic stuff, by wizardborn witch standards – and to Eliza she gave a jewel-toned angora scarf she had found at a consignment shop.
James thanked her earnestly and swore he didn't already have a copy of He Flew Like A Madman; Sirius immediately plopped down on the couch and began to thumb through the western; Remus gave her his soft, glowing smile that informed her that she couldn't have given him a more perfect gift, and Peter shook her hand and blushed and beamed when she told him she was sure he could easily master the spells in Ludwig Eerdmans's Offence and Defence. Cordelia's eyes widened at the sight of the handkerchief full of lipsticks, mascara, eye shadow and blush, and Eliza promptly wrapped the angora scarf around her neck and gave a sigh of contentment.
Lily still had a few gifts to give out, but their recipients didn't reside in Gryffindor Tower.
And she was too tired to hunt them down this evening. Albert Graham, the captain of the Gryffindor team, was rounding up the players to make an early night of it. James and Cordelia left the common room for their respective dormitories, and Lily remembered about the game that was to take place the following day. She cleared up the scattered wrapping paper with a wave of her wand and bid the other boys goodnight before following Cordelia up to the dorm.
The next morning she rose early, despite the fact that it was a Sunday. The sky above the castle was a gloomy grey, and it still snowed, though with less ferocity than the night before. But even from beneath her thick, toasty bedcovers Lily could tell that it was bitter cold out; the leaded windows were crusted with snow and when she put her feet down on the floor she could feel the breeze that had leaked in through the gap in the latch.
She took a scalding hot shower and took her time drying her hair with a complicated, wiggly little charm before donning some new Muggle clothing she had received for Christmas from her parents. And no matter how much she wanted to wear it, she decided against the bulky green sweater her mother had purchased specially for her; it just wouldn't do for a Gryffindor girl to wear green to Gryffindor-Slytherin match, no matter how well it accentuated her eyes.
So she pulled a cream-coloured jumper on over her turtleneck, applied a little mascara, inserted a pair of emerald earrings in her ears – well, she couldn't help it, and they were tiny – and dashed out of the lavatory.
She found Sirius in the common room, haunting the corner by the fireplace. "James still abed, then, I guess?" she said, coming over. Sirius looked up from the book he was reading – the one Lily had bought for him at the little London shop.
"They all are," said Sirius, by which she guessed he meant to indicate the team. "This book is really good."
"Glad you like it. My dad's mad for them; I got the idea from him. Eaten breakfast yet?"
"Nuh-uh."
"I'm going down there now; care to join me?"
He lifted his gaze from the page again, and she saw a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Not that I'm not flattered, but I thought it'd be best to stay up here until this match is over."
Lily laughed. "Oh, yeah. I suppose you don't want to risk a blemish to your pretty face, eh?"
She wondered what kind of hexes would be flying around today, as was standard procedure for the pre-game hype. She wondered if she should rethink her decision to descend down to the Great Hall, but decided that she wasn't as much a – well, a Gryffindor symbol as Sirius and James were, and therefore less of a target for random stalking Slytherins.
So she bid Sirius good-bye and made her way down to breakfast.
By the time of the match, the storm had gathered up momentum again and the snow came down like a million cold hissing darts. Lily glanced at the golden sand in the lower bulb of the hourglass on her bedside table, and then out the window at the sheets of merciless snowflakes.
With a sigh she shut the pages of her book and went to her wardrobe, from which she withdrew her all-weather cloak. She pulled on her ratty-looking leather boots, wrapped a gold scarf around her neck, and left the dormitory, picking up Eliza in the common room and migrating downstairs with the rest of the students. At the doors of the main hall, after checking to make sure her scarf was securely in place, she dug a pair of scraped leather gloves out of her cloak pockets and donned them before venturing out into the cold.
The Quidditch pitch was crawling with students, ranging from the scrawniest, most wet-behind-the-ears first-former to the most sophisticated seventh-year Hogwarts had to offer. The field itself was deserted and white with snow. Lily and Eliza climbed up into the Gryffindor side of the stands and made themselves as comfortable as possible.
It wasn't long until a voice over the magical megaphone turned the students' heads, as one, towards the end of the pitch. The names were announced and the Gryffindor team came speeding out – Graham! Stott! Leithart! McKeeley! Brissett! Young! Potter! – scarlet streaks in the pearl-white pounding storm. And then the rest of the names were called (Carmichael! Moon! Wilkes! Rookwood! Mulciber! Nott! Snape!) and seven emerald blurs erupted from the other side of the pitch, circling overhead like oversized vert hawks.
Master Pruidwick, robed in the customary black and white stripes, stepped onto the field to release the Bludgers from their rattling crate. They swooped upwards, followed swiftly and silently by the Golden Snitch, which glinted soon out of sight. Not a moment later, the flying instructor launched the Quaffle into the air, and the game began.
It was, as expected, brutal. Not ten minutes into the game a player – Louis Leithart, a Gryffindor Chaser – was broadsided by a particularly violent Bludger aimed his way by fifth-year Felix Mulciber. A brief time-out was called so Leithart could benefit from a healing spell. The game then resumed.
Cordelia performed well, despite the fact that the snow was by now coming down so hard Lily could hardly see what was going on without the aid of her enchanted binoculars. She and Graham pulled formations like they'd played together all their lives. Watching them was intoxicating; Lily found herself leaping out of her seat with the rest of the crowd on several occasions, cheering like a mad fanatic.
Above the rest of the players James drifted, and she knew his eyes were darting back and forth in search of his quarry. To the naked eye he was little more than a pinprick of discoloration on the pearly arc of the sky, but when Lily brought her enchanted binoculars to her eyes and fiddled with the focus knob she could see the muscle tic in his jaw and the muscles of his back tense and controlled beneath his flapping red cape. Up there, so much higher above them all, he looked born to fly. Lily felt suddenly embarrassed to be spying on him from where he couldn't see, and she directed her gaze away from him, a blush momentarily stirring warmth in her otherwise frozen cheeks.
She couldn't help keeping an eye on Snape, though. The boy, clothed entirely in black beneath his green and silver cape, zigzagged back and forth over the pitch not much farther below James. She could see him throwing his entire weight (which wasn't much to speak of) against the wind in order to manoeuvre his broom across the pitch. She could see his slight body shuddering in the wind, which had to be considerably strong so high up. Lily watched him dart back and forth, a strange feeling she could not identify roiling low in her stomach. He looked like someone else in his Quidditch robes, gold leather of his gauntlets bright against his black sleeves, face half obscured by the goggles on his face, hair whipping around his face as he crisscrossed over the field.
Lily's attention was drawn from him as Gryffindor scored yet another goal. The count was 110 to 80, in favour of Gryffindor. Lily wondered how much longer this game was going to go on; she could feel herself beginning to freeze to her seat.
As she watched, Frederick Brissett and Matthew McKeeley, the Gryffindor Beaters, smacked both Bludgers at Deimos Moon, who had just retrieved the Quaffle. Moon rolled in midair, dropping the crimson ball down to Wilkes, who caught it neatly and began to speed back to the other end of the pitch. The Bludgers thrummed through the air, and in a giant arc they turned and split, one heading for Charles Nott, the Slytherin Keeper, and the other for Felix Mulciber. Nott dodged, managing to acquire a painful-looking glancing blow on the elbow; Mulciber hefted his Beater's bat and smacked his Bludger in Cordelia's direction.
Next to Lily, Eliza stiffened and made a distressed sound, but Cordelia ducked the Bludger, missing collision by mere centimetres, and continued to chase Wilkes and Moon, who were passing the Quaffle back and forth as they moved down the pitch.
In a minute, Cordelia intercepted the Quaffle in what Lily noted was a rather risky but no doubt effective move and she, in turn, hurled it to Leithart, who caught it and sped back up to the Slytherin end.
There was a roar from the crowd. Lily looked up to see a jet of black and green tearing down the field, soon to be followed closely by a similar vermilion streak.
With an "Ooh!" of excitement, Lily focused her binoculars on the two Seekers, spurred into action by a glint of gold near the central circle of the field.
Snape and James, both stretching for the Snitch, hurtled forward, skimming the snow that covered the green of the pitch, desperate – through her binoculars, Lily could see the anger in James's expression and the fierce determinedness in Snape's – and then, in one agonising moment, it was all over: a burst of speed put Snape ahead just enough to snatch the Snitch right out from under James's nose.
Lily couldn't be sure of exactly what happened next, it was over so quickly. But it appeared that James swerved slightly in his flight path – Lily could only imagine that his distress caused him to falter – and he veered right into Snape, clipping the tail of the other boy's broom. Snape, cupping the Snitch in both hands, was guiding his broomstick only by his knees, and he lost hold and tumbled off. The pitch was a mere two feet beneath him, but his momentum caused him to roll; he fetched up at the base of the central Gryffindor goal post, a heap of green and black and silver amidst the grey-white of the snow.
Lily was caught between the desire to worry at James's mutinous expression and the urge to leap to her feet and cheer along with the rest of the Slytherins. As Eliza, a devout Gryffindor if there ever was one, was sitting right beside her, she opted for the neutral approach and clasped her hands in her lap. "Oh my," she said, leaning to her right so Eliza could hear above the noise of the crowd; "that was interesting, wasn't it?"
The Slytherin team had descended to earth and had joined Snape at the Gryffindor side of the pitch, where several of them were engaged in a sort of victory dance, trampling about in the snow. Snape himself got to his feet, brushing the snow off his clothes and clutching the Snitch tightly in his left hand. He pulled his goggles off over his head and shook his hair out of his eyes, and Lily was sure she had never before seen him looking so alive. His cheeks were flushed from the cold and his face was split in a wickedly triumphant grin, and that alone was enough to warrant total shock.
"James looks furious," said Eliza, pointing towards the dash of scarlet that was the Gryffindor Seeker, standing some distance away from the exultant Slytherins. She was right; James looked downright murderous, and rightly so, Lily supposed: she could only remember one other time in which the Slytherin team had beaten the Gryffindors so spectacularly, and that had been two years ago, when both James and Snape had been brand-new to their respective teams.
"He'll get over it," said Lily. "Eventually."
Students started filing out of the stands, the Slytherins pouring out onto the field to congratulate their players. The Gryffindor team wandered off the pitch, and Lily and Eliza climbed down from the stands and returned to the castle.
Half an hour later, the majority of the team had returned to the common room. Eliza and Lily welcomed Cordelia into their circle by the fire, complimenting her warmly on her impressive Chasing.
"I didn't know you were that good," said Eliza, picking at a snag on a fingernail. "I mean, I knew you were good, but I didn't know you were that good."
"Would've been a lot better if we'd won," Cordelia grumbled. She'd been rather grumpy since she returned from the showers.
"You did a great job," Eliza reassured her. "James did his best, but Snape just got to the Snitch first. You know. You win some, you lose some."
"Where is James?" Lily said, but just then the portrait hole opened and a soggy-looking boy stomped in, his red, slightly mud-stained cloak thrown over one shoulder.
"Spoke too soon," Eliza commented.
The three girls watched as James stalked through the common room and up the stairs to the boys' dormitories; moments later, Sirius, who had been sitting on the opposite side of the fire, could be seen following him up.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Boys," she said.
"Think I'll go down and see if they're serving dinner in the Great Hall yet," said Cordelia, getting up and stretching. She rubbed her left arm, where her wand was stored up her sleeve. "See you two later… unless you want to come with me?"
Lily had gotten to her feet, as well. "I'm going to stop by the library," she said. "I'll go that far with you. But wait a second while I go get my stuff from the dorm."
Cordelia gave a huffy sigh, no doubt exasperated by Lily's penchant for camping out in the library even on the weekends, but she waited. Lily wasted no time and ran up and grabbed her book bag. She returned to the common room and caught up with Cordelia, and the girls left the tower together.
They parted company at the corridor the library was located on. Lily wandered into the musty-smelling rooms that made up Madame Pince's domain, glancing around expectantly. But he wasn't there, as she'd hoped, only a few older Slytherins and a Ravenclaw or two in the Beasts section.
So she turned around to leave, earning a suspicious look from the librarian on her way out. She descended further into the depths of the castle, taking winding, steadily darker corridors downwards, until she found herself wandering through the bowels of the dungeons, where the Potions classroom and the disused labs were located.
But he wasn't down there, either. With a sigh, Lily turned and began the tiring ascent back up to Gryffindor.
And as she passed through the second floor, she met him coming out of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, clutching an armful of books. His hair was slightly damp, was scraped away from his face and pulled behind his ears – it was just long enough for that when it was wet, Lily noticed; when it was dry, it wouldn't tuck back like that, would slip forward to hide his eyes and his admittedly good cheekbones. She waved at him, called his name softly: "Snape!"
He looked up right away, hand jerking towards his right sleeve, but he recognized her and she saw him relax slightly.
"What do you –," he began, but she cut him off smartly, wishing to avoid any unpleasant exchanges:
"Have a good holiday, Snape?"
That tactic didn't work as well as she had hoped; his black eyes flashed angrily, and his hold tightened on his books. "Mind your own business, Evans," he snarled, striding forward, as if to brush past her.
Surprised, she didn't think about the consequences as she caught at his sleeve. "Wait, hold on, there!" she said, and jerked her hands back as he snatched his arm away. "I just wanted to – you did really well out there today, Snape. At the game."
His eyes flickered with brief confusion, then suspicion.
Hopefully, she pressed on, maintaining a cautious distance between them. "You were – really on form, and I – I just wanted to tell you congratulations."
He stared at her, nostrils flaring. After a moment he spoke curtly: "Evans, give it up."
She blinked. "Eh?"
"Let me guess. Your little girlfriends are right around the corner, laughing their heads off at this highly unamusing little joke. Whatever you're trying to do – bait me, or whatever – give it up. You're doing an embarrassingly poor job of it, and I don't fool easily, anyway."
Lily had been expecting something like this. She shrugged, and looked away as she began to rummage through her bag. "Well, be that way if you like," she said. "I'm not going to convince you of anything you don't want to believe, and I admit you've got plenty of reason to be suspicious of me… though I didn't actually do anything to you, now that I think about it…." Finding what she had been searching for, she looked up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "In any case, here's to hoping your Christmas wasn't as miserable as you let on." She extended her hand, and Snape stared down at it.
He didn't say anything for a moment. And then: "What is that?"
"Take them and see."
He glared at the parcel in her hand. "How do I know that's not some Zonko's product that'll – bite my fingers off or something?"
Lily gave him a sceptical look. "Does it look like a Zonko's product to you? Just takeit already, Snape. Cast finite incatatem on it if you must."
To her relief, Snape finally gave in and took the packet from her. His eyebrows lifted slightly as his eyes caught the lettering on the back, which gratified Lily immensely – she'd surprised him, and not in a terribly bad way, judging from his current expression.
He did shift his books to his other arm and cast a quick revealing charm on the package, but nothing happened, and when he spoke his voice was carefully blank.
"That's decent of you, Evans," he said, looking up from the packet of Jobberknoll feathers.
"You're welcome," Lily said, trying her best not to smirk. "And happy New Year. I guess today was a pretty good start, eh?"
Eyes twinkling, she turned and left before he could say anything in reply, feeling the warmth of a good deed done and the triumphant tingle of a battle well won spreading through her down to her toes.
Severus stared at the paper packet in his hands, through the little cellophane window at the blue brown-speckled feathers inside. What could she mean by it, he wondered; what did she want from him? Sweet, redheaded Gryffindor girls did not give him Christmas presents; did not congratulate him on a game well played – even if he did deserve it – and definitely did not twinkle at him while offering strangely sincere-sounding encouragements.
It was highly unsettling, all of it, and more than slightly suspicious.
He heard a brush of cloth in the corridor behind him, and he turned to see Vera Rhine, the Defence professor, leaning against the jamb of her classroom door. She wore a strange expression, one that gave him the impression that she'd witnessed the entire exchange with Evans, but what she thought of it was incomprehensible from the look on her face. One pale eyebrow was arched on her forehead, but she said nothing, and after a moment she withdrew into her classroom again, her long navy-blue robes scraping the stone floor, stiff with starch.
Severus gathered his wits and hastened from that corridor, not looking back.
In his dormitory again, he put the packet of feathers among his other potions ingredients, quashing the urge to set it aside, a memento of sorts – why in the name of Merlin would he harbour such an urge, even if only momentarily? Exceedingly irritated with himself, he slammed the lid of his trunk shut, locked it, and clambered up on top of his bed.
He wondered if the outcome of this game would at all aid his reputation amongst the Slytherins. He doubted it. If there were any change in the way his housemates treated him, it would be short-lived. After all – and he hated to admit this, he really, really did – there was no way he could keep making scores like that against James Potter. Today had been a lucky occasion. And usually he would have said he didn't believe in such things – luck, that is – but there wasn't any other way to explain the victory except by the excuse of fortitude and altitude. He'd been closer to the Snitch to begin with, Potter being occupied flying far above usual playing height. Severus had been nearer the ground, and it was the combined factors of the head start he'd gotten and sheer will power that he'd caught up with that Snitch before Potter.
And now he'd have to really watch his back. He'd seen Potter's expression. There wasn't any way Potter was going to let him get away with this one, not when he had louts like Black backing him up.
I guess today was a pretty good start, eh?
Ha.
Severus snorted aloud at the thought.
It really couldn't have been worse.
Lessons with Snape and James resumed the next week, tentatively scheduled for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays again. Snape was in an unusually bad mood Tuesday evening, which made her nervous, and by a stroke of pure bad luck she shook too much scale emulsion into the potion she was brewing, and caused it to explode.
Snape bodily shoved her out of the classroom after that.
He hadn't forgotten about it by Thursday, but he was in a much better mood by then, by Snape's standards. James, however….
"James!"
Lily gave a shriek as the book he'd been demonstrating a particular spell on leapt up and started flapping noisily and somewhat frighteningly around Lily's ears. She flailed at it, and managed to subdue it with a Freezing Charm. Gasping slightly, she laid it down on the table, and slumped in her seat.
"Okay, James, what's up?"
James looked up at her. His expression was unusually hostile, and somewhat guilty. "What?"
"You've been fudging up spells all evening. You must have something on your mind."
"You bet I bloody do," she heard him mutter, but he spoke in a louder tone, "Why don't we end the lesson for this evening? We can pick up where we left off next Wednesday."
Lily gave him a perplexed look. "Well, okay, but would you mind telling me what's the matter?"
James's lip lifted in a highly uncharacteristic sneer. "I'll tell you what's the matter," he said. "It's Snape, that's what's the matter."
Lily was silent for a moment, searching for the right thing to say. She decided on a careful "Ah."
James stood up abruptly, shoving his hands in his pockets, withdrawing them again, rumpling his hair in an aggravated manner. "Bloody git. Strutting about like some – some star, as if one win makes him king of the world – Merlin, he makes me sick." He gave a shudder.
Lily stared up at her friend as he paced. The boy had issues; there was no doubt about that. "Won't you sit down?" she said at last, growing tired of watching him circle his chair. "You're making me nervous. Are you really still fretting about that match?"
He snorted, but didn't answer.
"Look, James, that wasn't your fault. Wasn't anybody's fault." She cringed at her own words. She couldn't get much closer to cliché than that. "Hey. Snape just had a good game; that was all. Everybody has their days, you know?"
James glared. "You're missing the point, Lily."
Lily raised her eyebrows. "And what would that be, exactly?"
James gave a huffy sigh. "The fact that he won at all, obviously."
Lily leaned back, surprised. "What?"
The boy gave a laugh that anything but amused. "He shouldn't have won at all. I should have beat him. Snape's passable, I'll admit that much – but not – he's not – "
" – Terrific, is that what you're saying?" said Lily. "You're better than him, eh?"
"Well, yeah! I'm a natural." He said the word as if it was a magic spell. "Snape shouldn't have had a chance. I'm a better flyer, a better player, a better Seeker – " James ran his hand through his hair again, making it lick upwards untidily. "I should have won."
Lily leaned forward across the table towards James and touched his hand to make sure she had his attention. "James," she said, "listen to me. At the risk of sounding textbook, I ask you whether there's anything you could have done, given the situation, to have altered the outcome of that match. No, that was a rhetorical question," she added hastily as James opened his mouth to answer. "I'm trying to make a point here, James. Listen. You've never lost a game in the two years you've been playing on that team. Not once, am I right?"
James responded in the affirmative, looking dubious.
Lily gave a judicious little nod. "So you're telling me that you basically expected to continue on in that manner, until leaving school, never having lost once, always making the perfect score, as if you're somehow superhuman and above the rest of us imperfect people? Is that it?"
James opened his mouth again, but Lily shook her head. "Everybody messes up eventually, James, even at what we're best at. You just had a longer grace period than is granted to the rest of us. Just because you'd never lost before didn't mean you wouldn't – or still won't, if it comes to it. You're human, James, and bound to make mistakes. It's an enlightened human that learns not to take these kinds of mistakes too hard. Losing Sunday didn't make you a failure – "
James cut in here, sounding exasperated and a little defensive. "I don't think I'm a failure!"
"You know what I mean, James. Do you intend on playing badly in the future?"
"Of course not!"
"Then why all the fuss? Do your best, and try to be happy with it." She sat up straighter suddenly, shrugged in a businesslike manner. "That's all the advice I can give you."
She stood up, began packing away her things. As she piled her books back into her satchel, she heard James speak.
"He shouldn't have won," he muttered.
Lily left the classroom without responding.
Good grief, she thought as she walked down the corridor outside, could he be any more self-obsessed? She was amazed at his point-blank refusal to accept that Snape's victory wasn't an indication that he was inferior. He acted as though the fact that Snape won that particular game undermined all his other triumphs. He seemed to think that he should just give up here and now just because he lost for once in his life.
Lily snorted. Talk about unsound logic. No, this wasn't a matter of logic, she corrected herself – she was beginning to think that darling James was just a tad insecure. Perhaps a ridiculous idea at first glance – James Potter, Quidditch god, hero of the Gryffindors, insecure? Pah! – but Lily wasn't any stranger to psychology in general, and James on the conversational side of things showed his insecurity like the dangerous undertow in a benign-looking river.
She continued to mull over the idea as she made her way to Gryffindor.
James made himself scarce the next few weeks. For that matter, so did Sirius and Peter; it got to the point where the only times she saw the boys was during classes and the occasional glimpses in the hallways after school hours. Since that last evening Lily hadn't had any more transfiguration lessons with James, and she was amazed to discover that her tutoring of Snape didn't suffer at all, except for her initial lack of confidence which Snape noticed and nipped in the bud with several scathing remarks that, despite their unnecessary sting, were no doubt effective.
In between school and working potions with Snape, Lily had once again taken up her work with the cassette-player problem. She'd had an idea; a rather brilliant one, she flattered herself, one which entailed a jumble of clumsy components such as brass and silver buttons and wooden dowels and modelling clay. It sounded more like some sort of Muggle craft project than a device for reading and amplifying data on cassette tapes, true, but Lily didn't consider herself much of an inventor and what she had in mind was promising, for a first try. She had high hopes – a sure recipe for disappointment, she knew, but though her head operated on logical standards, her heart didn't always follow the same pattern. It was one of her major failings; a fact she was more than aware of long before Snape ever pointed it out.
In any case, she wrote her mother requesting a few odds and ends she thought might come in handy. A week later, she was rewarded with a box of items that Cordelia, wizardborn witch that she was, laughed uproariously over.
"You're actually going to make something useful out of these things?" Cordelia said, indicating the narrow dowels, the stubby erasers, and the curling strands of wire.
Lily shrugged. "Hopefully."
"I don't believe it," said Cordelia. "I'm sorry, but I simply cannot imagine what in Merlin's name you could do with this junk."
Lily had merely smiled and gone off to the dormitory to sort out the items her mother had sent.
She held off on starting assembly of her device, mostly just out of procrastination, and partly because her studies were becoming a burden. The end of year tests were approaching at the usual rate, but the professors seemed bent on preparing them ahead of time for their fifth year. Lily was bogged down with schoolwork, and towards the end of March she began to feel the slow burning panic that accompanied the knowledge that she was falling behind.
At last, she decided to skip a trip to Hogsmeade in order to devote a day entirely to catching up on her studies. Cordelia protested, but Lily ignored her until she finally clattered out of the dormitory. Her books and writing things crammed into her bag, Lily made her way down to the library, dodging Peeves, who was entertaining himself by bombing random passers-by with dusty chalkboard erasers, and Filch, who was on the prowl for suspicious-looking students.
She set her things up at a secluded single table in the Herbology section, and then resigned herself to a solitary day of drudgery.
By the time the students started trickling back to the school, Lily just finished off her last essay, a four-footer on the subject of goblin wars in the twelfth century. Blowing on the ink in the hopes that it would speed the drying process, she finally began packing her things back in her bag, stretching her aching back and throbbing wrist. Satisfied that her essay was dry, she rolled the parchment up and tied it with a piece of string, labelling it carefully and tucking it into her bag alongside half a dozen other scrolls of similar length. She waved at a Ravenclaw she recognized from her charms group, nodded at Madame Pince – she didn't notice; she was scribbling something in what looked like a file book of some sort – and left the library.
Cordelia and Eliza weren't back yet when she got to Gryffindor, so after putting away her things – with a sense of great satisfaction and relief – she got her cloak from the wardrobe and went out for a walk around the castle grounds.
The layers of snow that had iced the grounds for the last few months had begun to melt, leaving scabs of dirty white in pocks and dips in the earth. The trees were bare and lonely without their leaves and without the lines of ice caking their branches down. The grounds were dreary and cold. Mud sucked at Lily's wellies, squelching when she lifted her feet. The sky was overcast, and as she looked up she saw an owl flap towards the castle, a black speck against the grey blanket of clouds.
She got out of the mud in favour of walking a gravel path that led down past the gamekeeper's hut into the valley, which preluded the mountain range that protected Hogwarts from the back. She had no intention of following that path all the way down, as it eventually led into a finger of the Forbidden Forest, but she stopped at a crest of hill and looked down, down, down into the wooded valley, and the grey-white path that dipped and wound and eventually disappeared into that dark stretch of wood.
"No' a very nice day fer a walk."
Lily stiffened in surprise and turned to see the massive gamekeeper thumping towards his hut, a sack hoisted over his shoulder. "It's cool out," she said in reply, shrugging her shoulders beneath her cloak.
"Aye," said Hagrid, nodding. "Bu' it'll be gettin' warmer soon. Yeh best enjoy the cool while yeh can."
"I intend to," Lily said. "What's that you're carrying?"
Hagrid looked at the sack, which was stained darkly with what looked like blood. "Steaks," he said. "Got a sick thestral in pumpkin patch. Needs feedin' up. They like their meat raw."
"Ah," said Lily, who had no idea what a thestral was. "Right."
"Yeh can't see it, can you?" said Hagrid.
Lily was puzzled by this question. "Beg pardon?"
"No' ev'rybody can see thestrals," the gamekeeper explained. "On'y people who seen death can see 'em."
"Oh."
"Yeah, some think it's unlucky to see 'em," Hagrid continued. "Bringers o' death, and so on. Bu' they're really very useful beasts… 'mazin sense of direction, they 'ave; ain' any better way ter get where yeh wan' ter go."
"Really."
Hagrid swung the sack off his shoulder and opened it up. Inside Lily could see globs of wet, red meat, which the gamekeeper dug his hands into and began tossing in the direction of the vegetable patch. Lily's eyes widened as she watched the chunks of steak rise off the ground and disappear down some invisible craw.
"Whoa!"
Hagrid didn't seem to hear her. He continued to feed the invisible force that was devouring meat at an unbelievable rate.
"They sure eat a lot," Lily said after a moment. "How big are they, Hagrid?"
Hagrid glanced over his massive shoulder to regard her with his beetle-black eyes. "No bigger 'n yer common horse, I don' think. Li'l bonier, o' course, bu' tha's ter be expected."
"What do they eat? Besides steak, I mean."
Hagrid straightened up, wiping bloody hands on his trousers. "Oh, they'll eat jus' abou' anythin' wi' blood in. Huntin' on their own, though, they usually go fer smaller animals, like birds an' badgers. Sometimes small deer."
"They can catch birds?" Lily asked, interested.
"Oh, yeah," Hagrid said. "They're real good flyers. O' course, I got the school thestrals trained not to go after owls, but in the wild they'll go after anythin' wi' wings."
"Oh, so they fly!"
"O' course they fly! They go' wings, don' they?"
"Well, I couldn't exactly see to tell," Lily said.
"Oh, right."
"Why does the school have them, Hagrid?" Lily asked.
"They pull the school carriages," Hagrid told her. "Didn' anybody e'er tell yeh?"
"No," Lily said. "My friends and I were under the impression that the carriages were enchanted or something."
Hagrid chuckled. "Nah, not enchanted. We got a whole herd o' thestrals, livin' in the Forest. Go' abou' forty or fifty now."
"Wow!"
"Say, yeh wan' to try feedin' one?"
Lily felt her stomach squirm. "What, now?"
"Yeah."
"But I can't see him."
"Don' matter," Hagrid shrugged. "Here. Just take out some steak and toss it over there." He held out the sack, and Lily peered in at the mess of raw meat inside. She intended to object, but decided it couldn't possibly hurt anything to try – and Hagrid was obviously dead pleased at the idea of a student taking interest in such work, she found it difficult to protest.
So she pulled off one of her gloves and reached into the bag for a handful of meat.
It was cold and squishy, and when she took it, the blood ran down her wrist and into her sleeve. She ignored that, and gingerly, she tossed it into the vegetable patch, where the invisible thestral immediately snatched it up and wolfed it down.
"There!" Hagrid cried, sounding quite pleased. "Tha' wasn' bad at all. Reckon you'd like ter pat 'im, eh?"
"Oh, that's quite all right," Lily said, digging through her pockets with her clean hand for a handkerchief.
"Oh, it's no trouble a' all… jus' let me finish feedin' 'im."
As he tossed the rest of the raw steaks to the thestral, Lily wiped the blood off her hand and wrist. She watched the meat disappear with a rapidity she witnessed only in post-Quidditch match victory feasts, and remarked, "If that's what a sick thestral looks like at mealtime, I'm afraid to think of how much a healthy one eats."
"This one's not eaten in three days, by my guess," said Hagrid. "I found 'im in the Forest this mornin', torn wing an' broken leg. Reckon 'e go' blown into a tree durin' that storm las' week. An' along wi' tha', 'e's sufferin' from pneumonia from th' cold and wet."
"How dreadful! Do you think he'll make it?"
Hagrid nodded, looking fairly certain of himself. "Yeah, Gabba here's a strong-willed sort. Don' think there's much could take him down, 'cept maybe a chimera."
"How long will it be 'til he gets better, do you think?"
"Oh, week, mebbe two." He shrugged. "Depends on how soon I can get Ma'am Pomfrey down here to fix those broken bones."
Lily raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you do it?" she asked.
Hagrid shook his head, turned away slightly. "No' really allowed," he muttered. "Couldn' do it even if they hadn' broken me wand…. Ahem."
Lily blushed. "Well, I'm sure it's a pretty difficult spell," she said, pretending she hadn't heard his last remark. "But why are you taking care of – um – "
"Gabba," Hagrid supplied helpfully.
"Gabba. Right. Why isn't Professor Kettleburn doing it?"
Hagrid snorted. "Oh, him. Well, he can't see 'em, for one thing. And for another, not to speak badly about a professor or anythin', but he prob'ly couldn' take two steps toward Gabba here without getting his other hand ripped off."
"Thestrals are dangerous?" Lily said doubtfully.
"Well, not these ones," Hagrid assured her. "These ones are 'specially well trained."
Lily didn't answer.
She watched the rest of the steaks disappear into the invisible black hole that was Gabba's throat, and then Hagrid suggested she step forward and give the thestral a pat. Lily squatted in the muddy vegetable patch, inching forward until the smell of bloody meat and animal musk met her nostrils. She stretched out her ungloved hand, and after a few moments of patting thin air, her fingertips came to rest on a leathery surface, which, she surmised, was the thestral's neck.
She ran her fingers across slightly scaly flesh, feeling coarse, wiry hairs and pockmarks here and there. "What colour is it?" she asked Hagrid softly, following the play of muscles and skin up to the thestral's head, which was slightly more hairy and bony.
"Black," said Hagrid. "An' 'e's got a bit o' skin rot on 'is right side, so it's a bit greyer o'er there."
Lily jerked her fingers back as the thestral turned his head, but when she discovered that he only wanted to sniff against her palm, she extended her fingers once again.
Behind Gabba's ears were thin, leathery flaps of skin, in some places thin enough to have torn. "Is that normal, Hagrid?" Lily asked, tentatively fingering a hole bigger around than her little finger. "Those holes, I mean."
"Yeah," Hagrid said. "Dunno what those flaps are, though. On'y the males 'ave 'em."
Lily ran her fingers down the matted bit of scruff between the invisible creature's ears, down the bridge of the nose to a rather beaky muzzle. It was damp, and her fingers came away bloody. She wiped them clean with her now-filthy handkerchief.
"He's shivering," she noted.
"Yeah, well, thestrals don' have much meat on 'em," said Hagrid dismissively. "Nor hair. Bu' usually they aren' affected by th' cold… Gabba's feelin' poorly, though, which migh' accoun' fer that."
Gabba snuffled against her shoulder as she rubbed the creature's ridged neck. "He's a real sweetie, isn't he," she said.
"Can be, though you'd be th' firs' t' admit it," Hagrid chuckled. "Yeh wouldn' wan' ter get on a thestral's bad side, even if it is well-trained."
Lily didn't reply, but gave the thestral a final pat and got to her feet. She turned to face the gamekeeper. "I don't think I've ever introduced myself," she said. "I'm Lily. Lily Evans."
"Pleased ter meet yeh," he said, and shook her hand. His huge one totally enveloped hers, and he shook hard enough that Lily feared her shoulder had been wrenched from its socket. "I'm – "
" – Rubeus Hagrid, I know," Lily smiled, rubbing her shoulder and trying not to wince.
"Keeper of Keys and Grounds here at Hogwarts," Hagrid grinned.
"What exactly does that job entail?" Lily asked. "Other than nursing injured thestrals back to health, that is."
"Oh, anythin'," Hagrid said with a wave of his hand. "Tendin' vegetable patches for Professor Sprout; keepin' bugbears and the like out of the school henhouse; makin' sure that critters in the Forest are doin' all righ', and stayin' off the open grounds. I done a fair bit o' work on the pathways – they all wash ou' in bad weather, yeh know. An' I take care of the main gates. They get temper'mental in the winter."
"Do you like your job?" Lily inquired.
"Oh, yeah," Hagrid said, nodding enthusiastically. "Dumbledore offered me th' job an' I couldn' wait ter start. Great man, Dumbledore, an' don' you ever doubt it."
"I couldn't possibly," Lily said softly. "When I got my first letter from Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore himself came to my house to explain things to my parents. I'm Muggleborn. My parents thought it was a prank of some sort, but when he showed him what he could do…."
Hagrid nodded wisely. "No' many can refuse Albus Dumbledore."
There was a brief silence between them, disrupted by the sound of Gabba coughing quietly to himself. A breeze teased the bare trees, making them sway and moan. The pines at the edge of the Forest whistled to each other.
At length, Lily pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders and spoke. "Well, thanks for telling me about thestrals," she said, taking a step back from the gameskeeper who was scratching his charge's transparent neck. "And I hope Gabba gets better soon."
"No problem," said Hagrid. "An' if you find th' time, I'd be glad to have yeh over for afternoon tea."
"I'll keep that in mind," Lily smiled, and turned to go. "It was nice meeting you properly."
She left Hagrid and returned to the warmth of Gryffindor Tower.
Eliza and Cordelia had returned, and were looking for her.
"Where've you been?" Eliza asked, more curious than accusing as Lily padded out of the lavatory, having just finished washing the blood off her hands.
"Yeah, we've been looking for you since we got back," said Cordelia. "We brought you some sweets from Honeydukes."
Lily removed her cloak and tossed it over the back of a chair. Its hem was muddy; it would have to be washed before she could wear it again. "You didn't have to," she said. "And I was with the gamekeeper. Hagrid."
"Ah," said Cordelia, sounding as if the notion didn't interest her a bit. "Here, catch," she said, and Lily held out her hands as her friend tossed her a paper sack with the Honeydukes logo emblazoned on the front in green and pink.
"Thanks."
"No problem."
Lily opened up the sack and peered inside at about a pound of brightly wrapped Honeydukes sweets. "Oh, these look good. Anyway, Hagrid's pretty neat. He told me all about thestrals." And then she proceeded to tell them what she'd learned.
"You know," Cordelia said thoughtfully, gnawing on a piece of fruit-flavoured taffy, "I think I've heard of thestrals. Big black beasts with glowing white eyes and rotten-looking skin. They're supposed to be bad omens."
"That's what Hagrid said," said Lily. "Only he said that's a common misconception and they're actually pretty useful… says they have a good sense of direction."
"So does a compass," Cordelia smirked.
"Yeah, but you can't hop on the back of a compass and fly to London, now, can you," said Lily.
"This is true," Eliza said, pointing at her with the rubber end of her pencil.
"Anyway," Lily sighed, popping a hard nub of sugar into her mouth, "at least I finished my school work. I spent hours in that library… ugh." Lily got up and walked over to the wardrobe and began to unbutton her shirt, the right cuff of which was stained with blood. "I think I did pretty well on my essay for Professor Flitwick, though. I found a ton of stuff on the evolution of those charms he was talking about in the last couple of questions. Did you know they originated in Africa?"
"You are such a geek, Evans," Cordelia said lazily from the end of her bed.
"I know," Lily grinned, tossing her stained blouse over the end of her bed. "I take pride in the fact." She found one of the comfortable jumpers her mother had given her for Christmas and pulled it on over her head. "I feel inferiority as a result of my unfortunate Muggle parentage, and I am compelled to deal with it by overachieving," she said. At the silence that followed her words, she added, "That was a joke, by the way."
"Your humour is overwhelmingly unfunny," said Cordelia.
"I like my sarcasm dry, thank you," said Lily.
At that moment, the door opened and Lara came in, bearing several full shopping bags in her arms.
"Weren't you supposed to be back, like, an hour ago?" said Cordelia, glancing up at the girl. Lara merely sniffed and dumped her bags on her bed.
"For your information, Stott, I got back a full quarter of an hour before you did. I was with Professor Sprout, helping her string up dried Penumbra Pods."
"Interesting," said Lily. "Say, what's in the bags?" Lara wasn't known for her extravagant spending, and for her to return from Hogsmeade with a wagonload of stuff was unusual.
"It's my twin sisters' birthday in a week," said Lara loftily. "Mum gave me their birthday wish lists and had me do her shopping."
"You'll need a mess of owls to get that home," Cordelia said, nodding at the four big bags.
"Thank you for that enlightening bit of information, Curmudgeon."
"Will you two cool it?" said Eliza, looking up from her book in irritation.
"Don't tell me what to do," Lara squawked, but Cordelia merely waved a bored hand and fell silent.
Lily fished a book out from under her bed and flopped down on top of the covers to relax.
That Wednesday she brought her box of 'junk' to her charms session. If there was any student in the castle who could help her with her project, she was sure they could be found in the charms study group. The group was about a dozen or so in number, with talented members ranging from fourth-years like Lily to seventh-years like Gryffindor Head Boy Joseph Young.
When she first brought it up, blank stares met her proposition. She belatedly remembered that most of these students were wizardborn and had probably never even heard of cassette tapes, except perhaps in passing in a Muggle Studies class.
Narcissa Black was the first to speak up. Narcissa was a Ravenclaw, and, as the surname suggested, she was indeed related to Sirius, though he would prefer not to divulge such information. Lily could sympathise; if she had been related to Narcissa Black, she would have tried to keep it secret, too. The girl was a Ravenclaw, and quite bright, but she had the disposition typically reserved by the worst of Slytherins. "Evans," she said in a syrupy tone, "would you be ever so kind and enlighten the rest of us as to exactly why you are bringing up such a subject at this meeting? If you'll remember, this is not an arts and crafts class, but a charms revision group. We're here to study practical charms and theories, not to illegally experiment with arcane Muggle artefacts."
Lily felt her face heat up. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out – she couldn't think of a thing to say in response to that, and the moment for a clever response was rapidly moving father and farther out of grasp.
But she was rescued, and by a Slytherin, no less: "Don't bite, Black," said a girl Lily only knew as Maria. "Evans is Muggleborn, but that's no reason to belittle an interesting proposition." She turned to regard Lily, a cool expression on her face. "My father was a Muggle, Evans," she said; "I know what you're talking about. And I believe Hume over there does, too." She nodded towards a tawny-haired Gryffindor girl sitting on the other side of the table.
"So do I," said William Wallace, a sixth-year Hufflepuff. "And I think it's a brilliant idea."
Lily, heartened by Maria and Wallace's statements, found her tongue again and addressed Narcissa. "And it's not illegal," she said. "I did some research. Buttons and wire and the like aren't inherently Muggle – meaning we wizards and witches also employ the use of such items, as opposed to toasters or electrical floor lamps, for example." She put certain emphasis on the pronoun we. "Therefore, it is perfectly legal to experiment on them." She allowed a slight smirk to touch her lips. "I did my research, you see."
"In any case," said Maria in a bored tone, "if anyone cares to know more about this device Evans is dreaming up, please say so, and keep in mind that our goal here is to learn, and not to exclude certain notions and ideas purely out of, ah, predisposition."
There was a show of hands, and Lily suddenly realised that her group was voting on whether or not to examine more closely a bundle of theories she had produced. Anxiety stirred for a moment in the pit of her stomach, replaced soon by a swell of pride when Maria announced that the majority of hands belonged to her.
"Right," said Maria decisively. "Evans, the floor is yours."
Lily started, cleared her throat, and adjusted the position of the cardboard box on the table. "Uh. Right. So… Hume and Wallace; you both know about cassettes. Is there anyone else…?"
She trailed off as several other people – more than she'd expected – nodded. "Okay, Young, Pratt, Moor, Townshend, and, er…."
"Bahnsen. Teresa Bahnsen."
"Bahnsen. Okay. Do any of you know how the cassette player works? No. All right, let me explain." And she launched into what she hoped was a concise, enlightening explanation on the concept of input and output transducers.
When she finished, several minutes later, she said in an apologetic tone, "I hope I've expressed myself clearly, though I'm not sure how much of that you wizardborn students understood. Do any of you have questions?"
Narcissa Black twitched a finger. "Yes, I have one, Evans," she said lazily. "What gives you the nerve to come in here and take over this revision session with silly, unimportant personal projects?"
"Relevant questions," Maria clarified in a loud voice.
"Oh, I believe my inquiry was perfectly relevant, Welteislehre," Narcissa said in a velvety tone. "I'd like to get the key issues out of the way before the rest of this group is led into a vain course of action that will benefit neither parties, Evans included."
"So forward thinking is no longer beneficial?" said Maria, before Lily could even begin to think of a response for Narcissa Black's hard, cold pale eyes.
"Colour me surprised," Lily heard Catherina Townshend mutter to her neighbour.
"I didn't say that," Narcissa said softly.
"You certainly implied it," Maria said.
"I said that I believed this project a pointless venture. There are better ways to assist our official studies here, and I believe this would be far more trouble than its worth, that it will not profit us to set aside time for it."
Lily took offence at that. "Hey," she said, rising to her feet, glaring at the pale-haired young woman and clenching her fist on the tabletop. "Excuse me, but this project is more than beneficial to us, both as students of Hogwarts and citizens of the wizarding world. Not only will it challenge us as charmworkers, but it will challenge our inventiveness and improve our ability to improvise. And even if it's not especially beneficial to the wizarding world at large, it will no doubt help us on our paths to competency as witches and wizards."
"Well said, Evans," said Joseph Young appreciatively.
Maria's blue eyes glittered. "If you don't care to contribute to this project, Black, I suggest you just say so and go back to your own studies." She looked around the table. "And that goes for the rest of you sceptics. Don't make the assumption that we're going to force this on anybody. Those interested, stay put, and if you're not, well, we won't hold it against you if you say so. Certainly many of you have your own agendas, and prefer to stick to them." She looked pointedly at Narcissa. "However, Black, I refuse to accept your bigoted attitude with a smile. Five points from Ravenclaw for being generally unpleasant and narrow-minded."
Several people registered surprise, including Lily. She hadn't forgotten that Maria was the Head Girl, but she hadn't expected a Slytherin, even one with a Muggle parent, to take the side of a Muggleborn Gryffindor. Obviously, neither did Narcissa, though she didn't seem as surprised as she should have.
Her grey eyes glinting like knives, she slowly got to her feet, packing her satchel over her shoulder. Throwing one final filthy look at Maria, she turned and silently left the library.
"Well," Maria said smartly, "now that we've got that out of the way… anyone care to skip out?"
No one did.
"Right, then. Go ahead, Evans."
Lily's teeth were chattering as she stood up and began to speak again.