Lily Evans: A History

Lily Evans, A History
Chapter 32 - All the usual suspects
By: Bethany
Rated: PG
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Lily leaned towards the window of the dark Divination room and cracked the window open enough to allow a pleasant breeze to hit her face. It was scalding hot in the North Tower today, more so than normal. It seemed as though Professor Trelawney was attempting to roast Lily and Kassie in the hope of getting some visions out of them, and making the rest of the class suffer as well. Next to Lily, Kassie was hunched over a piece of parchment, doing figures in her head and then jotting them down. Lily looked down at her own parchment, which was rather empty. Professor Trelawney told them to make predictions for the next month. So far Lily had predicted that she would fall asleep in this class. And that was as far as she had got.

The truth was, while she was always this distracted in her Divination class, Lily found herself distracted in all her classes of late. It had been nearly two months since the Gryffindor fourth-year girls had confronted the Marauders about following them about and Lily hadn't spoken to James since then. In fact, she hadn't spoken to any of the Marauders. Kassie had. Well, she had talked to Remus and Peter. After her row with Sirius in the hall, she hadn't spoken much with him or James. Lily supposed that since James and Sirius seemed to be joined at the hip, it was only appropriate for Kassie to ignore James as well.

However, that didn't mean that James wasn't talking to them. In fact, James seemed to go out of his way to try to talk to Lily. She seemed to run into him in every corridor, outside, and anywhere else at least three or four times a day, not including that they had most classes together. He apologised over and over, and each time Lily walked away from him. At first she was fairly sure she would never forgive him. She had thought they were friends. In her own mind, a friend would have come to her and expressed his worries over the situation, and not deemed her weak and irresponsible enough to not be able to handle herself, and thus follow her every waking movement to "keep her safe".

But the more time that passed since their parting, and the more James apologised, Lily felt her resolve weakening. In fact, sometimes when she thought about it, it was rather endearing that he cared enough to want to protect her. Well, not just her, but all of the fourth year girls. And besides, Alexis, Gabrielle, Kathleen and Madison had forgiven them.

Aside from her own problems with whether she should forgive James or not, Lily was very worried about Kassie. The black haired witch had tried on several occasions to apologise to Sirius about what she had said, but he always walked away from her. After about two weeks of this, Kassie had taken to ignoring him and Lily was pretty sure Sirius liked it that way. For someone who supposedly didn't like Sirius very much, Kassie had seemed genuinely upset over their current situation. More so than Lily would have thought if someone had suggested the situation to her before it happened. Now, though, Kassie seemed almost back to normal. It would take someone who knew her as well as Lily did to realize that the entire mess was eating Kassie up inside.

Lily closed her eyes, willing away the headache that had suddenly begun somewhere around her temples. She was just telling herself that she had to sit up and finish her assignment when suddenly the bell rang. Her eyes snapped open and looked around at all the students who were packing their bags up. "Your chart is due on Thursday!" Trelawney announced as everyone hurried towards the silver ladder. Lily let out a sigh of relief, stuffed her nearly blank parchment inside her bag and started to follow Kassie out when suddenly Professor Trelawney was standing in front of her and Kassie's table. "Could I have a moment, please?"

Lily's gaze darted to Kassie, but the black haired witch wasn't looking in her direction. She nodded once and sat back down. As soon as the last student was gone, Professor Trelawney sat in a chair opposite the two girls. "I am sure you don't have much time, so I will say what I have to quickly. I would like to extend our evening meetings to three times per week for the rest of the school year."

Lily and Kassie both gave her a shocked look. Lily swallowed and opened her mouth, but Trelawney held up her hand to ward off any comments. "We will meet after dinner on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. I'm very disappointed in your lack of visions. I feel we need to dive deeper into your subcons--"

"Excuse me, Professor," Lily interrupted. "But I don't think I'll be able to make it."

Professor Trelawney stopped talking, her hand still held in air, and gave Lily a look that clearly suggested she was mad. "Not be able to make it?" the professor repeated, blinking slowly behind her large spectacles and making herself look like a frog in the process.

"No," Lily said firmly. "In fact, I don't think I'll be able to make it to anymore of our extra meetings from now on. I don't want to have more visions, I'm happy without them."

Kassie, sensing Lily was about to leave, grabbed her bag and stood. As the two girls opened the trap door to descend the ladder, Trelawney found her voice. "You cannot just forget the gift! It will haunt you!" she predicted, her voice oddly sharp, much like the day that she had made the prediction about the Dark Lord. Lily felt a chill shoot down her spine, but she ignored it and forced her hands not to shake.

With only minutes to get nearly to the other end of the castle and Transfiguration, the girls took off at top speed down corridors and staircases. They were halfway there when Kassie finally asked, "Not that I don't appreciate it, but what was that all about?"

"I'm just sick of doing things I don't want to do. I haven't had any visions, she isn't helping, and I'm fed up with it all." Lily turned the corner and rushed into the Transfiguration classroom just as the bell rang. "And I think I'm going to drop that class as well. I would much rather have taken Muggle Studies instead."

Kassie and Lily slipped into seats at the back of the classroom and dropped their bags at their feet just as Professor McGonagall came sweeping out of her office and into the room. She tapped the chalk, which began writing the words Switching Spell Basics on the chalk board and turned to the class. "Please turn to page four hundred and twenty, and prepare to take notes."

As if a sixth sense was pulling at Lily's mind, she couldn't help but glance up at the table across from her where James was sitting with Sirius. At the table next to them, too, something strange was happening. Peter and Remus were paying attention. Close attention. Remus taking notes wasn't a trigger of things yet to happen; Lily had came to the conclusion long ago that he was the only one of them to take notes at all. But to see Sirius jotting down things from the blackboard, and James flipping through his book to check something McGonagall had just said made the hairs on the back of Lily's neck rise. Those four were up to something. But Lily had no time to think about it. McGonagall was handing around a box full of items they were to practice switching spells on.

By the end of class, a very disappointed Lily packed her books up and followed the rest of her year to the Great Hall for lunch. Kassie, looking a bit happier after her success with the spell, was nearly bouncing on her toes as they walked. The girls sat down at the Gryffindor table and started dishing out their lunch.

"Cheer up Lil," Kassie said, stuffing a piece of bread in her mouth. She swallowed before continuing. "I'm sure that there is a use, somewhere, for a cactus with earrings."

"Too bad they were McGonagall's earrings," Alexis pointed out unnecessarily. Lily glared at her as Gabrielle and Kathleen barely suppressed their giggles, turning them into hasty coughs.

Kassie took a deep drink from her goblet. "You're still excellent at Charms. Better than the lot of us. You're bound to have trouble with something." Kassie snapped her mouth shut, wearing a perplexed look. "I think I'll shut it, I'm not helping."

"No, you're not," Lily retorted and began eating. After only a few minutes of silence, Lily dropped her fork on her plate and bent down to grab her bag. "I just don't understand how every other spell I try I can pull off, but I can't do something as easy as swit--ooff!"

Very suddenly Lily found her face plastered to her plate. She jerked up, half of her mashed potatoes dripping from her face and spun around. "What in th--"

"I'm so sorry!" a dark haired girl apologized, her startling blue eyes as wide as saucers. "Oh, no, let me help you," she offered, pulling her wand. "I'm so clumsy!" she exclaimed, pointing her wand at Lily's face. After that last statement, Lily had a bad feeling about that wand being pointed at her. She was preparing to duck out of the way when a large hand swooped up and caught the girl's wand hand. Lily's gaze darted up and saw Sirius Black standing next to the girl, smiling. As Lily straightened back up, she couldn't take her eyes off the girl in question and Sirius. It almost looked as if they were siblings. Both had the same dark hair, blue eyes, and straight nose.

"Like some help?"

"Sirius, I think I can handle a simple spell," the witch in question replied smoothly, confirming Lily's thought that they knew each other. She also had a strong suspicion they were related. Both of them bore uncanny resemblances to Bellatrix Black. She smiled fondly at Sirius and before Lily knew what was happening, she pointed her wand at Lily's face and said, "Scourgify!"

The potatoes disappeared off Lily's face and she let out a breath of relief. By now half of the Gryffindor table and the Ravenclaw table behind her was finished staring and snickering and all Lily wanted to do was disappear under a rock somewhere. "Eh, thank you," Lily offered. She started to turn around, but just couldn't shake off the question. "Eh, are you two related?" she blurted out.

Sirius grinned (it was the first thing Lily had said to him in a while) and the witch in front of him smiled. "Unfortunately yes," she confirmed, sighing as if it was the most horrible thing in the world. "This prat is my cousin."

"First cousin," Sirius added and Lily switched her gaze to him. "Andromeda, this is Lily Evans. Lily, Andromeda Black, the only person in my family that I speak to, and the talk doesn't involve curses."

Andromeda stood on Sirius' foot, making him yelp and jump up in the air. She smiled at Lily, and for some reason it was a smile that put her at ease. "He's been the same since he was two, always talking without thinking. He's correct, though, the rest of my family will have nothing to do with him." She threw a sideways glance at Sirius. "Can't say I blame them."

Sirius pretended a hurt look, his eyes welling up and his lower lip pouting. Andromeda laughed. "That look may have gotten you out of trouble with Aunt Kathy, Sirius, but it doesn't work on the rest of the family."

"It's only you who I'd try it on. I'd throw curses at your sister."

Lily, who's attention had been wavering from the cousins, turned back around. "Who's your sister?" she asked.

"Bella," Sirius replied. Beside Lily, Kassie choked on her pumpkin juice, spitting half of it out on her plate. Lily hurriedly patted her on the back.

"Don't tell people I've just met that I'm related to her," Andromeda hissed, grinning at Sirius. She flipped her short black hair behind her, looking indignant. "Besides, I'm well on my way to being kicked out of the family as it is. I couldn't tell you the last time I spoke with my dear sister."

"Really? What did I miss? Something to do with Ted? Is your Mum still on about him being Muggleborn?" Sirius asked, interestedly. He grabbed Andromeda's arm and started dragging her away. "Let's take a walk, have a talk, and stuff like that." As they started away, Sirius looked back at Kassie and his eyes hardened somewhat. "I guess not all my family's evil, after all."

Lily had half a mind to jump up and curse Sirius in front of the entire school. Kassie's eyes welled up with tears and she took a deep breath to keep them at bay. However, Lily needn't worry about extracting her revenge on Sirius, at the same time he said that, Andromeda's eyes dawned with understanding as she looked back. Suddenly she clipped Sirius round the ear. "HEY! What'd you do that for?"

"You are a prat, Sirius Black!" she announced. "Is that Kassie?" she continued, pointing to Lily's best friend, who was currently grabbing her bag and heading out the door. Kassie had already cleared the threshold of the Great Hall by the time Lily had everything stuffed back into her bag. "That's the girl I have heard you go on about for months? And you still haven't spoken to her?"

Sirius was opening his mouth to retort, and as much as Lily wanted to hear it, she knew she'd better go after Kassie. "Listen for me," she told Alexis, who nodded, and she dashed out of the Great Hall just as the side door outside shut behind Kassie.

Lily pushed the side door open and hurried outside. She looked around, but didn't see Kassie anywhere. Determinedly she started forward when she heard someone behind her ask, "Looking for someone?"

Lily spun around to see Kassie sitting against the side of the castle, her legs drawn up to her chest. Lily joined her, sitting down on the grass beside her best friend. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Lily looked out across the grounds, noticing for the first time that the buds on the trees were starting to come out, the grass was greener and flowers were starting to poke up out of the ground at the edge of the forest. "Do you want to know what was happening after you left?" Lily asked suddenly, breaking the silence.

"No," Kassie retorted immediately. She took a deep breath and picked a blade of grass, twisting it between her fingers. "Yes."

The redhead grinned slightly at Kassie, who returned the smile. "Sirius' cousin was giving him a telling off in front of most of the school." Kassie didn't reply, only smirked a bit and continued to stare across the grounds. "He must have spoken to her about you before, she seemed to know your name."

"Hmm," Kassie said in reply. "It's hard to believe that someone that nice is related to Bellatrix Black," Kassie noted wryly. The comfortable silence was broken by the bell ringing, signalling the end of lunch. Kassie looked as if she was going to say something else, but decided against it. Instead she stood up, picking her bag up and throwing it over her shoulder. "I guess we should get to class."

************

Life stayed pretty much the same at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Especially lately; Every student went to class, did their work, and mostly stayed out of trouble. And this last part should have bothered more people. Because that meant something was up. And afterwards, the Professors would all sit in the staff room and discuss the fact that they should have been suspicious of the peaceful calm that had invaded the school. After all, since 1971, had there really been "peace" and "Hogwarts" used in the same sentence? No, usually the words were more along the lines of "exploded" or "changed colour" followed in quick succession with "James Potter" and "Sirius Black".

So it was with no great surprise to the student body that on 6 May, when Professor McGonagall calmed her second year Ravenclaw class and told them to turn to page 27, that no one was keeping up with her lesson. Now, the Ravenclaws, being as smart as the lot of them were, instantly knew something was amiss. Ashleigh Shipley raised her hand into the air uncertainly when McGonagall turned around. "Professor, I think something is wrong with my Transfiguration book."

There was a general murmur of agreement at this statement, and Ashleigh looked around at her classmates, worrying her bottom lip. "And what makes you think that?" McGonagall asked, approaching the desk that Ashleigh was occupying.

The student in question flipped her book open to page 27 and began reading, "The following rules were set down by the Department of Magical Games and Sports upon its formation in 1750: One, though there is no limit imposed on the height to which a player may rise during the game, he or she must not stray over the boundary lines of the pitch, shou--"

"I get the idea," McGonagall said, raising her hand to stop Ashleigh from reading further. "What I don't understand, is how your book came to have that text in it."

"It looks like Quidditch Through the Ages, Professor," Adrian Adams said, flipping through his book.

"Mine is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," Sydney Rockwood piped up, sounding as confused as her fellow classmates. There were a few more mutters of agreement with that statement.

Professor McGonagall clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she made her way back up to the front of the classroom. She had a good idea of exactly what was going on, and as sad as she was to say, she was pretty sure that she knew who was behind it. Determinedly she checked her house list, checking classes to see exactly where four of her fourth year Gryffindors boys were during this class time.

Elsewhere, across the castle, Professor McClure's potions class was having similar problems. Similar, but not the same. And even though the class knew that their books didn't contain the correct text, at that moment the lot of them couldn’t care less. Well, Lily supposed Severus Snape cared, but everyone else (save a few Slytherins... no, wait, they were laughing as well) was near tears as Snape ran the length of the potions room from, not a blood sucking monster, or anything like it. No, Snape was running from nothing other than his book.

As a string of profanity that would make a mother faint left Snape's mouth, Professor McClure joined in the fray, trying to disarm the book. But the more spells she tried, the worse it became. At first, it had been nothing but a harmless book. It had now obtained teeth, arms, fists, and the last spell had evoked a voice. It screeched loud enough to put a howler to shame, and continued bashing Snape in the head anytime it slowed down. The greasy haired Slytherin ran past the Gryffindors (who were making no move to help him) and towards the side of the room where the Slytherins were (who also weren't much help) and made a grab for his wand.

A victorious look on his face, Snape spun around and raised his wand, opened his mouth for a curse and was immediately hit square in the face so hard by the leather bound book that he fell backwards, hitting his head on the stone floor, rendering him unconscious.

McClure stopped, her eyes as wide as saucers. "Class dismissed," she breathed, looking as if any second fire would start emitting from her nose. "But this is not over, ladies and gentlemen. I will found out who is behind this and they will be very sorry, very sorry indeed."

With a collective sigh and muttering amongst friends, the students moved towards the dungeon door and into the corridor. Lily and Kassie, though they weren't speaking to the Marauders, were looking everywhere to see if they had been behind the prank. Well, there was little doubt, but they were looking for the four wizards just the same. Only they were gone. Lily looked around, her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. "Where did they...?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Kassie muttered, using her height to an advantage and peering over the crowd. "I don't see them anywhere. And usually they stick around to suck up the fruits of their labour, don't they?"

"Hold it! Everyone, stop!"

Lily walked straight into Alexis, bumping her head into her blonde friend and provoking a squeal from the other witch. Muttering an apology to Alexis that she probably didn't hear, Lily turned her attention to Professor McGonagall who was looking remarkably like a bull at the moment. "Where are they? Black! Potter! Lupin! Pettigrew! I know you are here somewhere. Come out!"

"They aren't here, Professor," Lily replied, rubbing her sore forehead gingerly. "We haven't seen them since the end of class."

"Miss Evans, you wouldn't be helping them escape, would you?" McGonagall asked severely, her eyes fixed on Lily and then Kassie in turn. She shook her head as if ridding it of cobwebs. "No, no. I'll find them. They can't hide forever." And before sixteen sets of slightly disbelieving eyes, Professor McGonagall took the form of her animagus and sniffed the air before making a run for the wall. She stopped, turning back into herself and touching the stone wall with a confused expression. "How...?" Suddenly she realized that the Gryffindor and Slytherin fourth years were watching her and she blushed slightly. "Get on with you. To your next class or I'll take house points!"

With a few angry mutters, the class did as they were told and headed up the stairs and into the main part of the castle. Silent and wide, the corridors were empty except for the fourth years who headed to their common rooms to wait for the next bell.

****************

By the end of the day, chaos had touched each and every student and Professor, including the Headmaster. Books had switching spells placed on them so that their text was far different than what the class entailed, some books chased students around (mostly Slytherins), statues of different creatures in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom came to life and attacked a terrified group of first years, and red and gold confetti rained down in the third floor corridor. And this might have been all well and good except the confetti then stuck in the students’ hair, clothes, and anything else it landed on.

Classes were cut short so the Professors could work on restoring order, undoing charms and enchantments. By dinner that night in the Great Hall, things were back to quasi-normal. Except for the disgruntled arrival of the Marauders, who were pulling confetti out of their hair, everyone seemed to be in good spirits. Everyone, except Professor McGonagall.

"Dare I ask where you have been? Or shall I take a lucky guess?" the Transfiguration teacher and Head of Gryffindor house said upon arriving at the Gryffindor house table, directly behind an unsuspecting James and Sirius. Lily and Kassie were sitting a little way along the table from the boys but it was hard to miss McGonagall's angry voice even if you were on the other side of the room.

Donning a completely innocent expression, Sirius turned to his head of House just as a loud bang! echoed across the room. He winced and ducked under the table just as the candles that had been floating lazily above the house tables only moments before exploded, sending an array of different coloured Bob's Un-Breakable, Ever Bouncing Bubbles flying all over the Great Hall. With the screams splitting the air, the clanking of plates as they were bounced on and then dropped to the floor, it was the perfect time for a clean get away. Sirius, James, Remus and Peter, one by one, ducked under their table, crawled to the end and took off at a dead run.

"BLACK! POTTER! GET BACK HERE!" McGonagall yelled across the hall, picking up her robe hem and running after them. Lily caught one of the bouncing bubbles and gave it a hard throw to the floor. It hit the floor hard, launched up into the air and joined the others in causing a complete disaster of the Great Hall.

"This has to be one of the best pranks they have ever played," Kassie giggled. "Well, that wasn't aimed at us.” She jumped up and caught a bubble, sending it towards the Slytherin table where it bounced off the back of Bellatrix Black's head. Most of the students were either running for their lives around them, or chasing the bubbles and throwing them at one another. "Remind me to thank them later."

"I thought you weren't speaking to them?" Lily asked slyly.

"Oh, right," Kassie grinned. "Well, I can thank Remus and Peter. I'm not sure I should still be mad at them. After all, didn't that little scheme they pulled seem genuine James Potter to you?"

Lily finished her pumpkin juice, dodged a bouncing bubble and glanced up at the head table where Dumbledore had also just caught a bubble. He laughed loudly at something the caretaker was yelling and threw the bubble to the floor, watching it bounce up into the air to wreck havoc on another student. "I don't know. I think all of them had a hand in it," Lily finally answered. "You said it best: Home of the noble, brave and stupid."

Kassie shrugged and the two witches dodged their way out of the Great Hall. A few bubbles were bouncing around the corridors, and Peeves was helping a set of them bash some windows out a little way up the third floor corridor. As soon as he passed on to the next room, Lily and Kassie performed 'Reparo' charms on the windows and continued up to the common room as if nothing were amiss and the screaming from the Great Hall couldn't be faintly heard from this far away.

************

Each of the Marauders found themselves in a line up the next day in McGonagall's office, each sentenced to do detention with four different professors each night for one week. This punishment wasn't very effective, however, because less than two weeks later, all the house crests on the students’ robes suddenly switched. Gryffindors were Slytherins, Hufflepuffs were Ravenclaws, Ravenclaws were Hufflepuffs and Slytherins were Gryffindors. When the first complaint was taken up with Professor McGonagall at breakfast, she immediately sought out the Marauders.

She found them outside the Great Hall, making evil faces and cackling that they were "Big, bad Slytherins who were going to eat everyone up." Tapping an impatient foot, McGonagall glared at the back of Sirius' head.

"I'm Severus Snape, and I decided to wash my hair," Peter said in a low hiss imitation of the Slytherin. James, who was facing Sirius, and thus saw McGonagall behind him, stood on Peter's foot.

"Ouch! What are yo--" Peter's eyes widened as he looked behind Sirius.

Sirius just looked up at the sky as if for divine reassurance. "Professor McGonagall's behind me, isn't she?" he asked in a defeated tone.

"Good guess," McGonagall said, confirming Sirius' suspicion. Sirius turned, putting on his most innocent grin. "Tell me, gentlemen, was one week's detention not good enough? You could have just said so, and I would have been more than happy to extend that sentence and save you the trouble of going through all this," she said, indicating their robes.

"Minerva," Sirius pleaded in his most serious voice, his expression that of a child whose feelings had just been very badly hurt. McGonagall growled at being addressed by her first name. "I know it's hard to believe, but I swear we had nothing to do with this."

"You are correct, Mr. Black, it is very hard for me to believe that. Especially coming from you," she replied, wearing her most disapproving expression. "So you'll have to forgive me if I don't believe you. Now, I'm feeling generous today, since no one was physically harmed. Undo the spells, and we'll discuss reducing your sentence. You have until lunch."

As she stalked away, Sirius turned, exasperated, to his friends and threw his hands up. "I told you she would never believe us!" he moaned. "I'd like to bloody well know who did this, so I can get my wand an--"

"Why? Because we didn't think of it first?" Remus asked calmly, a half smile on his lips as Sirius raved. "Or that we've tried to undo the spell and haven't the first idea how?"

"Can I choose choice 'C'?" Sirius asked.

"Normally I would know how to undo a simple switching spell, but there is something else to do. A charm," James said, his eyes suddenly lighting up. "And who do we know who is this good with charms?"

Peter shrugged, Sirius wrinkled his eyebrows in thought and Remus suddenly stood up from the wall he had been leaning against. "They wouldn't."

"Sure they would," James retorted, cocking an eyebrow. "Remember the last time they paid us back?"

Sirius' eyes suddenly lit up. "Lily and Kassie?"

"That's what I think," James nodded. "Only we've got to prove it."

"It won't matter," Peter moaned, having finally caught on to the conversation at hand. "McGonagall won't believe us, so why bother?"

"This is our integrity we are talking about!" Sirius nearly shouted, slamming his fist into his palm. "Let me list the problems at hand if we let them get away with this." Sirius stuck his hand out dramatically and began ticking his list off each finger. "One; How could we prank ever again, knowing that we were wrongly accused? Two; How can we serve detention and for once not deserve it?" Sirius struggled to come up with the next line before spitting out: "Can you live with the fact that two witches--"

"Know a spell we can't undo?" Remus inserted helpfully.

Sirius pointed to Remus and stomped his foot. "Exactly!" He blinked, looking at the knowing looks on his three friend's faces. "Or, well, I meant what I said about the integrity thing."

"That's really all this is about, isn't it?" James added.

Sirius stuffed his hands in his jean pockets and nodded absently. "Yeah."

James and Remus grinned, walking off. Peter patted Sirius on the head, a quirky grin on his lips. "It's ok little doggie, we'll get the big bad witches back."

Sirius smirked as Peter jogged to catch up with Remus and Peter. "Ha, ha! You're not funny Peter!" Then, as an afterthought, he added, "I hope you turn into something ugly, like a rat!"

--End chapter 32.