"Merlin, isn't there anything better we could be doing?" Ron asked, his hands tucked in his trouser pockets as they walked along the hall.
"You didn't have to come," Neville said, carrying his large, potted Flutterby Bush carefully down the steps. "And you could help, you know."
"I tried that three floors ago," Ron said. "You told me I was 'smudging the pot.'"
"You're the one who took all of the snacks Lily left behind," Neville said. "You keep leaving Cheesy Whimby residue everywhere, it's disgusting."
"Hey, I'm not the one who bought the things," Ron argued. "Somebody has to get through it all."
"You could have just given them back to her."
Ron snorted. "Fat chance of that. They'd likely have killed her, with that curse of hers. Blimey, they almost killed me last night."
"Don't remind me," Neville said, crinkling his nose.
"You sure you don't need any help, mate?" Ron asked. Neville was sweating and breathing hard, and they weren't even halfway down the castle's new stairs. "We could always levitate it, you know."
"Not going to happen," Neville said. "I am not going to risk dropping it."
"Hence you carrying it," Ron said, poking at his friend's thin arm.
"Right, exactly. Can't trust my spell work, but I can trust my own two arms."
"I don't see what the big deal is," Ron said, toying idly with one of the pale flowers coming off the bush.
"Flutterby Bushes only bloom once every century, Ron," Neville said. "That mine did so early is a miracle. I wrote Professor Sprout about it over the summer, and she told me to bring it so we could harvest them. Flutterby petals go in a large variety of potions, and the market can never have enough of them."
"Reckon we could sell them, then?" Ron asked, eyeing the singing bush for entirely different reasons.
"Maybe," Neville said. "But we'd have to dry them first, and that could take months. They're very resistant to magical methods, and since they retain water so well, it takes forever to-"
"Ah, well," Ron said, kicking at a loose pebble that somehow made its way into the castle. "I'll have to make do with Lily's magazines, then."
"Pardon? Should I be concerned?"
"No," Ron said, "Lily already knows. She's selling some things for us over at Beauxbatons. Supposed to write me as soon as she gets rid of the last one. Seemed really excited about it, too."
"What's she selling?"
"Some magazines, I just told you," Ron said. "Charlie gave them to us, and he got them from Bill. Classic vintage stuff."
"And he wanted you to sell them?"
Ron shrugged. "If he didn't, why else would he have wanted me to split them with Lily? Are you sure you don't want help?"
"I'm fine," Neville said. "Look, why don't you go check out the chess club? I'll meet up with you later."
"We have a chess club?" Ron asked, stopping in place. "Since when?"
"Mate, didn't you read any of the new postings?" Neville said, sighing when he set the pot down on the next landing to rest. "We opened all sorts of new things, Hogwarts attendance nearly doubled just from the first years. Why do you think we had so many new professors?"
"And, yet, they still kept Snape," Ron said with a sigh. "Think I might go check out that chess club, after all. Where are they meeting?"
"Astronomy Tower," Neville said, nodding back towards the direction they just came from. "Sinistra is sponsoring it. Katie said she won quite a few competitions before signing up with Hogwarts."
"Katie?" Ron said. "What are you talking to her for?"
"We're friends?" Neville said with a raised brow. "We talk all the time."
"Since when?" Ron asked in disbelief.
"Since she went to Lily's duel with us," Neville said with a shrug. "She helped me with my Transfiguration homework last year, after Hermione got switched."
"Huh," Ron said, scratching at his nose. "Didn't think she much cared for us, to be honest."
"She's really nice, actually," Neville said, wiping at his sweaty forehead again. "Wrote me over the summer after Lily turned her down. Seemed really upset about it, but I didn't mind helping her out."
"Turned her down for what?" Ron asked.
"Nothing," Neville said far too quickly. "Weren't you heading to the chess club?"
"Quidditch?"
"Ron."
"Because I don't think Lily would ever turn down Quidditch."
"Ron!"
"Right, right," Ron said, climbing up three steps at a time. "See you later, then."
It took him a while to reach the tower. He accidentally turned down the wrong hallway, one that wasn't there the last year, and ended up in some tower he'd never heard of that was filled with cranky, yellowed portraits. Even with Lily's map in his possession, it was hard to find everything. Half the floors and corridors weren't even on it, which made it very confusing to get out of a new area, as your dot would just disappear entirely until you found your way back to a known place.
He really hoped the castle wouldn't still be this big next year. He'd never be able to expand the map without Lily's help, even if he could figure out what charms were even used to make the bloody thing.
There were only twelve other people in the room when Ron arrived, which was far more than he expected. Sinistra gave a brief introduction and a rundown of the rules for newcomers, which Ron hardly paid attention to and instead spent the time daydreaming about all the new Quidditch plays Angelina was devising, and then let them free to play amongst each other. Ron ended up paired with a Hufflepuff girl, her brown hair kept in a tight bun, her gray eyes focused on the board in front of her.
Ron was playing black, her white, and she moved a pawn forward two spaces to start them off. Ron wasted no time on his move. He liked to play aggressively, to keep his foes on the defensive. He moved a pawn a single space, to C6.
"Caro-Kann Defense," the girl muttered to herself. "Very interesting."
"Caro-who-now?" Ron said back. The girl started, and Ron briefly wondered if she forgot he was there.
"Sorry," she said, her cheeks flushing slightly. "You countered my move to E4 with C6, see? Muggles call that the Caro-Kann Defense. Most people would have wanted to play the French instead, but that could block your bishop."
"Right," Ron said, moving a knight out. "You're Muggleborn, then?"
"Yes," she said, moving a knight of her own. "Is that a problem?"
Ron snorted. "Course not. I'm a Weasley, not a bloody Malfoy."
"I could tell that much from the hair," she said, chewing on her lip as she thought about her next move. Ron already had his options settled. He was in his element.
"Not the freckles, then?" he said. "Hair could have just meant I was a Potter."
"It'd be darker if you were, yours are always lighter," she said, finally moving a piece. Ron moved one right after, which got her to chewing again.
"You make it a habit of paying attention to all the Weasleys, then?" Ron asked, finally earning a laugh from the girl.
"First thing the older prefects did was hoist the twins on me," she said. "Said it's a tradition that the youngest prefects are the ones that get to deal with them."
"At least you don't live with them," Ron said. "I get no choice in the matter. Imagine being a Gryffindor prefect."
"You wouldn't want to be one, then?" the girl said, moving a piece again. She made a little noise of frustration when Ron moved immediately and took her bishop right from under her nose.
"Doesn't seem all bad," Ron admitted, twirling the piece between two fingers to unnerve her (Lily always hated that and would the leave the board as soon as he did it), "but I don't fancy being the one to tell Fred or George what to do. Percy got enough from them as it was."
"I won't leave a recommendation for you, then," the girl said, that frustration leaking into her tone just slightly. She tried to hurry her play and made a blunder, Ron's bishop swooping right in to take advantage of it and stealing her knight.
"Well, hey, now," Ron said, spinning the newly conquered piece instead, "I'd only have to deal with them for one year. Next two would be bliss after that."
"Would it?" the girl said, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves.
"Sure," Ron said. "Parvati and Lavender have to be our prefects for next year, if they stick with the two each plan. I imagine it would be quite nice to patrol those cold halls with either one of them."
"You know," she said with a dignified sniff, "you're not supposed to abuse the role of prefect to chase after girls."
"Why not?" Ron asked, moving in to pin her Queen down. Any move or lack of move would cost her the piece. He was close. "Percy did it, and he was Head Boy."
He glanced up, surprised to find the girl holding both sides of her head, her hands pulling at her hair.
"I can't believe I'm going to lose," she muttered. "Nobody's ever beaten me at school before."
"Well," Ron said proudly, "I did beat McGonagall's chess game in first year. Earned a bunch of points for it and everything. Checkmate, by the way."
"No," the girl said in disbelief.
"Sorry, mate," Ron said, "but them's the rules."
"Play me again," the girl said quickly, grabbing onto his arm as he stood to head to another table.
"You concede, then?" Ron said with a smile.
"Yes," the girl said after a long, reluctant pause. "Let's go again."
"Absolutely," Ron said, sitting and moving the pieces to reset the board. The girl moved in silence to do the same on her side.
"Eva Applebaum," she said finally, not looking at him.
"Ron Weasley," Ron said, offering her a handshake. "Bit refreshing, to be honest. Thought it was just us wizards what have silly names."
"Pardon?"
"I mean, have you heard some of ours?" Ron said with a laugh. "Oddpick? Greengrass? Peasegood? Batworthy? Can't imagine whatever they did to earn that name was decent."
"I happen to think some of those names are lovely," Eva said, chewing her lip again as she focused on her opening strategy.
"Don't tell that to any of the purebloods around here," Ron said. "They'll never let you hear the end of it."
"It's your move, Ron."
"Right," Ron said, moving his first piece.
"Welcome to the Chess Club," Eva said, moving her own.
Lily was feeling much better once the weekend was over, even if her conversations with Sirius were still weighing on her mind. Between those nightly calls, she spent her time occupying herself with whatever she could possibly get her hands on. She flew with Henri and a few of his mates from Quidditch, she did squats, pull-ups, push-ups, curls, crunches, and even managed to rope Henri in learning how to box. She even joined some of the older girls for Pilates out of desperation just to be moving, although she didn't enjoy that very much at all.
On that first Friday, she pushed herself far too hard and ended up in the Hospital Wing after passing out. After that, Hermione insisted on at least supervising so she wouldn't get herself killed. Lily tried to talk her into joining, but Hermione refused and instead spent that time knitting, of all things. When Lily asked her why, Hermione just blushed and hurriedly changed the topic to something Lily was far more interested in to distract her.
Her efforts to speak with Clara ended in vain; the girl would always mysteriously disappear just as soon as another Beauxbatons student approached, which was all the time. Lily had hardly a single moment of privacy the whole weekend, between Henri and his mates constantly dragging her around to various spots on the island and the girls asking all sorts of questions about Hogwarts. Lily needed the practice, though; all of the French girls spoke far too quickly, apparently not at all caring that the exchange student was having trouble keeping up. Henri in particular she had to keep reminding to speak slower, but he at least apologized when she did so.
Lily rose quietly on Monday morning, taking extra care not to make a single noise as she gathered her clothes, and went into her own private bathroom to ready herself for the day. That was her favourite part of the dorms; she didn't have to wait on a single person to use the loo or take a bath. If she wanted to or needed to, it was there. By the time she exited, feeling fresh and clean and pretty, feeling very good about how the uniform looked on her, Hermione was up and dressed, sitting at her desk and scribbling away like mad.
"Hermione," Lily said, grabbing her satchel from on top of her trunk, "we haven't even had a class yet. What could you possibly have to work on?"
"I stopped by the library while you were in there," Hermione said, holding up a very thick tome to demonstrate. "Had to do something, with how long you take."
"What's that, then?"
"A tome on ancient magical creatures," Hermione said, setting the thing back down gingerly. "I'm trying to find all I can on House Elves, and Professor Gagnon said nobody's published anything on them in centuries, but if I looked prior to 1634, then-"
"Professor Gagnon?" Lily said, tying her hair behind her head. "Hang on, have you already been meeting with professors?"
"I just wanted to introduce myself!" Hermione said defensively. "I didn't get to meet all of them, anyway. I got to talking with Professor Gagnon, and then time slipped away from us, he has a lot of fascinating stories. I think Care of Magical Creatures might actually be fun this year!"
"Are you implying it wasn't with Hagrid?" Lily said, narrowing her eyes to glare at the girl from her wardrobe mirror.
"I could live the rest of my life happily without ever having to see another bundimun," Hermione said, flipping a page without looking at her.
"I think I'm going to breakfast alone," Lily said, feeling grumpy and shutting the wardrobe.
"Oh, come off it, Lily," Hermione said. "You know I love Hagrid, but you have to admit he wasn't the greatest teacher!"
"I will admit to nothing of the sort," Lily said, slinging the bag over her shoulder.
"You shouldn't go by yourself, Lily," Hermione said with a sigh, closing her book to stand.
"I'll be fine!"
"What if you pass out?" Hermione asked, wringing her hands.
"Hermione," Lily said patiently, her hand on the door, "I'm fine. Haven't even coughed since then."
"But-"
"And even if I wasn't," Lily said, cutting her off before she could get going, "I can still eat by myself. I'm not an infant."
"I'm still coming with you," Hermione said, hurriedly standing and snatching her own bag from her bed.
"Suit yourself," Lily said, shrugging.
She was eating a warm, buttery croissant when a stern looking woman began handing out their class schedules, Hermione silently pouring over the library book she refused to put down. She gave up on the wonderful, flaky bread just as soon as she saw how completely packed the schedule was. She and Hermione both were up and running when she noticed that their first one began in five minutes.
It took them seven minutes to get to the building and then another two to find the room. A fat load of good her little prototype Marauder's Map did her when she stupidly forgot it in her dorm room (Lupin gave her the instructions before she left, but all she'd managed so far was a terrible little outline that only showed her own location four minutes prior). She took the first immediate seat she saw upon her arrival, her face a bright red from the exertion (there were a lot of steps to get up to the floor). Hermione practically collapsed into the seat next to her, looking much worse for wear and completely distraught that they arrived late for their first class.
"Names?" a voice called from the front.
"Granger," Hermione squeaked first. The professor hardly seemed to pay her any attention.
"And you?" she said, starting at Lily.
"Potter," Lily said.
"Thank you for gracing us with your presence, Miss Potter," the woman said. She turned back to continue writing on the blackboard, where there were so many words written in a tiny font that even Lily was having a hard time deciphering it all. "I will excuse you just this once, as you are unfamiliar with the school, but please note that your fame does not mean you are exempt from tardiness."
Lily ignored the snickering of the students immediately around her and pulled out her notebook. It was terrible, sure, and she could see the anger written on Hermione's face, but she was used to far worse.
"Welcome to Potions," the woman said as she turned. "For those of you who haven't had me yet, I am Professor Belby. On Monday mornings, we will be reviewing the theory and ingredient preparation techniques. On Fridays, we will be brewing the week's potion. In your fourth year, we will be focusing intently on the brewing of antidotes, as well as the substances they are meant to cure. This is intended for educational purposes only; if any of you are found brewing harmful substances outside of strict supervision, you will face immediate corrective action."
Lily clenched her jaw when Belby's eyes darted over to her, trying to remind herself to not let it get to her. Sirius was right.
She just had to prove them all wrong.
"I will be giving all of you a rundown on precautionary methods and correct handling technique next week," Belby continued. "This week, we will be brewing a potion on both days. Half of you are new faces to me, and I would like to get a benchmark for your skill levels. Please prepare the most complicated potion you are comfortable with brewing solo. Feel free to speak with your neighbours, but bear in mind that your cauldron is your own responsibility. Partner work will begin next week."
As Lily brought her cauldron out of her bag, she took a moment to think. She was certain she heard the name Belby somewhere before. She just couldn't remember where.
"Bloody hell," Ron said, dropping his spoon into his porridge. "Why in Merlin's name do they keep giving us Potions first thing Monday morning?"
"At least we have it with Slytherin this year," Neville said optimistically.
"Yeah, brilliant," Ron said. "Too bad the only two tolerable ones don't go here anymore."
"Look!" Neville said. "We have Snape Mondays, sure, but we have Slughorn on Fridays!"
"Brilliant," Ron said with a sigh. "Come on, mate, I suppose we better get going. If we're late, Snape won't let us live long enough to see if the Slug's any better."
Lily finished her French Language Assistance Potion thirty minutes before class dismissal, feeling immensely pleased with herself. Sure, some people gave her a strange look when she dropped some torn pages into it, and, sure, Hermione kept giving her the side-eye when she leaned down and whispered sweet nothings in French for ten minutes straight (having never actually witnessed her brew the substance before), but she knew it was effective enough. She had hers and Hermione's experiences to testify to that much.
Professor Belby watched her from the front of the class the entire time (perhaps because Lily was the only person brewing from memory rather than book instructions), and Lily found herself looking right back on occasion, although for different reasons. She wasn't wearing the same stuffy robes as the other professors she'd seen. She was wearing a loose white dress that dangled around the shoulders and bust with a gold belt around her waist and a cloak of the same colour draped across one shoulder that led diagonally across her chest, as well as a pair of plain sandals on her feet. She also had her long, dark hair tied up, bringing more focus to her olive skin. Between that and her accent (which, admittedly, took Lily a very long time to pick up on), Lily was quite certain the woman was not French.
"That will be enough," Belby said five minutes before the end. "Store what you have done and clean up your stations before you go. Leave your vials on your stations, I will collect them. Class is dismissed."
That was for the better. Lily was already done with her clean up, and she needed the extra time to get back to the dorm so she could grab her map. They had time for lunch before Charms, but it'd need to be a hurried one.
When Clara joined her right outside, she was pleasantly surprised.
"Hate potions," she grumbled, kicking at a loose stone. "Can't do anything with Belby breathing down my neck."
"Yeah," Lily said, thinking about Snape. She couldn't remember ever once seeing Belby say anything to anybody, of course, but maybe she caught her on a good day.
"You seemed to have a lot of fun," Clara said, her tone becoming pleasant and fake. "Work with me next week, that way I can share your potion."
"You're supposed to contribute with your partner," Hermione said from Lily's other side. Lily, admittedly, hadn't noticed her come in, but was entirely used to the girl suddenly speaking up. "Not let her do all the work just to look good."
"It's alright, Hermione, I don't mind," Lily said. "I did the same thing for Neville, didn't I?"
"That's different," Hermione insisted. "Neville is more than capable of brewing on his own, it's just when Snape is around that he struggles."
"Who's Snape?" Clara asked.
"A right baboon," Lily said. "Big prick, you'd hate him, everybody else does. Say, Clara, do you want to-"
"There you are!" Henri said, slinging an arm around her shoulders affectionately. "So, what do you think about our Professor Belby?"
"She's alright," Lily said, letting out a little sigh when she turned to find that Clara had vanished once more. "Better than our last one, at least."
"Are you really so inept that you cannot take the most rudimentary of notes?" Snape whispered into Neville's ear.
"No, sir," Neville said, his grip threatening to snap his quill.
"Read back what you wrote on line two," Snape said, this time loudly enough so the whole class could hear it.
"Why don't you leave off him?" Ron said loudly, drawing all the attention to himself, instead. Snape glowered at him, but Ron didn't back down.
"Three points from Gryffindor, Weasley," Snape said. "I believe I gave you an order, Longbottom."
"You don't have to listen to a slimy little git like him, mate," Ron said, patting his shoulder.
"Detention, Weasley," Snape growled. "Line seven, Longbottom."
Ron opened his mouth to argue further, but a look from Neville shut him up. Neville took a deep breath and then read aloud from his scroll.
"Crush a silverpine spine with a pestle made of lead and a mortar of bronze," Neville said. "Then add the fine powder to the cauldron and raise the heat until boiling."
"And what, may I ask, are silverpine spines doing in a Potion of Living Nightmares?" Snape asked.
"And what, may I ask, are we doing learning how to make a Potion of Living Nightmares in a school?" Ron countered.
"Another detention, Weasley," Snape said to a chorus of Slytherin snickering. "You are learning to brew the potion so that, in the next lessons, you may learn to brew the antidote. Any proper cure must be made by somebody that knows the poison or curse you are attempting to cancel. Do you understand, now, or must you continue inserting your worthless insights into every conversation that does not concern you?"
Ron clenched his jaw, absolutely not looking forward to the letter he'd be getting from home. Two detentions in the first day of classes? His only hope was that Snape would foist him off on somebody else.
"Now, Longbottom, you have yet to answer my question," Snape said. "Why would silverpine spines go into a Potion of Living Nightmares?"
"I don't know," Neville muttered.
"You don't know?" Snape said. "What a surprise. Perhaps, if you used that miniscule brain of yours for the first time of your life, you'd have realized that an ingredient that brings about euphoria has absolutely no place whatsoever in a potion meant to torment the drinker."
"He was only adding Lily's notes," Ron added despite his brain screaming at him not to. "She said adding a faint feeling of happiness to the potion would help to-"
"How many detentions do you require before you will learn, Weasley?" Snape said. "Perhaps three more? Will that serve?"
"That's not-"
"I do not care what findings Potter may believe she found," Snape said. "Potter is not here, and you two bumbling buffoons lack even the shred of miniscule talent she possessed. You will follow the instructions as provided. I want three feet on my desk next Monday, from both of you, on the proper brewing process and the importance of doing as you are told. Now, get out of my sight, all of you."
Ron slammed his book closed, tucked it under one arm, and then stormed out of the room as quickly as he could, Neville following at his heels.
Lily was running along the beach, basking in the setting sun, her trainers left at the shore a way back. She was breathing harder than she used to, but she was absolutely determined to get back into shape as quickly as possible.
In Charms, they started learning summoning charms. Lily expected it to be very difficult, considering all the buildup given by older Hogwarts students, but both she and Hermione were zipping items across the room just a few minutes into the class. Their homework was a bit unconventional; they, and the other students who pulled it off, were each given a separate group of students to assist and tutor in learning the same spell. Lily just got off of helping her own before her run. Not a one of them got the spell to work, but they'd been far too preoccupied with asking her all sorts of personal questions. Lily kept trying to bring the topic back to hand, but when she saw how excited Clara was listening to her stories, she allowed herself to get distracted. So far, it was the only time she'd seen the other girl around other people, even though she never said a single word and the others hardly even spared her a glance.
Arithmancy was the usual drivel; hours upon hours of mind-numbing numbers and charts, with even more of the slop assigned to them to complete outside of classes. Hermione was sitting in their dorm room right now, getting a head start on it (although Lily suspected she was actually working on that secretive knitting project of hers). Lily couldn't be bothered. She needed to move before she could get to anything tedious. She was really looking forward to learning more warding techniques, but, according to the schedule they were given, that wasn't until near the end of the year. She wasn't sure she'd ever make it that far; she was already considering dropping Arithmancy as it was. The only thing keeping her from doing so was Hermione's desperate sweettalking; she just couldn't bear to disappoint that girl.
She was tired and sweaty by the time she made it back to the dorm, just minutes before curfew. Hermione was still hard at work, scribbling away at the desk, as Lily walked over to the water basin and drank deeply from a nearby cup. She was a bit disappointed that she couldn't see a single one of those lumpy little hats anywhere, since she was starting to grow quite fond of them, but she was certain one would make an appearance sooner or later.
"I'm almost done, if you want to look over it for any mistakes," Hermione said, not looking up.
"Maybe later," Lily said, digging through her wardrobe for her pyjamas. "We have until Friday."
"I'd really like to get it all done before then, Lily."
"And I'd like to get a bath in," Lily said, hiding one of her magazines in the pile of clothing, the mirror set on top of that. "I'll go over it after I'm done, Hermione, I promise."
"Alright, then," Hermione said, leaning over the back of her chair as she stretched. "Did you have a good run? No coughing?"
"Just a bit," Lily admitted, "but that might have been because I choked on some saliva."
"Surely," Hermione agreed hopefully. "Don't take too long of a soak, I don't want you up too late again."
"Yes, mum," Lily said as she closed the bathroom door behind her. That was already a lost cause. She knew that as soon as she started flipping through the pages, after nearly half an hour of chatting with Sirius about her schoolwork and exercises, laying in the scalding, relaxing water.
"Why did we take Divination, Neville?" Ron asked after ten minutes of bouncing his quill against his thumb and not writing a single bloody thing.
"I'm starting to wonder that myself," Neville said, scribbling away at his own journal.
"I mean, really," Ron said, "what's the point of recording our dreams? It's not like any of them bloody mean anything."
"Just make them up, that's what I'm doing. Got most of the month done so I won't have to bother later."
"Good idea," Ron said, nodding after a brief pause. "How morbid do you think I can get away with?"
"With Trelawney?" Neville said with a snort. "I think she'd be disappointed if you weren't dying in every dream you had."
"Fair enough," Ron said, finally starting to work now that his brain was cooperating. "Think I'll say Snape was drowning me in my cauldron for this one, she'll love that."
"I can hear her now," Neville agreed, "going on and on about how it's a dire warning of your impending doom."
"And this one," Ron said, "I'll write about the Triwizard Tournament. Think she'd like that?"
"Only if you add some twist to it," Neville suggested, looking up from his journal and setting his quill down completely. "Maybe choose a Champion nobody else would ever think of?"
Ron snapped and pointed. "Who's that ugly bloke from Slytherin, the mean one with the Prefect's Badge?"
"Mulligan? I don't think you want to choose him, you might jinx it in his favour."
"Good point," Ron said. "I'll just put down Lily, that'd be a good laugh."
"Maybe for you. Doubt she'd like it much."
"It's just a dream, Nev. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Good to know I'm just as rubbish at Transfiguration in French as I am English," Lily said as they left the classroom.
"You weren't that bad, Lily," Hermione said consolingly. "At least you managed to make a single worm. Clara couldn't even do that much."
Lily had a sneaking suspicion that was because Clara was focused on something else entirely. She could feel the girl watching her right now, as a matter of fact, as they walked (in a rush) towards their next class, sulking because Henri managed to talk to her first before running off for a different class.
"Wish we'd started with a bit of review," Lily grumbled, brushing some hair out of her face when the wind picked up.
"That's what all the summer homework was for, Lily," Hermione said with a sigh.
"Never stopped McGonagall!"
"Lily, are you feeling nostalgic for Hogwarts?"
"Not at all," Lily lied. "What's next on the list?"
"Hagrid," Neville said anxiously, taking a moment to swallow down his fear. "What are these things?"
"I call 'em Blast-Ended Skrewts," Hagrid said proudly, placing his hands on his hips like a doting father.
"Brilliant," Ron said, poking one with a very long stick. It got it between its pincers and then simultaneously cut it in half and lit it on fire.
"Lovely, aren' they?" Hagrid said with a sniff, one large finger wiping a tear from his eye.
"Yeah," Ron lied. "Downright handsome."
In truth, they looked rather like naked crabs, their pale flesh wrinkly and slimy, with legs poking out in strange places and at strange angles. They had no head that Ron could find, and they smelled terribly like rotting fish. Occasionally, sparks would fly out one end (it could be either, really), and the skrewt responsible would fly forward several inches, usually impaling a different skrewt with one of its many sharp features. There were hundreds of them, even if they were dying off like flies caught in a massive web.
"Hagrid?" Lavender Brown said nervously, standing far to the back of the crowd. "Can't we just learn about Salamanders or- or-"
"We did Salamanders las' year," Hagrid said, waving her off. "Thought that, now that yeh've got some experience in yeh, we could make a project of the skrewts!" Hagrid beamed at his class of terrified Gryffindors and then motioned back to the crates (as the other Houses absolutely refused to come any closer). "Now, I want each of yeh to split up into groups of three or four. Each group take a crate, and let's see if we can' figure out what these little buggers eat, eh?'
"Lovely," Ron said with a sigh. Not a single person moved forward, which meant that he had to take the first step.
"I wonder if Lily has to deal with these things," Neville said in a similar tone.
Ron snorted. "Mate, if she was here, she'd be cooing over them just the same as Hagrid."
"Mermaids!" Lily shouted excitedly, leaning much too far over the ship's railing for Hermione's comfort (the girl was attempting to pull her back over the side by the skirt).
"Very good, Potter," Professor Gagnon said with a chuckle. "But let's not ogle, shall we? Wouldn't want to offend any of them."
"But that one just did a flip!" Clara argued, standing uncomfortably close to Lily's side. She seemed to take a great deal of comfort in being one of the only people to approach the rails of their rather rickety ship.
Gagnon laughed again. "Very well, but let's try to ogle from on the ship, shall we?"
Lily reluctantly allowed Hermione to pull her back to more solid footing, her eyes focused and locked intently on the mermaids in front of her. She could hear a few girls, and maybe even some boys, sniggering far behind her, but she didn't care. She was enthralled.
There were dozens of them, swimming in ornate patterns, singing and waving to the students watching them (while Gagnon attempted to lecture them on merfolk culture and lifestyles). They seemed like they wanted toshow off, wanted the students to walk away from this encounter as excited as they could possibly be.
At the very least, they were getting their wish fulfilled by one tall, red-headed girl who was leaning over the railing of the ship once more, Hermione giving up entirely on holding her back.
"Why don't they look anything like the book?" Hermione asked, her own face constantly shifting between the book's drawings and the creatures before them all.
Hermione was right (not that Lily cared); while the pictures in the book looked just like the Muggle drawings Lily grew up seeing (through wistful, sneaked glances and wishful dreams), the creatures in front of them were more fishlike and scalier, although extremely beautiful in their own ways. Some of them had scales that shimmered like a rainbow, some of them wore long shirts and gowns made of seaweed and other items, some of them lounged on the nearby stones, toying with their hair and trying their best to appear as expected.
"They like to be drawn that way," Gagnon said standing right behind them and gently pulling Lily back over by the shoulder. "In fact, they explicitly ask for it. Should you ever find yourself lucky enough to visit one of their villages, you'll find that, even in their own art, they depict themselves the same way we do. Of all the magical creatures, merfolk are the most similar to us. The Mediterranean tribes even use their own form of wands, although their spells don't work outside of water."
"How are we supposed to learn about them if we don't even properly know what they look like?" Hermione grumbled.
"I'll draw one for you later," Lily said without taking her eyes off the nearest one. It was coming up towards the ship, reaching out a hand towards her, as if asking her to join it in the water. Lily was awfully tempted, but that seemed like a terrible idea, considering her circumstances.
"Why are they only singing in the water?" Clara asked. Gagnon seemed surprised to be hearing a question from her, but then his face lit into a bright smile.
"Merspeech can only be understood by those who do not know it when spoken under the waves," Gagnon said. "Above the surface, it sounds more like a harpy's death throes."
"Can we learn Merspeech?" Lily asked, far too much excitement in her voice.
Gagnon laughed again, clapping her on the back. "Of course, you can! For the next few weeks, we'll be learning the ins and outs of the local cultures, as well as the rudimentary beginnings of their language. I hold extracurricular meetings to continue learning the language, if you're interested in keeping on. I'm told Hogwarts has their own tribe, too, so we may even continue once we get there, so we can explore the differences in their beliefs and systems."
"Hogwarts had mermaids?" Lily said, looking towards Hermione.
"I suppose so," Hermione said with a shrug.
"Why didn't anybody ever tell me?"
"Lily, I've never even read about them being near the school," Hermione said. "Believe me, if I knew, I would have told you."
"So, what do you think?" Clara asked, joining Lily in leaning against the railing.
"I think it's a dream come true," Lily said, unable to stop smiling.
"Dream hasn't come true yet, Potter," Clara said with a laugh. "You still need to kiss one for that to happen."
"She has to what?" Hermione asked while Lily's face flushed a bright red. "Lily, what is she talking about?"
"Nothing," Lily said defensively. "Just- just a silly little dream I used to have, that's all."
"A dream?" Hermione said. "Since when have you wanted to see mermaids? You never mentioned that before."
"I always have," Lily said. "I just- I never thought we'd really get the chance to, so, I- I didn't bring it up." That, and she had a lot of other things to worry about. "Honestly, Hermione, I haven't even thought about it in ages."
"Alright," Hermione said carefully, "but what's this about kissing one?"
"I said it was silly," Lily said, absolutely refusing to look in either girls' direction.
"Right," Hermione said after a long pause. Lily could feel her watching her for the rest of their little trip, appraising her and studying her reactions. She didn't like it one bit.
Ron yawned, his mouth stretching widely, not even bothering to cover it, his fingers drumming on the desk in front of him. Moody was running late.
"How long do we have to wait before we can just go?" he asked.
"I don't think we're allowed to leave until the class ends," Neville said.
"You're no fun, mate."
"Do you really want another detention?" Neville asked. "Besides, Fred and George said this class was brilliant, didn't they? It should be worth the wait."
"Sure," Ron said, "but he actually managed to show up for them, didn't he?"
"What do you think is taking him so long?" Lavender asked from his other side.
"How would I know?" Ron said. "Probably got that leg of his stuck in the false stair, like Neville always does."
"I haven't done that since third year," Neville said, his cheeks blushing. "I don't even know where it is anymore!"
"It's only a matter of time before you find out," Ron said. "Really, if he isn't here soon, I'm going to-"
Ron jumped when the doors slammed open at the back of the room. Every single head turned to watch the gnarled, scarred man hobble in, limping and leaning heavily on his wooden leg.
"Sorry I'm late," he growled, his magical eye whizzing back and forth as it looked at each and every single one of them. "Was looking into something and my leg got stuck in that false step down on the fourth floor.
Ron snickered but then quickly shut it off when the man glared at him.
"My name is Alastor Moody," Moody said, his magical eye moving onto the next one. "You can call me Professor Moody or Mad-Eye, I don't right care which. I am here to teach you to defend yourselves against those who would see you harmed."
"Like who?" Seamus said, still sniggering himself.
"Like Voldemort," Moody said casually, scowling deeper when the whole class gasped (aside from the Slytherins, who either laughed or stared at the professor with a stone-like expression). "First lesson: no more flinching at Voldemort's name. I'll be saying it often, and for each time you do, you'll receive a detention."
"That's not fair," Seamus argued. "We're not supposed to say the name!"
"And why is that?" Moody said, his eye snapping to lock onto Seamus. "Finnegan, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir," Seamus said, his chin still held up defiantly.
"And why is that, Finnegan?" Moody said, leg thumping on the stone floor as he moved closer to Seamus. "Because you were told not to? Because your mum fears the mere memory of Voldemort so much- detention, Brown, Longbottom, Patil and Patil- that she's spread a baseless phobia to her children?"
"He would have killed us," Seamus said, his face going red.
"Yes, he would have," Moody said. "He would have killed your mum for marrying a Muggle, and he would have killed you for displaying your filthy blood status so proudly. And that is exactly my point. How many of you are fully Pure-Blood? Go on now, raise your hands."
Ron raised his hand, as did Lavender and Neville, but they were the only ones in Gryffindor. In the Ravenclaws, there were even fewer of them- just Goldstein and a single girl Ron couldn't remember the name of. In Slytherin, almost every single one of them did, and Hufflepuff had about half.
"Take a good, long look at your friends who didn't raise their hands," Moody said darkly, standing back in front of his desk at the head of the room. "Because when Voldemort returns- and mark my words, he will return- they'll be the ones he goes after. Some of you with one magical parent, you may get lucky enough, so long as you choose to denounce your Muggle heritage. But your parents won't. They'll be among the first killed or tortured. And those of you who are Muggleborn? Your only choices will be to fight against Voldemort- Finnegan, Patil, Patil, Brown, Goldstein, Corner, Boot, Entwhistle- or to die, because he sure as hell won't give you any other option."
Ron turned to look at Dean Thomas, along with the rest of the Gryffindors. Dean was staring straight at Moody, his jaw clenched in defiance.
"You're mad," Seamus said in disbelief.
Moody laughed, his bark filling every corner of the room.
"Of course I am, Finnegan," he said. "How do you think I got the name? But that doesn't change a thing that I say; you're all too young to see the signs, and most of your parents are too afraid to recognize them. They don't want another war any more than I do."
"Then why are we studying for one?" a Hufflepuff- maybe Ernie Macmillan- asked.
"Because one is coming," Moody said. "Even if it takes a decade, even if Voldemort himself can't find a way back- both Patils again, Longbottom, Cornfoot, Corner, and Finnegan- his followers are still out there. I know you all heard the news. I know some of you were even there. The Death Eaters are already active again, even if Fudge wants to pretend it was the Bulgarians. The Ministry's complete failure to denounce or investigate them means they will continue to be active. The only action the Ministry has taken to combat them was to approve my tenure here at Hogwarts, so I can teach you how to defend yourselves. That is why I brought these."
Moody gestured at the three jars sitting on the desk behind him. Ron shuddered when he noticed the single spider contained within each of them.
"A point from Gryffindor, Weasley," Moody snapped. "Voldemort used Acromantulas during the last war. It's about time you get over that fear of yours, or you'll have much bigger problems to face."
Ron nodded, his face going pale, and Lavender gave him a little pat on the hand that completely surprised him and cause him to straighten his posture. Moody stared at them all for a moment before continuing to speak.
"What is an Unforgivable Curse?" Moody asked to the silent classroom. "No one?"
Ron had to stop a laugh; he'd been so used to Hermione answering all the questions, he'd never even considered answering one himself. He raised his hand.
"Weasley?"
"The Unforgivables are three curses that, if cast, would immediately land the caster a lifetime sentence in Azkaban," Ron said.
"Correct, in theory," Moody said. "In practice, the Unforgivables, except for the worst of them, can result in lesser terms or even complete forgiveness, depending on the circumstances involved or the connections one happens to possess."
Ron nodded; dad always said Lucius Malfoy and his lot got off far too easily.
"Go on, Weasley," Moody said. "Why don't you give me one of them?"
"Well," Ron said reluctantly, "dad always talks about the- the Imperious Curse."
"Yes, he would," Moody said, turning to one of his jars and unloading the spider into the palm of his hand (Ron did his very best not to shudder at the thought). "The Imperious Curse gave the Ministry quite a bit of trouble back in the first war. Many who acted under Voldemort's orders- Finnegan, Patil, Brown, Goldstein- either claimed to be or were under the curse's influence. Engorgio."
At the word, and at a poke of Moody's wand, the spider enlarged until it was easily visible from across the distant sides of the room. Ron sank down into his chair to try and hide his nerves, and Lavender gave him another pat on the hand. That made him sit right back up.
"Imperio," Moody said, wand still aimed at the spider. At once, the spider began to tap dance in his hand. Ron let out a nervous laugh, and so did quite a few others, but when Moody joined in, it quickly died off.
"Think it's funny, do you?" Moody said. "What about if it happened to you? What if somebody used it to make you torture your loved ones? What if they used it to make you kill them? Would that be funny? That's what the Imperious does. It takes away your free will, and it makes you follow the caster's commands. You will still act as normal when not receiving orders, but you will be only a passive observer in your own life until the curse is broken."
"How do we break it?" Ron found himself asking.
"Take two points, Weasley," Moody said. "I like questions, especially when they relate to your safety. To break the curse, you need an outsider to knock you unconscious. That'll always do the trick. You can fight it, if you have a strong enough will, but you'd need to be able to recognize the symptoms in the first place. I will be teaching you how in the coming weeks. Dumbledore wants us to wait until the foreign students arrive."
Moody placed the spider back into the jar while students around the classroom wrote down what he'd shown them. Ron kept staring, thinking about what Moody told them all. He could think of only one reason why they'd choose to wait; convincing the other Headmasters to let a Professor use an Unforgivable on their students would be a hard sell indeed, otherwise.
They wanted Lily to learn. That had to be it.
"Who can name another?" Moody asked. "Longbottom?"
Ron was shocked out of his thoughts by his friend's hand in the air, his face pale and clammy.
"The Cruciatus," Neville said quietly as he put his hand back down.
Moody didn't say a word as he brought out the next spider, laying it calmly on his same palm before enlarging it again.
"You may leave the class if you need to, Longbottom," Moody said, a strange kindness in his voice. "This will be hard, but I think it would be good for you to stay." Neville nodded and didn't stand. Moody nodded back and then looked down to the spider, his magical eye still on Neville.
"Crucio."
At once, the spider began writhing and flailing in Moody's hand, twisting and stretching in pain. If spiders could scream, Ron was sure it would be. Neville's hands clenched into tight fists next to him, but he kept staring at the spider, even as his body started trembling.
And then Moody ended it, reducing the spider back to normal and dropping it into the empty jar. When he placed the last one into his hand, the entire class stared at it apprehensively.
"The Cruciatus Curse inflicts the worst pain imaginable upon its victims," Moody said. "Prolonged exposure to it is enough to break anybody, even me, even Dumbledore. Hours, even days, of torment can drive the victim completely insane. Voldemort likes to use it to punish those who defy him. Some will tell you he uses it to get information, but that is a complete lie. He will use other methods for that. Any information you can gain from the Cruciatus is completely worthless. The victim will tell you whatever they think you want to hear, just so it will end. It's cruel and pointless. No- that's wrong- the cruelty is the point.
"The last of the Unforgivables has a completely different purpose. It isn't meant to create obedient slaves. It isn't meant to cause pain or torment. It has one use and one use only. To destroy. To end life."
"The Killing Curse," Ron muttered.
"That's correct, Weasley," Moody said, pushing his wand into the spider's enlarged abdomen. "Avada Kedavra."
There was a flash of green light, and then the arachnid tumbled from Moody's hand, falling lifelessly onto the floor beneath him to a chorus of shocked gasps from the students.
"There is no way to survive the Killing Curse," Moody said. "There is no way to block it, either; shield charms don't work. You might be able to reflect it, but you'd have to be a complete idiot to try; one, small mistake, and it's all over. Your only true choice, the only one you should even consider, when facing down the Killing Curse, is to get out of the way. Put a physical object between you and it, or just get out of the path. Be fast, and you may survive.
"There are more painful ways to kill, yes, and Voldemort and his followers will utilize those first. But, once they are frustrated or pressured, they will always result to the Killing Curse. They want you dead, they want you out of the way. Those other curses? You can survive. You can block them with a shield charm, you can transfigure the blasts. The Killing Curse cannot be changed or stopped. That is why it is Unforgivable, and others are not. You cannot stop it. You cannot survive it. Every magical government around the world has researched it, to try finding a way around it. They have all failed."
Moody held up a single finger, his eyes scanning the enraptured crowd in front of him.
"There is only one person who has ever survived the Killing Curse," Moody said to the deathly quiet classroom. "Only one."
"How?" Lavender asked. "How did she do it?"
"That is the question, isn't it?" Moody said. "And an excellent one at that. Two points, Brown. We don't know how she did it. Not even she does. All we have are theories. Until somebody does it again, we won't know how close we are."
"Nice try, Potter," Clara said, her fingers drumming in an irritated rhythm on the desk she was leaning on, "but if you really want anybody to believe that you fought a Basilisk, you need to stop changing it's size every time you tell the story."
"What?" Lily asked, pausing midsentence. She'd almost forgotten Clara was in their empty little classroom at all. She was supposed to be showing all of them the Summoning Charm again, but got completely distracted by Henri's questioning.
"I mean, really," Clara said, apparently feeling emboldened despite the glares from the other students. "It's already bad enough that the great, big snake can kill with a single glance, and you somehow managed to fight it off while blinded and twelve, but-"
"I was thirteen, thank you," Lily snapped, "and the Basilisk could change sizes. That's how it kept fitting through all of the pipes."
"Whatever you say."
"Ignore 'er, Lily," Henri said, his accent thick and his speech slow. "Clara is- err- difficult?"
"Don't you start," Clara said, her face growing red.
"Yeah, ignore her, Lily," a pretty blonde girl said (Lily never caught her name). "Nobody wants to hear about Clara's little dragon again."
The rest of the group laughed around the confused Lily, but Clara just slammed both her hands on the desk, her face flushing darker.
"I did see one!" she shouted.
"What's this about a dragon?"
Henri rolled his eyes. "Clara tried to convince us all she saw a dragon in our first year, flying right over the dorms."
"I did!"
"Then how come nobody else ever did, Clara?" the same girl snapped. "How come nobody ever saw your troll, either, or the phoenix, or the flying seahorses, or any of the other rubbish you made up?"
"I didn't make it up!" Clara hissed through clenched teeth.
"I don't see what the problem is," Lily said. "I met a dragon in my first year, too."
"What?" everybody else said at once.
"See?" Lily said, placing her hand on the table between them all so they could see her stretched, pink scar.
"That came from a dragon?" one of the girls asked skeptically.
"Yup!" Lily said happily. "Our groundskeeper hatched one in his hut – long story, I'll tell it another night- and while I was helping him feed it, it bit me. Couldn't get it to heal right, even with dittany; little bastard had venom."
"Well, that's still different," the first girl said snootily. "Clara claims she saw an adult one flying right over our dorms, and it somehow didn't make a single noise and went unnoticed by everybody else."
"I did see it," Clara grumbled.
"What did it look like?" Lily asked to a chorus of groans and eye rolling.
"Here we go again," Henri said playfully. Clara shot a glare at him before turning back to Lily.
"It was red and yellow," she said, "with wings larger than it's body, and they were almost see through, and- and it had a really short snout shaped almost like a boot!"
The other students laughed and giggled, muttering a few insults and jibes and ignoring the increasingly infuriated look on Clara's face, while Lily just nodded in understanding.
"Catalonian Fireball," she said simply.
"What?" the first, very rude girl said. Lily decided she wasn't so pretty after all.
"Catalonian Fireball," Lily repeated, this time in French. "Live right on the coast of Spain. They're bursts of flame typically come in tiny little bursts, but they're really hot, almost as bad as magma. They have to have such large wings, too, because they're really heavy, even though the flapping hardly makes a single noise. They're stealth predators, so they don't even roar. You could be sitting on the shore, minding your own business, and not notice it at all until you're on fire and screaming."
"You believe me?" Clara said in shock.
"You believe her?" the rude girl said in much the same tone.
Lily nodded. "Why wouldn't I? They don't live too far from here, and, get this- they eat mostly fish and other life found in the Mediterranean. It was probably flying back to it's nest when Clara saw it. I'll ask Professor Gagnon later, he probably knows where it'd be."
"See?" Clara said, suddenly sounding very excited.
"That hardly proves a thing," the rude girl said, bowling straight over the other student's questions. "What about everything else?"
"Well, it just so happens that I ran into a troll in my first year, too," Lily said fondly, even though she'd spent the whole day being miserable and sobbing her little eyes out. "I don't see any problems with a sea troll washing up on shore- the Catalonian Fireball eats them sometimes, by the way- Plus, Professor Dumbledore has a phoenix, we saw it all the time at Hogwarts. He even uses it in place of an owl when he sends off letters." She didn't know if that part was true, but it seemed plausible enough. "And do I even need to explain the flying sea horses? The mermaids breed them, for Merlin's sake!"
"Oh, sure," the girl said. "I'm sure the girl who fought a Basilisk also happened to fight a troll, befriend a phoenix, and knows all about dragons. Who's to say that scar didn't just come from a dog?"
"Sure, it could have," Lily admitted with a shrug, feeling unusually emboldened by the look of starstruck awe Clara was giving her. "My aunt used to sick hers on me all the time. Maybe I didn't see a troll, maybe I didn't get bit by a dragon, maybe I made the Fireball up, and maybe Dumbledore just keeps a very large, very red Cockatoo. Maybe I even didn't fight the Basilisk!"
"See?" the girl said as if Lily had just proven her point. "I think we've entertained your stories long enough, but if you don't want to end up like Clara, then you need to-"
"But let me ask you something," Lily said, cutting her off. "If I didn't do any of those things, then how did I get my Order of Merlin?"
The girl fell silent, and Henri was looking back and forth between Lily and Clara with a sense of dawning understanding.
"We live in a world of magic!" Lily said. "And in case you haven't noticed, Beauxbatons is surrounded in all sorts of wonderful creatures. Frankly, I find it harder to believe the rest of you haven't seen anything."
"I saw a Griffin once!" Henri said after a brief pause, his cheeks going slightly red. "I never told anybody, thought I'd been dreaming for a bit, but- err- it was beautiful."
And then, once the floodgates were open, every student, including the terrible girl, were scrambling for things and creatures they'd seen and noticed, talking excitedly instead of working, Clara sitting stunned and silent and forgotten at the edge of the table. When their usual ending time came, and the rest of them left, still chatting and smiling, Clara lingered behind with Lily, looking nervous about something.
"Thanks," she said finally, looking away. "I know you were lying about believing me, but- but thanks, anyway."
"I wasn't lying," Lily said truthfully.
"Really?" Clara said, turning her head fully, the same twinkle of hope in her eyes.
"Really," Lily said with a smile and a nod.
"Just so you know, I didn't do the rest of it, neither," Clara said, talking very quickly. "I never stole nothing from Florina, she's just had it out for me since first year, and I didn't do nothing the teachers said, neither."
Lily nodded along as they walked. "People said the same things about me in primary, Clara. I didn't do anything, either."
"I knew you'd understand," Clara said, letting out a deep, relieved sigh anyway.
"Listen, I've got to meet up with Fleur," Lily said, pointing down the opposite side of the split path with her thumb.
"Right," Clara said, her expression darkening just a bit.
"You should come to Quidditch tryouts with me this weekend," Lily said, taking a reluctant step backwards.
Clara sighed and shook her head. "I probably shouldn't. Henri will be there, and he can't stand my guts."
"I don't think so," Lily said with a knowing smile. "I don't think he took his eyes off you the entire time we were talking."
"Really?" Clara said, blinking in surprise.
"Just come, you'll see," Lily said, beginning her jog down the dark path. "See you tomorrow!"
"Merlin, he's a nutter," Seamus complained loudly as they left the class hours later.
"He's brilliant, mate," Ron said. He never earned a detention, himself, but he promised Neville he'd wait for him after seeing how pale the lad was during supper.
"Yeah, right," Seamus said with a snort. "You believe him, then? About You-Know-Who coming back?"
"Of course, I do," Ron said. "I was there when he came for Lily. I saw him, and so did Neville."
"You're all nutters, then," Seamus said, shaking his head as he walked off, Dean following at his heels (albeit with an apologetic smile back at them).
"Just let him go," Neville said, pulling him back by the arm. He was still pale, but he seemed a bit calmer.
"You alright to get back to the dorm, mate?" Ron asked. "I could always-"
"Go to your club," Neville said with a weak smile. "I think I'll nip down to Hagrid's, have a cup of tea."
"I'll see you later, then," Ron said, clapping him on the shoulder before setting off upstairs. He hoped Eva was saving a seat for him; she was close, that last game, and he spent most of the week coming up with ways to stay ahead of her.
"There you are!" Fleur said impatiently, standing from her seat the very instant Lily entered the room. "We were supposed to meet half an hour ago!"
"Sorry!" Lily said, letting her satchel drop to the floor near the door, right next to Fleur's things. "I had to lead a group practice for Charms, and it ran a bit long!"
Fleur crossed her arms and stared at her, appraising the squirming redhead under her harsh gaze.
"Professor Bricoleur has you leading study sessions?" she asked.
"Yes," Lily said, nodding way too much.
"Excellent," Fleur said approvingly. "It seems I won't have much work to do in Charms, then. I did think your spell work on that category was satisfactory at the Cup, even if you were shouting your spells."
"We don't start silent casts until sixth year," Lily said, her face growing hot.
"Any witch worth her weight will have learned in their third," Fleur said, waving the complaint off. "No, you are very far behind. I will not let you leave this room tonight until you have successfully cast at least one silent spell, even if we are here until dawn!"
"Right," Lily said reluctantly. At the very least, she could cheat by changing her hair, if it came to it.
"Mr. Weasley," McGonagall said sharply as Ron attempted to leave her classroom.
"Yes, Professor?" Ron said innocently, waving Neville on ahead.
"That tone may work on your mother, young man," McGonagall said with a stern look, "but I am far too aware of your brother's antics for it to work on me."
"So is she," Ron said with a shrug. "Figured it was worth a shot, though."
"Professor Trelawney wishes to speak with you," McGonagall said, her glasses perched dangerously on the tip of her nose as she looked upon him. "Need I be worried?"
"No," Ron said unsurely. It depended entirely on if Trelawney figured out their scam, but if she wasn't looking for Neville too, then it had to be something else, right?
"Then you best be on your way," McGonagall said. "You will be late to your next class as it is. I would hate for you to miss it entirely."
"Yeah, same here," Ron said, wondering if he could use it as an excuse to skive off entirely as he left the Transfiguration classroom and went upwards.
Ron took Divination as one of his courses because he- well, actually, he took it because he took all of the extra classes after being convinced to by Lily- but he kept Divination, after dropping other objectively more interesting classes, because it was easy. Trelawney wasn't a very strict person, it seemed like she hardly looked at homework or exams at all, and, most of the time, you could get her to waste an entire class telling stories because she was just so distractible.
She was also, unfortunately, located in one of the highest places in the entire bloody castle. It wasn't too bad, last year, but now that the castle was double the size, that meant double the stairs. Because, for some unknown reason, the Divination Tower just had to rival the Astronomy one. Because, for some ungodly reason, Trelawney absolutely refused to have her class anywhere reasonable.
Ron was huffing and puffing by the time he made it all the way up them, and when he had to climb Trelawney's stupid little rope ladder just to get inside, the heavy perfume that filled the air in thick clouds did nothing to help him catch it. When he came out into an empty room filled with frilly tables and heavy curtains, and, notably, no sign of Trelawney, he let out a groan and reclined in the nearest seat.
And then a raspy, high voice sounded from the corner of the room, right behind him, and Ron about jumped five feet in the air in his fright before turning to find a wide-eyed, frantic Trelawney. He tried to back up, but then she was on him, grabbing his arm in a vicelike grip as she started to speak once more.
"The despair of the world arrives, ere the end of year," she croaked, her vacant eyes unseeing and with a hint of blue in the pupils.
"What?" Ron said, his face contorted in complete fear.
"The-One-Who-Should-Not-Be will be marked by his mercy," she continued, gasping for air, "bringing the day of ruin closer to dawn. When the masks dance, the doom has come, and all will move to the tune. The despair of the world arrives, ere the end of year."
"What?" Ron said, finally wrenching his arm free. "Have you gone mad?"
"Pardon?" Trelawney said in her normal voice, her pupils returning to normal beneath her wide-rimmed glasses.
"You've completely lost the plot, haven't you?" Ron said, backing up towards the ladder.
"Mr. Weasley," Trelawney said in her best mockery of a stern voice, "I did not call you up here for this attitude. I called you up here to speak about your dream from the previous night?"
"Is that right?" Ron said warily.
"Yes," Trelawney said, reaching for a stack of papers she had on the table she was just resting at. "Is it true you've seen Miss Potter as a champion in your dreams?"
Ron froze in place, desperately fighting the urge to flee. They all knew Trelawney was batty, but that seemed far beyond her usual repertoire of madness.
"Yeah," he said, reluctantly sitting across from her and deciding to write it off as just some new lunacy.
Lily collapsed onto her mattress, fresh out of the bath, her muscles stiff and sore.
"I told you not to run so much," Hermione said in a singsong voice from her desk. Lily had no clue what she was working on this time. They'd already gotten through most of their homework. They just had to work on their dueling forms, and they'd be all set for the next week (Professor Baudin was very upset with their lack of formal knowledge and assigned them extra homework for it, despite it not being remotely their fault that Hogwarts doesn't offer a class on the topic).
"That's not the problem," Lily said, closing her eyes. "It's Fleur's training."
"That bad, huh?"
"You have no idea."
Fleur was a more harsh taskmaster than Snape or McGonagall, as far as Lily was concerned. When Lily finally managed a silent levitation charm, she'd been over the moon, but Fleur just saw it as a failure that she couldn't do more and continued pushing her even harder. She insisted it wouldn't count until she could manage a silent transfiguration, and when Lily tried to use her hair trick to cheat, Fleur didn't buy it for one second.
"I don't know how you did it," she said, her tone slightly miffed, "but you cannot fool me, Lily. I have seen your marks. When you succeed on the spell I pick, I will let you go get some rest."
It took Lily another four hours to pull off a simple mouse transfiguration, but she had the little guy sitting in a cage on her desk just to celebrate the achievement.
"Do you want to do something?" Hermione asked after a pause, a hint of something in her tone. "Practice our spells or- or go for a walk, or something?"
"Why?" Lily asked, rolling over and snuggling up to her pillow.
"Do you not want to?"
"Can't."
"What do you mean you- Lily, would you please put some clothes on?" Hermione asked nicely, quickly turning to back to her desk.
"I have clothes on."
"Can you please put on more than pants?"
"No," Lily replied nicely.
"It's bad enough how some of the girls walk around the building, I don't need you doing it in my own dorm!"
"It's my dorm too," Lily replied. It was just so hot here all the time, she could hardly stand walking around even in their thin uniforms. Plus, the fresh air felt good on her healing scar, now that the school nurse gave her full permission to cease wearing the bandages.
"Lily, please, I am begging you."
"I'm wearing knickers!"
"Please."
"Fine," Lily said with a sigh, getting up from her mattress. "I needed to head out in a bit, anyway." She scratched (very gently, just trailing her fingers along the surface of it) at her chest.
"Out?" Hermione asked, still refusing to look in her direction. "You just got back, where could you possibly be going?"
"Quidditch tryouts," Lily answered, tossing her broom over to the mattress for easier access. She sniffed at a bra after picking it up from the floor, wondering if anybody'd notice, shrugged, and threw it on. She'd be sweaty and awful smelling by the time tryouts were done, anyway, so what did it matter?
"Lily, you're not supposed to be flying right now," Hermione said in her bossy tone. Lily wasn't looking, but she could picture her arms crossed sternly across her chest. "You know what the Healers said, you're supposed to-"
"Relax, Hermione," Lily said, rolling her eyes as she pulled a shirt over her head. "I'm healing faster than they thought I would. I'll be fine."
"That's not the point!" Hermione said. "You're supposed to wait two full months before you do anything strenuous!"
"And, yet, that didn't stop me from going running, did it?" Lily asked, pulling on some shorts. "Or any of the other rubbish, for that matter. You weren't complaining then."
"Lily-"
"I'll be fine, alright?" Lily said, snapping a tie around her hair, so it'd all be out of her face. "You're worried about nothing."
"I'm worried about you, you berk," Hermione said, sounding quite unlike her normal, composed self. That finally got Lily to turn around and look at her red-faced friend.
"Look," Lily said far more gently, deciding to open up just a bit more. "I know you're worried, but I don't want to stay cooped up in here, alright? I spent most of my life trapped in one, small room."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, sounding curious but still mad.
"I mean that I don't intend to ever get locked up again," Lily said. "I'm going flying, and then I'll have a run afterwards, I think."
"I really don't think it's a good idea, Lily."
"Why don't you come watch?" Lily asked. "Then you'll see that-"
"Forget it," Hermione said with a sigh, turning back to her work. "Just go."
"Hermione-"
"You don't like listening to me," Hermione snapped, "so why would you listen to the Healers?"
"That's not fair," Lily said. "I just don't want to sit around all the time!"
"That's what the running was for!" Hermione said, turning back around again. "Flying is different! What if you passed out while up there, Lily? What then?"
"I'd fall," Lily said, shrugging. "Somebody'd catch me."
"Lily-"
"Hermione, it's not like Hogwarts," Lily said. "There will be professors there." She didn't know that, but she hoped, for the sake of her argument. "This isn't just trying out for Gryffindor or- or Slytherin, this is for the Interschool Cup! I can't not play!"
Hermione crossed her arms. "What about dueling? What about painting? Didn't you want to do those, too?"
"I can do it all," Lily said, waving it off. "Dueling won't take too much time, and I have to pass the preliminaries anyway, so I might not even get in. And I've already started my pre-entry piece, I'm just waiting on my paints to arrive, I'm fresh out of half the stuff I need."
"You have to make a new one if you get approved!"
"Sure," Lily said, waving it off again, "but I'll figure something out. I'm not out to win, Hermione, I just want to enter."
"I thought you didn't like people looking at your art," Hermione said, crossing her arms again.
Lily felt her face flush, and she rubbed the back of her head with one hand, thinking of how excited Clara got when she started sketching the mermaids during Care of Magical Creatures.
"I'm trying to get over it," she said with a stupid smile. "I need to get going, I'm supposed to meet with- err- I'm supposed to be at the pitch, soon."
"And what about Fleur?" Hermione said, her nose crinkling as if the name was foul on her tongue. "Aren't you supposed to be meeting with her?"
"She's busy, thank Merlin," Lily said. Fleur tried to bring her in for extra lessons on the weekend, only to remember at the last minute that she had very important matters to attend to.
"Busy with what?" Hermione said with a nasty snort. "Another one of those flings of hers?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"She's gone through four different boys since we got here, Lily," Hermione said. "And we've hardly been here long at all."
"What's the problem?" Lily asked, still not quite understanding.
"She's a bad influence!"
"You're just saying that because you aren't the one studying under the favourite for Champion. Hermione, I really should be going."
"Lily, I really think we should talk about this!"
"No," Lily said sternly. "Hermione, I don't know what's gotten into you today, but you didn't have a problem with me flying last weekend."
"Yes, I did!"
"No, you didn't," Lily said. "You even came to watch. If you don't want to today, that's alright, but I'm not going to stay in just because you'd rather do homework."
"I don't- I just want to-" Hermione let out a defeated sigh, looking down at her hands. "Fine. Just- just be safe, alright? Don't do your usual tricks?"
Lily laughed as she went out the door. "Hermione, the tricks are what I'm counting on."
It didn't take long at all for the girl she'd been expecting to fall into step with her inside the common room proper.
"You look cute," Clara said, bumping her hip with her own. "Real sporty."
"Think that's the first time anybody's ever called me sporty," Lily said, completely ignoring the other half of the compliment and the way it made her feel.
"You're sure you want me to come watch?" Clara asked nervously.
"It'll nice to catch up!"
"Sure," Clara said reluctantly.
"So, what have you been up to?" Lily said, pulling her hand away from the fingers Clara was trailing along it.
"Nothing," Clara said, kicking at a loose stone. "You know how my mum is. Spent the whole summer just trying to avoid her."
"Do you- err- want to talk about it?"
"Do you?"
"No," Lily admitted. "I hate talking about- about them."
"And it's the same here," Clara said.
"I actually just tried," Lily admitted, "but I chickened out when Hermione asked a follow-up."
"Lily, can we not?" Clara asked coldly. "The last thing I want to do is talk about this with you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You got out," Clara said with a shrug. "I didn't. I'm more interested in talking about that little kiss we had."
"Oh," Lily said in a squeaky voice.
"I thought about you a lot," Clara said, breaking the awkward silence. "All the time, actually. I even snuck away, once, walked all the way to the Dursleys, but you weren't there." When she said the last part, her face twisted strangely, and Lily didn't like it one bit.
"Sorry," she said, not sure what else to say.
"That aunt of yours called the cops on me," Clara said, rubbing her neck. "Thought mum was actually going to kill me, that time."
"Why do you still stay with her?" Lily asked, latching on to any bit of information.
"Because I have to," Clara said reluctantly. "Dad won't let me stay with him, 'cept a week before school. Drops me off right after it's over, too."
"You look better," Lily said, looking at Clara's face. "Cheeks are fuller, and you smile more."
"Been watching me, have you?" Clara asked, giving the mentioned grin and nudging Lily with an elbow.
"No," Lily said far too quickly and looking away.
"Sure," Clara said, rolling her eyes. "Whatever you say. Say, want to go to a party with me in a few weeks?"
"What?"
"Henri's brother always throws one near the beginning of the year," Clara said, "just as soon as the staff gets tired of patrolling the island after curfew. It's invite only, but I reckon you could get both of us in."
"How?"
"Really, Potter?" Clara said, rolling her eyes again. "All you have to do is look at Henri and you have him melting in your arms. If you ask him, he'll give you anything."
"I don't know. I'm still supposed to be taking my potions. Don't think I'm supposed to mix it with anything."
"I said it's in a few weeks, didn't I? You'll be alright by then, surely."
"Alright," Lily said, after a long pause, brushing some hair out of her face. "I'd love to go."
"With me?"
"As friends," Lily emphasized.
"Sure, Potter," Clara said, rolling her eyes and smiling widely. "As friends. Promise."
Lily joined the throngs of waiting students upon reaching the Quidditch pitch, Clara separating to head into the stands. Henri briefly stopped by to chat, having already completed his own routine, but they didn't get long at all before Lily was called up and run through drills. She brought her own Snitch, but it wasn't necessary; the Beauxbatons Quidditch Captain released ten of the little things and sent her chasing after all of them.
As Lily soared through the skies, chasing the tiny, golden specks, she happened to glance down and spy Henri sitting with Clara in the stands, talking animatedly, with both of them wearing huge smiles.