(A/N This had got to be the most fun I have ever had writing. I had such a good time playing with characters and scenery and Hogwarts and—and—everything! Please read. Reviews are currently saving the Ginko Tree)
Chapter 16 Dueling Club
Lily made no move to mention to anyone else about their switch. Truthfully, Ally was relieved Lily didn't. Although they did tell Pria and Carla after Pria had attempted to start a conversation with Lily about snorkel wasps and Lily was dumbfounded as to what to say. They woke up the next morning as themselves, thankfully. Lily avoided James at all costs and Ally apologized to Sirius for screaming so loudly. So far, Lily hadn't made any mention about her teaching the Dueling Club on Thursday.
Ally was anxious for classes to end, sadly, the Professors felt differently. Professor McGonagall seemed determined to assign so much homework that it would last all through break. Luckily for Ally, her talking hat wanted to help.
"No, that's spelt H—U—M, not H—U—R."
"Whoops, sorry." Ally scribbled out her misspelled word and wrote in the correct spelling.
"Thanks, Dr. Hack."
She decided to name the hat. No point in continuing calling it 'hat', besides, Ally thought the name was funny, Dr. Hack agreed. Thanks to Dr. Hack, Ally had advance in transfiguration from transfiguring shoes to a bird, to transfiguring a chair to a lizard. 'Much more complex,' Lily had told her. How complex, Ally didn't know, it was all the same to her. Charms were a synch. Professor Flitwick, like the other teachers, agreed in piling on homework. It came to Ally and Lily easily though, while the Marauders were struggling with the flame freezing charm (even if they'd never admit it).
The previous dinner, a few days before break, lists had gone out and Lily and Ally had signed up to stay over break. Apparently, all the Marauders were leaving over break. The Potters had invited Sirius and Remus over, while Peter had to stays with his mother.
"Good, I don't want to have to deal with that." Lily said when Ally told her, "Nothing ever good comes out of Potter and his little friends staying, especially with less staff present, they can go blow up their parents' house for all I care."
Ally and Lily were in the library, finishing a potions essay that Slughorn had assigned at the last minute.
"Is anyone else in Gryffindor staying?"
"A few third years, and two seventh years, other than that, no..."
"Good," she bent over her book, "The less people around the better, we don't want to get caught."
"So you're with me? On the Riddle thing?"
"I don't particularly agree with your new interests, it's probably nothing," she set down her book and looked around, she leaned closer to whisper, "I think it will be a brilliant opportunity for me to test just how good I am in Charms, though."
"What are you planning?" Ally asked, pretending to read a page about the uses of unicorn hairs.
"Something that isn't in our curriculum," she wrote something down on a piece of parchment and slid it across the table.
It's a mix between the invisibility charm, and the freezing charm...
You're planning to freeze me while I'm invisible? What did I ever do to you?
No... I plan on freezing the library in time... it might work, but not for long, you'll have to work fast.
How does that work? If I walk in, I'll freeze.
Not you... If anyone tries to enter the library, as soon as they walk into the room they'll be frozen in time. That way, Filch won't be able to catch you. If you see him, you'll be able to slip past unnoticed. But like I said, you'll have to be fast, it won't last too long. Hogwarts is very magical, there are wards that will immediately try to fight against this kind of thing.
Bring track shoes, got it. What if we get caught?
Say you were trying to research something in your sleep.
What kind of excuse is that!
Fine... smile and laugh, shrug it off, hope for the best. Do you want to find out more or not?
Ally shrugged and nodded, Lily frowned and shook her head as if to clear off any thoughts.
"We should get back to the common room, it's getting late..."
They stood and returned some of their books to the shelves. Ally took their note to make sure no one would see it. Madam Pince looked up for a moment and gave them a suspicious look before returning to stamping books with the Hogwarts seal. They left the library and traveled through the many halls of Hogwarts. Entering the hole behind the fat Lady portrait, Lily and Ally dropped their books to join Pria and Carla, who were playing a game of chess. Before Ally sat down, she made sure to toss their note in the fire, she wanted to make sure no one would catch onto them.
Of course, you couldn't really call the game they were playing chess. Pria decided, earlier in the year, that Wizards chess had far too many rules in it. So, to make the game more entertaining for her, she added a few more pieces to her already unique chess set. One of her new additions, the troll, was in a wrestling match with Carla's gnome.
"Get him Big T!" she encouraged from behind her army.
Lily and Ally watched with interest as Carla's phoenix piece swooped over the fighting troll and gnome, and dropped a wand from the gnome to use.
"Hey!" Pria frowned, "How did you get you're phoenix to fly, mine can only sing out of tune,"
True enough, Pria's phoenix was singing a jazz hit to a mermaid, who had her fins clamped over her ears.
"Going back to our previous conversation," Lily continued, watching the game with amusement, "An invisibility charm would work well, I was reading a book—"
"Really!"
"No!"
"I'm so surprised!"
Lily rolled her eyes and turned to Ally, "I was reading a book about invisibility cloaks, and there's a unique charm they use to enchant the cloth."
"But we don't have an invisibility cloak." Ally pursed her lips and put a rogue knight and a dragon back on the chess board.
"No, we don't, but..." she paused, "if we alter the charm, just a little, we might be able to turn you invisible. The only thing is... it might be a little difficult to change you back."
"Joy."
"What are you two talking about, invisibility?"
"None of your business," Lily said quickly, waving Pria off, "It's nothing important."
"What? Nothing little fifth years need to know about?" Pria said, "As soon as we take our O.W.L.s, I expect you'll let us in on all your little sixth year secrets."
"Maaaybe," Ally said slyly, "If you pass your O.W.L.s."
Pria scowled and went back to cheering on her queen, who was in a cat fight with the previously mentioned mermaid.
"Anyways..." Lily continued, once she was sure Pria was focused on the game, "Since I have to make prefect rounds on and off all break, we'll have to do this on one of the days I have off. The day before Christmas break ends would be best. That way, everyone is preparing for the students to return and no one will notice two missing Gryffindors."
"And it will give us more time to study and prepare."
"Exactly."
Snow and ice was hailing down on Hogwarts the week before the students left for the holidays. The great hall was decorated with the traditional Christmas trees and wreaths were hung on almost every door. Most students were avoiding the divination tower, a Ravenclaw had predicted that mistletoe had to be hung every three feet or else Trelawney would be stunned and drown in the Black lake. Christmas candles were floating around the corridors in groups of ten or twelve, flickering between red and green.
The Gryffindor common room had changed along with the rest of the castle. House elves had put up a flashing Christmas lights, and some third years had hung tinsel from the ceiling. The bulletin board was enchanted by the Marauders to sing Christmas carols... constantly. Lily charmed Christmas bulbs to float above their heads and Ally had transfigured a chair into an evergreen tree that grew candy.
On Thursday night Lily left the common room for Dueling club. Ally lingered behind, wondering if she should follow, deciding that it would be a good idea, she ran after her friend and caught Lily's arm before she left the common room.
"Would you mind if I tagged along?" Ally said hopefully.
"Well..." Lily thought for a moment, "I'm not sure if it's really your sort of activity..."
"Aw, come on," Ally whined, "I'll go once, and if I don't like it I'll leave and never go back."
Lily sighed and consented.
"Alright."
"Yes!" Ally jumped and clapped her hands. Lily frowned at her display, but said nothing.
"We're going to the Great Hall; it's the only place in the castle that has enough room to fit us."
"Got it!" she grinned and ran upstairs to grab her wand. Armed and prepared, Ally and Lily ran down the stairs toward the great hall. Ally stopped at the entrance to the Great hall and peered in. A large amount of students were congregated, about a hundred, and it was enough to intimidate Ally a little. Only a little.
The normal house tables had disappeared. Despite that, the students seemed to fell safer in groups of their own house. Ally spotted a seventh year Gryffindor off to the side, and ran over to her while Lily vanished into the crowd.
"Hey, Alice?"
"Hi!" Alice said cheerfully. The Gryffindor girl was known to be very optimistic, "Is this your first time at our little club?"
"Yep," Ally looked around with growing anticipation.
"Good, the first time's the most fun! If you get stuck I'll help you out, this Dueling Club is the best kept secret Hogwarts has ever had! Of course, it's not much of a secret anymore..."
"How long have you come here?" Ally asked.
"Since my third year, that would be your second." Alice pointed out, "It used to be just me, Frank, and a couple of Ravenclaws. We never told anyone though... How did we get so many members?" Alice gestured to the crowd.
Ally refrained from telling Alice exactly how she found out about the Dueling Club.
"Who knows, Hogwarts has some great gossipers," she pointed to the Hufflepuffs, "No secret is safe."
They were unable to say more though; all attention was drawn to the two students in the middle of the hall. Ally was intrigued, she had never seen a wizards duel before in her life. It wasn't encouraged in her old school.
She watched as her best friend and Severus strode forward and bowed to each other. Well, Lily bowed, Snape inclined his head. Not disrespectfully, though. Both of their faces bared no emotion toward the other opponent. Taking ten steps away they raised their wands in unison and another Slytherin stepped forward to count them down.
"One—two—" he brought down a red flag in his hand, "—Three."
Lily's wand emitted a flash of metallic blue light and Severus dodged the attack at the same time he shouted out something discernable to Ally. Lily tripped over when the black light from Snape tied itself around her foot and pulled. While Lily was distracted, Snape sent a disarming spell at her and her wand flew out of her hand.
When Lily regained her footing, a Hufflepuff helped her up; she snatched up her wand and straitened her robes, then bowed to Severus, who bowed back.
"As you can see." she said, after casting the 'sonorus' charm on her voice to make it louder, "Today we will be practicing first distracting our opponents, then disarming them."
"To distract your opponent," Severus picked up the cue from Lily, "A jinx would suffice... anything that would divert their focus from attacking you. Individual opponent will be distracted by different things. I suggest you partner up with someone you know."
Severus eyes swept the room.
"And to disarm...you should all be aware of the disarming charm, but more importantly, distract your opponent. Begin."
Ally immediately partnered up with Alice, who took Ally through the basic steps again. They did several practice rounds before they decided to do the real thing.
Half an Hour later...
"You know, you're pretty good... at least for someone whose never done this sort of thing before." Alice said, aiming her wand at her legs to get rid of the jelly legs hex.
"Thanks!" Ally watched the crowd disperse.
The Great Hall was being spelled back to normal, now that the club had concluded for the holiday. The Ravenclaw seventh years were floating all the decoration back and a group of Slytherins were trying to move the tables back to normal. The tables thought that it would be a better idea, though, to slide around the great hall, ramming into each other like bumper cars.
Against Alice, Ally was obviously outmatched by someone who had dueled for at least four years. In spite of being outmatched, Ally won five out of eleven matches, doing extraordinarily well for her first time.
"Did I really do well for my first time?" Ally said self consciously.
"Of course! My first time was terrible! I tripped over my own robes and smacked my face against the stone." Alice grimaced at the memory, "I kept on trying to hex Frank... only my nose was messing up my annunciation, unfortunately for me, 'stubify' is not a real spell."
"Ouch," Ally watched as Lily and Severus appeared and they were talking in the middle of the hall, "Well, I guess I'll see you after break."
Ally waved good bye to Alice who walked away toward a Gryffindor boy Ally recognized as Frank Longbottom. They left the hall together and Ally ran over to her friend who was still talking to the Slytherin.
"Lally!" Ally hugged Lily, "That was sooooooo much fun! I can't wait for the next meeting,"
"You actually enjoyed it?" Lily said, shocked.
"Of course I did, I beat Alice half the time. Well, almost half the time. Five out of eleven times, actually."
"You beat Alice," Severus cut in smoothly, "five out of the eleven you faced off?"
"Yes," Ally said, "I did."
"Impressive," he said and held out his hand, "I'm—"
"Snape, I know." Ally took his hand and shook it, "My name is Ally," she saw Lily looking onto the conversation with interest.
"Well, that's enough introductions for now," Lily looked at the Hall, now clean and organized, "We best be off for now," she said, "It's getting late, and I don't fancy being caught in the corridors by Filch out of hours."
"Neither do I," Ally agreed and they left the Great Hall after saying good bye.
Lily and Ally entered the common room as the clock struck nine o' clock.
"Just on time," Ally said happily as she climbed into the portrait hole, Lily following behind her. "And soon the Christmas Holidays will be here and we'll have the whole place to ourselves... well, not quite..."
Ally and Lily sat down just as James and Remus ran down the stairs.
"There you two are!" James said grinning and he ruffled his hair, "We were just about to go find you if you had stayed out a little bit longer."
Ally eyed them with suspicion and raised her eyebrows, "Why did you need to see us?" she asked.
"Oh, this and that," James said, sitting down on the couch across from Lily, "How are you, sweet?"
"Don't talk to me." she said scowling, "What do you two want?"
"We were just wondering, since you seem to be one of the few Gryffindors who are staying over Christmas break who we are acquainted with. We were wondering if you two," he pointed at Ally and Lily, "Would do us a favor."
"How would we benefit?" Lily said sharply.
"James won't speak to you for a week." Remus interjected.
"Wha--!" James cried but Remus clapped a hand over his mouth.
"A month," Lily haggled.
"One and a half weeks, including weekends, no love notes, no letters, and no sign language," he debated.
"I'll accept when I hear what I have to do." Lily said smoothly. Ally looked on with interest and decided to add her input.
"Nothing illegal either."
Remus released James from his bind and nodded. James ruffled his hair in irritation and scowled.
"As I was saying," he winked at Lily, who barely stopped herself from slapping him, "First thing is that we need to know if Sam Howell is staying over vacation."
"I can do that!" Ally said happily and sprung from her seat to grab a quill and a piece of parchment, she scribbled a note on it and stuck it in her pocket while the conversation between Lily and the two Marauders continued.
"What else, it can't be that easy..." Lily said suspiciously, "What is it that's so important to you?"
"Oh, it's not my problem, it's Moony he has this thing—"
"Prongs!"
"Sorry, it's his deal, not mine," he sighed overdramatically, "I'm the one who will be sacrificing my time for a good friend..."
Lily sighed.
"Just get on with it, what you need us to do, that you—" she waved a hand at James, "The great Potter, cannot do."
"After you find out if Sam is staying over break." Remus said quietly.
"What Moony said."
"Fine," Lily said and sat back with her arms crossed, "But only because I want that week and a half of a life free of Potter." She spat the name out like venom.
"Aw, Lily, I'm hurt," he said, "But I'm sure it's just because you're sour that you'll be missing Christmas break with me. Don't worry love, I'll make it up to you."
"I'm sour, I'M sour! You better—"
Ally and Remus rolled their eyes, and left the bickering students in the common room.
The Next Day...
Late in the afternoon, Ally, Lily and Sam were in History of Magic. Lily was taking notes furiously and Ally was only listening to half of what Binns was saying. She'd get the notes from a reluctant Lily later. Ally had her note to Sam in hand and was waiting for the Ravenclaw in-between them to fall asleep, like he always did halfway through the calls.
Ally watched his head bob up... and down... up... and down. With a cluck it hit the desk and a loud snore sounded from his mouth. Finally, he should sleep more! Ally crumpled up her note and tossed it over his head and onto Sam's desk. She knew exactly what was on that note, she had read it over many times to make sure she didn't look like she was prying.
Sammy,
Hey, are you staying at Hogwarts over break? Lily and I are staying. Lily has to do some prefect things, but I'm sure I can get her free for one night so we can hang out. Maybe we can even sneak you into the Gryffindor common room, I'm sure it wouldn't matter.
AL
Ally saw Sam read over the note and then shoot Ally a smile. She scribbled down her reply, crumpled it up, and then tossed it over the sleeping Ravenclaw boy. Of course, Sam was never known to have been the most athletically inclined. She missed and the note hit the boy on his head. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle as the sleeping boy stirred and mumbled "Owl, stop attacking me."
Ally giggled to herself and rolled her eyes. "Accio," the note flew into her hand and she flattened it out so she could see it.
AL
I'm staying at Hogwarts. My parents are going to go visit my aunt. I'm glad I'm staying, she owns these horrible cats! All over the place, it's gross. I'd love to see the common room, but I don't know if that's against the rules or not, it doesn't seem like such a good idea.
Sam
Ally tossed the note back over.
Sam,
It'll be fun; they're not going to expel one of the top students! And it's not in the rules, I've read them, McGonagall has them plastered on her walls, right next to my seat in transfiguration. Hold on, I'll ask Lily if it's cool with her.
AL
Ally threw it back over the Ravenclaw, he was mumbling about not wanting to be a paint balloon. Sam gave Ally a thumbs up and jerked her head toward Lily, as if saying "Ask her!"
Ally wrote down another note, Gosh, this is using up my parchment; I'll have to owl mum. She slid the note over to Lily's desk and waited for her to see it.
Lily was still scribbling furiously. Professor Binns paused to breathe. Why? He's dead. Oh well, it must be a habit. I wonder if other ghosts have that habit. Lily took a moment to read what Ally had written.
Lil,
Sneak Sam into the Gryffindor common room?
AL
Lily put down the note as soon as Binns began speaking again and started to write again. When he paused for yet another breath, she scribbled.
Wednesday.
Lily didn't bother sending the note back. So Ally took the liberty of grabbing it off her desk and reading the reply. Sam looked back at Ally with curiosity and Ally mouthed the word "Wednesday" to her. She nodded and they were dismissed later.
Ally found Remus talking to James after class. Lily followed absentmindedly, her nose in a book as she walked.
James took the liberty of serenading Lily off (into an argument) so Ally could speak to Remus.
"She's staying over the holidays." she said, watching his reaction closely.
"Really?" he looked nervous, "Oh, er—would you mind—then if you've got time—do you think—"
"What?" Ally said, as he shifted from foot to foot looking rather nervous.
"Could you give her this?" he pulled out a letter from his robe pocket and handed it to Ally.
Ally observed the letter, it was normal parchment. She was tempted to break the simple seal and see what was inside that made Remus so shifty.
"Please don't read it," he said, "And... Could you wait for the holidays to give that to her? I want her to have time to read it while I'm gone..."
"I won't read it if you don't ask me to." Ally said as she placed the letter in her pocket and smiled, "Your secret's safe with me."
"Thanks." Remus looked relieved and gave her a smile. They both turned to Lily who was screaming at James to unhand her book.
"We should pull them apart before they hurt anyone."
"We should... or we could go get some lunch."
"If we must..." Ally sighed, linking arms with Remus they passed the fighting teenagers with looks of disapproval as Lily barreled James into a suit of armor.
Suit of Armor POV
No place is safe.