Chapter 106: Gloom and Gloomier

"Aaaah." Lily scooped a spoonful of chocolate chip ice cream and fed it into James' mouth.

"Yum!! Yum!!" James grinned. "Nice."

"The ice cream is nice or the way I feed you is nice??" Lily asked cheekily. Both of them were sitting in an ice cream parlor on a cool Hogsmeade weekend.

"Both." James said as a matter-of-fact. "Not to mention that I've got such a pretty girlfriend by my side."

"Yeah, and I've a hunky guy sitting in front of me." Lily was jokingly sarcastic but it gave James the more egoistic meaning.

"Well, obviously. I'm good-looking, smart, attractive, charismatic-" James was pointing out his good points.

"I know, don't worry, I know." Lily chucked another spoon of ice cream into his mouth. "So after this where shall we head towards??"

"Where do you want to go??" James asked.

"Hmm.. I don't mind shopping for clothes and stuffs-" Lily thought as she spoke.

"You can go shopping with the girls. Why don't we go somewhere else, like Zonkos??"

"Since you already have in mind where to go, why are you asking me??"

"Let you say something first but I don't necessary has to follow it." James grinned.

"You know that comment sounds so MCP." Lily shook her head. She was pretty much getting used to this side of James.

"MCP??"

"Male Chauvinist Pig, get the idea??" Lily helped herself with the ice cream.

"Feed me." James opened his mouth.

"Why should I??"

"Because you're my girlfriend, so you should feed me."

"Another MCP statement." Lily laughed again and chucked another spoonful into his opened mouth.

"You love it, don't you??" James said in the midst of a mouthful of ice cream.

"Looking so lovey-dovey huh??" Remus commented cheekily as both he and Stefanie came over to join the couple.

"Hey, what a coincidence." James raised his brows in surprised.

"Seriously you think Hogsmeade is that big that we can't meet one another??" Stefanie grinned. "Shall we get some ice cream too??"

"Fine with me. Choose whatever flavor you want." Remus said as Stefanie got up from her seat.

"You want me to accompany you??" Lily offered.

"Sure." Stefanie smiled and both girls linked their hands and left the two guys sitting by the table.

"What brought you two here??" James asked casually.

"Sounds like you don't want me to be here." Remus raised his brows as he questioned James.

"You know that's not true. I thought you told us that you two were planning to have some private moments together at the shack??"

"We did." Remus said. "So now we're out for an ice cream break before heading back again."

"You aren't serious, are you??"

"Of course-" Remus laughed heartily. "Not." He shook his head while laughing at his friend. "Stef wanted to do some shopping, so I just keep her company."

"Since when do you do such girlie stuffs??"

"I don't mind as long as it's not so frequent. As long as Stef is happy, I'll gladly do it for her."

"Just don't let Lily hear about this. Otherwise she's gonna complain why I can't give her the same treatment."

"Seriously, how bad can an innocent shopping trip be??"

"It's simply boring and a total waste of time looking at stuffs you've no intention of buying."

"I thought I heard the word shopping." Lily said as she walked over from the back of James to her seat.

"You must be hearing things." James told her mischievously.

"I heard it too." Stefanie said. "How do you explain that??"

"No one said anything about that." James scooped a small spoonful of ice cream and fed into Lily's mouth. All of them started laughing and continued chatting light-heartedly, totally free homework and Voldemort, at least for that moment.

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"This is not looking good." Remus frowned as he handed the Daily Prophet over to let the three other guys a look at the article.

"The dark lord will strike again, soon." Sirius read out so that the girls could hear him.

"Oh my gosh!!"

"Oh no!!"

"Continue." James looked up from his breakfast, frowning slightly.

"There had been rumored that You-know-who would be having another attack somewhere within this two weeks. It had been about two month since the last Deatheaters' attack at Northern Scotland. Forecasters and some professionals had predicted that this unfortunate event might take place again and warned the public to take extra precautions." The whole group was silence, listening intensely to Sirius' reading. He looked up from the article before continuing again. "There had been sources that leaked news about the Deatheaters' plans to attack some of the magical communities in the near future. Aurors had increased their regular patrolling in the various magical communities such as Hogsmeade Village and Horizon Alley."

"Hogsmeade." Lily gasped. They were in a morning state of shock knowing Voldemort had been launching more and more attacks in a closer proximity to them.

"At least we can be sure he will never come into Hogwarts. Dumbledore is the only person Voldemort ever feared." James said in an unconvinced manner. "But this prediction is going to cause quite an impact on our event."

"If it gets really bad, we might need to postpone it."

"Just hope that it won't be cancelled. That's going to be a major disappointment to all of us." The group of seventh-year Gryffindors dropped into a dead silence for the remaining fifteen minutes of breakfast before their first lesson of the day.

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"There's another half year more to go before all of you are going to graduate from Hogwarts." Dumbledore told the six of them who were gathered in his office for a highly confidential meeting. "I believe by now your powers had already been trained and developed. Strong enough to fight Voldemort." The six of them could only nod as Dumbledore continued his speech. "We had waited for so many years, but the seventh person had still yet to appear, much to all our disappointment. I'm afraid when the time comes, we can only depend on just the six of you."

"Professor." James spoke out. "We're fully aware of the dangers lurking outside. I know this is probably the most inappropriate time to pop the question, but we all would like to know if our school event could still be carried out."

"Why not??" Dumbledore spoke in a lighter tone. "I would be there personally to ensure the maximum safety to all my students. It's time that we need some fun in this midst of darkness and gloominess."

"Thank you." The six teens thanked their Headmaster in a much-relieved tone.

"I would want all of you to be prepared to fight Voldemort any moment. You never know what might happen." The six of them nodded solemnly. "I'm sure he knows of your identity as well."

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"It's about time for me to lay my hands on the six of you." The low raspy voice said in an arrogant tone.

"No you won't." James said defiantly to the voice.

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"If you think Dumbledore is going to protect you kids all your life, you're very wrong." The evil voice said haughtily.

"The good will triumph." Lily mustered her courage to speak.

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"All of you shall die in my hands." A horrible sounding evil laughter echoed.

"We won't." Sirius told the evil voice. "You will be defeated. By us."

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"If you think I've problem killing a bunch of kids, you've yet to experience my great powers."

"We will not die in your hands." Stefanie shouted at the echoing voice that surrounded her in darkness.

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"You kids are no match for me. Your destiny is in my hands." The evil voice laughed even harder. "It's a matter of time."

"It's your destiny that are controlled by us, not ours in yours." Remus shouted in the enveloping darkness.

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"You look tired." Stefanie told Lily as both girls brushed their teeth at the sink. Samantha and Joey had already left the dormitory earlier for breakfast.

"I guess I didn't sleep well." Lily rinsed her mouth and spoke.

"You better be more awake later at Potions." Stefanie changed into her uniform.

"I'll try my best." Lily's eyes were only half opened. "You're having eye bags too."

"Must have been all the stress and sorts." Stefanie shook her head. "Let's hurry, only fifteen minutes left." She was all ready to leave, keeping the door opened as she waited for her friend.

"Coming." Lily quickly grabbed her bag, put on her shoes and dashed to the door.

"Today is going to be such a drag." Stefanie commented. "Potions, Divination, Herbology, what can be worst??"

"Yeah, Thursday blues." Both girls walked briskly as they left the Gryffindor tower.

"Hey!!"

"Woah, you guys must have been marauding around last night." Stefanie grinned cheekily.

"Look at those eye bags and tired faces." Lily laughed slightly.

"We were sleeping the whole night away." Remus said honestly.

"Then what makes you guys looking like that??" Lily raised her brows.

"Haunted by dreams." James said as a matter-of-fact. The other four suddenly stopped in their tracks.

"The low raspy voice??" Lily whispered.

"The engulfing darkness??" Stefanie looked at Lily, wide-eyed.

"The threatening statements??" Remus added.

"The haunting feeling??" Sirius apparently had yet to recover from the night.

"Voldemort." James said in a low whispering voice. The five of them shuddered at the thought. "I think we should go to Dumbledore." They changed their direction and walked rapidly in silence towards their Headmaster's office.

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"Judging from the current situation, we would want a vote to decide whether we should continue our event." James announced during the prefect meeting. Voldemort had attacked again a week ago, many muggleborns and half-bloods families had been affected.

"For those who want it to continue, please raise your hands." Most of the prefects' hands were raised, in fact, all of them besides the Slytherins of course. "Looks like everyone is in for this. Anyone have any comments or suggestions??" A fifth year raised his hand. "Yes??"

"With all these you-know-who happenings, how can we ensure our safety??" The fifth-year Ravenclaw prefect asked.

"Good question." James nodded. "We're going to cast the Fidelious Charm on ourselves. That was our original suggestion. Perhaps we might add the Disillusioned Charm too. For this event, we'll have Professor Dumbledore, McGonagall and Plains with us. The safety of the students is our main priority. Our Headmaster would not have agreed to continue if he couldn't guarantee the safety. Any other issues??" No one seemed to have any other comment. "In that case, let's have an early night. I would inform you all about the actual date soon." The prefects scattered and left the classroom.

"You ready to go??" Lily asked James as she packed her parchments into the file.

"Let's wait for awhile more." James placed his hand around Lily's waist.

"Hey, what are you trying to do??" Lily asked him, narrowing her eyes.

"What do you think??" James said cheekily, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"I don't know." Lily smiled. "Let's pack up and go back for 'an early night'."

"I thought you always say the night is still young??"

"I was quoting from your words earlier."

"Don't you want to hanky-panky for awhile here??" James whined and asked like a little kid.

"Yeah, in the classroom where you're going to have lessons??"

"Isn't it exciting??"

"For you perhaps." Lily poked his forehead. "I don't want to be blacklisted, yet."

"So someday you wanna hanky-panky here??"

"Perhaps." Lily grinned. "But I didn't say when exactly."

"Awww, what a disappointment." James sat down on the chair, looking down.

"Oh, c'mon. Let's return to the tower now." Lily grabbed all her prefectorial stuffs and pulled James out from his seat.

"So you wanna hanky-panky in the dorm, huh??" James' eyes brightened.

"Is that all you ever think of??"

"You are all I ever think of." James said honestly.

"That's so sweet." Lily gave James a quick peck on his cheek before continuing their stroll up to the Gryffindor tower, hand-in-hand.

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"Not again." Sirius commented loudly. The group of them had been keeping themselves updated with the news of Voldemort and his killings ever since the beginning of the year.

"Go on." Stefanie told Sirius. They slowed their eating pace as they listened to Sirius reading the article.

"We're here to do something about this. But what can we do??" Lily could not help but asked the question once again.

"Let's think of something that we can do about." James tried to change the conversation. "Like the event that we all had been looking forward to."

"Yeah, at least that's something we can control." Remus added. The mornings in the Great Hall had gotten gloomier lately due to Voldemort's attacks. Most of the muggleborns and half bloods had lost part of their families at some point of time, while the rest feared when would be their turn.

"Let's just get on with it before Voldemort can do any more damages." Sirius spoke up suddenly.

"Alright, I shall pronounce Hogwarts First and Only Night Flying event to be set in March." James said it in such a jovial tone that made the group laughed.