A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews! This chapter's a bit of a departure from the others, so I'm curious to get your thoughts. Enjoy!
Chapter 6 - 1.6 or "Two Clever for Their Own Good"
When Remus left the hospital wing on Sunday evening, he felt no happiness that the full moon had come and gone and that he had made it through once again; instead, he averted his eyes from the tall narrow windows that lined the corridors, trying to block out that hated voice in his head that insisted on whispering, "Twenty-nine days…"
He had been sleeping for the majority of the day, hidden behind pristine white curtains that had surrounded his bed in the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey had been able to heal most of the injuries he had sustained the night before; indeed, she had done a much better job at it than Remus's father usually did, but then again, Remus's father wasn't a trained Healer. Madam Pomfrey had access to the very best pain potions and curing concoctions, and Remus, though weak, was feeling substantially better than he normally felt after the full moon. His exhaustion was the biggest factor weighing him down.
The fatigue was so consuming that Remus had only made it two floors up from the hospital wing when he was forced to sit down on an out-of-the-way bench and rest for a moment. He looked at his shoes and mindlessly ran his hand over the one visible mark he had left on himself that month – a puffy red gash that discolored one side of his jaw. Madam Pomfrey had only been able to do so much.
"Squealed like a pig when he saw us coming, didn't he, Rabastan? He must be awfully terrified of you, that little Mudblood swot."
Remus looked up at once at the voice that echoed from the next corridor over. He knew that voice, recognized it from the day before, and he had no interest at all in running into its owner while alone and in a weakened state.
"Shut it, Avery," said a deeper voice that Remus didn't recognize immediately. "You've got to learn when to keep your trap closed. It's a wonder McGonagall didn't put us all in detention."
"Stupid bint," said Avery. "I'd like to see her try."
The voices were approaching from his left and, though it made him hang his head in the shame of his own cowardice, Remus stood as quickly as he could and hurried off to his right. On a good day, he would not be overjoyed to meet a group of Slytherins along a deserted corridor, but he perhaps would not have run away like a frightened kitten. On this day, however, his weariness was such that there was no alternate option. He walked quickly, descending a narrow side staircase onto the fourth floor, and did not stop to rest again until he was certain the Slytherins were not following.
Pausing to lean his back against one of the stone walls, Remus looked around with a nagging worry that he would not now be able to find his way back to Gryffindor Tower. It took him a moment to regain his energy and to mentally remap his route back to the common room, and once he began walking again, he did not stare at his trudging feet, but instead looked at his surroundings curiously. A marble statue of a minotaur stood sentinel on one side of the corridor, next to a portrait of a group of monks who seemed to be quarreling over a chalice of some sort. On the other side of the corridor, a tall mirror hung in an ornately carved, gilded frame. The torchlight bounced off the glass, and Remus paused for a moment to inspect the gash on his jaw, hoping that none of his classmates would notice the wound.
He had walked five or six more steps when the realization overcame him, and he hurriedly retreated back to the large mirror, gazing up at it now with wide eyes. There was his reflection staring back at him – small and pale and wholly unimpressive – but then he raised his wand and the reflection mimicked him, and when he said the incantation and the golden frame popped open like a doorway, the reflection grinned widely, a surge of triumph overtaking its beleaguered features, if only for a moment.
"Amortentia," he said to the Fat Lady, not ten minutes later. He had hurried back up to Gryffindor Tower as fast as his shaky legs would carry him, only getting turned around once. The portrait swung open and Remus staggered into the common room, torn between the desire to share his discovery with his friends and the draw of his warm four-poster bed.
"Remus!"
He started and turned to see who was calling him. It was Sirius, who had apparently been sitting at a table on the opposite side of the room with Lily and Adin, but who was now navigating the armchairs and study tables to get to him.
"What happened to you? Are you feeling better? You were gone all day! What'd you do to your face?"
Remus shifted, trying to obscure Sirius's view of his jawline. "I, er, fell out of bed and hit my face on the table."
Sirius frowned in concern. "I didn't take you as the clumsy type."
"I get pretty banged up sometimes," he said softly, sitting down in a vacant armchair nearby to relieve his poor legs. Sirius sat down across from him, looking at him as if expecting more explanation. Remus decided to distract him. "Listen, I've found something. Where are James and Peter?"
"They went down to the kitchens to nick some eclairs. Peter won't shut up about them." The grin on his face faltered as he looked Remus over more closely. "So what happened to you last night? We went down to the hospital wing to see you after you had been gone for a while, but Pomfrey wouldn't let us in. She said you were contagious."
"Yeah, I don't know, something like that," said Remus, thinking that he should probably start working on his lying skills, since he had been doing so much of it lately. "It was just some weird fever thing that I had, but I'm better now for the most part."
Sirius looked skeptical. "Well, you look like hell, mate."
"Thanks, Sirius," said Remus, smiling in spite of himself.
"Anytime. So what was it you found?"
"Oh," said Remus, his exhaustion starting to weigh on him. "Let's wait until James and Peter get back and I'll tell you all in one go."
"All right," Sirius shrugged. Then he brightened. "Hey, we finished that essay for Slughorn, if you want to take a look at it."
"I forgot about that stupid essay," Remus groaned.
Sirius hopped up and made his way toward the boys' staircase, shouting over his shoulder, "Don't worry about it. We got Evans to help us and she's bloody brilliant at Potions."
Lily had apparently heard Sirius's remark. She looked up from her study table and rolled her eyes at him, though she didn't look too upset.
"I helped Adin and then you and Potter went and stole her essay out of her bag. That's hardly me voluntarily helping you, Black."
Sirius pulled the innocent expression that Remus was starting to know all too well.
"Yes, but we appreciate it all the same, Titchy," he said, and then he turned back to Remus. "I'll go grab it. Be right back!"
He had only been gone a few seconds when the portrait hole swung open again and James and Peter climbed through. When they saw that Remus had returned, they both broke into smiles and ran over to talk to him. Even through his exhaustion, Remus smiled hugely back at them, his triumph at having found the secret passage outweighed, at that moment, by the warm glow of having been missed.
Before any of the first years had realized it, September faded into October, which brought a welcome release from the heat that had plagued them since the start of term. Though all of the boys insisted on inspecting the secret passageway hidden behind the fourth floor mirror following Remus's discovery, they were never able to venture too far down it. Much to the aggravation of James, Sirius, Peter, and even Remus, the much-anticipated trip to Hogsmeade continued to be delayed by circumstances out of their control, not least of which was the alarming amount of time that James and Sirius spent in detention.
The pair was quickly gaining a reputation as the school troublemakers, a distinction that seemed to elate them, but frustrated the majority of their teachers. By October, they had earned a rapid string of detentions that had started the Tuesday after the full moon. James and Sirius had shown up to Charms without their assignments, a fact that did not amuse Professor Flitwick.
"Well you see, sir," began Sirius, quite aware that the entire class was waiting for him to try and talk his way out of it, "we didn't get the chance to finish our essays on the Levitation Charm because we spent all of last night in the Transfiguration classroom, serving our detention with Mickey-G."
Flitwick stared at him, looking utterly confused. "Mickey-G? What is a Mickey-G?"
Sirius had thought this was obvious. "Minnie! Mickey-G! Professor McGonagall!"
He was answered by laughs from his classmates and a lecture about respecting his elders from Flitwick. Most unfortunately, Flitwick then overheard James whisper, "What's the big deal? It's not like he heard us calling Eldon 'Cyclops' or anything."
James and Sirius were rewarded with a week's worth of helping the caretaker, Apollyon Pringle, sharpen his knives and screws with Muggle tools.
In the middle of October, Remus had to leave the castle for what he claimed was his "cousin's wedding." James, Sirius, and Peter were rather confused about why someone would get married on a Tuesday night, but Remus shrugged it off, saying that it was the only time they had been able to book the church. He then went on to describe the Muggle suit that he was being forced to wear, eliciting a solid twenty minutes of questions and laughter from the others, by the end of which, they had forgotten about the strange scheduling, to Remus's enormous relief.
The end of the month brought an exciting event for the four friends – their first Halloween in the castle. As Sirius's twelfth birthday would fall only a few days after, the boys decided that the aptest way to celebrate would be another fantastic prank. Therefore, the week leading up to the Halloween feast was spent mostly in the library, looking up the new spells they would need to pull it off. At first, Sirius grumbled a bit about having to do so much research – it was his birthday, after all – but he seemed to glean extra motivation from an early birthday gift that was delivered by the Black family owl: a leather-bound, first edition copy of Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy, with the Black family tree etched into the inside cover.
Sirius had chucked it into the lake on the way to Herbology.
When the school filed into the Great Hall on Halloween night, the students were expecting the usual decorations of floating Jack-o-lanterns, live bats, and cascading streamers. What they got instead was what seemed to be a red and gold explosion.
The enchanted ceiling, which was dark, clear, and void of any moon at all, was raining huge drops of red and gold water, which mercifully vanished before they reached the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff tables, but which splattered onto the Slytherin table unapologetically. The floating pumpkins were charmed into a deep red, the streamers golden, and the bats a bizarre tie-dye of the two colors; both the bats and the Jack-o-lanterns were bewitched to hiss loudly whenever a Slytherin walked by. Behind the Head table, an enormous banner covered the usual Hogwarts crest, depicting a lion wearing a ruby-ensconced crown and standing atop a badger, eagle, and snake. At the top of the banner, the words, "GRYFFINDOR: KING OF THE CASTLE," were written.
James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter had skived off History of Magic that afternoon in order to sneak into the Great Hall and apply their decorative touches. When the rest of the students poured into the hall, some looking scared, others amused, but mostly just confused, the four boys sat proudly in their seats, admiring their work and eagerly anticipating the finishing touch. The Gryffindors in general were laughing and cheering while the Slytherins tried to ignore all of the hissing emanating from the decorations. The hall fell quiet when Dumbledore walked in, the rest of the professors close behind him. McGonagall, in particular, looked horrified as her eyes surveyed the surroundings.
Before anyone could say anything, there was a loud succession of pops and the Slytherin benches all tipped backward as one, dumping their unsuspecting occupants unceremoniously onto the stone floor. There was a clamor as the other houses laughed and hollered at them, and many of the Slytherins shrieked and groaned as they picked themselves up with as much dignity as possible. Dumbledore had made his way up to behind his normal seat where he stood, surveying the hall and the flustered Slytherins. With a wave of his wand, the rain stopped, the decorations returned to their original colors, the banner once again bore the Hogwarts crest, and the Slytherin benches righted themselves. He smiled calmly at his students, his eyes twinkling.
"Let's eat," he said, clapping his hands twice.
The feast appeared on the tables and the students, all talking a bit louder than usual, didn't wait to dig in, although the Slytherins in particular were inspecting their food suspiciously while casting tentative glances at the now-sturdy benches.
"I think Snivellus likes his little friend," laughed James, loading his plate with roast beef.
The others turned to see Snape swatting at a solitary bat that was flying around his head, hissing into his ears. Sirius let out a bark of laughter. "Good idea with that bat, Remus!"
Remus smiled sheepishly and looked down at his plate, uttering a soft, "Thanks."
The feast was the best one that they had been served since the first night of term, and Sirius greatly enjoyed both the food and the thrill of another successful prank. A few times, he let his eyes wander down the table to where Gin Leigh sat with a group of second years he didn't know by name, but at one point, she looked up and caught him off-guard, so he shifted his gaze as quickly as possible down the table to a third year called Didina Murphy, whose long brown hair he had enjoyed looking at since the train ride at the start of term.
All four boys left the Great Hall with their stomachs full and their spirits high with success, though Peter swore that he saw McGonagall watching them more than usual from her perch at the teachers' table.
"Hey…Sirius!"
They all stopped and turned, looking through the crowded corridor for whomever had called him. Sirius felt his stomach flip oddly when he recognized the long, dirty blonde curls at once.
"Hi Gin," he said as she caught up to them and they all began walking again toward the common room.
"I know what I want," she said without preamble.
The others looked at her in confusion, but Sirius simply grinned. For the past month and a half, he had been waiting for her to once again mention her knowledge of the pink bubble prank to him, but she had kept frustratingly silent on the subject. During Potions, where they shared a table, she kept her head down and her focus on her cauldron, responding to his jokes with wry statements of her own, but never initiating conversation. He did not know what to make of her, but he felt a strong, inexplicable urge to press her buttons.
"Good for you, but too much ambition will land you in Slytherin, so I'd recommend avoiding such definitive statements."
She rolled her eyes at this. "Come off it, Sirius," she said as they reached the seventh floor.
"But being on it is so much fun," he shot back, unable to keep his grin from widening. Behind him, James snorted in an embarrassed sort of way. Gin just stared at him with that same unreadable expression she always wore.
"You know where the kitchens are, don't you?" she asked, but it wasn't so much a question as a stated fact.
"No," James cut in quickly. "He doesn't know where they are."
"And he wouldn't tell you even if he did!" said Peter from somewhere behind James. Gin gave him a withering look before climbing through the portrait hole. The boys glanced at one another before following her. She was waiting on the other side, tapping her foot impatiently.
"You owe me one, Sirius," she said, ignoring the others.
Sirius weighed his options. On the one hand, the discovery of the kitchens had been a bit of a bonding experience between him and his friends; telling Gin might be seen as a betrayal. On the other hand, he wouldn't exactly mind taking her down to the kitchens, and he did owe her one. Plus, if she shopped them out to McGonagall, it would be his fault for not stopping her and that would definitely be seen as a betrayal. He decided to stall.
"I owe you? I don't remember ever shaking your hand."
She raised her eyebrows at him and shrugged. "Fine. Be sure to send me a postcard from your permanent spot in detention. I hear Pringle has a whole warehouse full of dull knives and screws that need sharpening."
"You wouldn't actually snitch on us!" said James, appalled. Gin just shrugged again.
"Honestly, James, I don't really care about what the four of you do. You can pull pranks on the rest of the school every single day and it wouldn't bother me. But I do want to find the kitchens. So if you show them to me, I'll never mention this again."
Sirius looked at James, who was gaping at Gin like some kind of deformed fish. Remus stood back a little with his hands in his pockets, watching his foot slide back and forth across the carpet, but Sirius could tell he was listening intently. Peter kept looking from Sirius to James, twisting his fingers together nervously.
"You really think that McGonagall would believe you anyway?" Sirius asked her, playing it cool. "You have no proof. Snape already told her we were behind it, but she couldn't do anything to us but make threats."
Gin's expression hadn't changed.
"Fine. Excuse me then," she said, pushing past Peter and walking back toward the portrait hole. "I need to have a word with Professor McGonagall."
"All right, all right!" Sirius conceded. James groaned. "I'll show you the bloody kitchens."
Gin froze and turned back toward him, looking irritatingly unfazed. "Great. Tomorrow after lunch. Good night then."
And without another word or even another glance at Sirius, she disappeared up the girls' staircase, leaving the four gaping boys in her wake.
Lunch on Saturday was the usual affair, except for the fact that Sirius's eyes kept flashing down the table toward Gin more often than normal. When the boys had all cleaned their plates, Remus, Peter, and James stood up, claiming that they needed to visit the Owlery to send letters to their parents. In all the excitement of the first two months at Hogwarts, none of them had found much time to answer the owls they received every few days at breakfast. And as much as Sirius tried to squash the bubble of jealousy that grew inside him whenever one of his friends received a letter from home, he couldn't help but feel vaguely irritated that none of them could find the time to answer the letters that he would have given his left hand to be receiving.
Sirius looked up to find Gin standing right next to his spot on the bench. She looked different than usual, but he couldn't put his finger on why.
"Ready?" she asked.
He had to compose himself for a brief moment before swinging his feet over the bench and grinning at her. "For the dangerous journey to the Hogwarts kitchens? I think I can handle it."
She rolled her eyes but actually laughed as he stood up and they made their way to the entrance hall.
"Can't you ever just say yes or no?" she asked him.
"I'd like to think that I'm not that boring of a person."
"Or maybe you just like the sound of your own voice."
He grinned. They passed Lily and Adin, who were walking in the opposite direction. Lily smiled and waved at Gin while Adin just gave them an odd look. After turning the corner, Sirius looked over at Gin, who had simply smiled easily at the girls when they had passed.
"What? Don't like your roommates?"
Gin started, as if she had forgotten that he was walking beside her. "Oh. No, I like them fine. Why?"
"It wasn't a very warm greeting, is all."
She stopped walking, so he did too. "And when you pass Goomer in the corridor, do you jump and squeal and hug him?"
"No, but I'm a bloke."
"Ah." She frowned slightly. "Was I rude?"
She was very odd, he thought. "No," he said.
"Good." And she looked relieved.
"You're very odd," he told her.
This did not seem to bother her in the least. In fact, her expression didn't change at all. "Shall we keep walking then?"
"You're the one who stopped in the first place."
"Right," she said, looking around idly. "Because I don't know where we're going. You're supposed to be showing me, remember?"
"Oh yeah." He had forgotten. They started walking again, side by side, and he led her down a side staircase. "You do know the kitchens are out of bounds for students, don't you?"
"Are they?" she asked. "No, I don't think I knew that."
"Still up for it?"
"For the dangerous journey to the Hogwarts kitchens?" she echoed his own words, while something like amusement passed over her face. "I think I can handle it."
"I dunno," said Sirius with mock seriousness. "You don't strike me as a troublemaker, Ginuine Leigh."
"Perhaps you don't know me then, Sirius Black." There was nothing mocking or coy in her tone, it was stated with a casual simplicity, but Sirius decided then and there that he rather enjoyed teasing Ginuine Leigh. She was so wryly earnest.
And odd. Very odd.
They passed a group of third-year Slytherin boys, all glaring at Sirius, who pulled a face and made a rude gesture at them. After they had turned and emerged into a brightly lit corridor lined with pictures of various foods, Gin spoke up again.
"Why do the Slytherins hate you so much?"
"You mean besides the fact that I helped turn them all pink during my second week at Hogwarts and somehow managed to escape any punishment?"
She laughed. "Yeah…besides that."
He paused for a moment, debating how much to tell her.
"My whole family has always been in Slytherin for some mad number of generations. I guess they think I'm a traitor…or something," he said, trying to sound nonchalant, but it was hard to do when she was looking at him like that.
He stopped walking when they reached the painting of the fruit bowl. Gin's eyes flickered up to it briefly, and then returned to his face, and he deeply hoped that she was not going to continue questioning him about his family.
"Well I think it's cool that you're a Gryffindor."
Sirius smiled, grateful that she had let it drop.
"Thanks," he said, before tickling the pear and pulling at the door handle that appeared. "After you."
After showing Gin the kitchens and helping her load her pockets with the house elves' delectable caramel toffee bars (which she was "madly in love with"), Sirius returned to the common room to find James, Peter, and Remus all back from the Owlery. He immediately knew they were plotting something, as they were sitting in a small group in the corner, heads bent together and talking in low voices. When he approached them, they all jumped noticeably and then looked relieved to discover that it was only Sirius.
"How was your date with Gin?" James sniggered.
"He was showing her the kitchens," Remus said, "not taking her on a date." He looked at Sirius quickly. "Were you?"
Sirius shrugged innocently, but the others' faces told him they knew he was only joking. "So what are we planning?"
"How'd you know?" asked Peter in awe.
"Call it a sixth sense. Now what's going on?"
"We want to go all the way through the secret passage to Hogsmeade," James said in a loud whisper. "Tonight."
Sirius felt his heart start beating faster the way it always did right before he did something against the rules. "Finally!" he said. He had been wanting to sneak into Hogsmeade for weeks now.
"I think we should leave while the rest of the school is at dinner," Remus said. Sirius turned to him, surprised. He liked Remus very much, but he usually found that they had to convince him to break the rules. Here he was offering suggestions to them about how to sneak out of the castle?
"That's not a bad idea," agreed Sirius. "If everyone's in the Great Hall, there'll be less of a chance that we get caught sneaking into the passageway."
"But what about dinner?" Peter asked, looking anxious as usual. Sirius tried not to snigger at how concerned he was with food.
"We'll get dinner in the village," James assured him.
"Then it's settled," Sirius said. "Now we just have to figure out what to do between now and dinnertime."
"I'm going to work on my Astronomy assignment," said Remus. Sirius, James, and Peter all groaned, but pulled out their Astronomy books and star charts as well.
Like every young British witch or wizard before her, and like every young British witch or wizard to come after her, Ginuine Leigh had fallen in love with Hogwarts the moment she had stepped through its heavy oak doors. She was not surprising or unique or anything but a cliché in that regard. She loved the vastness of the Great Hall, and the staircases that left you guessing, and the maze of corridors that a young witch could enjoy getting lost in. What was unusual, or at least what she considered unusual in observing her classmates, was the fact that she had already grown a bit weary of the Gryffindor common room. It's not that she disliked her housemates – she was very happy to be a Gryffindor – but the hustle and bustle and constant thrum of noise in the common room had already become mundane to her, after only a few months. She hoped it was a phase she would grow out of.
Sitting crosslegged on her bed in the girls' dormitory, Gin flipped through the pages of her Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook, wondering vaguely what change had occurred in her since the start of term that would cause her to be one for sitting in bed, reading schoolbooks instead of her standard storybooks. She had, in fact, not read anything for fun since the summer ended, and, for reasons she could not explain, it did not bother her too much. There was so much less of a reason now for her to need to escape into her books. If nothing else, there was more for her to do at Hogwarts, with more work to keep her occupied, and more to read on a nightly basis. She had never been a particularly studious child at home, and even at Hogwarts, her marks were not exactly top of the class. Nevertheless, she had been drawn to Defense Against the Dark Arts, and found it to be a fascinating subject, no matter how dull Professor "Cyclops" Eldon made it seem in class.
Her eyes migrated up from the pages of her textbook ("How to Tell if Your Friend is Under the Imperius Curse") to gaze out the window and across the grounds. It was a beautiful, if breezy, evening, and the surface of the lake was churning and lapping toward its shores, where a few groups of older students sat in the waning light. If she had more time before sunset, she would have been tempted to take a quiet walk around the grounds just to clear her head. Instead, she reached over to unlock the window closest to her, stretched her legs out across her bed and allowed the crisp November breeze to wash over her. This quiet freshness, for now, would do.
Of course, the quiet was short-lived. Her reverie was interrupted when the door to the dormitory opened and Raeanne and Mary walked in. Gin liked them both just fine, but the dormitory tended to be the only place where the pair of them could be found without Goomer by their sides. They had apparently just come in from outside and were chatting happily while depositing their cloaks and mittens onto their respective beds.
"Hi Gin," greeted Raeanne. "Have you been up here all this time?"
"Yes," said Gin, caught off-guard. "Why?"
Raeanne shrugged genially as she packed her mittens into her trunk. "Just wondering. What are you up to tonight?"
Gin held up the book that had been beside her for Raeanne to see. "Just reading, I guess." And then, in an effort to not sound rude, she added, "What about you?"
"Oh I don't know," said Raeanne. "We were supposed to have a Gobstones tournament with Goomer, but he's in detention with Sprout tonight. The idiot keeps forgetting to do his Herbology homework."
"We just walked with him down to the greenhouses," added Mary. "It's a beautiful evening."
The breeze from the open window caused a few sheets of parchment on Gin's cabinet to flutter dangerously, so she weighed them down with a water glass. She felt unsettled, but she didn't know why. It was, she agreed, truly a beautiful evening, perhaps one of the last they would have that year. And she had spent it reading about the Imperius Curse. Alone.
The door opened again and all three girls turned to see Lily and Adin tumble into the dormitory, Lily looking mortified and Adin in fits of laughter.
"You…should…have…seen…your…face!" Adin choked out, flopping down on her bed and holding her stomach.
"What's so funny?" asked Raeanne.
Lily rolled her eyes.
"Oh nothing," she said, throwing a pillow at Adin, who had started, if possible, to laugh harder. "Adin just finds humor in my humiliation."
Adin sobered enough to talk normally again. "Oh Lily, if anyone was humiliated, it was Laslow, and rightly so."
"Speak for yourself," Lily mumbled. She flopped down face-first on her bed and hid her head underneath her old, stuffed unicorn.
"What happened?" asked Mary.
Adin's laughter reignited for a moment, but quieted again when Lily raised her head enough to give her a mutinous glare.
"Ahem," said Adin, controlling herself. "We were walking out of the Great Hall after supper, right? And out of nowhere, this Ravenclaw second year, Damon Laslow, comes up to us. He's…well, he's a bit taken with Lily, if you know what I mean. He's been coming up to her in the corridors all week, asking if she needs help with her homework. As if Lily of all people needs help with homework! I mean, if some Ravenclaw second year was offering to help me with my homework – even if it was a boy as odd as Damon Laslow…but I mean, he's a Ravenclaw, so he can't be too –"
"Adin," Raeanne cut in. "What happened in the Great Hall after supper?"
"Oh yeah!" Adin seemed to gather her wandering thoughts back to the topic at hand. "Well, Damon Laslow walks right up to us, in the middle of the Great Hall with everyone around, and without even lowering his voice or anything, he goes…" Adin burst into a new round of laughter before she could even get it out.
"What'd he say?" asked Raeanne and Mary simultaneously. Both girls seemed to be enthralled with the story. Gin, surprising herself, was actually interested as well. Lily groaned into her unicorn.
"He asked her to be his girlfriend," said Adin in between giggles.
All of the girls, with the exception of Lily, broke into giggles. Even Gin couldn't help laughing at the idea of such a thick boy.
"I didn't know what to do!" Lily's moan was only partially muffled by her prone position. "Everyone was looking at me."
"What'd you say to him?"
Lily didn't answer, but just groaned and covered her head in her hands.
"She said, 'No, thank you,' and then just walked out of the hall!" laughed Adin.
"Don't worry about it, Lily," Mary said.
"Yeah," Raeanne agreed, "I bet not very many people could hear, anyway."
Lily just mumbled something incoherent into her bed. Adin, however, turned and looked directly at Gin. "Hey Gin, do you know why Sirius and James and them weren't at dinner?"
Gin frowned slightly at the change of subject, thinking this was a strange question to be asked. "Erm, no, I didn't even notice that they weren't there."
Adin just shrugged. "I wonder where they were. What were you and Sirius doing today, anyway?"
It's not as if Gin disliked Adin, per se, she just had very little patience for her. It was unusual for her – she was a patient person by nature.
"We were walking down the corridor," Gin said, her tone even.
The tension in the room seemed to elevate with the reply. Adin fidgeted slightly, but then said, "Someone told me that Sirius was showing you the kitchens."
Gin fought the urge to groan. First of all, how would that bit of information get around the school? Secondly, why in the world would anyone care enough to talk about it?
"Yeah," she said, acting as if this was quite inconsequential.
Raeanne and Mary both sat a bit straighter.
"Can you show us?"
"Show you what?" Gin asked, confused.
"Where the kitchens are!"
"We could go get some sweets!"
Adin was smiling at Gin, which was rare. "Come on, Gin," she urged. "It'll be fun!"
There was a moment where she felt surprised with herself for actually thinking that spending a bit of time with her roommates could be relatively enlightening, if not fun. She had never exactly had girl friends at home. And then the surprise was gone, and she felt something like…belonging.
Gin glanced at Lily, who was now sitting up on her bed and who alone had remained quiet throughout the exchange. Lily was looking back at her, awaiting her answer, but her stare betrayed no pressure or skepticism – only pure curiosity.
"All right," Gin conceded. "I'll show you."
The others cheered and laughed and the five Gryffindor girls made their ways down to the school kitchens, Ginuine Leigh in the lead.
Hogsmeade was, in a word, sensational. James's pockets were already stuffed with the purchases he had made at Zonko's and Honeydukes, and he gazed around Dervish and Banges, thinking that he could spend hours in this one little shop. Sirius and Remus had already wandered off to look more closely at Instant Wand Polishing Powder, while James examined a vibrating, multi-pronged, silver instrument with a purpose he could not deduce. Peter stood next to him, reading the brand new issue of The Adventures of Dino Danger, which he had picked up at the bookshop next store. James had fought not to laugh at his friend's excitement over the comic – they were eleven, for Merlin's sake, and everyone knew that Dino Danger was for children.
Getting into Hogsmeade had been incredibly easy. As planned, the four boys sneaked out of the castle through the passageway that was hidden behind the giant mirror; luckily, they hadn't met anyone in the fourth floor corridor (although Sirius was certain that plenty of people would miss their presence from the table at dinner). The passageway had been a bit longer than any of them had anticipated, and by the time they emerged from a fake sewer grate behind Zonko's, the sun had almost completely disappeared behind the mountains.
James had also been pleasantly surprised to discover that very few people had given their presence in the village much thought. They had received a few strange looks from passersby, and the owner of Zonko's Joke Shop had tipped them a rather obvious wink, though James wasn't certain whether that was for sneaking out of school or for the vast amount of Dungbombs and Hiccup Sweets they had purchased.
"Where to now?" Remus asked as they left Dervish and Banges a while later. They all pulled their cloaks more tightly around them; the chilly November air had dropped quite a lot in temperature since the sun went down.
"Can we eat yet?" asked Peter. James met Sirius's eye and they grinned at each other.
"That place looks good," said James, pointing to a brightly lit, crowded restaurant. A wooden sign over the door indicated that it was called The Three Broomsticks. A curvy, pretty woman could be seen through the window delivering a tray full of drinks to a group of rowdy wizards.
Sirius seemed to have spotted her too.
"Yeah, that place looks really good," he said, walking toward the door.
Once inside, they found a small table in the corner and sat down. James looked around, nervously hoping that no Hogwarts professor would have the inclination to come to a place like this on a Saturday night.
"You finish your comic, Peter?" asked Sirius, a bit of laughter in his tone.
"Oh no, not yet! I've got to take my time with it. The next issue doesn't come out for months!"
"I'll tell you how this one ends," said James. "Old Dino gets into a duel with that dragon smuggler, the Silver Sorcerer, and at the very last second, the Silver Sorcerer gets away and lives to fight another day."
"Oh I hope not!" said Peter earnestly. "The Sorcerer's got Dino Danger cornered in a cave with a Peruvian Vipertooth, but I'm sure Dino will be able to get out of it soon."
"He's a shifty one, that Sorcerer," nodded Sirius in an overly serious tone. Peter did not seem to notice that they were mocking him. James bit back a laugh.
"Well you boys are a bit young to be out alone at this time of night, aren't you?"
To James's pleasure, the pretty waitress he had seen through the window was now standing at their table, smiling down at them. Up close she looked a lot younger; she couldn't have been much older than the seventh years. Remus and Peter both shifted anxiously at her question, but Sirius replied as only Sirius could do.
"Young at heart, but not of mind," he said, and once again, James tried not to laugh.
The waitress smiled knowingly at them.
"I'm guessing Professor Dumbledore doesn't know that you lot are in the village tonight," she said, but James didn't detect any hint of a threat in her voice. She appeared more amused than anything.
"I think Professor Dumbledore would be pleased to know that four of his cleverest students were putting their brains to use by figuring out ways to escape the banality of the castle," Sirius replied.
The waitress laughed. "You're good."
James decided to take a stab at it. "No, he's Sirius," he said, smiling at her. "And that's Remus, and that's Peter, and I'm James."
"Well I'm Rosmerta, and you four are lucky that I'm not one to go snitch on students that sneak out of the castle. Now what can I get you to drink?"
They all ordered butterbeers and watched Rosmerta long after she had left their table. When Sirius met James's eye, they both erupted into laughter; it wasn't long before Peter and even Remus had joined in. They only settled down when Rosmerta returned with their drinks and to take their orders, smiling warmly at their mischievousness and the sound of their youthful laughter.
Gin sat back on her bed, surrounded by sweet wrappers, butterbeer bottles, and an empty plate that had previously held quite a few of the caramel toffee bars she adored so much. Her roommates sat around her, their beds in similar states of disarray, giggling like mad. On the whole, giggling tended to annoy Gin, but tonight she couldn't help laughing along as Mary told them all of the time she had caught her older brother and his girlfriend in quite an uncomfortable position.
"They were snogging in the linen cupboard?" Raeanne said, apparently horrified.
"Yes! Like – snogging snogging. Gross snogging! My brother didn't look me in the eye for the longest time," Mary said, blushing.
Lily laughed and took a bite from one of the many eclairs she had gotten from the house elves. "You'd think they would find a more comfortable place."
Gin grinned, surprising herself when she said wryly, "What do you know about that, Lily?"
Lily choked on her eclair as the others burst out into a new round of laughter.
"Lily's kissed a boy before!" Adin blurted out.
"What?" Mary and Raeanne both shrieked. "Who? When?"
Lily glared accusingly at Adin. "Thanks a lot, Adin!"
But Adin just pulled an innocent face and grinned back at her. "What? I'd want everyone to know if I had kissed a boy before."
"So you really have then?" asked Gin.
Lily nodded, her cheeks glowing pink.
"How did it happen?" Raeanne asked eagerly.
"Well, his name was Michael, he was my friend from school – my Muggle school, that is." She bit her lip, looking hesitant, before finishing. "We always played football together after school and one day, he just leaned over, and I thought he was trying to steal the ball, but then he just kissed me."
"What'd you do?"
Lily turned an ever deeper shade of red and laughed nervously. "I kicked him."
"You kicked him?" repeated Gin, as the others all shrieked in laughter.
Lily shrugged. "What? I wasn't expecting it, and I didn't like him like that."
"Well who do you like like that?" Adin asked, raising her eyebrows.
"No one," Lily said quickly. Gin didn't miss the way she looked down at her bed before answering.
"You spend a lot of time with Severus Snape, though. You're always running off to talk to him in the corridor."
Lily shrugged again. "He's a friend from home. And we're Potions partners, so we study together sometimes."
"He's kind of weird looking. Plus I think he fancies you," Adin said.
Lily narrowed her eyes at the other girl. "He doesn't fancy me, we're just good friends. And I don't call your friends weird looking, Adin, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't make fun of mine."
"Sorry," Adin said quickly, though Gin didn't think she seemed very sorry at all. Perhaps she wanted to defuse the situation, though, because she immediately turned to Raeanne. "What about Goomer, Raeanne? I'm sure you have plenty of dirt on him."
"Dirt?" Raeanne considered this for a moment. Then she laughed. "Sure, I guess I do, but he has just as much on me, so I think I'll keep my mouth shut."
"Oooh," said Adin, sitting a bit straighter. "What does he have on you, then? Come on, you've got to give us something."
"I don't have any juicy secrets, Adin, I promise. But all the secrets I have – as unjuicy as they are – Goomer knows."
"Like what?"
"Oh, like the fact that I was the one who crashed my brother Oliver's broom into the river last summer, but Oliver had thought that it was my brother Dennis, and the two got into a huge row about it at my cousin Felix's wedding that ended with Oliver's head buried in the wedding cake and the bride in tears."
There was a beat of silence where the other girls comprehended this story before dissolving once again into laughter.
"Well now we all know your guilt too, Raeanne, so you'd better hope we don't have any reason to blackmail you," laughed Lily.
"Your brothers aren't Gryffindors, are they, Raeanne?" asked Adin.
"No, Oliver's a Hufflepuff and Dennis is a Ravenclaw."
"Do they have girlfriends?" Adin's mind never seemed to be far away from the subject of boys.
"Er, I don't know. Oliver's never mentioned – he's a third year. Dennis had a girlfriend – Carol something – last year, but I only know because Oliver wouldn't stop taking the mickey out of him last Christmas."
"Well, I was talking to my friend in Ravenclaw, Emily Cagle," Adin started importantly, "and she was saying how all the other girls in our year are jealous of us because we get to be in the same house as Sirius and James."
At this, Gin glanced at Lily and wasn't surprised to find her now examining a spot on her curtains rather intently.
"Of course," Adin continued, "I knew James even before we came to Hogwarts, and Emily's fancied him for ages. Our parents are friendly with the Potters, so they'd always get invited to our New Year's ball, though James only ever wanted to talk to the Bones brothers. They're really rich supposedly – the Potters. James's dad invented Sleekeazy's, did you know?"
"The hair potion?" asked Raeanne with interest.
Adin nodded. She was clearly in her element. "And isn't it funny, then, that James's hair is always so untidy?"
"If he's so rich," said Lily, eyes fixed determinedly on the ceiling, "then you'd think he could buy a comb."
Adin either didn't hear her or pretended like she hadn't. She sighed wistfully. "They're so cute. Especially Sirius. Everyone thinks so…even the older girls."
"The four of them sure do spend a lot of time together," said Mary. "Sirius and James and Remus and Peter, I mean. People are saying that they were even the ones who have been doing all those pranks."
"That thing they did to Severus, though, that was really mean," Lily said, a slight strain to her voice.
"I mean, no one knows for certain that it was them, though," said Adin, and Gin looked pointedly away. "Besides, it was all in good fun. People mess with each other all the time here." Gin privately thought that James and Sirius could blow up the castle and Adin would say that it had been 'in good fun.'
"Plus," added Raeanne, "have they ever been mean to you, Lily?"
Lily pondered this for a moment, and then with a resigned sigh, she shook her head. "No, they've always been nice to me. Sometimes I just think they're too clever for their own good. I mean, they're top of every class."
"Except Potions," Gin said.
This made Lily grin. "Well…naturally."
"What about you, Gin?" said Adin.
Gin blinked at her. "What about me?"
"Any boyfriends back home?"
"Oh. No…I've never had a boyfriend before. For a time I had a few friends who were boys, though."
Adin sighed in an overly dramatic way. "You guys are so lucky. My dad doesn't let boys anywhere near me, even as friends. Once, a boy called Darius Montague from up the street came to see if I could go swimming, and my dad started telling him all about the time he blasted a vampire colony to smithereens with one curse. Darius hasn't been back since!"
"You live in a wizarding village, Adin?" asked Mary.
"Yeah, sort of. The village isn't all magical, but everyone on my street is."
"That's so strange," Mary said softly. "I can't imagine growing up like that."
"Hey!" said Lily, looking amusedly offended (and more like her normal self now that there had been a change of subject). "There's nothing wrong with growing up with Muggles. I like to think of it as the best of both worlds."
Mary smiled at her. "Thanks, Lily."
Lily turned to Gin, and Gin felt no annoyance like she did whenever Adin was going to question her. Lily just seemed to have that calming effect on people.
"What about you, Gin? Did you grow up with Muggles?"
She took a moment before answering, trying to decide how much to say. She had never had people ask her so many questions about herself before. "I grew up in a Muggle neighborhood," she said at last.
"But your parents weren't Muggles, were they?" Raeanne asked.
She shook her head. "No, my mum's a witch."
"But what about your dad?"
Gin shrugged, a familiar discomfort taking hold. This, she remembered, was one of the reasons she did not like to sit around in a group of girls and chitchat. But they were all looking at her now, and she felt like she had to answer.
"He was a Muggle, I guess," she said.
Adin looked at her oddly, and Gin knew what was coming.
"He 'was?' Why isn't –"
If Lily had asked her the question, perhaps she would have had a different response, but for some reason, Gin was suddenly in no mood to answer Adin. Before Adin could even finish her sentence, Gin hopped abruptly off her bed and walked toward the door to the dormitory.
"I'll be back," she interrupted, trying to ignore the funny looks the others were throwing her way. "I just remembered I left a book in the common room…don't want anyone to take it."
She left the room quickly, silently cursing herself. On the landing outside the door, the standard chatter and Saturday night music from the common room drifted up the staircase. Regret pooled in her stomach. She hesitated only for a moment before descending the staircase and finding a secluded table in the corner of the common room. Averting her eyes from the raucous goings-on of the upper-year Gryffindors, she curled her knees under her and gazed out of the dark windows, thinking that maybe at some point in her time at Hogwarts, she would learn how to be socially adept. Then she wondered if she actually wanted to be. At home, she had had a few Muggle friends in primary school, but the difficulty inherent in the separation of their worlds had been too great for her to grow close to anyone. She had her mother, of course. And she had her books. It had never seemed important to her before to ask for more.
Only a minute or two passed before Lily plopped down in the chair next to her. For a moment, she said nothing, but just gazed out the same window Gin had been admiring.
"Did you find your book?"
"Oh," said Gin, fidgeting. "Er, no, I must have left it somewhere else."
Lily nodded, a strange half-smile forming on her face. Still, she kept her green eyes on the dark window. "It'll turn up, I'm sure."
Gin echoed her nod and licked her lips nervously. Despite herself, she felt a strong urge to tell the other girl something – anything – of importance. "You can tell the others that nothing about my family is impressive or interesting," she muttered so quietly that she wondered if Lily could even hear her. "Not to disappoint Adin or anything. My dad left before I was born and my mum doesn't talk about him much."
It was strange that she did not feel annoyed by telling Lily this. Lily finally turned to look at her.
"My sister called me a freak right before I got on the Hogwarts Express and I don't know if she'll ever talk to me again," she said. Gin just stared at her, unsure of how to respond. Lily was still wearing that strange little half-smile, and Gin realized she didn't need to respond at all.
"All right," she said, nodding and knowing imperceptibly that Lily understood everything she didn't need to say.
And for the first time since she had left home, Gin felt like maybe, just maybe, someone actually cared about her.