A Kind Of Magic

Open up your mind and let me step inside

Rest your weary head and let your heart decide

It's so easy when you know the rules

It's so easy all you have to do

Is fall in love

Play the game

Everybody play the game of love

~~~~~

She hated beginnings. They were the hardest. Once she'd get to the middle, things became easier, like a habit. She thrived on routine. She flourished where there were patterns, similarities, and concrete information. She was never one for change. There was always that variable, that chance that she would be hurt, and that was what terrified her. And it condemned her as well, leaving a wall between her and her housemates, keeping her separate from the rest of the world.

She dressed quietly as the rest of the girls in her dorm chattered in front of the mirror. She was an early riser, so she had been up at least an hour before they had and had already had time to do most of the preparation for the day. She reached into her trunk and pulled out the books she'd need for the morning and shoved them into her bag.

"Hey, Lily, hand me my hair tie? It's right on the dresser next to you."

"Sure," she said, picking it up and walking across the room to hand it to Madeline.

"Thanks," Madeline said, taking it and pulling back her short brown hair. "Are you going down to breakfast?"

"Yeah," Lily said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and meeting Madeline's eyes in the mirror as Madeline put cream on her abundant pimples.

"Walk with me?" she asked. "I don't feel like waiting for Jade. The girl hasn't even finished showering and I'm starved. I'll just be a second."

"Okay," Lily said, leaning against the wall in a more comfortable pose as she waited for Madeline.

Madeline smiled broadly at Lily as she finished, gesturing towards the door and following Lily out.

"Don't you need your books?" Lily wondered at noticing Madeline didn't bring anything with her.

"Don't have any classes until afternoon," she said. "I'm not taking nearly as many N.E.W.T. level courses as you are, and all my regular classes are in afternoons."

"That must be nice," Lily said conversationally. She knew Madeline well enough from over five years of sharing a dorm room with her, but she'd never gotten very close to her. She'd always seemed a bit too bubbly for Lily's interests.

Madeline shrugged. "It's alright. It'd be nice to have them in the morning, though. Get them over with."

Lily murmured in assent but not with much interest. She wasn't one for small talk.

They were silent during the remaining stretch of the walk and they entered the Great Hall to find it about half full. It was already the third week of school, but the decorations for the start-of-term feast were still up. Madeline bid Lily a quick goodbye and went to sit with some Hufflepuff friends while Lily took a seat at the end of the table near the older Gryffindor prefects, who greeted her amicably.

"How about those new first years?" Owen, seventh year prefect, asked.

"Was it Timothy acting up again?" Lily asked.

Owen nodded and rolled his eyes. "That little kid is the devil, I swear. Should have been in Slytherin. He loses enough points for us you'd think he wants them to win."

"Lily earns them all back for us, anyway," Hannah, the other seventh year prefect, said, grinning at Lily, who blushed but was pleased nonetheless.

"Only for Potter and his cronies to lose them again," she said modestly.

Owen sighed. "I've given up on trying to keep them in line."

"Same here," Hannah said. "It's better to have them and their pranks, anyway. To keep things happy."

The two of them looked to Lily, who chose to abstain from commenting. They, along with the majority of Gryffindor, knew of her loathing off All Things Concerning James Potter And His Big Head. There was no point in embellishing it further. Everyone heard enough of it.

The Hall went slightly quieter as a rustle was heard and a swarm of owls flew in. Three tawny owls dropped identical packages in Lily's, Owen's, and Hannah's laps. Lily pulled two knuts out of her robe pocket and put them in a maroon-coloured bag the owl was holding and watched it as it flew off. Her housemates followed suit, and Lily turned her attention to the new copy of The Daily Prophet they'd all just received.

"Take a look at this," Owen said, showing the two girls an article on the second page. "Two more disappearances. 'Could be related to Dark Wizards.' Could be? As if it would be anything else, these days."

"It says they were taken," Hannah put in.

Lily scanned the article. "Do you think they were really taken?"

"What do you mean, really taken? What else could have happened?"

"I mean, they could have gone voluntarily," she said, noting the dark look Owen cast. "How can anyone be certain?"

"Does it give names?" Hannah asked.

They all looked to their papers. "Yes," Lily said. "Lucas Mulciber and Catriona McCormack."

Hannah looked shocked. "Catriona McCormack? Are you serious?"

Lily double checked, and nodded. "Why? Heard of him?"

"Heard of him? I practically worship the woman. She's one of the best Beaters the league has ever seen! Are you suggesting she'd leave voluntarily to join Dark Wizards?" her eyes narrowed dangerously, as if Lily had insulted a close friend. Hannah was a beater for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and apparently McCormack was a favorite player of hers.

"I'm just saying it could be possible," she said.

"I don't know...," Hannah said.

Owen shook his head. "I have to agree with Lily, here. You can't trust anyone you don't know."

Hannah seemed to seriously doubt this, as though she did know McCormack well enough to tell that he wouldn't become a Dark Wizard.

"At the risk of sounding extremely paranoid," Lily said. "Owen really is right. You can't trust anyone you don't know."

"Especially as we're leaving after this year," Owen said to Hannah.

Hannah shook her head. "You're overestimating all this," she said. "The newspaper is as well. This will all blow over. Remember the scare years ago that Dark Wizards were coming to take over? Nothing happened. This'll be the same."

"How can you be sure?" Owen said. "I mean, look at Grindelwald in the '40's. No one thought he would amount to anything."

"Dumbledore defeated him," Hannah pointed out.

"Yeah," Owen said. "But not until there'd been over a hundred deaths."

"You're being unreasonable."

"Am I?" Owen said. They looked hard at each other across the table, and Lily sensed she should leave.

"I've got to go to Potions," she said, standing and picking up her bag. "I'll talk to you two later."

"See you," they muttered distractedly, their conversation quickly becoming a heated argument.

Lily walked to her class just as distractedly, thinking about what Owen had said. 'You can't trust anyone you don't know.' She'd agreed to it then, but was it really true? She hated the thought that the people she'd grown up with - albeit not been very close to - could potentially turn down a dark path. As she entered the classroom, she shook such thoughts from her mind. She had another year after this to worry about it. Perhaps Hannah was right and it would all blow over by then.

The classroom was nearly empty and Lily took her normal seat in one of the front most tables. She hoped that no one would come to sit with her, but someone almost always did. Usually to copy off her work. N.E.W.T. Potions was an extremely difficult class that Lily found trouble excelling in. Still, she had a reputation for being brainy that kept other student's wanting answers from her.

She looked up to see Remus, Black, and Potter enter the classroom just as the bell rang. It was still strange to see them alone and without Peter following the three of them around as though he worshipped the ground they walked on, but Peter had not managed to be accepted into the class. There was one table open in the back and Remus, who had walked in first, took the spot. Potter went to sit down but Black let out a pathetic sort of whimper and Potter let him have the seat. He looked around for another open, and walked, poker-faced, to the only open seat in the room - the one next to Lily.

How cliché, she thought, moving over as much as possible away from the bane that was called James Potter. He glanced at her when he thought she wasn't looking, tousled his already messy hair, and tilted his stool back so that he lounged on it in a way that the girls sitting in the seat behind him found very attractive but Lily only found exasperating.

"Please copy," Professor Montague said, pulling out his wand and tapping the blackboard with it; words appeared in miniscule handwriting and covered the entire board. Lily groaned inwardly as she dipped her quill in ink and brought it to her parchment. As she wrote, she could feel eyes on her. She looked up to see James watching her, unabashed that she'd noticed.

"Aren't you going to take the notes?" she muttered, casting a quick look in Montague's direction so as to make sure the man wasn't paying attention to them.

"Go out with me, Evans," he said, leaning back even more and folding his hands behind his head. The girl behind him looked like she was about to faint.

Lily ignored the question and impatiently said, "If you're not going to copy, at least do me a favor and stop staring at me. It's irritating."

"I'm sorry," he said without meaning it.

A lock of his unruly hair rested on the table behind them and the girl sitting behind looked short of breath. Her friend whispered something to her, and the girl nodded and looked nervously at Potter. Then she ripped off a corner of her parchment and hastily scribbled something on it. She hesitated a moment before tapping Potter on the shoulder. He turned and took it from her, but not before giving her a winning smile that seemed to make her think he'd remember her in an hour.

He turned back to the table and unfolded the parchment. Lily didn't bother to read what it said, concentrating on her notes, but he read the note quietly aloud.

"Go to Hogsmeade with you this weekend?" he wondered after reading. He made a show of rubbing his chin. Lily kept her eyes on the board and on her notes, trying not to pay attention to him but finding it near impossible. He looked sideways at Lily, who determinedly did not look back at him.

He turned around to face the girl behind him and whispered in a voice that was somehow very audible to Lily, "Terribly sorry, but I'm going to have to decline." Then he looked over at her, as if to see if she was impressed that he'd turned down another date.

"So, Evans," he said. "Go out with me?"

"Awfully one-tracked mind, haven't you?" she said. She didn't respond as he inched closer to her.

"Come on, Lily," he said. "We'll have fun. I'm prefect, captain of the Quidditch team, handsome as hell. You can't go wrong."

"Eat dung, Potter," she said frankly.

"Ouch," he replied, putting a hand to his heart. "Evans, you wound me."

She rolled her eyes and ignored him, again giving her attention to the class work. He sat upright and moved his stool closer to her, but she put up her hand to push him further back until finally -

"Potter, Evans," Montague said briskly. "See me after class."

Lily felt the color in her cheeks rising and hated Potter even more for being so nonchalant. She watched as he turned to the back of the classroom to give Black the thumbs up. Remus shook his head at the two of them, but had a small smile on his face. Montague looked murderously at Potter.

"Out," he said, pointing to the door. James put up his hands in a gesture that clearly said 'What did I do?' and allowed himself to be led out of the dungeons.

"Oi!" he shouted back into the classroom as he reached the door. "Evans! Grab my bag for me, will you? You can drop in off in the common room after class, I'll be there."

Lily didn't even turn to glare at him. She was silent for the rest of class, choosing to silently spend the next quarter of an hour with her notes, then the remaining part of the hour with the setup for the potion they would be brewing in tomorrow's class. When the bell rang, she put her things away and looked up to see someone standing in front of her.

"I'll get them for you." It was Remus, and he was picking up James' bag and putting it on his shoulder. He offered a small grin. "I know you don't want to do anything that could be, in any way, considered remotely kind towards James."

Lily smiled back in thanks.

"I know how he can be," Remus continued. "But cut him some slack. He hasn't yet learned just how large his head is."

Lily's expression was rueful. "I'm surprised it doesn't weigh his broom down when he flies."

Remus laughed lightly. "Montague's glaring daggers at you. You should go to him for your sentence."

"Oh, right," Lily said. "I swear, I'm going to hex Potter into next week for getting me a detention."

"I'll give him the heads up," Remus said. He turned to go. "I'll see you around, Lily."

She watched him for a moment as he left, and hoped he would.

~~~~~

The next day, Lily finished her morning classes and headed back to the Gryffindor dorms to find the older students crowded around the bulletin board. She hadn't remembered seeing anything new posted there, and went to go have a look. The crowd in front of it didn't part, however, and Lily had little means of using force to push her way through. She cleared her throat, but that didn't work either.

"What does it say?" she finally asked, nudging the boy next to her.

"Apparation lessons begin next week," he said. His face was round with excitement. "Should be fun."

Lily nodded. She'd been looking forward to learning to Apparate as well. She wanted to ask the boy when the lessons would begin, but he'd already left. The crowd was starting to thin now, so, with a few muttered 'excuse me's she pushed her way to the bulletin.

"Hello, Lily," came a deep voice from beside her. She turned to see Sirius Black's shaggy mane of hair and cocky grin. He reminded her so much of Potter.

"Black," she said in greeting. She was always curt with him because she disliked Potter. Black was friends with Potter, so she supposed she was supposed to dislike Black as well by default. Of course, going by those rules meant that she should be short with Remus as well, something she didn't fancy doing any time in the near future. She supposed these rules had certain loopholes. She'd have to look it up.

"Looking forward to learning to Apparate?" he asked conversationally.

"Isn't everyone?"

He shrugged. "Shouldn't be too hard."

Lily raised her eyebrows. "The ability to Apparate is one of the most advanced-"

"Yeah, but once you get it, it's easy," he said.

"I suppose," she responded, suddenly realizing that this was one of the longest civilized conversations she'd had with Black. Would loopholes have to be created for all friends of the enemy now? No - she wouldn't let it come to that. Only the intellectually striking ones should be allowed the time of day.

Black seemed to have noticed the same thing, and was looking amused at Lily's sudden discomfort.

"So," he said, leaning his hand against the wall and effectively blocking her from moving out of a small propinquity.

Lily tried not to be callous. "Excuse me," she said.

Black raised his eyebrows. "Only if you go out with James."

She crossed her arms, green eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me he's got you on the job as well."

He shrugged again. "He doesn't. But he talks about ways to ask you out all the time and it's damn annoying."

"You think it's annoying? Try being on the receiving end!"

"Understandable. But just give him a-"

"Honestly," Lily said. "Don't you have something better to do?"

"Listen, Evans," Black said. "I'm not a big fan of yours, and I think it's safe to say that the feeling is mutual." Lily nodded. "But if you'd just-"

"No," she interrupted. "I won't 'just'."

"I didn't even-"

"Come on, Black. Neither one of us wants to be having this conversation right now. I think both of us would be a lot happier if we just pretended the other didn't exist."

"I try to put up with you for James' sake. But you're so damn...domineering. And, you know, pompous."

"I'm pompous? What about you and Potter?"

Sirius now leaned his shoulder against the wall, blocking her way out further. "We have reason. We're just naturally good at everything we do."

Lily rolled her eyes. "You both make me sick. It's enough for the school to have one arrogant bastard, but two is too much."

"The rest of the school doesn't seem to think so."

Lily tried her best to make herself seem as large as possible, but she was short for her age and quite petite. "Well I do. And I'm the one you're harassing."

"Hey, I'm not the one doing the harassing." He jerked his head in James' general direction across the common room. "It's him."

"Well, you can tell him to quit it. I'm bloody tired of it."

"He only wants one date."

"One date?" She laughed without humor. "Black, I know what you two expect from your dates. I'm not going to...to...do any of that."

"Don't think too much of yourself, Evans," he said. "My point is, just go out with him once. Then I'll get him to piss off. It's a win-win situation."

"No," she said. "He's arrogant, he's irritating, he's a bloody stalker. I'm not going out with him."

Black shrugged. "Well, I can always tune him out. You, on the other hand, will have a much harder time of that." He moved away from the wall to let her pass. "Your loss."

"Right," Lily said, brushing past him and making a beeline to her favorite seat in the common room. She flicked her eyes towards Potter, who was now looking slightly dejected and listening as Black related their recent conversation to him, no doubt. She rolled her eyes again and dipped her quill in ink to begin that nasty Potions essay they'd just been assigned.

~~~~~

"Hey, Lily!" Hannah called from down the corridor. "Wait up!"

Lily stopped and turned to see Hannah hurrying up to her. "Hi, Hannah."

"Hi," Hannah said. "McGonagall wanted be to tell you - meeting changed to this Wednesday at seven."

Lily nodded. "Okay. I'll be there."

"And will you tell James for me?"

"Can't you do it?" she replied, then got slightly angry at herself for sounding so whingy. Hannah might be busy. Potter was bound to talk to her anyway; it wouldn't be hard to let him know the meeting had been changed before telling him off. "Never mind. I'll tell him at dinner."

"Thanks," Hannah said. "I'd walk with you, but I told Owen I'd meet him in--" She checked her watch and made a face. "Now. So I'd better go. I'll see you later."

"Yeah," Lily said, waving lackadaisically to Hannah's turned back. She continued down the corridor towards the Great Hall where dinner had just started and sat down.

She had helped herself to some mashed potatoes and lifted her goblet to pour more pumpkin juice in it when she dropped the cup. She bent to pick it up, but it was already floating back up and righted itself on the table in front of her. She looked up, preparing to mutter thanks to whoever had spelled it there, when she locked eyes with James Potter.

"Hello, Evans," he murmured, his mouth altogether way to close to her ear.

"Go away," she returned, bringing her eyes away from his to turn them to the table.

"What kind of a greeting is that?" he asked, pouting. "I haven't done anything to you."

"Yet," she finished.

"What makes you think I'll-"

"Because you always do. Now, please, leave me alone."

"Only if you'll go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend."

This time, she turned to face him, found this made him too close for comfort, and slid back on the bench to a move comfortable position.

"For Merlin's sake, Potter, do you think of anything else?"

"Not at the moment, no," he said, quite amicably.

"Well, you should," she replied, slightly flustered and for lack of anything better to say.

"So is that a yes, then?"

"No!" she exclaimed. "Go away!"

He shrugged. "Fine."

As he got up to leave, she remembered. "Wait," she said.

"Changed your mind?"

She ignored his comment. "Meeting was changed. It's not Thursday, it's tomorrow. At seven."

"I can't come."

"Why not? Have to turn all the Slytherin's underwear pink?"

"Quidditch practice," he said. "First of the year. I can't miss it. I'm captain this year, you know."

Lily feigned surprise. "Captain? Oh, you should have told someone earlier."

"Well, it's quite an accomplishment," he said at full height and girth.

"I'm sure," Lily said. "And, if I'm not mistaken, it gives you the power to change the practice times? Perhaps you should use that authority."

"Every other day this week is booked."

"Then have someone else run practice," she suggested. "Black is on the team."

"Sirius could run it," he admitted. "But it's my first practice as captain, Evans, and-"

She put up a hand to halt him. "This is a pointless conversation. Just be at the meeting tomorrow. If McGonagall had to make it sooner, it's probably something important."

"If it's that important she would have made it today."

"Maybe not."

He shrugged. "Tell McGonagall I won't be there."

"I'm not going to deliver messages for you, Potter."

"Tell her at the meeting."

"No," Lily said. "Tell her yourself."

"Fine," he said. "I will."

"Okay."

He waited a moment before asking, "Go out with me?"

"No, for Merlin's sake."

He sighed and sat down again next to her. He sat backwards on the bench so that he was facing out, making it easier for him to look at her.

"What is it with you?" he wondered. "What do I have to do?"

"Deflate your head," she said candidly. "Stop being so damned conceited and become a decent person with good intentions."

"Then you'll go out with me?"

She gave him a look of defeat. "Sure. If you do all that to my liking, sure, I'll go out with you."

He gave her a cocky grin that told her he thought this would be easy and held out his hand to shake on it. She stared at it as thought he were holding out a dead fish. He grabbed her hand and put it in his, shaking it exuberantly.

"It's a deal, Evans."

"Right."

He left, and she chuckled a little to herself. The chances of James Potter deflating his head were about the same as the chances of her ever liking him.

~~~~~