Lily was waving goodbye to her parents, who were rapidly disappearing down the road in a taxi in a cloud of dust, when she felt a fist connect with her spine.
Lily fell forward onto the street, skinning her hands and knees. Not wasting an instant of time, she jumped up and raised her fists.
"James Potter, what on earth did you do that for?"
He shrugged, smirking. "Payback."
Lily dropped her balled hands. "All right, then I guess I deserved that. But why're you here?"
"Why do you think? I'm getting my supplies. I'd ask you what you were doing here, but you have a very talkative friend."
"I see. Amanda?"
"Exactly. Say, you want to come to Flourish and Blotts with us?"
"Us?"
"Yeah, Sirius and Remus. Peter's got a sick aunt, so he's in Russia, but the rest of us're here. So, what do you say?"
Dusting herself off, Lily walked towards the Leaky Cauldron without saying a word. James followed at a bit of a jog.
"Say, what'd I do?"
"Do?"
"Yeah, you just walked off and left. You're doing it right now, as a matter of fact."
They were inside the small pub by now and Lily was ascending the stairs. James caught her sleeve and held her back.
"Really, I mean it, what did I do?"
"You get one guess. Let me go, Potter." She tried to twist out of his grip, but he didn't let go. "I said, let me go!"
She heard steps on the stairs above her, climbing down the narrow stairway.
"Oh, good, Sirius. Get your friend to let me go, will you?"
"Sirius, tell me what I did wrong. I came up behind her in the street and tried to talk, but she got all huffy and won't talk to me. Talk to me here."
Lily turned around and glared at him. "That might have something to do with the insignificant fact that you punched me in the back. Not counting that my hands are bleeding. Potter, for the last time, get off of me!"
Sirius came the rest of the way down the stairs. "You know, James, she has a point." He detached Lily's sleeve and turned to her. "Say, Lily, since you're gonna be in our year, want to come shop for our things with us?"
Lily tilted her head to one side and stopped at the top of the stairs. "Sure, why not!" And with that, she turned into her room, grabbed her money, and headed back down, missing James' completely nonplussed glare as she and Sirius went out the back doorway.
"Hey, Lily, what new subjects're you taking this year?" Sirius was trying to stuff all of his books into one bag at Flourish and Blotts.
"Oh…" Lily glanced at her list. "Divination and the Study of Ancient Runes. What about you?"
"Well, James, Remus, Peter, and I all signed up for the same things-we're also in Divination, and-oh, wait, I forgot-James and Remus signed up for Care of Magical Creatures, but Peter's in Advanced Astronomy and I'm taking the Study of Ancient Runes. Say-I'll be in all of your classes!"
Lily nodded. "You will, won't you. You know-since you know what to get for my classes, could you get my things? I'll pay you back as soon as I get away from Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor-there's a long line and it's getting hot outside. Do you mind?"
He smiled. "As long as you save me a spot in line. I'm not waiting that long, either."
Lily tossed her hair over her shoulder as she swung out of the shop. "Of course!"
Thirty minutes later, there were only five people left in line for the counter, and Sirius was walking in the door. He took his place next to Lily, who tugged at his sleeve.
"Sirius!"
He bent down, for she was whispering. "What?"
"I've never been here before. What do you suggest?"
"Never been-never mind. Try Beheaded Raspberry."
"Beheaded what?"
"Combination of raspberry sherbet, raspberry ice cream, those Exploding Raspberries, and then there's a real one stuck on top, just with the green stuff gone."
"Green stuff?"
"Come off it, don't you know what-oh, yeah, right, you've never been here-these are huge and have thorny leaves. Try it."
"And I suppose what you mean is that the thorns are gone."
He banged his fist on the counter, attracting the attention of a sleepy clerk. "Exactly. All right, she'd like a Beheaded Raspberry sundae--make that a large with that creamy stuff on top, and I'm having…oh, gimme a Mocha Swirl Deluxe with the dancing mice on top…"
The sun was blazing down on the red-and-white striped umbrella covering Lily, Sirius, and Remus, who had joined them with an account of Malfoy slipping on a melted Ice Mouse in the joke shop, knocked into a shelf, and ended with a smoky, scorched robe and a ruined joke shop. Sirius was a bit upset.
"That git ruined the whole blazing shop? Can't he even walk right?"
"Oh, it's Pink. And Loopy. Who're you?-oh, that's right, the Evans girl." A slow, drawling voice was coming from behind Sirius. Malfoy was there, his white-blond hair still plastered to his head and his robes, which, though they had stopped smoking, were black and ashy. Sirius and Remus stood up, knocking their chairs over. Lily remained seated.
"What's the matter, boys? Can't take a bit of teasing?"
Lily shaded her eyes. "What's wrong, Malfoy, forgot that fires aren't to be walked into?"
Malfoy turned a bit rosy, gave her an expression somewhat between a glare and a smirk, and swished away, pulling Snape with him, who had been standing in the shade of the umbrella. Sirius and Remus, after throwing bits of mud at them, reseated themselves, beaming at Lily.
"Way to go, Lil!"
"She actually made him turn red!"
"He doesn't know that you're going to be sharing Potions with him, does he?"
"He's not going to be ecstatic about that, I can tell you!"
"I know, that nasty, jinxing git!"
Unknown to any of them, James had walked up quietly behind the group.
"He almost killed you last year, didn't he?"
"I don't know. I'm really glad you're not mad at me, because if you were, I might as well commit suicide right now!"
"Why so?"
"She owns a sword, idiot!"
"Oh, right. Lily, you might try teaching me how to handle that, because I'd like to hit him several times, too."
"Sure, why not. He deserves to be hit."
James' eyes were filled with hurt as he heard his two best friends talking about someone who sounded suspiciously like him. The next remark solidified the suspicion in his mind.
"But he really does need to do something with that hair of his. I mean to say-that is just disgusting, don't you think?"
"Definitely. I'm a girl, of course I'm going to think that's terrible. I wonder what I'd make him do with it, though? Besides the obvious, of course."
James looked down at his feet, the apology he'd been meaning to give Lily shoved brutally out of his mind. He slowly turned around, dragged his feet silently out of Diagon Alley, and locked himself in his room, listening to the feet thumping up the stairs.
It hadn't been hard for Lily to notice that James was missing, as he usually never strayed ten feet from his friends, except, of course, when he was playing Quidditch. She wondered what was up, and kept thinking back to that afternoon, wondering if she had hurt him in some way. The whole rest of her stay at the Leaky Cauldron, though filled with unwanted jinxes and taunts from Snape and Malfoy, was empty of James. She had glimpsed him once, when he was taking Floo powder to Fraeden Square, but she didn't follow him, getting the impression he didn't want to be followed.
They got to King's Cross by way of Amanda's parents, who had volunteered their minivan. Sirius, Remus, James, and Lily were to ride with them, along with, of course, Amanda. James, obviously trying to avoid everyone, had seated himself in the back, taking up the seat next to him with his trunk and owl, then buried himself in a book.
The others had by now seated themselves in the van, Amanda sitting in the seat James had left free and the three others in the three seats in front of him. Alisande was looking rather worried as the van started.
Sirius, who had placed himself next to Lily, had immediately turned around, trying to disengage James' attention from Quidditch Through the Ages. Stubbornly, James kept moving the book in front of Sirius' face, blocking his own face.
Sirius gave up, blowing out his breath with a sigh. He reached over the back of the seats and pulled the book away from James, who had not been expecting this. Sirius stashed the book under the front seat and stared quizzically at his friend.
"James, you've been really quiet and been avoiding us ever since the day Lil arrived. What's wrong, man?"
James stared fixedly at his lap. "I'd have thought that by now you'd have figured out that I'm not speaking to you."
"I'm not stupid. But why not? Did I do something wrong when I got you offa Lily? It's the only thing I can think of."
James' mouth was open, and he was resembling a gaping fish. "You honestly don't remember?"
"Remember what?"
"You are, too stupid!" The van stopped and James climbed over several pairs of legs in his hurry to get out. "Good riddance."
Confused, puzzled, and not a little disturbed, the four climbed out of the van, walked through the barrier, managing not to knock over any owls, and got on the train, in search of James. They found Snape and Malfoy.
Sirius was the first to speak. "Outta my way, Lucy!"
"Pink, you're asking for it."
"No, I didn't. I only told you to move. Nowhere in there did I mention a defined request."
"Looking for your buddy, are you?"
Sirius shook his head. "Lucy, it's nice that you've got your own television show, but you've got a husband in there, so stop looking for your own outside of filming."
Malfoy frowned. "Since when am I a star?"
"You're not. No one watches 'I Love Lucy' anymore. Move."
Malfoy narrowed his eyes, squinting at Sirius. Lily had had enough of this, so at the time Snape and Malfoy reached for their wands, she stepped forward, pushing Sirius back.
She remembered a tactic she had used with bullies at Muggle school. Eyes wide, she shook her hair back and looked squarely at Malfoy, not blinking, imitating unknowingly the deep, lidless stare of the elf-nymph. Her vision blurred, then, after a split second, she felt the earth sink under her and everything grow black.
Unwillingly, Lily felt herself fall downwards, landing in something familiar.
She shook herself several times, then, not a little frightened, she opened her eyes. This time, she was floating deep in the dewy ocean, with no solid as far as her eyes could reach. Floundering helplessly in the breathable substance, she tried to make her way up. Her arms, though very helpful in regular water, were no use at all now. She rose not an inch towards the surface.
Discouraged, she tried to sink down. She only succeeded, however, to drop a few inches, so, plainly, she was sort of stuck. Lily shook her head, trying not to scream.
"I'm fine. I'll be fine. I'm all right. I'm not going to die-SOMEONE HELP ME!" Gasping in fright, she closed her eyes and let her head sink onto her chest, trying to avoid panicking. But she still jumped a foot into the air when she felt a light touch on her arm.
Lily whirled around. Beside her was an unknown face, yet rather familiar. It had the snake-shaped eyes, the unnaturally long fingers, and the crescent-moon silvery whiteness of its skin was a reminder of the elf-nymph. Still, the silvery locks were replaced by jet-black hair, tousled, somewhat like James', Lily thought. He-for Lily figured it was a he-had no fish-tail, and his nails were a regular pinkish color, white at the tips. He was more normal than anything than she had encountered down here, including the rocks, because they didn't wobble, yet floated on the surface. About thirty-one years old, his face was rather reassuring.
"Who are you?"
He smiled at hearing her speak. "Tom. Who're you?"
"Lily. Lily Evans. I hate to say this-but what is this place?"
He looked stunned. "You mean you don't know? Where're your parents?"
Lily shrugged. "I don't live here. I go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and some strange things have happened over the last year, and I've landed here three times. I don't know where I am, why I'm here, or how I got here."
Tom frowned. "That sounds rather unbelievable, but, seeing that you go to Hogwarts, anything there's possible. Still, this place is the Alendoren Cove, off of the coast of Albania. I'm going to sound like a brochure here, but bear with me." He grinned at her. "It's several thousand miles deep, and the greatest elf-nymph sect of the world lives here. The water here is the same all to the bottom. No one has actually found out what causes the water to be so filled with light like this, but it's the only kind that the elvish tribe here can breathe. Only kind anyone can breathe, come to that."
Lily shook her head several times, trying to absorb everything and failing miserably. "Do you know, I might be able to understand this better if I could sit on dry land-do you mind?"
He laughed, a chilling, high, cold laugh, though oddly interesting. "Of course not. Come on." He took her wrist and propelled himself upward, dragging her with him.
They broke the surface some thirty minutes later, and, after swimming east for another twenty, they reached a sheltered cove, surrounded by rocks and glistening sand. Both of them struck out for the beach, and, not wet at all, placed themselves on a large, flat rock, Lily looking at Tom as if he were an interesting specimen she was studying in Care of Magical Creature.
"So-not to sound rude or anything, but what exactly are you?"
He laughed again, taking his time before responding. "My mother was an elf-nymph. She had powers that she wanted to take her time to teach, which is why I'm down here."
Lily interrupted. "Wait, wait there just a minute. She 'was' an elf-nymph?"
He sighed. "Yeah, she died when I was born."
"Oh." Lily could have bitten her tongue off for being so tactless. "I-I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "Hey, never mind. I'll live, you'll live, the world will go on." He looked a bit sad for a minute, then his brow cleared. "Anyway, I have my mother's half of the family here. She wrote a long journal of what she learned throughout her lifetime, which, near her death, she transformed into a book. It was spelled so as to only be opened by me, and, as soon as I came of age, my relatives wrote to me. I've been studying her arts ever since."
"Oh." Lily was sitting in silence, absorbing all he was telling her, when a splash broke the silence.
A silvery head was weaving its way through the waves, a thrilling smile on her face. The elf-nymph so familiar to Lily was diving through the iridescent dew and coming towards them. Tom stood up and brushed his robes free of sand.
"Oy, Litharelen! Meet my new friend." He gestured towards Lily as the elf-nymph reached shore, and, before Lily's eyes, changed her long tail into a silken, silvery, flowing gown. Running lightly, she reached their seat and was pulled up onto the rock by Tom.
"Lily, this is Litharelen de Forneque. Tharelen, this is Lily Evans." The two smiled at each other and reached for each other's hand, each seemingly delighted to meet the other. Lily, on her part, was both that and happy to be able to touch the living metal of Litharelen's fingers. "Tharelen here is my grandmother's sister's daughter's niece, if that makes any sense to you. It doesn't to me, but it does to her, and I'm not willing to go through the family tree just to find out exactly how we're related." He smiled. "I'd love to invite you to dinner here. I know Tharelen here would just love to have a homo sapien at her table, as she calls your kind. He laughed again, and Tharelen frowned, a beautiful, silvery frown.
"Stop that, Tom." She turned to Lily. "Welcome here. I've already seen you before, but I'd love to have you meet the rest of our family. Want to come?"
Lily smiled broadly. "Of course."
Litharelen beamed. "Come on. I'm afraid that you'll have to put up with people calling you Miss Evans, but I hope you won't mind. Tom did, though, when he met my grandparents, who call everyone Mrs. Slevanesaden or Miss de Forneque. When they wanted to shake hands, they held out theirs-"Good evening, Mr. Riddle." Tom actually looked over his shoulder, looking for that Mr. Riddle they were talking to!" She trilled a light ring of laughter and dived below the surface, resuming her usual form.
Lily looked back at Tom, who was looking rather disgruntled. "What a mess."
She was puzzled. "What?"
"I hated my father. He deserted us after my mother told him that she wasn't of his kind, and I don't want to be mentioned in the same sentence as his name."
Lily stared at him quizzically. "Well, what do you want me to call you?"
Tom debated on something inside himself, then apparently made up his mind. "Call me Tom, but if you want to, my friends at Hogwarts called me Lord Voldemort. You can go with that."
Lily grinned. "All right, my Lord, let's get to supper before it spoils, waiting for us!"
He nodded. "You're right. This way." And with a well-aimed dive, he was off in the dewy water. Lily, not wasting an instant of time, followed immediately.
They were at the door of a beautiful mansion, being itself a coral reef, when Lily felt a vicious pain on her cheek. Tom and Litharelen didn't miss her wince.
"Lily, what's wrong? Are you all right?" They were especially worried, and, seconds later, when another blast hit her other cheek, she saw their figures, which were rushing toward her with concern written on their faces as she sank downwards, losing her senses, dim and fade into nothingness.
Another hard slap on her cheek woke her up immediately. Regaining enough sense to keep her eyes closed, guessing they were silvery again, she shook her head violently and covered her ears. Around her she could feel the presence of many people, all of them shouting and shaking her. Nearby, she heard James' voice.
"See, I told you she was only messing around. Slapping people usually wakes them up, right, Evans?"
Lily felt a hand grope for her wrist and heard Eva's voice. "I'm taking her to the front. There's a teacher up there, C'mon, Lily." She bent down and hissed in her friend's ear, "Keep your eyes closed!" Then Eva yanked Lily to her feet, and, almost as if leading a blind girl, disappeared with her from sight.
They whirled into an empty compartment and Eva shut the door and pulled tight the curtains covering it. "Lily, this is getting serious. Eyes open."
Obedient to her friend's commanding voice, Lily flung open her eyelids and grasped at the mirror offered her by Eva. She didn't put it down, just kept staring at the image in the mirror.
Instead of the past silver threads twining through her irises and pupils, her eyes were a brilliant silver, sparkling just as the hair of Litharelen had done. Lily tucked her hair behind her ears and felt the tips; pointy and thin, and strangely, they were picking up waves of sound for miles around. The roots of her hair were, in front of her eyes, streaking themselves with silver. Lily laid the mirror beside her on the seat.
"Eva, I don't know why this is happening. I honestly don't."
Eva nodded and sank onto the seat beside her. "I don't think you do. But you didn't look at the necklace again, did you?"
"The last time I did that, it was to keep from drowning. I just stared at Malfoy. That's all. Just stared. And something happened there and I was off. Off somewhere. Actually, into the Alendoren Cove off of the coast of Albania." Exhausted, Lily leaned back against the upholstery and sighed. Eva was frowning.
"How do you know?"
"Oh-that-I talked to two people down there."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Tom Riddle and-oh, I met the elf-nymph I'd only seen before. He introduced me to her. Her name is Litharelen de Forneque and she's some complicated relation to Tom."
"Oh…that really doesn't tell us much about anything, does it?"
"No." Lily stood up forcefully, pushing herself off of the seat in an angry thrust. "But I wish I knew why I'm going there! I wish I knew why this-" she grasped at her silvery roots-"is happening to me. Eva, sometimes I have the feel I'm going insane." She walked over to the window and leaned against it, absently remembering the live metal touch of Litharelen's hand as she pressed her forehead against the cool glass.
By the time the Hogwarts Express pulled up in the Hogsmeade train station, the elf-nymph effects had worn off and Lily was as back to normal as one could expect. They arrived at Hogwarts and seated themselves in the Great Hall, but then Professor McGonagall came up behind Lily.
"Miss Evans, I need to see you in my office." With that, she swished out of the Great Hall, followed by a bewildered and a tiny bit frightened Lily.
They reached her office, and Professor McGonagall ushered Lily into a chair. "Miss Evans, I heard about an occurence on the train that you did not inform a teacher of." She looked at the petrified redhead expectantly.
Lily cleared her throat several times. "Professor--I just felt a bit sick. Nothing really happened." She had the odd feeling that it wouldn't be the best idea to confess that she was being transported spiritually to another place, and the after-effects being rather strange. "I'm fine. Really."
Professor McGonagall nodded slowly, half convinced. "If you are sure you do not need to go to the hospital wing, you may go down to the feast. Madam Pomfrey is an excellent nurse, and I am sure that any illness you have will soon be gone."
Lily sprang up, her mind turning numb at the thought of James' comments if she had to go to the hospital wing. "Professor, I'm fine, really. The only thing I am now is a bit hungry--I'm not sick."
Professor McGonagall nodded again. "You may go down to the feast, then. I shall see you in third-year Transfiguration." She gave Lily a rare smile. "I am sure you will do well."
Lily sped out of the door, then, in the entrance hall, she decided she wasn't in the mood for taunts and headed for Gryffindor Tower.
With a bit of good luck, Lily ran into a prefect as he was leaving the tower.
"Password's Puritan hysteria."
Lily thanked him with a smile and slipped through the portrait hole he held open for her.
The common room was occupied by no one but the blazing flames in the fireplace, and, not in the mood for sitting in a common room soon to be bombarded with fully-fed Gryffindors, Lily took the steps up to the girls' dormitories two at a time. It took her a while to find the correct dormitory, since her room was now with the third years, but when the Gryffindors started spilling into the common room, she was lying on her four-poster, sending a note off home with Alisande.
Lily heard footsteps tromping up the stairs, and moments later, four girls stood inside the doorway, all looking rather curious. A chubby sort of girl with brown hair in plaits and eyeglasses stepped forward, holding her callused hand out to Lily.
"You must be Lily Evans. Professor McGonagall told us you would be here." Lily took the outstretched hand gratefully. "I'm Abigail. Welcome-" she gestured around the circular dormitory-"I hope you'll like it here."
Lily smiled. She had been terribly afraid that she might not fit in and would be shunned, and this girl was acting as nice as anyone could. Well, besides Petunia. Nice for Petunia would probably mean outright cruelty from this girl.
The other three girls moved forward from their posts near the door. A short, thin, rather shy-looking brunette with a silky blue scarf around her neck moved forward. "I'm Elspeth. Hi." She gave a small wave, and Lily, feeling a bit stupid, moved her fingers a bit.
The next inhabitant moved forward. A very pretty black girl, she wore long gold earrings and was chewing gum, smiling brightly. "Hi, Lily. I'm Diana. Say-are you coming to Hogsmeade this year? I'd love to show you that one shop they have there-"
Diana pulled out a sort of magazine from her robes. She jumped on the bed and sat down on the edge, but just as she was slipping the front page away, a sort of cough froze her and elevated her off of the bed.
The last girl was a tall blonde, with glittering blue eyes and a majestic air. Her hand, lifted airily to her mouth, was slender and delicate, just like the rest of her figure. But, unlike the other girls, there was no smile at her lips and no welcoming glance. Lily compared her silently to a Michelangelo statue stuck in the freezer.
"Girls, honestly, don't we have enough trouble without looking after a tiny twelve-year-old? I should have thought you had more class than that." She sniffed and moved to her bed, and Diana and Elspeth followed immediately, without so much as a glance backwards. A bit hurt, Lily sank back onto her pillow. She felt a tug at her sleeve.
Abigail was kneeling beside the bed.
"Lily, I'm sorry."
Lily was astonished. "Sorry for what? You didn't do a thing."
Abigail nodded regretfully. "I know, but Serena did this to me when I was in my first year here. I didn't like it at all, and I always kept hoping she would be my friend." She shrugged. "Serena only hangs around beauty queens. I'm not a good enough candidate." She sighed again and fingered her glasses. Then she perked up. "Say, Lily, now that we're here together, do you mind if I consider you my friend?"
Lily's mouth hung open. "Abigail-what on earth? Of course I don't mind!"
Abigail flushed. "You don't know how much that means to me. I haven't had a real friend in ages. Say-" she opened her eyes wide-"can we play chess downstairs?"
In answer to that, Lily jumped off of the bed and downstairs towards the common room, pulling Abigail with her, thinking, "She sounds nice, and right now I don't care what that Serena character thinks. Abigail's the nicest person I've met and I'm sticking to her."
Upstairs, Serena Sikora was playing with her long blonde hair and pondering. She was no dummy, and she had come to a conclusion already.
"If I want a shot at any of those five boys, that Evans girl better stay as ugly as she can be. And I know just how." A malicious smile crept around her cheeks as she flipped the page of Diana's magazine.
The first day of their new classes, Lily was coughing madly from the smoke surrounding the Divanation students. The class was held high up in the North Tower, and it reminded her vaguely of what Petunia would do to a room if she got the chance. Professor Trelawney, the Divination teacher, was nowhere in sight as most of the students took their places on poufy armchairs.
On one of the shelves that lined the room, there were several steaming teapots and cups with tiny saucers. They were in two different colors: pink and greenish-white. As Lily sat down at a smallish table with Abigail and a girl whose name was Patricia Forster, she caught sight of a glitter in the shadows near the curtains, and something looking rather like an oversized dragonfly wearing a cloak came out of the shadows. As the thing came closer, Lily realized that this was a person, in spite of her appearance.
"Good afternoon. My name is Professor Trelawney. I shall be your Divination teacher this year." She ushered Sirius, Remus, and James to the table behind Lily, and ended up placing James right behind Lily, who was beginning to feel more than a bit claustrophobic.
"This art is not the king of magic one learns from books. We have in here several people who will fail hopelessly at their crystal art, although, if I have read the signs aright, the least successful student will have their wildest nightmares come to be reality." Her voice was light and wispy, sounding like an oracle, and many people looked nervous and fidgeted underneath the tabletops. Lily was coming close to ducking under the table to avoid the thick fumes from the incense burners on the mantlepiece.
Half of the class Professor Trelawney gave teacups with wide leaves, instructing them on how to read the leaves. Lily was among those assigned to the incense ashes.
Each ash-student was given a stick of incense, a holder, and was instructed to light their stick, tapping on it every twenty-nine seconds to make the ashes fall. "You will find your interpretations of the ashes on pages thirteen and fourteen in your books."
Lily sighed. Underneath the table, she pulled out "The Princess Bride" from her bag and flipped it open, turning to the passage about the visit of the Princess Noreena. In between, she pushed the ashes off of her incense stick and wished desperately for a drink of cold water.
At long last, the ashes were all on the tray, and she tilted it to the side, so that the ashes fell onto one of the greenish-white saucers. She flipped her book open and shook her head, muttering about how senseless this all was. "I would be doing something with more point if I were delousing my owl."
Her finger moved up and down the page.
"All right, where does it give me an explanation for a crumbly gray mess-oh, all right, fine, this thing looks more like a wand-ooh, hope I'm going to hex someone…here's something that could be a telephone-no, wait, a rat-I am going to have unexpected alliances and enemies. No surprises there…oh, there's something that looks like a rainbow thingy-pot of gold?-ugh, no…tears in my life-these ashes seem to hate me…"
Abigail heard her and snorted with laughter, attracting Professor Trelawney's attention. She had just been checking James' tea leaves, and his saucer was still in her hand as she flitted over, snatching up Lily's incense remains.
Lily made a face as her teacher knelt next to her, put James' saucer on the table next to hers for lack of space, and then let out a tinkling, death-to-all-ear-drums scream.
Half of the class jumped up, crowding around Professor Trelawney and asking what the matter was. For close to five minutes, her hand at her heart, she could only point to the two saucers in front of her. The class approached them tentatively.
Lily had taken each saucer in her hands and was examining them. Abigail was bouncing up and down on the toes of her feet, trying to get a good view.
"Lily, what do you see?"
Lily frowned. "A bunch of soggy green stuff and loads of crumbly gray dust."
At that, Professor Trelawney regained her strength. She shot up from her armchair as if she had been shot out of a slingshot. The two saucers she sntached from Lily and placed them far out of reach, on the highest shelf in all of her book-cases.
"My dear child, do you not see it? No-no, it is better you go unknowingly on your path. Do not ask it of me, dear child!"
Lily gritted her teeth at the 'dear child' part. "May I please know what my crumbly gray dust represents?-excuse me, my holy incense ashes."
Professor Trelawney guided her and James towards a sofa, pressing them down and grasping their shoulders forcefully, as if they would die if she let go. Lily lifted the hand off of her shoulder with the expression that conveyed the impression that she was trying to lift the corpse of a rooster off of her robes.
"My children, your fate is written in the stars!"
Lily wanted to say, "You mean, drawn in soggy wet stuff.", but this teacher seemed too loony to cross.
"Your fate is entwined, my dears, and you are doomed! Didst you not glimpse it in your fortunes? 'Exactly alike leads to doom'! Your fortunes read the same; they were shaped the same, they are fatal!"
Practically everyone in the room gasped at this. Lily was getting fed up.
"Are you trying to say that we're going to get married and that we'll end up killing each other because we're so alike? Professor, I stink at Quidditch."
Professor Trelawney looked somewhat miffed. "Be it so, then, child. Do not say I have not warned you." She rose, hand at heart, and stepped tremblingly to a high-backed chair that hid her completely from view. Her airy-fairy voice, however, still could be heard.
"You may leave off for today, children. Take my advice, and enjoy the company of your friends as long as you are able…"
"Oh, posh!" Lily kicked the trapdoor open and descended noisily. "That lady must be mad! I'm in perfect health, thank you very much, and have no desire for instant suicide. She's a regular loony."
James caught up to her. His face was worried and drawn; he had obviously taken the lesson seriously.
"Lily, don't you understand? We're doomed, we're going to die!"
She shrugged his hand off. "Death is the only great adventure. I wonder what it would feel like to be dead? Maybe I would become a ghost and remember, and then I'd write a book about it! I'd become the first author to publish works written after her death! Ooh, I can't wait!"
Smirking to herself at the stunned expressions running across James' face, she headed for Transfiguration.
Abigail and Lily were giggling about that day's Divination lesson in the common room after supper, and Lily was teaching Abigail how to play chess. She had the basics down pat, but she kept making rather stupid moves out of nowhere, and Lily was trying to fix that.
"Abigail, leave the knight there. He is protecting your queen."
"But I can move the queen, right?"
"No. That will put the king in checkmate."
"So?"
"Checkmate means you lost the game."
"Oh, right."
The portrait creaked and Serena, Diana, and Elspeth stepped in, chattering in a lofty tone. Serena stopped when she was looking over Lily's shoulder.
"You know, Evans, you don't need to spoil our good name by associating with someone from our dormitory. Go back to your pathetic little second-year friends and leave us third years alone."
Lily's pawn smashed Abigail's queen. "I am a third year, Sikora."
"What did you just call me?"
"What, Sikora's your name, isn't it?"
"My father is a great earl, descended from a line that was knighted by the Duke of Buckingham in the times of the Cardinal de Richelieu, and you dare call me simply by my last name, Evans?"
"My father is a grants manager for his business, descended from his ancestors, who were bestowed with the title of 'Person with sense who does not bow to nobles', and you dare to call me simply by my last name, Sikora?"
Serena's cheeks started to turn red. "You disrespectful little heathen!"
Lily's rook ran headlong into Abigail's remaining knight and flew off of the board. "You miserable old substitute chemistry teacher that plucks her moustache hairs in class."
Serena's chest started to rise and fall with rage, but then the portrait creaked again and revealed James and Sirius, laden down with cream puffs and chocolate eclairs from the kitchens. Serena changed her tone immediately.
"What-Lily, I did nothing to you, and you insult me like this? I have tried to be nice to you from the minute I learned you were to be in our dormitory, and now you treat me like I am cattle? What did I do to be treated like this?" She said all this in a pathetic whining sound, high-pitched, which wasn't intended to fail to catch the boys' attention and didn't fail. They immediately came over, Sirius half-buried in a lemon tart.
"Lily, what did you do this time?"
"I smashed a queen. Not to mention a knight."
Serena turned to James, wiping a tear away from the corner of her eye, almost pleading. "James, she learned that my ancestors had been knighted, and she has spared no chance of taunting me and making me feel terrible. I wish you could help me; if I have to keep on going like this for the rest of my time here, I just think I'll die!" Her blue eyes were filled with tears by now and her hair, perfectly arranged, had been drenched in the same tears. Her voice had a persecuted yet noble tone, and she was the very image of a maiden in distress. It was all Lily could do to keep from laughing out loud.
James frowned a bit. "Serena, come sit with us. I promise we won't insult you." He took her arm and led her away from Lily, who was curled up against the back of her armchair in silent laughter, where no one but Abigail could see her.
When Serena finally came up to the dormitory, it was ten o'clock and everyone else was in their night-gowns. She stopped by Lily's bed to sneer at the plain white cotton one she was wearing, then went to her trunk and pulled out something like a pair of dress robes. It was pale blue and shimmery, with a whole bunch of fluttery ribbons on it.
Lily stared in disgust. "What is that?"
"That would be my dressing gown."
"Looks more like your house-elf got in a fight with a snake and then you dumped the remains of what was once alive into the freezer until it turned blue."
Serena ignored this. Lily leaned over to whisper in Abigail's ear. "That was scary. Almost as if that was really what it was and she knew I got her secret."
"Or, probably, she couldn't come up with a nasty enough retort."
"That, too."
Lily was, at the end of the week, still at the top of her classes. She had been getting the best grades in her year, with hardly any work. Eva had scowled fiercely when she had found out that Lily could dump her homework for the rest of the year and still pass with an average of a ninety-two.
James and Sirius were giving her rather nasty looks, which were explained by the fact that they were spending lunch, breakfast, dinner, and lots of free time with Serena, Diana, and Elspeth. Lily was a bit beyond caring, thinking, "If they believe what that bubble-headed fanged bat says, they're honestly not worth my time.
It was Friday morning, and Lily was entering Potions. Professor Cauldwell, as usual, was asleep in his chair at the front of the room, having already put up their work on the board. Sighing, Lily sank into her seat and busied herself with writing down the Inflammatory Solution's recipe. Giving the last flourish to her bit of parchment and propping up the recipe on her books, she felt a poke in the arm.
Abigail was handing a note to her. Lily unrolled it and read:
Lily,
Since I know you're not on good terms with Potter and Black and them right now, I might be able to help with a bit of revenge.
Serverus Snape
Lily glanced up from her lap, where she had placed the note, and looked across her cauldron. Snape was looking over with a bit of a question in his eyes. Lily bit her lip and picked up her quill. She wrote only one word underneath his writing.
How?
When Abigail passed the note to Snape and he opened it, he started to shake a bit with silent laughter. He dipped his quill in the ink and passed the bit of parchment back.
Come to the Quidditch field this evening at about seven. The Slytherin team's practicing, and Malfoy's the team manager, so it's a bit natural that I should be out there. Want to come? I know James won't like that at all, but then, we're both fighting with him, so that's actually a good thing…
Lily shot a glance over to James and Sirius, who hadn't missed the note-passing. She smirked and gave her answer.
I'll be outside the Great Hall at six-forty-five.
