Chapter 6: Happy Halloweeners
October 31, 1971
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
"Happy, happy, happy Halloween!" Sirius chortled as he tore Peters' bed hangings open and began jumping on the bed.
"Youch!" Peter yelped. "You got my leg there!"
"Sorry, mate!" Sirius called as he flew off the bed and clambered onto James'.
"Eurgh...get off!" James grumbled, swiping at his comforter with his arm to try and knock Sirius off.
"Oi, mate! You almost got me there!" Sirius hollered as he hopped an extra time to avoid James' swinging arm.
"Good," James grumbled.
"Remus gone again?" Peter asked, looking across the room at Remus' open bed hangings and empty, neat bed.
"S'pose so," James answered. "Poor bloke, you'd think his mum had gotten better by now."
"Well, it's time to go get breakfast," Sirius ushered. "Some fifth year told me that on Halloween, there's a nice feast for dinner!"
"Then I'll sleep until dinner," James decided, rolling over on his side and snuggling his head in his pillow, until he felt something jerk his pillow from under his head and smack him on the head with it. Thwack!
"OI!" James yelled, sitting up immediately.
Sirius grinned mischievously from next to James' bed, pillow raised above his shoulder. "Are you awake now?"
James narrowed his eyes. "Watch your back from now on, mate."
Sirius laughed, and tossed the pillow back at James. "OooOoo, I'm so scared..." Thunk!
Sirius collapsed onto the floor as James tossed all of his pillows at Sirius.
"Oi! Now you watch your back!"
"OooOoo, I'm so scared…" James mocked Sirius.
Thunk! Sirius threw the pillows back at James.
Thunk! James threw them back at Sirius.
Thunk!
Thunk!
Thunk!
Thunk!
"ALL RIGHT!" Peter screamed finally as one of the pillows missed Sirius and hit Peter instead. "It's time for breakfast."
"Yeah, yeah…" James and Sirius whined as they finished getting ready and left the dormitory with Peter for the Great Hall.
As they walked downstairs into the common room, they saw the Gryffindor first year girls gathered on the couches, doing each others hair.
"Hey, boys!" Marlene called friendly, raising a hand to wave at the boys and dropping half of Mary MacDonald's hair from its braid.
"Marlene!" Mary grunted as James, Sirius, and Peter waved back at Marlene and climbed out of the portrait hole.
"Sorry!" Marlene yelped, picking up Mary's hair.
"Now you have to start all over," Mary whined.
"Oh, it's fine, Mary. It's a Sunday, there's no rush," Lily said comfortingly.
The girls continued to chatter animatedly as they braided each other's hair. When they were finished, they all got up and one by one, clambered through the portrait hole.
"I hope we're not too late for breakfast!" Alice said worriedly.
"Don't worry, they can't let us starve!" Lily laughed.
Sure enough, when they reached the Great Hall, the girls were still able to help themselves to a nice, filling breakfast.
The rest of the day was quite amusing for the first years. In the clocktower courtyard, some Gryffindor fifth-year boys were transfiguring stones into pumpkins (James and Sirius loved this demonstration), and at the Great Hall some Hufflepuff sixth-year girls had brought fresh, pumpkin pie from the kitchens (they refused to slip out the location of the kitchens, however) and shared it with any other students who had lingered in the Great Hall after lunch.
Come suppertime, the students were all excited for the Halloween feast, but also disappointed that the weekend was coming to a close.
"This has really been a lovely weekend," Alice said dreamily as the girls walked through the corridors. "The weather is getting quite chilly though. Soon enough, we'll be leaving Hogwarts for Christmas break."
"Oh, Christmas! It's my favorite holiday!" Lily said excitedly.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves...Halloween is only today," Gwenog chuckled.
"Lily!" A small voice said as the girls passed through the corridor. Lily did not hear however, and continued walking with her fellow Gryffindors.
Severus finally pushed off the wall and briskly followed the swishing, auburn braid. "Lily!" he said in a louder voice.
Lily turned, followed by the heads of her friends. Lily smiled warmly, unlike her friends, whose smile vanished and instead was replaced with judgemental glares. "Hey, Sev! Where're you going?"
"Oh, er...nowhere, really."
"Oh, we were just heading to the Great Hall early for dinner. Wanna join?"
Severus glanced nervously at the squinting girls. "Er...do you actually wanna go to the dungeons with me real quick...alone?" Severus asked tentatively.
"Oh, sure!" Lily exclaimed. "See ya later!" she called, waving at her friends as they hesitantly walked off.
"Where to in the dungeons?" Lily asked cheerily. "Potions class?"
"Oh, I'm sure Slughorn would love that," Snape said dryly.
"He really would," Lily laughed. "He does make it rather obvious about who are his favorites."
"Yeah, no kidding," Snape said as they climbed the stairs down to the dungeons.
"Who else d'you think are his favorites in our year?" Lily asked.
"He quite likes you and me. Likes you a little more, I think. Actually, he's more obsessed with you, really."
"Nah...I think he's just like that. He really adores you as well, you probably just haven't noticed."
"Yeah, well, I don't usually get much attention," Snape said sourly.
They were silent for a second. Lily bit her lip unsurely.
"Sorry, that was awkward. I shouldn't have said that."
"Oh, Sev...it's perfectly fine. I really do hope things are getting better at home for you."
Snape felt his heart soar. "Thanks, Lily."
"Of course, Sev...anyways, on a brighter note, I think Slughorn quite likes that Dirk Cresswell from Ravenclaw.
"Oh, that bloke...yeah, I suppose."
"He also seems to think Barnabus Cuffe is quite talented."
"And Potter, "Severus said suddenly, a definite spite in his tone.
"What?" Lily asked.
"Potter. Slughorn's obsessed with that idiot boy. If he ever sees him doing spells in the hallway, instead of taking away his wand, he praises him," Snape snorted. "Seems to think Potter is gifted in some sort of way. Not sure how, seeing as Potter's dreadful at potions."
"I suppose Potter is actually quite brilliant though," Lily contradicted. "Always hear McGonagall praising him about good scores on his exams and essays. Not willingly though, I believe she wants to dislike him, with all the trouble he causes. He's also quite good at defense against the dark arts…"
"What now? Do you like him?" Snape said angrily. "How come you like that idiot boy?"
"Of course I don't like him!" Lily cried defensively, and Snape immediately stopped fuming. Lily ignored this, although she did raise her eyebrow a bit. "I'm just saying that the professors like him...he's not all that stupid, you know."
"Of course the professors like him, everybody likes him for some reason that's beyond me. And he might not be stupid on his exams, but he certainly has an air of idiocy around him everywhere he goes…"
"Sev, that was a bit mean."
"Why do you keep defending him? What's gotten into you?"
"What's gotten into you? I know Potter's an annoying bully, but you're being extra, extra mean about him. Why do you care so much about him, anyways?"
"I do not care about him. I couldn't care less for him, in all honesty."
Lily narrowed her eyes. "I suppose that's why you're always gushing over him."
Severus' eyes turned dangerously stony. "Gushing? Gushing? I absolutely do not gush over that idiot boy! Don't ever say that again!"
"Fine, just please stop talking about him all the time. For somebody who hates Potter so much, you do talk a lot about him."
"Yeah, but it's not good things."
"You still complain about him, and it really gets annoying. Trust me, Sev, I think he's annoying too, which is why we just have to forget about him, all right?"
"Yeah...right," Severus sighed reluctantly.
"All right, well, I think I should head back up to the Great Hall and meet Marlene and them. Dinner should be starting soon. I'll talk to you later, Sev."
Severus watched as Lily scurried down the corridor, up the stairs, and disappeared out of sight. He suddenly felt a wave of regret wash over him. Why did he have to bring up Potter and make Lily upset? Why did he have to act this way around Lily? He didn't want Lily to think he was a jerk like Potter.
Sighing, he hunched his shoulders and followed the path Lily had taken up to the Great Hall.
The Great Hall was crowded, per usual, but tonight, the air was more stuffy with excitement.
Lily slipped quietly into a seat next to Alice, and looked down at her lap, fidgeting with her fingernails. It wasn't until five minutes later that Alice had actually noticed her.
"Lily! I didn't see you there! How come you're so quiet?"
Lily shrugged, not taking her eyes away from her clean, neat nails.
"Are you all right, Lily?"
Lily shrugged again.
"Lils…what happened? You're not allright."
"I'm fine," Lily finally spoke in a flat tone.
"Are you sure?"
Lily shrugged.
Alice sighed, and just as she was about to turn around, Lily blurted "I got in a fight with Sev."
"Oh, Lily, what happened?"
"He just...I dunno...we were talking about Slughorn's favorites, and then he just started ranting about Potter...again."
"Is that it?"
"No..I, er...well, er...I kinda...I'm not sure how to put it, but I just kinda told him Potter's well like about the professors…"
"You defended Potter?" Alice asked disbelievingly.
"I did not," Lily snapped fiercely. "I simply just told him to lay off Potter and to stop obsessing over the boy."
"Oh, all right," Alice said, pressing her lips together to prevent from laughing.
"And then he got really angry with me, and he said quite a few horrible things about Potter, so I told him to stop being mean," Lily sighed. "I don't know what it is, but he's just so spiteful these days. It kinda scares me. You'd think that since he's away from home, he'd be feeling much better…"
"What's wrong at his home?" Alice asked curiously.
"Nothing," Lily answered a bit too quickly. Alice raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, well, I suppose it's not my business," Alice said sweetly.
Lily smiled gratefully. She was glad Alice wasn't so prying, unlike Marlene.
Once dinner appeared on the table, the students all dived in eagerly into the meal. For desert, there was an assortment of pumpkin treats.
"I think I've had enough pumpkin pie today for a lifetime," Marlene groaned as she sat back after finishing the last bit of her sixth slice of pumpkin pie that day.
"Marly, I really think you've eaten too much," Lily sighed in concern.
"Of course not, no such thing as eating too much. In fact, I want to try some of that pumpkin cheesecake," Marlene said, sitting back up and reaching across the table for the pumpkin spiced cheesecake.
The girls all watched with a look of disturbance as Marlene stuffed a slice of the cake in her mouth. "Mmm…"
"Ehh…" Gwenog said, wrinkling her nose. "If you throw up, do turn the other direction, away from me."
"I woll make shore to thwow wup wight on yoo," Marlene glowered at Gwenog through a full mouth.
"Ew, just ew, Marlene. Do shut your mouth whilst chewing."
"Shore thwing!"
"Eurghhh!" Gwenog shrieked.
Marlene tossed her a brilliant chubby bunny smile, and then continued to dig in at her cheesecake.
When they finished with dinner, they headed up to the Gryffindor common room. Marlene and Gwenog finished their homework that they had procrastinated for the entire weekend, and Lily, Alice, and Mary were all writing letters to their parents.
Dear mum and dad,
How are you two? I hope you are doing very well. I miss you oh, so much. I am sorry for just now writing to you. I have been trying to adjust first, and there hasn't been too much to write about here. How is Tuney? I am enclosing a separate letter for Tuney, in case she wants to read it. I do hope she's not still angry with me. I really do miss her. Please give her my best.
As for Hogwarts, it continues to be as amazing as it sounds. Tonight we had a Halloween feast, and it was absolutely delicious! Firstly, I must tell you that we have been sorted into Houses. They are where our dormitories are, and they are like my school family. I was sorted into Gryffindor! Gryffindor values chivalry—I'm not sure if I quite have that quality. There are three other houses: Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. I have constantly heard that Slytherins are all bad, but Severus (my friend from Spinner's end) was sorted into that house. I think Severus is very nice, apart from a little fight we got into today, but I think that's just normal.
I have made quite a few new friends here. My friends in Gryffindor are Marlene McKinnon, Alice Prewett, Gwenog Jones, and Mary MacDonald. Mary is also new to the world of magic, just like me! I have a feeling these girls will all be my very closest friends in the years to come. I also have some friends outside of my House. Dorcas Meadowes and Emmeline Vance are both very kind to me, and they are in Hufflepuff house, which values loyalty, kindness, and acceptance of everybody.
Anyways, how are things at home? I can't wait to visit you guys at Christmas and tell you all about Hogwarts. Please respond as quickly as you can!
Lots of Love,
Lily
Lily stared at the letter with satisfaction, folded it up, and stuck it in an envelope. Then she leaned her head on her hand, propping her elbow up on the table and staring out the window down at the quidditch pitch. That struck some excitement from Lily. The first quidditch match was coming up, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and Lily was very excited to watch her first quidditch match, even though she was quite lousy at flying (which she had discovered during flying lessons down at the training grounds).
As she looked out, Lily fumbled with her quill, and began tapping the point of it against the desk unawarely. Should she write to Tuney?
"Lily, please stop," Mary said.
"Huh? Oh…" Lily dropped the quill, and the tapping noise vanished. .
"Thanks," Mary smiled. "Are you all right?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm just wondering if I should write to my sister."
"Of course you should! Why wouldn't you?"
Lily hesitated. She had not told any of her new friends about what happened with Petunia. "Er, no reason."
Lily took her quill and with a deep breath, began writing.
Dear Tuney,
How are you? I hope you are doing so, so well. Are you still mad at me? I'm so sorry Tuney for doing anything wrong, and I'm sorry that it upsets you that I go to Hogwarts. I miss you so much Tuney, please forgive me. You're my sister, and you are my best friend. I really want things to be okay between us again. I don't have much more to say, I guess. Please, please write back to me! You have no idea how much I miss you!
Lots of love,
Lily
Lily looked at the letter, and figured it would have to do. She tucked it into the envelope along with her parents letter, and went up to her dormitory, laying it on the nightstand so that she could take it to the owlery the next day and deliver it.
She took a look out the window of her dormitory. Halloween day. An empty pit carved into her stomach. As fun as the day had been, Lily just had a bad feeling about Halloween day, and she wasn't sure why. She sighed, shut the curtains, and got ready for bed.