Lily Evans was clever and she knew it. Lily had no qualms about admitting that wit and intelligence were the qualities that she was most proud of, and she had quite the talent for managing to sound modest while doing so. She had the highest marks in the year, rivaled only by Janie Farens and James Potter, and was the best Potions student Professor Slughorn had taught in decades.
So why, in the name of Merlin's soggy pants, was this ruddy sheet of parchment still blank?
Classes had finished nearly three hours ago, and Lily had headed straight to the library to do some research. She had looked up invisibilty charms, silencing spells, befuddlement potions, veritiserum, and anything else that might help her in her task to figure out exactly what the ministry had learned from their investigation. She had plenty of ideas about what she could do, from kidnapping Aurors to learning how to transfigure herself into a cat, but the plan never seemed to make it passed the first stage. Cursing herself for not thinking to become an animagus sooner, Lily threw down her quill (which she had yet to even dip in ink) and sighed loudly enough to earn glares from the group of Slytherins at the next table.
Plotting was not her forte.
Glancing around the library for inspiration, Lily's eyes briefly landed on a greasy-haired Severus Snape before darting away to instead watch a pair of second years attempting to turn eachothers' hair pink. So far the boy had managed to turn the girls' hair slightly lighter, but the boys own wavy locks remained jet black. Lily was forcefully reminded of a time when a certain slytherin's hair, including all body hair, was turned pink by a different dark haired boy. In fact, Lily could remember several times when either Black or Potter had turned something or other pink. At the same moment that she found herself wondering whether there was some sort of Marauder tradition that had to do with the color, the four Marauders themselves walked into the library. Lily groaned inwardly, praying that they'd get their books and leave, instead of causing another fight with Snape. It seemed that the boys were there to stay, however, as they sat at a table in the corner and put their heads together, whispering fervently.
I bet they're plotting something. I bet they'll have at least five whole steps before I could even write down the first.
Lily watched them curiously as they whipped out a thick piece of folded parchment and put their heads even closer together, so that whatever was written on it was blocked from Lily's view.
They're probably just wasting their time planning some childish prank, too. When their talents could be used for so many better things. Like kidnapping Aurors.
She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise, and turned away from watching the four boys to look to her left, where Severus Snape was glaring holes into her head. Large, flaming, deep holes. Blushing, for some inexplicable reason, Lily turned back to her own sheet of parchment, only to be angered by the blankness that stared back at her. Throwing her books and quills into her bag, Lily decided that the library wa positively the worst spot to plan a one-woman rebellion, and that that was why the Marauders always had such witless pranks. Instead, she decided to try the Common Room.
Unfortunately, people in the Common Room kept trying to talk to her, which under the circumstances was severely irritating. Lily made as little small talk as she could without being rude, before smiling and telling Marius Tarantino that she was simply exhausted and she must have a lie down before dinner. Taking the stairs to the girl's dormitory at a run, Lily opened the door to her room slightly out of breath, only to find every single one of her roommates sitting on their beds, staring at her.
"Er… hello?" she tried tentatively. Sophie gave her a weak smile, but Marlene continued to look slightly panicked. "Is everything alright?" she asked, nervous. Lily looked at each of her roommates in turn; Cammie looked as if she was trying to solve a very difficult puzzle, Marlene looked as if Peter Pettigrew had just asked her on a date, Sophie looked like she was pretending to enjoy a painful performance of Beethoven's Fifth, and the last girl-..wait…
"Oh! Er, hello?" This time Lily adressed the small, heart-faced blonde girl that was sitting on top of Jasmine's bed. Or what used to be Jasmine's bed. "Are you, um, are you a new student here?" The girl didn't say anything, and seemed to be trying to look anywhere besides at Lily. Lily watched as the girl rocked back and forth very slightly, biting on the sleeve of her robe and looking extremely anxious. Stunned, Lily took a cautious step towards the girl, only to be hit in the stomach by a flying hair brush. Lily hadn't seen any of the girls wave a wand, but she had a feeling she knew who was responsible. The blonde girl had looked at Lily with wide, buldging eyes as the brush had hit her, though still would not look anywhere near her face.
"Do you have a name?" Lily tried again, but the girl still did not speak. Lily took note of the gold and silver trunk that hadn't been in the room this morning, and saw that a black tail was sticking out from under the bed next to it. Definitely moving in then.
"My name's Lily. Lily Evans. I, err, sleep in the bed next to yours." She gestured to the four-poster bed, and the rocking girl followed with her eyes. "Do you mind if I go sit on it?" The girl didn't say anything, but no hair brushes flew towards Lily either, so she took it as a good sign and slowly made her way towards her own bed. As she did so, she thought she saw Marlene throw her a worried glance, as if frightened that if Lily took one step too many, it might mean a can of hairspray to the chest.
For a few minutes, the five Gryffindor girls sat in silence. Lily trying not to stare openly at her new bed-neighbor, and the rest of the girls making no such effort. Now that she was at her bed, Lily could see more clearly that what she had thought were intricate designs of gold flowers on the new trunk were actually a name written in cursive.
"Charlotte!" She exclaimed triumphantly. "Your name is Charlotte, isn't it?" Finally, the girl looked Lily straight in the eye, and Lily could have sworn she saw a small nod. Lily beamed. "Welcome to Hogwarts, Charlotte. It's lovely here. I'm sure wherever you studied before this was great, but Hogwarts is simply the best. I'm so sure you'll come to love it." Charlotte looked away again, fixating on a spot on the wall. "Isn't that right, Marlene?"
"Uhh.. yeah! Absolutely. The best." Lily turned to glare accusingly at Marlene, who could only shake her head as if to say: "I just have no fucking clue."
"Are you hungry, Charlotte? Dinner will be starting soon, and if you haven't had the food here yet, you really should. It's simply divine. It's really, quite, er, lovely." Lily thought she heard Cammie snort. All of a sudden, Charlotte stood up and walked to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. Cammie immediately burst into laughter, pushing a pillow to her face to stifle the sound.
"Oh, really, Cammie, there's no need to be cruel." Lily said, scowling.
"I'm-haha-sorry! I laugh in awkward situations," Cammie said apologetically, only to stuff her face into her pillow again.
"Do you think she's…." Sophie trailed off mid-sentence, waving her hands in the air as if hoping she would find a word to grab on to.
"Stable? Safe? A stowaway?" Marlene offered.
"Marlene! That's an awf-" Lily paused, mid scolding. "Stowaway?"
"Yeah, hiding or on the run or something."
"We're not on a boat, for Merlin's sake. I think she's just a bit frightened." Lily pointed a finger at Marlene, "Be nice."
"I was being nice! I said she'd like the place, didn't I?"
"Marlene got hit with a book when she walked in," Sophie offered, "I think she said something along the lines of 'Who the ruddy hell are you?'" Marlene glared at Sophie, who turned to Lily expectantly. "Has Mcgonagall or anyone said anything to you about this-uh..her?"
Lily shook her head, "No, no one. And she definitely wasn't in any of our classes today. She wasn't at the feast yesterday either, because I had to help with roll call. There wasn't even a Charlotte to check off." All four girls jumped as they heard the bathroom door open, and Charlotte stood in the doorway chewing on her sleeves, as if waiting for instructions.
"Umm, would you like to go to dinner now, Charlotte?" Charlotte said nothing, but continued to stare at Lily. "Okay, I'll show you the way. You can meet the rest of the Gryffindors in our year. Actually, on second thought, maybe we should avoid that for now."
Lily was having quite the exhausting day. Classes had been both dull and long, plotting had made her slightly irritable, and now..well, now there was Charlotte. Charlotte, who seemed sweet enough when she wasn't wandlessly throwing hair products at you, was a bit more than Lily had expected to deal with on the first full day of sixth-year.
The walk down to the Great Hall was awkward, to say the least. Cammie and Marlene seemed to have become both deaf and mute, and Sophie had decided to develop some sort of speach impedement. Since their new roommate was quite the jumpy one, Lily had spent the entire walk down to the first floor not only doing almost all of the talking, but explaining to Charlotte why she musn't be frightened of anything slightly off about the castle. Like Mrs. Norris. And the screaming portrait on the fourth floor. And the trick stair. And, it seemed, other students. Although Charlotte had seemed to have warmed-up to her new room mates, that didn't mean she was ready to become chummy with the entire population at Hogwarts. Especially the loud and rambunctious Gryffindors. That was why, after noticing that Charlotte's finger twitched more violently every time she saw a new student, Lily had pulled the girl aside and let the rest of their roommates enter the Great Hall before them (Lily ignoring the sigh of relief that undoubtedly came from Marlene).
"Listen, Charlotte," she started off, unsure what she even intended to say. Charlotte's eyes met Lily's, and for a brief moment the intensity of the light-blue that Lily saw staring at her made her trip over her words. "Err, Charlotte… It's going to be very very crowded in there. And loud, too. There's going to be a lot of people you're not familiar with, and I don't think that they'd take well to their cups of pumpkin juice suddenly wacking them over the head." Lily had hoped Charlotte would at least smile at this, but her face hardly moved. "If you're not comfortable, I could always bring you up some food after dinner." Charlotte seemed to be pondering this, but since she couldn't be sure, Lily kept on "It's not as if the rest of our house is cruel or anything, but tact and sensitivity aren't what Gryffindors are known for."
Lily had noticed that Charlotte's finger had been twitching exceptionally fast during her little oration, but when Lily had said the word "Gryffindors", Charlotte had placed her calmer hand over her shaking one, and brought them to her sides. After a few seconds more of staring, Charlotte nodded and looked between Lily and the entrance expectantly.
Lily smiled and said "Let me know if you need to escape the madness at any time," and pushed open the door.
For a while, things were relatively calm. The now five sixth-year girls sat surrounded by mostly empty seats, greeted now and then by fellow Gryffindors or sixth-years in other houses asking about their holiday. Timmy Finnegan, a fourth year, managed to blow up only one bowl of rice that night, and second year Farus Feeny only transfigured the jar of pumpkin juice into half a chicken-so although the sqwaking was quite annoying, the thing couldn't really go anywhere, which was an improvement from lizard debacle of last spring (and Timmy claimed that the juice still tasted perfectly normal). Charlotte ate some peas and ham, keeping her eyes on her plate unless there was a particularly loud SQWAKK from the chicken-pitcher.
Lily tried not to watch her, knowing that the girl was getting enough stares from around the room, but it could hardly be helped. The thing was, Charlotte was new. And while Hogwarts gets a hundred or so new students every year, it was very rare that the student was older than first-year. In fact, Lily couldn't remember it happening at all of her time at Hogwarts. But being new wasn't the only curious thing about Charlotte- the girl simply looked mysterious. In her neat, though chewed on, Hogwarts robes,she sat up very straight on the bench, keeping her elbows off the table and cutting her food almost cautiously. But her gaze rarely wandered to take in the magnificent sight that was the great hall. Instead, she watched the food disappear from her plate, as if determined not to notice anything or anyone else in the Great Hall. Her eyes, those icey blue oversized eyes, were attentive. Despite the fact that all she had to look at was some peas and ham, she seemed to have taken an invested interest in what was going on with her plate. Her long blonde hair, though pulled into a single plait, seemed to have been put together some time ago and hairs were falling out all over the place- giving her a slightly desheveled look, besides the pressed robes and perfect posture.
At least people are only staring, thought Lily. No one is bothering her, no one is going to dare approach her and start asking her where she's from or what she's doing here or why shes come and - oh bugger those are my questions that no one's asking.
"Who the ruddy hell are you?"
Okay, so someone's asking.
Charlotte seemed determined not to look up from her plate. Perhaps she hadn't realized that it was she the ever so casual Sirius Black had just questioned, but by the way her finger started tapping her thigh, Lily doubted it.
"This is Charlotte, Black," Lily said, in a voice that to anyone with a brain said 'be nice or I'll hex you'. "She's our new dormmate. Charlotte, this is Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. They're also in our year and in Gryffindor." Lily tried narrowing her eyes at Black so that he'd get the message to back off, but Sirius just continued to look positively perplexed.
"I don't understand, is she deaf?" Sirius had clearly missed the point of whispering, because although he had leaned close to Remus and lowered his voice from the usual shouting, Charlotte's finger tapping had increased in speed at his words that could be heard by the entire table. Lily huffed furiously, ready to jinx Sirius if she had to, but was appeased when Remus decided to take matters into his own hands.
"Don't be daft, arse-hole, just sit down and eat your ham." Remus seemed to have said the magic words, because fifteen seconds later Sirius was scarfing down a gravy-filled ham sandwich-mouth too full to accidentally offend anyone else. Remus smiled apologetically at Charlotte, but when he realized she wasn't paying any attention to him turned his smile to Lily, who decided to stop glaring and finish the soup that was becoming colder in front of her.
After giving Lily a few questioning looks, to which she only responded with shrugs and half-smiles, Remus had decided to give conversation with Charlotte a go.
"Have you been to a school like Hogwarts before? Or were you homeschooled?" Remus was smiling kindly, but it was wasted. Charlotte remained practically frozen in her seat. "I met a bloke who was homeschooled once, said it was better because as long as he passed his tests he could learn whatever spells he wanted."
Charlotte, who had at least stopped tapping her fingers, didn't answer. Remus glanced at Lily again. Apparently, she was now the expert on Charlotte. She could only manage to shrug once more and, deciding that perhaps Charlotte needed a break, struck up a conversation about prefect duties instead. Not being the center of attention seemed to be how Charlotte faired best, and the not-staring Lily saw that the girl was exhibiting almost completely normal behavior after being left alone. As Charlotte relaxed, Lily did too, slipping into an easy conversation with Remus about the unjustness of the prefect system. Lily was just about to use a string of expletives to explain her distaste of the Head Girl, when Lily noticed that Charlotte was no longer looking at her now-empty plate.
There was a brief moment where Lily was ready to smile giddly and say something encouraging to Charlotte, but that was before she noticed that the little color in the girl's face had faded, that her shoulder was slouched awkwardly, and that her eyes were looking at something in the back of the room with a fierce intensity. Within just a few seconds, Charlottes face contorted to one of horror, and she let out a soft cry of pain loud enough to be heard by the majority of Gryffindor table, who had now turned to stare.
Lily swiveled in her seat to follow Charlotte's eyes, and saw that what had forcefully grabbed her attention had been none other than James Potter and Peter Pettigrew, who had just entered the hall in mid-laughter. Lily felt all of the blood rush to her face in anger, and turned to face Charlotte again- determined to figure out what exactly it was that the bullying arse-holes had done to her- only to see that Charlotte's icey blue gaze was now staring at her with a panicked expression, the look of horror not quite gone from her eyes.
Lily stood, keeping eye contact with Charlotte. Out of the corner of her eye, Lily could see that the pair of Gryffindors were approaching them. She also thought she saw a fork or two flip on the table that weren't being touched.
"I've had enough to eat, have you Charlotte? Let's go back to the tower." Lily stepped over the bench and attempted to smile at the girl next to her, though was unsure if such a feat was possible at the moment, and was relieved to see that Charlotte was standing too. She looked frightened, but was still only looking at Lily. Lily lead the way hurriedly out of the Great Hall, thankful that Peter and Potter were on the other side of the table, and only stopped once they had reached the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor.
"Are you alright, Charlotte?" Lily asked worriedly, watching as Charlotte almost doubled over, panting slightly and clutching her stomach. "Would you like to go to the Hospital Wing?" Charlotte shook her head and sat on the floor, putting her head between her knees. Lily slowly sat down next to her, watching as Charlotte tried to catch her breath and calm down. Tentatively, Lily raised a hand and placed it lightly on Charlotte's back, and was relieved when Charlotte did not flinch or object. Instead, she muttered a quiet
"I'm sorry."
which were the only words Lily heard her speak the entire night.
BANG
It was an hour after dinner had ended, and Lily had had enough. Charlotte was curled up in a ball on her bed, eyes closed but body too tense to be sleeping. The rest of the girls had all returned, and had assured Lily that none of the sixth-year boys had had any idea why Charlotte had reacted the way she did. But Lily didn't believe it. Unable to be convinced to just leave it alone, Lily had decided that she would confront the problem herself.
And so she started by knocking down the door to the sixth-year boy's room. Which, admittedly, she hadn't planned on doing.
"Fucking-! Merlin, what the HELLare you doing, Evans?" But Lily didn't have time for Black, there was only one marauder she wanted to talk to.
"POTTER!" She shouted. There was a noise like something dropping in the bathroom, and she made her way over to it. Inside, a bewildered looking James Potter was standing, shirtless and with toothpaste on his chin. Lily wasted no time in pointing her wand at her target. His eye's widened at the sight of it, and Lily could see that there was fear in his face that he was trying to mask.
"Come now, Evans, you don't have to accost me just to-"
"Do NOT start that with ME, Potter, " Lily hissed. "What. Did. You. Do to her?" James' eyebrows shot up, realizing what Lily was talking about.
"What-nothing! I hadn't even seen her before dinner."
"Don't lie to me, Potter. I saw her face when you walked in. What, did she look at you the wrong way and you decided to teach her her first lesson of the school year?"
"No! I wouldn't-"
"Oh right-"
"NO."James' voice was rising now, and he straigtened himself as he took a step towards Lily. She remained where she was, wand not wavering. "I wouldn't! How could you think-" he broke off, growling.
"It's not like there isn't precedence of you hexing innocent people." It was a simple statement, but James' face got deep red as soon as the words were out of Lily's mouth. His face twisted into something between a scowl and a sneer. For the first time, Lily noticed that Potter was holding his wand as well.
"I. Don't. Hex. Innocent. Girls." He spluttered through gritted teeth.
"No. Just innocent fourth year boys in Ravenclaws. And second year Slytherins. How arrogant and cruel does someone have to be to hex a twelve year old? Yeah, it's so hard to believe-"
She had registered that James' wand had raised from it's previous downward facing position, but she didn't care. If he wanted to try her out, she was more than willing to comply.
"Expelliarmus!"
Both James' and Lily's wand had flown from their hands and into Remus', who had apparently decided that one broken door was enough damage for the day.
"He's telling the truth, Lily. Jame and Peter were in the Hospital Wing before dinner, and were with us before that." Remus' voice was flat, but Lily didn't move her eyes away from James', who was still red in the face and glaring.
"Then why was she so terrified of you?" Lily watched for James' reaction, looking for any sign of guilt or deception, but only saw frustration.
James seemed to not want to answer her, and eventually spit out the words "No idea."
"You should leave, Evans," came Sirius' voice, sounding almost as angry as James looked.
For a few more moments, Lily glared as James glowered down at her. Realizing that there was nothing left to say, she finally turned to leave. Sirius was holding his wand, staring at Lily as if she was a Slytherin who had just insulted his honor. Peter was staring with his mouth open, eyes darting between James and Lily.
"My wand," she said, facing Remus and sticking out her hand. Remus' lips were pressed together tight, and Lily wondered whether he was holding back something he wanted to say to her. He too, looked angry (though less murderous than Sirius) and handed her back her wand without saying a word. Once her wand was in her hand, she stormed out of the room, not bothering to fix the door on her way out.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Question: What are your thoughts about the length of the chapters. They're between 3-4,000 words usually, which is an average length for a chapter in a novel. However, fanfictions tend to have four chapters in one on this site. As readers, do you have a preference?