The Houses Competition

House: Slytherin

Class: Herbology

Standard

Prompt(s) Next Gen Era [Pairing type] Siblings

Word Count 1625

Beta: Tea, Ash, Aya, Hope

James, Albus and Lily head up to the attic and find some forgotten treasures.

Treasures in the Attic

It was late in the evening as James and Albus made their way up to the attic, with Lily following closely behind her brothers.

"Guys, I still don't think this is a good idea. We aren't supposed to be up here," Lily objected, looking behind her nervously as if her mom and dad would walk up behind them at any moment.

"Don't be a baby!" James yelled down at his sister as he made his way up to the top of the ladder and crawled into the small attic space, followed by his younger brother, Albus.

"I'm not a baby," Lily muttered before hesitantly following her brothers into the small space. "But what if we get caught?"

"We aren't going to get caught," Albus replied. "Mum and Dad won't be home for another hour, and Aunt Hermione is too engrossed in her book to notice that we're gone. No one will know that we came up here."

Lily rolled her eyes, certain that her brothers were wrong, but nevertheless, she followed them up into the dark, dusty attic. She winced as she got covered in cobwebs as she crawled through until she bumped into Albus, who had suddenly stopped.

"I told you it was here!" James exclaimed as he pulled out an old, dust-covered Firebolt from behind several boxes.

"Wow," Lily gasped, moving forward to get a better look at the broom.

"I didn't think it would look this awesome up close," Albus said as he stared at the broom as if it was a pail of shiny galleons.

"I can't believe this belonged to Dad. He doesn't seem cool enough to ride one of these,'' Lily said as she took in the broom.

It had an ebony wood with birch twigs along with an ash handle. Firebolts were one of the rarest brooms, since not many were made, and Lily never thought she would see one up close. She thought it was silly to have this much wonder over a broom, but she couldn't help it. She gazed in awe at the broom; it truly was beautiful.

"Yeah," James agreed as he ran his hand over the smooth handle of the broom. It appeared as if it was brand new, right out of the shop.

"What's in the other boxes?" Lily asked, pointing out the three small boxes pushed into the corner, the layer of dust over them clearly the boxes had been left untouched for years.

"I don't know,'' James said with a shrug before pulling one of the boxes out and opening it. He pulled out a large, red leather-bound book. "Looks like an old book," he said, disappointed, before flipping the cover open to reveal a photo of a young couple holding a baby.

Lily gasped again as she saw the photo. "This must be Grandma and Grandpa!"

"You mean Grandma and Grandpa Potter that were killed by You-Know-Who?" Albus asked excitedly.

Lily touched the tip of her nose with her fingers in response, along with an eye roll. "Who else would it be? This means this must be Dad," Lily said, pointing at the small baby in the photo.

"Wow, Dad looks a lot like Grandpa," Albus commented as James turned the page to show three young children, not much older than James in their Hogwarts uniforms.

"Oh, Merlin, look at Aunt Hermione," James blurted out as he glanced at the bushy hair and buck-teeth of the eleven-year-old girl in the photo.

"This had to be taken during Dad's first year of school. Look how young he is!" Lily commented before reaching into the box and pulling out what appeared to be a piece of parchment. "Why would Dad keep this? It's just parchment."

"That's not just parchment, stupid," James said as he closed the photo album and tossed it aside.

"Dad told you to never call me stupid!" Lily shouted, throwing the parchment at her brother. Albus picked it up off James's lap where it had landed.

"This must be the Marauder's Map. I remember Uncle George talking about it. All you have to do is tap your wand to the page and say 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good', and the map will show Hogwarts and everyone in the school," Albus explained.

"Too bad none of us have a wand," Lily commented with a frown, wanting to activate the map and see Hogwarts.

"Not to mention that we aren't allowed to do magic outside of school," James chimed in with a smirk before pulling out the last item from the box: a large cloak that shimmered in the small light the attic offered.

"That must be Dad's invisibility cloak," James said before tossing the cloak over Lily, turning her invisible before his eyes. "It sucks that it doesn't make people disappear."

"Haha," Lily said sarcastically after pulling the cloak off and placing it next to the photo album. "What's in the other boxes?" she inquired.

"I don't know," James said with curiosity as he grabbed the other box and opened it up, pulling out a sweater that smelled like mothballs with a giant letter H on the front, a shard of broken mirror, a pin that said Support Cedric Diggory along with a pin that had the letters S.P.E.W. on it, and an old smelly sock with something stuffed inside it.

"This sweater looks like the ones Grandma Molly makes for us," Lily said as she held up the worn-out, red knitted sweater.

"She must have made them for Dad when he was a child," Albus stated before picking up the broken shard of mirror from the pile.

"Careful! We don't need you cutting yourself on that," James warned, his older protective brother instincts kicking in.

"It doesn't even work," Albus muttered, only seeing darkness and not his reflection in the shard.

"Hand it over here," James ordered with a sigh, taking the mirror from Albus as Lily grabbed the pins.

"What does S.P.E.W. mean?" Lily asked, holding the pin up to James so he could read it.

"How am I supposed to know?" James responded with a disgusted look on his face.

"You're the one who keeps saying you're the smart one out of the three of us," Lily remarked with a smug look on her face.

"I am!" James yelled as he grabbed the pin out of Lily's hand roughly before shoving the two items back into the box along with the sweater.

Lily decided not to respond to her brother as she picked up the other pin that said Support Cedric Diggory, but the moment her fingers touched the pin, the words changed to say Potter Sucks. Lily glanced towards her two brothers, not sure what to do with the new information, feeling confused as to why the pin would say that about her dad. She soon decided not to say anything, putting the pin back in the box before grabbing the sock and untying the knot, pulling out a Sneakoscope.

"What's in there?" James asked as he packed the rest of the things away.

Lily shrugged. "It's just a sneakoscope, but why would Dad have it in a smelly old sock?" she questioned before tossing it back into the box without giving it another thought.

James opened the third and last box, which was much smaller than the other two. He pulled out an acceptance letter to Hogwarts, molted feathers from an owl, along with a feather that seemed to have belonged to a Hippogriff (Aunt Hermione had made sure to teach them about the different magical creatures that lived in the wizarding world), an empty chocolate bar wrapper, and a Golden Snitch.

"Is that an actual Snitch?" Lily asked as she reached into the box and pulled out the small shiny golden ball.

"I think it is… It looks like one," James replied as Lily rolled the snitch around in her fingers, looking at all the small details.

"What does 'I open at the close' mean?" Lily inquired.

"Why do you keep asking me? What makes you think I have the answers?" James said.

Albus spoke up, stopping the argument about to start between the two. "That must not be a real Snitch; real Snitches don't have writing on them."

Lily frowned, disappointed, before she tossed the Snitch back into the box and picked up the acceptance letter from Hogwarts as her brothers examined the feathers in the box.

Lily ran her finger over the famous Hogwarts red wax seal before she flipped the letter over. "Mr H. Potter. The Cupboard Under the Stairs. Number Four Privet Drive. Little Whinging, Surrey," Lily read to herself, reading it over and over again. She wasn't sure what she was reading. Glancing up at her brothers again to see that they were too focused on the Hippogriff feather to notice her, she folded the letter and placed it in the pocket of her dress, planning on looking at it later.

Lily leaned forward, planning on picking up one of the white feathers when she heard the front door open along with her father shouting out to them that they were home.

"I told you we were going to get caught!" Lily said in a panic.

"Shut up!" James said harshly as he quickly shoved everything back into the boxes and pushed them back into the corner. He crawled back out from the attic and helped his two younger siblings down the ladder as quickly as possible.

"Quickly!" James ordered as Albus helped him put the ladder back up while Lily dusted the cobwebs off her dress. All three of them ran into the living room to greet their parents as if they hadn't been doing anything suspicious.