Lily stretched, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The class was boring and it was making her eyes droop. She wanted to sleep. She had spent the entirety of the past week reading the Terrific Text of Time Travel, and not enough time sleeping. She didn't know a book could be so interesting, so compulsive for her to read. It was likely a curse that afflicted the person reading the book, but Lily found that she didn't mind.
The stories from the book gave her ample understanding of how time magic worked. It didn't make her any less confused about how the magic worked, in fact it only confused her further on that, but she did understand how desperate someone had to be to find the magic.
It might take a person years to actually find a book on time magic, but if they placed it somewhere they knew their younger version would search and use the magic in the book to send it to the younger version of themself then they would have saved a lot of time. It was a loop that was breakable and unbreakable at the same time. Which made no sense.
She had come to the conclusion that the letter was the truth. There was only one spell in the Terrific Text and it was one to send an object back in time. The only restriction was the object had to be completely truthful, with nothing provoking. She assumed all time travel worked that way, considering the words in the book.
"Ms. Evans, can you show us the confundus charm." Flitwick called out, and Lily jerked.
Nodding, she pulled out her wand and muttered the charm, lips curving into a smile as she got it right. Flitwick clapped enthusiastically, and turned back to the rest of the class, talking about the importance of the charm.
Lily slumped back in her seat, resting her head in her hand and waiting impatiently for the lesson to get over. She had a game to plan.
Lily paged through the book, skimming over most of the pages. She would have to read it properly when she wasn't as exhausted, but for now, she was content to just casually read about the different species in the wizarding world. A lot of them took the chance to join with Voldemort, so it would be a good idea to see what laws were in place and how she could get what they wanted. She needed to prevent the war, if the letter was any indication.
She flicked through the pages, picking out vampires first. The handwriting on the page was neat and calligraphic, the penmanship of the sophisticated, posh life Lily associated with nobility. It was the handwriting Sirius Black had, even when he tried to disguise it.
Vampires are creatures of the night. They were created in ancient times, by a powerful dark wizard who vowed to take down the human population. He believed that immortals were more powerful than any other creature and as such, he was mostly correct. However, in response to his provokes, another wizard created a balance to the vampires – werewolves (page 178).
Vampires are true immortals – beautiful, dangerous, powerful and unkillable. They look like humans, but their distinguishing features are their pale skin and inhuman eye color. They have a very slow heartbeat, get sunburns from sunlight and prowl through the lands in the dark. To survive, vampires need blood and they will use any means to get it. If they don't have access to blood, they turn into the deranged monsters we expect.
Lily rolled her eyes at the dramatics of the entry. It was obvious that this book was more for a child than for someone actually interested in studying it. Or maybe it was just the author of the book being childish to lure everyone else into a false sense of security. Lily wasn't sure but she skipped the rest of the introduction and the 'bodily functions' part. She turned the page and continued reading.
To kill a vampire:
Staking a vampire through the heart is the easiest way to kill it. The stake should be made of either wood or iron to substantially harm the vampire, and it should never ever be removed.
Vampires have superior healing, so any injuries sustained will fix themselves in seconds. It's one of the reasons it is extremely difficult to kill even the most inexperienced vampires. However, pure silver is the solution to this problem. Pure silver is acidic to vampires and this negates their healing. If a vampire sustains an injury under the duress of silver, then it is extremely likely that they will die.
Lily marked that page, knowing it could be useful later. She almost put the book down, before something Severus said came to her mind – Lupin is a werewolf. Lily had never confirmed that suspicion of his, always claiming that it was none of their business. Sure, she knew that Severus did his research, and he knew what he was talking about, so she believed that Remus was a werewolf. But she didn't care to discriminate against him, and this would be a great opportunity for her to see how accurate this book was. It was so much easier to compare the descriptions of werewolves in the book to Remus' conditions.
Remembering the page for werewolves, Lily turned the book to page 178. The entry here was written in a different handwriting, as if written by a different person. This handwriting was rough and choppy, block letters written unevenly across the page – handwriting Lily associated with someone busy, or short on time.
A werewolf is formed when the saliva of a fully turned werewolf contaminates the blood of a human. A werewolf, once infected, turns into a mindless beast every full moon, to fight against the vampires. However, as the ages have passed, vampires have retreated to their own cities and towns, and werewolves were forced to feed on humans and animals to survive. As a result, modern werewolves usually attack humans. Despite that, vampires will always remain their priority prey.
Werewolves can't be injured by silver, in fact with a mixture of silver and dittany, it is much easier for werewolves to heal their self-inflicted curse wounds. Werewolf attacks have grown common and as such, the most important things to know are these: If attacked by a werewolf that is still in human form, the victim may develop certain mild characteristics such as a fondness for rare meat. Any bite or scratch given by a werewolf will leave lasting scars, whether or not it was a wolf or a human at the time of attack.
It was interesting, to see the information collected here so definitely, so surely. Lily knew that their defense textbooks weren't so informative. She probably should wonder how accurate this information was, but it certainly matched up to Remus' symptoms, which confirmed two things for her – Remus was indeed a wizard and the book was mostly accurate.
With a smile, Lily put the book away. She had a small plan to work with for the foreseeable future, and she could improve it in the next few days.
The next few days were unexpectedly busy for Lily. She hadn't expected it, but she should have. It was their OWL year; their teachers were bound to push them harder than the previous years. Exhausted and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes on Saturday evening, Lily collapsed on her covers and pulled out a small notebook her parents had sent her.
She jotted down the basic rules she had made for herself.
Don't tell anyone about the contents of the letter.
Don't lose your temper.
Do not get close enough to anyone to trust them.
Always be ahead of everyone else, by a few steps.
Make sure you come out on top.
They would hold her steady through this, she knew that much. She couldn't go wrong with such simple rules, but it also meant planning everything in advance. Lily could never lose control of her temper and she could never allow anyone else into her head. Severus' whispered words came to her mind, do you want to learn Occlumency with me?
She had scorned him then, why would I want to learn that? But she hadn't known what it was. Now, she regretted it, but not too much. She would learn Occlumency as a priority. She put the notebook away, in her charmed bedside drawer. Lying down, she wondered what exactly she was missing.
It hit her when she heard the rise of laughter and applause from the common room – the marauders. That's what she had missed out in her planning. She couldn't afford to do that anymore.
She needed to find a way to get closer to the Marauders, that's the only way she would get their letters and have all the information she needed. She didn't care for them, probably never would, considering their hypocritical and mean behavior, but that didn't mean she couldn't get into their good books. Right?
It was in times like this that she wished she was in Slytherin. It would've taught her simple manipulation, and how to get her way if nothing else, and those were important. She could always ask a Slytherin, but talking to any of the other Slytherins would lead to more of a social suicide than she had already committed, especially since her dorm mates were slowly becoming her friends, now that she had ditched Severus.
She couldn't jeopardize this by asking any of them for help. Lily knew this would be difficult and she knew that it would take time and effort to master the art, but she had been complaining about being bored. And this seemed like the perfect cure.
She would get into the Marauders' good books.
She could not compromise this.