Chapter 14: Chamberpots and Webs
Lily awoke with a start and glanced at the time before promptly throwing the covers and jumping out of her bed in a hurry. Mary shifted in her sleep, her dark hair spilling over the dark red covers. Marlene too was fast asleep looking like a princess as her blond curls caressed her face. The name Sleeping Beauty that Lily called her out of malice was fitting indeed.
"Lily?" Dorcas mumbled sitting up and rubbing the sleep in her eyes. She looked like a doll with her flowery nightgown but Lily knew that Dorcas was the wisest among them. "What are you doing- what time is it?"
"Four am." Lily replied automatically. She opened her trunk and pulled out her uniform and the books she needed for the day. Petunia's socks caught her eye, but she shoved them underneath the rest of the contents. She didn't need to be reminded. She was going to see Petunia very soon. There were only days leading up to the summer holidays.
"And what are you doing at four am in the morning? Classes don't start until eight Lily." Dorcas reminded her. "Go back to sleep."
"I can't." Lily sighed and hopped onto Dorcas's bed. "Don't tell anyone Dorcas but I'm going to be a prefect."
There. It felt so good to get it out of her chest. It made it seem so much more real to Lily. She was going to be a prefect.
"A prefect." Dorcas repeated, looking at Lily closely. "Like those prefects that get chosen in our 5th year?" Her eyes widened when Lily nodded. "Oh Lily we're first years-I don't think you understand what that means. We have four-," Dorcas held up four fingers that she and Marlene had painted a deep red last night, for enunciation. "-four years left. Are you getting this Lily- four years left. Four."
"I know, Mary took me with Fabian and Irma the other day and I can't imagine not being one anymore!" Lily stood up. "Four more years and then I can be a prefect! Now I know Prefects usually wake up around 5 and start their rounds around the school at 6. I just want to practice and make sure that I can do that - and get up earlier if I need. Hence the waking up at four. I need to show McGonagall that I can handle this. I have to be prefect Dorcas! I just have to! If you want something you have to start now- you can't just sit around waiting it for happen."
Dorcas looked unsure. "Lily I wish I had your ambition. But we still have four years- maybe you should catch up on sleeping until then."
Lily shook her head as she changed into her robes "I can't sleep and waste four years doing nothing. What if McGonagall doesn't think I'm motivated or driven enough?" She fixed her tie and straightened her hair. "What if she chooses someone else?"
"Well if it's me," Dorcas grinned. "I will happily relinquish my position to you, Lily."
"Thank you, Dorcas." Lily smiled and checked her hair in the mirror once more. It wasn't Marlene- perfection yet but it was her.
"Well what are you going to do until everyone else wakes up Lily?" Dorcas yawned. "It's not like you can do rounds or anything that the prefects do yet."
"I'll study." Lily grabbed the hairbrush that Mary had gifted her deciding that hair wasn't tamed yet. "And double check my homework or do some extra reading-oh wait do you have the notes from Professor Hunphy yesterday? Mary distracted me so I didn't get the last half- Dorcas?"
But Dorcas's only response was a light snore. Lily smiled and grabbed her bag before shutting the common room door quietly so they wouldn't be disturbed. The common room was completely empty and Lily took delight in the fact that it was so. She loved the silence and calmness of it all. With an extra skip in her walk she crawled out the portrait hole and headed towards the Library. A little light reading couldn't hurt- and it would pass the time. As she walked through the empty halls she noticed the portraits to were sleeping. One particular portrait winked at her and she smiled back at it but it had mysteriously disappeared.
Madam Pince however was in her usual place in the library guarding it like a hawk. She glared at Lily as she walked in and took out a seat. Lily tried to smile back but Dorcas had told her that the librarian never smiled at anyone. She opened up Mary's book that she had never gotten to finish and started back at the paragraph she had last stopped at.
Lucy couldn't look at Edward the same way. Not after what she had seen. He was a monster- but somehow a monster that made her heart beat faster, her pupils dilate, her desire for him greater. Others might have described it as fear but Lucy didn't. She saw him as a human. A kind caring beautiful human who was marred by a stereotype forced upon him by society. He was beautiful and the way he looked at her made her feel like she was the only one that existed in his universe. She was the light to his dark world, the warmth that would melt the icy tendrils of the cage he was so far into, the mirror that would show him the person he was through his eyes-
Lily paused and looked up where Madam Pince was looking down at her book and breathing heavily down her back. "What is that?"
"What is what?" Lily asked wondering what in the world she had done to upset the librarian. She looked at her book- it looked fine. She hadn't brought any food in, she had been super quiet too...
"That!" Madam Pince was pointing to the page where there was the most miniscule rip. Lily's breathe caught in her throat. "That- that is-" Lily had never been good at lying much. Mary had always been there to get her out of situations like these...
"It's not my book!" Lily said quickly. "It's Mary's!"
The librarian nodded and stepped back muttering Mary. Lily took the opportunity to stuff the book back in her bag and step away from Madam Pince.
"Oh would you look at the time. I've got to meet McGonagall!" Lily said adjusting her shoulder bag and sprinting out the Great Library as fast as she could until she reached the Great Hall. Sighing she took a seat and laid her head down. She would wait here until everyone else arrived.
It seemed like hours when a group of prefects including the Head boy and Head girl arrived for a quick breakfast. Lily's head shot up and she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, she hadn't even realized she had dozed off. She looked at the Grand clock- it was almost seven.
"You!" a curvy girl Lily recognized as Anisette was suddenly walking towards her- wand out, eyes furious. "You're the one behind this?"
"I'm sorry-behind what?" Lily asked. The Head girl was asking her something and she had no idea what. And why was she still sitting? Lily stood up- but found that she was unable too.
"Don't act all innocent- you're the only one here. Unless your accomplices left your here to take the blame. In that case I'll need their names and houses please-what are you sitting on?!"
Lily looked down horrified and embarrassed for she was sitting on a chamber pot!
"Oh- um- I don't know what happened. I had just taken a seat and now this-" Lily looked up terrified at the Head girl "I can't get up!"
"Anisette-" A prefect pointed up where several stringy white tendrils hung from the ceiling in an intricate pattern- a web.
"I'm stuck!" Lily said again, panicking. Anisette bent down. "Okay relax honey-we'll figure it out. Ryan?"
The Head Boy nodded and pointed his wand at her muttering spells. Despite his many efforts Lily still found herself stuck.
"Why isn't it working?" she asked. Here she was sitting on a chamber pot in front of the most respected students in all of Hogwarts. Life was unfair.
"There seems to be something hindering it from working. I have the spell but something needs to be set off in order for it to work." Ryan looked towards Anisette who looked up at the web that hung above the Great Hall. "I'm going to find the idiots that did, Alcott, Prewett get the Headmaster!"
The two prefects nearest to her nodded like they understood.
"Don't worry Lily, we'll get you out." Fabian assured her before he left with the Ravenclaw prefect. Lily was whimpering and the matter worsened as a small stream of students began entering the Great Hall. All eyes immediately fell to her and those that didn't immediately look noticed once the snickering commenced- and then all hell broke loose.
Immediately from all four corners of the Great Hall green spiders with toad like heads started crawling onto the web- dripping green slime onto everything below them. The students started screaming and the prefects immediately pointed their wands stunning the toad-spider things.
"Seymour!" Ryan ordered the Hufflepuff prefect who pushed a group of students out of the way before they could get slimed by the vicious spider-toad things.
Don't sit!" A prefect warned to late as many students took their seats. Their seats like Lily's had changed into chamber pots, but unlike Lily's they were able to get back up while she was still stuck.
Frustrated Lily did the only thing she could. She cried.
Mary skipped into the Hall a few minutes later looking at the scene in front of her in awe, Marlene and Dorcas with similar expressions behind her. And to Lily's great dismay James Potter walked into the Great Hall, grinning.
"WOW. THIS IS AMAZING. SIRIUS WHO DO YOU THINK DID THIS?"
"BEATS ME JAMES. PETER?"
"I DON'T KNOW. REMUS?"
Remus just shrugged and looked at Lily who looked down, ashamed. Oh how she wanted to scream. She was sitting in the middle of the Great Hall, on a chamber pot, for everyone in the Great Hall to see. A green tendril of toad slime suddenly fell upon her, landing on her red hair and Lily sobbed even harder.
"Got it!" Ryan waved his wand and Lily felt herself slide off the chamber pot. She looked back at it angrily. She could see everyone staring at her, some were snickering while others were screaming as the toad- spider things got closer or their seats turned to chamber pots.
"Are you okay sweetie?" Anisette asked her gently. "We can go to the Hospital Wing-"
Lily shook her head at the Head Girl. "Sorry." before she ran out the Great Hall, the sound of laughter echoing around her.
"Lily?"
Lily turned to the voice and hugged Severus. "Sev it was awful- I was on a chamber pot and everyone was watching and these toads were dropping green slime all over me ad everyone could see me- I can't be here." Lily hiccuped. "I'm not going back."
Severus looked at the ongoing scene in the Great Hall and back at Lily. "Come one, let's have breakfast outside today. Would that make you feel better?"
"You know I think I just saw Potter fall into his chamber pot." Severus said as he took her hand. "Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll get flushed inside."
"Sev that's mean." Lily said.
"But you wouldn't mind if it happened?"
Lily shrugged and laughed. "Maybe."