The Day Of Pain

(Tuesday)

A third of Gryffindor house was missing from the breakfast table on that particularly chilly Tuesday morning that followed, what most had come to call, the "Muggle Mystery Madness Incident". As clueless as most people were that early in the morning, students had begun to notice that there were little to no Gryffindor Girls between years four and seven at the table.

"Prongs, why are there less people staring at me today? Something is wrong! There is a disturbance!" Sirius, usually half asleep in his bacon at this time on normal mornings, was looking around in distress, trying to figure out what was different.

Peter stopped stuffing his face long enough to notice the gaps at the table. "Where is everybody?"

"How am I supposed to know? Moony, have you got a clue where everybody is?"

"Not at all. Wait, I think the demographic that is missing, if I am not mistaken, is the girls."

"That would explain Padfoot`s attention deficiency problem…"

"Stop using big words! I can`t handle them at the best of times, and right now they are going to make me explode!"

Remus scanned the table until he found one of the few girls who had bothered to show. "Linda Perkins is here, why don`t you ask her where everybody went?"

"Oi, Perkins-"

"Nicely, Pads. Don`t be obnoxious. She`s not a bloke, you know." Remus hissed.

"-I mean, hello Linda. I was wondering if you know where most of our house is on this fine morning."

"Oh yeah, everybody`s still up in the dorm. I was up there earlier helping, but it`s an absolute madhouse."

"Helping with what?"

Linda laughed "You don`t know? Well, you`ll see soon enough. It`s gonna be quite a shock, I`ll tell you that."

The boys tried to get Linda to give them another hint, but she wouldn`t say another word on the subject.

After a few minutes, a gaggle of girls (all forth years) entered the hall, whispering and giggling.

"I can`t believe…"

"….hot pink…"

"…six inches…"

The Marauders tried to ask the girls what was going on in the dorms, but Linda was too fast for them. By the time the boys got there, the girls were already sworn to secrecy.

"You know, we can just pop up into the rooms ourselves and see what all the fuss is about…" James said slowly.

Remus frowned. "No fair! You know I can`t come with you."

"Sorry Moons, it`s not our fault that you-"

James stopped talking when he saw Linda make a break for the door, and without taking a moment to register why, he bolted after her.

"Don`t tell him what is happening in the dorms!" Linda gasped to the second wave of girl who`d come in the hall.

"Come on Perkins! No fair, I was winning!"

Bradley came in the hall just after the second group of Gryffindor girls.

"You would not believe what I just passed on the stairs."

"Wha-"

"Don`t tell!" Linda quipped.

Bradley slid onto the bench. "Oh, I wasn`t going to. You can`t describe that sort of thing and do it justice. All I`m saying on the matter is," he turned to the Marauders, "It`s horrifically atrocious."

"A true work of art." A younger girl down the table piped up, causing everyone in the know to laugh.

Linda looked up at the doors to the Great Hall as a large group entered with the aforementioned horrifically atrocious masterpiece in the center.

"And here she is now."

The remainder of Gryffindor house joined the table, but only one member really seemed to matter.

Her hair was teased up to three times its normal volume, and atop her head was a light-up gold cowgirl hat that had been lent to her by a fifth year. She had on Gryffindor lion earrings she`d borrowed, and a hot pink boa was covering her bare neck and shoulders. She was wearing a red strapless mini dress belonging to Vanessa Peters, and her fingernails had each been painted a different shade of horrific pink. To top it all off, she had gold knee-high cowboy boots that covered more of her (in her opinion, not a proven fact) than the dress did.

Unfortunately, the poor girl subjected to this monstrous ensemble was none other than Melody.

"Alice, Mary, you two have souls made of pure concentrated evil." Melody whispered through gritted teeth as she sat down and blatantly ignored everyone and thing around her besides her toast.

Mary stifled a laugh. "It was Mattie`s idea."

"Matilda Bell, you are the child of the devil."

"Thank you my dear best friend. As much as I`d love to take full credit on this one, I said you had to be dressed by the dorm. I didn`t put this little disaster together."

"Fine, then I also hate every single girl in Gryffindor. You all better sleep with one eye open."

"You know, I think you`re pulling it off."

"Shut up."

"Is this part of the bet?" Remus asked.

Alice grinned. "Yeah, and it gets better. Guess what I got from the kitchen this morning, Matts!"

Mattie grimaced as Alice placed a large lemon on the table.

"It can`t be that bad…" Mattie whispered to herself.

"She`s gotta eat one with every meal!" Melody said gleefully, fixing her cowboy hat.

Mary leaned over and chopped the lemon up into fourths and plopped it down on Mattie`s plate. "Eat up."

"Oh, she`s picking it up…" Melody said, narrating her friend`s pain in her Quidditch commenter voice, "Ah, she`s trying to eat the insides of the first lemon slice in one go…. Oooh, she`s a quarter of the way done right now if she can manage to swallow…poor thing. How you feeling there, mate? Her face shows the signs of facing excruciating sourness, and she`s on her second quarter. How`s your mouth feeling?"

"Ugh, it`s sort of shriveling up, closing in on itself. Gah, I feel sick."

"You can do it! She`s not going for the same approach as she did the first bit, she`s just sort of sucking the life out of it now, much as it`s sucking the life out of her, as it would appear."

"What`s your punishment?" Sirius asked Lily.

"Oh, it`s much worse than this. You`ll see, just wait until History of Magic."

Breakfast ended ten minutes later, and as the sour-faced (she wasn`t particularly mad, it was mostly just the lemon) Mattie and her strangely-dressed friend made their way to Transfiguration, Mary ran up behind them.

"Are you sure-"

"If I`m doing this, I`m not doing this half way." Melody replied. "I had our entire house doing my hair and nails this morning, I`m not going to back out now."

"Alright, but McGonagall…"

"It`ll be fine."

The trio walked into class and took their seats. Around them, the class was abuzz with whispers.

Professor McGonagall walked in and immediately the class went silent, like someone had flicked a switch and turned them all off.

"Everyone come up with your partner and get a wastebasket. We will be practicing the duck transformations."

Mattie looked to her friend and raised her eyebrows. Melody bravely stood up and walked with her friend to the front of the room to collect their wastebasket.

Just keep walking, she thought to herself. Professor McGee was getting up in her years, so maybe she wouldn`t see…

"Excuse me! Can you come back here a moment!"

Melody froze in her tracks. "Yes, Processor McGee?"

After several years of being the announcer at Quidditch games, Melody knew when her favorite professor was about to kill her and when she was restraining herself from laughing. To the untrained eye, this would appear to be the former, but it was in fact the later.

"What are you, scratch that, why are you wearing that ridiculous outfit instead of your uniform?"

"Well, see Professor, I didn`t want to kiss Sirius Black for personal reasons and the fact that I`ve seen him put five hotdogs in his mouth at once and eat them without chocking."

"Ew. When was that?" Mary whispered

"I don`t see how that pertains to this situation…"

"Very much so, Professor."

"I`m afraid I have to send you to the Headmaster`s office."

"Wait!" Mattie shouted, and threw a chair across the room. "Do I get sent to the headmaster`s office too now?"

"No, Miss Bell, you get a detention. Sit down."

Mattie took off her shoes. "Why look! I don`t have the proper uniform attire! I believe this is an obstruction that will earn me a trip to the Headmaster`s!"

The Professor waved them out of class. "Just go, both you."

Once they were safely out of earshot of the classroom, Melody commented quietly, "You didn`t have to do that, you know. I would have been fine."

"I know, but after this you`re probably going to be in detention all week, so I thought you might like some company when you`re polishing those trophies. That`s what best friends are for, right? Someone to laugh with from behind bars?"

-History of Magic….one lemon, six detentions later-

History of Magic was the last class of the day that Tuesday, and it was defiantly the most interesting.

"Can I borrow your cloak? I`m freezing!" Melody begged Mary.

Mary smirked as her friend struggled to make the boa cover as much skin as possible. "I would, since it is awfully chilly in here….but that would be going against the purpose of your punishment. Speaking of, who`s got Lily`s special little surprise?"

"It`s in my bag. I just got it from the kitchens, so it`s still a bit cold." Alice whispered, so Lily didn`t overhear.

"I`m almost grateful for the lemons. At least we knew what was coming." Mattie muttered to Melody.

Lily walked in, nodding at her friends but choosing to just go straight to her seat. They could see the restrained fear in her eyes.

Professor Binns floated in and the clumps of students who had been talking at their friend`s desks scattered back to their seats. There were no stragglers to saunter into class late that day, because everyone had heard that something big was going to happen, something they didn`t want to miss.

Mattie slid into her seat in the back of the room, listening happily to the rumors swirling that were nowhere near the truth. This plan was one of the best punishments she`d come up with, and she was extremely proud of herself. While everyone speculated around her, she leaned back in her seat and smiled, Cheshire Cat-like.

"You know, don`t you?" Sirius said, turning to the girl sitting next to him. "Lily told me something big was going to happen right around now. You`re in on it, right?"

Mattie smirked. "In on it? I came up with it."

James leaned forward in his seat, his head almost knocking with Sirius`. "Come on, Mats! You`ve gotta tell us!"

"Can`t you just wait a few minutes?"

"If we wait any longer our heads will explode!"

Up at the board, Binns droned on about whatever dismal topic they had a test on Friday. "And over several decades, the evolved with noticeable change…"

"You`ll get showered in brain juice!"

"In order for me to be showered in brain juice, you guys would need brains."

"….without which we would never have known the significance of…" Binns was

"We stole some of Moony`s!"

"Just watch Alice."

The boys huffed and settled back into their seats.

Meanwhile, in the center of the room, Lily was uncharacteristically not paying attention at all.

Her hair stood on end, and every cell in her body was tingling in fear. All she could hear was her own pulse, which roared in her ears and was going faster, faster, faster.

Behind her, Alice reached into her bag and pulled out the small, cold weapon she was about to dutifully release onto her best friend. It fit perfectly in the palm of her hand. Smiling, Alice washed away her guilt with thoughts of what she and Mary had discussed earlier. A girl`s gotta do what a girl`s gotta do. Lily had asked for it, literally.

Binns went back to writing on the board, and Alice saw her window of opportunity. Nobody saw the dead Professor circle the flow chart with flourish because every live eye in the room (except for Lily`s) was on Alice`s hand as she reached forward and smashed a raw egg on the very top of Lily`s head.

There was a collective gasp. Lily`s jaw dropped in shock, and she tried to register what had been smacked down onto her head, when a slimy egg shell fell onto her notes.

She shuddered in digest, but there was nothing she could do but sit there and feel it running down her head. The worst part of her punishment wasn`t getting an egg sashed over her head, it was that she had to sit there for the whole class as raw egg dripped down on her. She couldn`t even wipe off the streak that was making its way down her cheek.

When History of Magic was finally over (much to Lily`s extreme relief), Mary and Alice led their friends out to the lake.

"What if we get eaten by the squid? Or kidnapped by a mermaid!?" Lily asked, flicking some egg shells off her uniform.

"Don`t be such a baby. Everyone knows the mermaids only eat you if you are covered in raw food." Melody said. Despite wearing a dress and cowboy boots, Melody was able to stay a safe distance away from Lily`s curses.

Remus, who was good friends with Hagrid, had gotten him to lend them one of the boats the first years use to get to Hogwarts. By the time Melody, Mattie, Lily, and Alice climbed into the small rowboat, a small crowd had gathered at the shoreline. From the boat, the girls could already see Mary was getting bombarded with questions.

"Mary remembered to bring the towels, right?" Mattie asked Alice, who`s eyes widened.

"I think so. We didn`t talk about…she probably remembered."

Lily peered over her shoulder at the shore. The boat was nearing the middle of the lake, so she could barely make out the figures.

"Uh oh," She said, "Why does it look like there are more people out there than there was at the Quidditch final last year?"

"Almost the entire school was there last year, including the teachers. It probably just looks like a lot from here. The Marauders and Marlene couldn`t tell that many people, right?"

They had reached the middle of the lake.

Melody removed her cowboy boots, hat, and gave the earrings to Alice. She slid off the tiny dress and stood there shivering in her bikini. Vanessa had been totally against Melody ruining her dress with the lake water, so she`d had to change into a bikini underneath the dress before her last class so she`d be ready.

Lily and Mattie were similarly wearing bathing suits under their uniforms, but only Lily was glad to not be wearing her ruined uniform any longer.

"Oh Merlin, why`d you listen to me…this was a stupid idea….I don`t wanna do this….I`d almost rather kiss James…please please please please don`t make us do this…Alice, come on, I know you have a soul, don`t make us do this….it`s sooooo cold…yes I know this was my idea." Mattie chattered rapidly, trying to negotiate her way out of this.

"Gryffindor up, Mats!" Melody said.

Mattie raised an eyebrow. "You want to do this?"

"Merlin no. But we kinda have to."

"Why?"

"Because challenges, like fear, are made to be overcome. So come on!" Before the other two could react, Melody grabbed an arm from both Mattie and Lily and jumped in, pulling her friends with her.

Lily shrieked. "Ahhh! So cold!"

"Race you to the shore!" Mattie called.

Melody yelled back, "It`s so on."

Lily, to everyone`s amazement but her own, was the first one to get to land. She`d never previously mentioned this fact to her wizarding friends, but she used to take swimming lessons with her sister when she was little. Melody was close behind, neck-to-neck with Mattie.

"Whoa, you`re like a fish!" Melody said when they were close enough to shore to stand.

Lily smiled cheekily. "I was on the swim team at my muggle school."

"Not to ruin this beautiful moment, but did anyone bring towels so that we don`t have to sprint up to the school in our bathing suits in the cold in front of the whole school?"

"Mary was supposed to bring them."

"She hasn`t got anything in her hands except her wand."

The three girls were quiet for a moment, staring into the crowd waiting for them on the land.

Finally, Mattie sighed. "I`ve got a plan."

"Brilliant, what is it?"

On the bank, someone shouted "What`s taking so long?"

"Alright, I`ll make them look away, and when I do, you two run as fast as you can to Mary and get her to accio us some towels or clothes or something. Don`t forget to come back and bring me a towel."

"What are you going to do?"

"You`ll see." Mattie said, ducking under the water and swimming stealthily over to where the water was lapping up against a higher elevated bit of ground. The people standing on the edge were a good foot above the water, even thought they were standing right at the edge of the bank. This of course was where the Marauders were watching from.

"Oi! Down here!" hissed Mattie quietly, startling the boys.

"Mattie? I thought you were over there with the other two. Why aren`t they coming in?"

"We haven`t got towels."

"So? You could just dry off your clothes with wands."

"Vanessa wouldn't let Mel swim in her dress so we all wore bikinis. Stop laughing! This is siri-no, not you, Black. Come on guys, you`ve gotta help us! Half the teachers are out here! I don`t want creepy old teachers like Slughorn seeing me like this!"

The four guys were knocking into each other in laughter. Remus had lost his glasses, and Peter and Sirius were on the ground, trying to use each other to push themselves up.

"Look, I`ll help you play the perfect prank on the teacher of your choosing, just please listen to me!"

At that offer, the Marauders pulled themselves together. She didn`t offer this kind of thing often.

"What do you need us to do?"

"You sure it likes chicken?" Mattie whispered as she watched from the water as the guys chucked roast chicken they`d accioed from the kitchen into the lake.

"Trust us, we`ve done this loads of times. Just get outta here before it comes up!"

Mattie paddled as quickly and stealthily back to the two girls as she could. "Alice just got the boat in. Can we get out now? It`s freezing!"

Mattie watched the floating chickens. Where was a monster when you needed it?

"Mats? I`m just gonna get out and take the jeers."

"No! Hold on, I`ve got this."

"Got wha-?"

Lily was cut off by shreaks and a giant splash.

"LOOK OUT! THE GIANT SQUID IS ATTACKING!" Mattie screamed at the top of her lungs.

Everyone`s eyes predictably turned to the squid, and the three waterlogged girls dashed onto land.

"Summon the towels!" Mattie whispered furiously to Mary.

By the time people started looking to see where the girls had gone, they were happily shivering from underneath the towels.

"That was absolutely terrific." Melody said, slapping her best friend on the back. "Have I mentioned lately how much of a total genius you-wait, what`s that?"

In the mist of the excitement, the girls hadn`t notice a person slip and fall off the slippery bank and into the water right by the squid. People were trying to grab the person, but whoever it was kept being swept farther towards the giant squid by the waves and current the splashing squid was making. Several people were trying to go in after the person, but the teachers were holding them back.

"We`ve got to help them!" Lily said frantically. She, Melody, and Mattie started to charge back into the water. Alice pushed the boat out into the lake again, and climbed in.

"No," Mary said, holding the three shivering girls back. "Let the teachers handle this! I`m sure they`ll be able to…"

Lily broke free. "By the time they come up with something, the student out there will have drowned!" She threw down her towel and jumped into the water. Behind her, Mary was able to restrain the other two from going after Lily.

The freezing water felt like hard ice when it hit Lily`s skin, but she ignored the pain and swam towards the flailing figure in the water. The waves were strong, but Lily was stronger. She hadn`t been a three time school swimming champion for nothing.

When she was ten feet from the student, a tentacle knocked Lily beneath the water. Shocked, she gasped, which was a huge mistake. Water flooded in her lungs, and when she broke above the waves again, she was dizzy and coughing. Her lungs ached for oxygen, and the little she was able to suck in between strokes was barely enough to keep her going.

Finally, Lily reached the person, who was frantically trying to stay afloat. She couldn`t make out who it was, because she had to squint to keep the disgusting lake water out of her eyes. Lily grabbed the person by their waist and pulled them away from the squid and towards Alice in the boat.

It was harder to swim for two people. Lily couldn`t tell if the other person was conscious, because they`d stopped flailing and were now just allowing her to pull them like a dead weight to the boat. The person was much larger than Lily, and from the abs she could feel through the school uniform, she could tell it was a boy.

Eventually, Lily`s fingers brushed the rough wood of the rowboat. Alice helped lift Lily and the boy out of the water. Both of them were exhausted, but still breathing.

"Merlin, that was incredible!" Alice said, rowing the boat back to land.

Lily looked over at the boy to see if he was alright. There was a green tint on his skin and uniform from the algae in the lake, and he must have lost his shoes in the lake somewhere, but otherwise he seemed fine. He brushed back his thick black hair and blinked.

"Evans?" He managed to sputter.

"Potter? You fell into the lake? I thought you were supposed to be a coordinated Quidditch player."

He spat out some pond water. "I didn`t fall! Moony pushed me a bit and I slipped, there`s a difference!."

"Oh, you`re just mad because you had to be saved by a girl."

"I was doing fine out there! You didn`t need to swoop in and complicate things."

"Excuse me? You were drowning when I got to you! Do you even know how to swim?"

"Yeah, I do as a matter of fact. I just wasn`t planning on swimming today, so I was taken by surprise."

"It`s a good thing I was planning on it then."

"Oh, I can see that from your clothes, or rather, lack of."

Lily suddenly realized she was covered only by her skimpy bikini and lake slime. Self-consciously, Lily reached over and snatched Mattie`s cloak she`d left in the boat and covered herself. "Do you really have to be such a prat all the time, even when I save your life?"

James rolled his eyes. "Oh, like you`re such a martyr. Didn`t you bite my head off yesterday when I saved you?"

"You weren`t saving me! You got trapped too!"

"But I got us out of there, which is much more than-"

"Will you two please shut up?!" Alice piped in.

The pair glared angrily at each other.

"Not to be the counselor here, but you should both just say thank you for getting saved and just get over it."

Lily couldn`t believe she`d almost backed out of the bet for Potter. Emotions, Lily decided, were insanely stupid. It was a good thing she had a brain to override the dumb feelings.

"Thank you for getting us out of those tunnels, Potter, but I`d like to add that you are an ungrateful prat who needs to realize the world does not revolve around your oversized head."

James spat out more lake water. "I appreciate you dragging me to the boat and all, but next time if it`s too much of a bother for your pretentious drama queen self to handle, you might as well not bother."

"I`d rather have another raw egg in my hair than be stuck in this boat with you right now, believe me."

"Oh, I`m tempted to jump back in and swim into the giant squid`s mouth as long just to get away from you, Princess."

Alice sighed, quietly banning her head against the side of the boat in frustration.