Chapter Three: Portraits, Potions, and Merlin's Pink Pointed Hat (or A Collection of Confused Stares and a Plethora of Mint Humbugs)
Lily had good relationships with several of the portraits in Hogwarts. She frequently waved or exchanged pleasantries with Geraldine the Gracefully Ignorant and her neighbour Plain Dave, who hung overlooking the grand staircase from the fourth floor. She was also on friendly speaking terms with Primus Vega (an enigmatic yet energetic oil painting located at the base of the Astronomy Tower), the red-haired Glanmore Peakes (whose 16th century Scottish accent made his tales of sea serpents seem less repetitive), and Alissa DeMann (who spewed questionable but consistent advice from her perch outside the trophy room). She had in-jokes with Melody and Druzella Bott, who both adored the attention, and Gifford Abbott, who (after several hints about the password) provided a sneaky shortcut for when she was late to transfiguration.
These friendships, if you could call them that (and Lily did), had sprung in her early years from a fascination with not only how art could move in the magical world, but with how it could capture a likeness of a person. She had always been confused about how so many of the other students just took it for granted and ignored all the portraits unless they needed something specific. They had proved very useful over the years, not only from the naïve magical interest standpoint or for when she was late, but also for things like History of Magic assignments or advice about things Lily didn't want her whole dorm to know (but only if she was happy with the whole of Hogwarts' portrait population knowing. Gossip seemed to travel faster through paint than air).
But today she was on a different mission. A mission of espionage and observation and pleading the portraits to help her.
"Ah Melody, looking lyrical as always," Lily said, greeting her brush-stroked friend and earning some confused glances from a passing by third year.
"Lily you grow taller each day," Melody replied from inside her gilded frame, indicating with a liquorice wand in her hand. It was Lily's turn now to look confused. "I'm surprised you haven't spouted petals yet!
Lily chuckled softly and shook her head, red covering her view for a moment until her hair settled. Then she grabbed a lock and held it up. "You don't think my hair is bright enough?"
Melody looked at her own pale brown locks, fading from the wear of the canvas. "Ay, yours is plenty bright, mine could do with a new coat of gloss though."
"I'd talk to Filch for you, but I think he'd take a dozen points of Gryffindor for even insinuating that his painting maintenance wasn't up to scratch," said Lily regretfully. Melody shrugged and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. "So where's 'Zella? I had something I wanted to talk to you both about."
"I expect she's off galavanting with that rogue of an acrylic Xavier Zabini. You know he only likes her because she's so generous with our sweets." Melody gestured to the mountainous pile of lollies on the table set for two in front of her. "You can't even get the full taste in acrylic paint. They just become so synthetic you know?"
"Oil is the only way to go," Lily agreed seriously. "Those acrylics can't hold a candle to the depth and light of your masterpiece."
Melody preened at the compliment, and popped a sugar quill in her mouth. Lily rummaged through her bag for a moment until she pulled out a matching lolly and nibbled at the spun sugar feather. The sweet taste distracted her for a moment before she remembered her mission.
"So my Melodious friend, I was wondering if you and Druzella could do a small favour for me. You see I know this group of students who are disappearing from Gryffindor Tower each night, and I'm worried they might be doing something dangerous."
Melody nodded, unwrapping a bright pink chocolate.
"And well I can't follow them, because it's against the school rules and I don't want to lose my prefect badge." She'd already be breaking enough rules with what she was planning to do later. "So here's where you and 'Zella come in, and any other painting we can recruit to the cause. All I'm asking is that you keep an eye out during the nights for a band of four boys my age."
"Oh we would be well happy to help you out Lily darling, it'd give us a little excitement in this frame of ours. Although Merlin knows Druzella gets enough excitement outside the frame," she added, disapproval clear in her two dimensional expression.
"So you'll mention it to her when she gets back?" Lily asked. "And to any other portraits you think would do it as well?"
"Of course darling. Apollyon Pringle down on Ground loves catching miscreants and night wanderers, but he's a bit difficult to talk to, I might send Dru. Ooh and Prissy 'Opaleye' Watkins and Dunken Diggle love a good mystery, yes and they have a good view of the main entrance. And old Jackly Randell was painted without eyelids, so he's always up during the night," listed Melody, stacking a few empty wrappers in a pile to remind her later.
"Wonderful," said Lily, "thank you so much! I'll come round next week to find out if you've seen anything."
"Splendid to see you dear, we'll keep our eyes out."
"Stay sweet!" Lily called, as she turned and strode away down the corridor.
She spent the rest of her Thursday afternoon free period tracking down her other friends and convincing them to be on the lookout as well. Most readily agreed, eager for some entertainment in their framed lives. Gifford Abbott even admitted to knowing who she spoke of when she mentioned that one of them was a prestigious strutter, saying that Potter and his friends were frequent users of his secret passage, although he hadn't seen them around at night. When she was a little put out that she and Potter had something like that in common Gifford was quick to comment that they had taken a lot longer to guess the password than her. That mollified her slightly, and after making sure he would let her know if he saw them again she moved through his dimly lit passage to his matching portrait in the Transfiguration corridor.
By the time she reached Glanmore Peake's big gold frame on Second she had finished her sugar quill and, having spent the lunch break with Melody, was feeling rather hungry. Luckily, as she talked to the Scot on his painted ship, she remembered Mary had given her a big bag of Honeydukes sweets just before the holidays, to tide her over while she was in the muggle world. Not really liking mint humbugs very much, and fully aware you could get non-moving ones in Cokeworth, she had stuffed the little pack of those in her school book bag, for emergencies. Having missed lunch she was prepared to eat anything, and delved through the pockets she had charmed onto her bag until she grasped the slightly wriggling bag of mints.
She continued munching on them as she worked her way around all the portraits she knew, trying to ignore the way their tiny legs flailed on her tongue. Really, she would never understand why wizards, having so much power over the inanimate objects of the world, decided to make sweets seem realistically alive. Why would anyone want to eat a moving creature? Even if it was made of something delicious.
When she had talked to her last painted friend she had gotten through about half the bag of humbugs. She'd save the rest for surreptitious snacks in Potions. Ah. Potions. The class after her free period that she'd forgotten all about. She looked at her watch.
"Oh crap and Merlin's pink pointed hat." She was late. She was also getting another confused stare from a young student, a Hufflepuff second year this time. Really, she thought as she ran through the corridors, she got enough confused stares she could start a collection.
She almost tripped rushing down the stairs to the dungeons, her hand still clutching the bag of sweets as she tried to keep her book bag from flying off her shoulder. She stuffed them in her robe pocket as she skidded to a halt outside the classroom. She knocked sharply on the door before entering, apology at the ready.
"Miss Evans, do come in," came the booming voice of her potions professor, "I was just telling the class that we'll be making an Elixir to Induce Euphoria today."
Lily shuffled in and took her usual spot. She mumbled something about "prefect duties" before sitting down. Slughorn continued his instructions, making a quip about how they'd all be ghosts at the top of the astronomy tower by the end of the lesson because the potion would 'raise their spirits'.
She saw James Potter raise an eyebrow at her from across the room and motion to his head before turning his attention back to Slughorn. She frowned in confusion at him. Maybe he should start his own collection of confused stares, although probably he got more admiring ones (not from her of course). His head looked normal, well, as normal as his head could look with his ridiculously messy hair. Oh. She put her hands up to her own hair and found that it was a flyaway mess thanks to her frantic run through the castle.
She quickly ran her fingers through it as Slughorn detailed the effects and appearance of the finished euphoric Elixir. Then realising that had no influence whatsoever over the state of her hair she cast a quick smoothing charm over it and thanked the world for magic as it returned to its normal neat appearance.
She pulled out her textbook and gathered the appropriate ingredients when Slughorn told them to begin, setting her quill beside the book in case she had any notes to make. It was a habit she and Severus had started in their second year, although his notes had always been more elaborate and often quite derisive of the original formulas.
As she was stirring the potion, after adding the porcupine quills her stomach rumbled, and after looking around to make sure no one was watching she reached into her pocket and grabbed another mint humbug. She stuffed it into her mouth and tried to look innocent while continuing to stir slowly. She reached into her pocket and pulled out another one.
But this particular sweet, perhaps it had seen the fate of its comrades, perhaps it had decided it didn't want its end to be inside Lily Evans, or perhaps its little humbug legs were just more vigorous than the others, for it wriggled right out of her fingers and fell with a resounding 'plop' into the cauldron below.
As she silently cursed and tried frantically to fish the lolly out with her stirring spoon she could feel the eyes of Severus Snape watching her intently. She dredged up her spoon but nothing but boiling caramel coloured liquid came up. She had to think fast, otherwise it would melt. It already had, but sadly Lily didn't know this, so when she pulled out her wand, held it to the bubbling surface of the potion and whispered "accio mint humbug" there wasn't a mint humbug in there anymore to be summoned. However, there were plenty of eager ones in her pocket.
She caught some of them, as they flew out of the bag at her call, like minty moths to the flame. Of course, the ones she didn't catch, the ones who gathered at the tip of her wand, were instantly dissolved in potion it was held above.
Lily dropped the ones in her hand on the floor in despair when she realised. They wandered off to live their short, magically animated lives in the potions storage cupboards.
"Damn and Merlin's sparkly high heels," she whispered randomly, ignoring the probably very confused stares from the neighbouring students.
The one bit of luck she did have that class was that Isabel Davies had just swallowed some of the liquid from her sopophorous bean when it bounced after she cut it, and now couldn't remember the past week. This was lucky for Lily because while she was struggling and swearing with the plethora of humbugs around her desk and in her potion, Professor Slughorn was busy seeing to Davies, and wasn't watching her.
Having concluded that the sweets were thoroughly dissolved into her potion and that there was nothing else she could do but hope, she continued on with the instructions. She hoped that not too many of the humbugs had fallen in, and she hoped that they wouldn't tamper with the potions effects or appearance, and she hoped that Slughorn would still be in a good mood after he saw her disaster of a potion.
She just had to get him in a good mood.
For the final stage Lily got out her wand to cast the cheering charm on the gently bubbling sunshine yellow solution. Once done she could see little rainbows sparking off the sides of the cauldron and in the steam rising from the pot. She breathed in the colourful aromatic steam and winced at the clear scent of peppermint. At least, she thought, it hadn't seemed to have done any visible damage. The potion was the required yellow, maybe a shade darker, and the rainbows were there. She looked around curiously at some of the other cauldrons. Most were in the same stage as her, a couple had brighter rainbows or a purer yellow, a sad few had none, or were a ugly mustard tone. Snape's was the brightest of them all, the rainbows reflected in his ever-greasy hair. Potter was scooping some of his bright yellow one up and putting it in a little vial which he placed in his pocket subtly.
When the time for brewing was over, and Isabel had been sent to the hospital wing, Slughorn came round to evaluate all of the completed potions. When he got Lily's he beamed at her in anticipation. She tentatively smiled back as he inspected the appearance of the potion.
"Stunning as always, although the colour could be a tad clearer," he said, wagging his finger at her. Then he put his face over the cauldron and breathed in deeply. Lily held her breath and waited for the verdict.
"Ah miss Evans, you've added… Is that a sprig of mint?" Slughorn asked with a smile on his face, although Lily couldn't be sure if that meant he thought mint was a good idea or if it was just because of the numerous euphoric fumes he had inhaled. She nodded cautiously, thinking it better to just agree rather than to explain the whole eating in class situation. "That could definitely have some positive effects on the occasional side-effect or two, ingenious my girl. And you've something given it something to make it that extra bit sweeter, always a good idea, that'll make the effects last a little longer too."
"Just thought I'd experiment a bit sir," she said with a sigh of relief. She noticed out the corner of her eye that Severus was making vigorous notes in his textbook.
"Such natural instincts," Slughorn said, shaking his head in disbelief. Then he clapped a hand her shoulder. "I should be used to it by now eh?"
He moved on to the other students, and, while Severus' potion was clearly the most accurate, he didn't get nearly as much praise for it as Lily had for her accident.
As the bell rang and the others packed up their things and filed out Lily took her time. She waited, using a slow scrubbing spell on her cauldron, until everyone else left the classroom, then strode up to talk to Slughorn.
"Sir, I was wondering if you might be able to help me with something," she inquired. He nodded encouragingly and asked what it was. "For Transfiguration we've got to transfigure ten different liquids into wine for Monday, and write an essay on if and why the products vary. And you see obviously most of the class will choose easy everyday liquids, water, pumpkin juice and the like, but McGonagall hinted that if we wanted a good mark the more difficult or rare magical liquids would be advisable. So I was wondering if I could use some of the potions stocked for observation in your office."
It wasn't a complete lie. In fact what she'd just said was true. However what she was planning to do with one of the potions wasn't what she just suggested. Nor was it legal.
She'd only need a few drops anyway, he'd never need to know.
"That's my girl, always going that extra mile," he said, bustling around his desk. "The thing is, there have been some recent unexplained disappearances from the storerooms this year, roseroot and ashwagandha mainly, and I'm not sure the other teachers would approve of me handing out potions willy-nilly."
"Ah of course sir, I wouldn't want to cause you any trouble." She paused. "But of course the transfigurations wouldn't be permanent, I'd restore the potions and give them back as soon as I was finished," bar a couple drops of veritaserum. "I only need a few vials."
"Hm… Well I couldn't refuse my favourite student," he tapped his nose with a finger, "it'll be our little secret. Just have them back here by Monday eh my girl?"
She sighed in relief as he led her to his office and unlocked the cupboard which held the demonstration potions. She picked out 10 vials from the shelves, thanked Slughorn, then went on her merry way up to Gryffindor Tower. The bottles jangled quietly in her bag as she climbed the stairs, one of them destined for the goblet of James Potter.
Well in my planning for this story this chapter stayed as about two lines for a long time, but now it's one of the longest chapters! Does that mean a lot of the words were unnecessary? Probably. Do I regret it? Of course not.
Also, I've only just realised the formatting for the previous chapters failed and so any time jumps between certain paragraphs weren't obvious! Sorry! That should be fixed now.
I'd love to hear your thoughts,
Your overly-verbose Ravenclaw author