The First Chess Match: Birth of the Death Eaters

Chapter Eight: Lessons Learned

The train whistled as a sign to the students to hurry up and get onboard. It was time once again to take the journey to London on the Hogwarts Express. Another year was over and another summer was about to begin. Severus Snape was not excited about returning home for the summer holidays. He'd much rather stay at school, study the Dark Arts, and quietly plot his just revenge on Potter and Black. As usual, Snape was alone in his opinion, but then again, he was alone quite often these days. He had enough of Rosier and Wilkes's shallow terms of friendship and immature rouses. Snape was constantly reminding himself how lucky he was to be rid of them, how much easier it was to study and concentrate, and how relieved he was to not have to listen to their stupid jokes all the time. Still, as he stood alone on the platform, he found himself staring at students saying goodbye to each other and hugging, and silently wishing that one day he might know what it was like to have a real friend.

Snape was surprised when he suddenly felt a small poke on his right shoulder blade. He turned around to see Lyra Covington. She was smiling and the wind was blowing through her hair, making it soft and tangled.

"I'm so glad it's over, aren't you?" she asked.

Snape turned his head toward the castle, not wanting to meet the girl's wide brown eyes. "I'd actually prefer to stay here, to be perfectly honest."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she replied with a blush. She continued, "it's just...I've had an absolutely terrible year. It was a terrible beginning, with an okay middle, and an absolutely wretched end."

Snape found himself feeling pity for the girl and for the first time realized that he wasn't the only miserable student at Hogwarts. He said, "Things can't be that bad, Lyra. You weren't hung upside by James Potter, remember?"

She flashed a bit of an embarrassed smile. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's not your fault. In fact, I think you ought to remember that most of the bad things that go on here are never your fault."

"It doesn't help." She sighed and looked down at her scuffed, black, Mary Jane shoes, before quietly asking, "Do you ever think that things might have been better if you had never been born?"

Snape replied, "Sometimes I think things would be better if other people had never been born."

She grinned. "Black and Potter?"

"None other."

The train whistled once more and calls came from the conductor. It was time to board the Hogwarts Express.

Snape wasn't sure what to say. He was certain that she would be sitting with either Bellatrix and Genevieve or Marina and her Ravenclaw friends on the train. Snape suspected that he would have to find a quiet compartment for just himself. Did he want to make a big deal of saying good-bye to a girl he had only become friends with in the last month of school?

Before he could decide what to do, Lyra spoke. "Well, I hope you enjoy your summer, Severus, even if you don't want to." She laughed and extended her hand for him to shake. Then, she cocked her head pluckily and asked with a smile, "See you next year?"

"See you next year," Snape answered, shaking her hand.

He felt a twinge of embarrassment and a rush of regret as he watched her scurry away and onto the train. For the first time in his life, Severus Snape was completely confused.

******

"Do I really have a big head?" James asked Sirius for the fourteenth time since Lily Evans had proclaimed her undying hatred for him.

Sirius replied, "Take off your glasses for a minute...let me get a clearer look at you."

James complied, while Lupin tried vainly to muffle a snicker. Sirius squinted his eyes as he appraised James' head from all directions. Finally, he nodded. "Yes, you certainly have a huge head. You're like an Elephant Man, James. Any day now, the muggles are going to pounce on you and steal you away to some National Museum where you'll be on display."

"Knock it off," James finally said, throwing a mound of sweater Sirius' way. Sirius only laughed and shook it off, letting the burgundy mass fall to the floor.

"Hey! That's mine!" Peter squealed as he grasped for the sweater on the train compartment floor.

James replied earnestly, "Sorry, Peter."

"James, you really shouldn't let her get to you," said Remus. "I mean she's only a girl."

James's face flared up to a shade of scarlet. "Only a girl? Only a girl? Remus, she's Lily Evans! She's beautiful, and smart, and brave, and kind, and...beautiful. She's very intelligent and talented, and has green eyes...the red hair..." James collapsed in a sigh, and finally added, "She's gorgeous."

Sirius laughed. "Well, if you only like her because she's beautiful, then what's the big deal? There are plenty of pretty girls at Hogwarts."

"It's not just that!" James cried. He sat up again. "You don't remember her in first year, do you? I remember meeting her at King's Cross, before we even got on the Hogwarts Express, before we even got to Hogwarts. She was so sweet, and so scared. She was afraid she'd miss her parents too much, miss her friends. I told her it would be okay and I promised her then that I would be her friend, no matter what Houses we got put into."

Peter interrupted, "But you're not her friend, James. You barely even talk to her."

"I was her friend in first year. And then in second, we sort of drifted apart. She had her group, and I had you guys. So, that's that," he said with a tone of finality.

Remus said, "But that's not why you're not friends anymore."

James looked confused. "It's not?"

"No, I remember that Sirius and her got into some fight in Potions or Transfiguration and he wanted to get back at her. So, he got Holly Ward to put snakes in her trunk and in between her blankets to scare her." Remus continued, "it worked, and she naturally assumed that Sirius and, uh, you were behind it."

James's face was blank. He looked at Sirius in puzzlement and asked, "You did what?"

"She deserved it, Prongs! Prancing about like Miss Goody Two Shoes, like she knew everything and did nothing wrong, while you were slipping her answers in Transfiguration!"

Something clicked in James's memory. "This is about when you swapped yours and Snivellus' Potions essays, isn't it? And she saw it and called you out on it."

Sirius replied, "And I got two week's worth of detentions for it."

"So you got Holly Ward to put snakes in her bed? When you knew that snakes scare her more than anything?" James asked, now fuming.

Sirius tried to casually shrug it off. "It was only a hunch. I didn't know it would upset her so much."

Remus spoke now. "Sirius, we had worked on Boggarts already and I remember you teasing Lily about how she was scared by only a stupid little snake."

"...and then you told me that you'd make sure she'd learn to become friends with them," said Peter, who then added, "I never really got what you meant by that."

"You played a nasty trick on her, and didn't even tell me?" James cried.

Sirius shook his head. "I'm not going to do this, Prongs. I was twelve years old. I was stupid; we all were."

"I can't believe you never told me." James said, betrayed. "I've never hidden anything from you, Sirius. How could you keep that from me?"

Sirius said nothing, only bowed his head in shame. Remus and Peter looked awkwardly at one another as James reached into his knapsack and pulled out a book, parchment, and quill.

"School's over, Prongs. What are you doing?" Sirius asked.

James didn't look up. "Please don't bother me right now; I'm working on some spells for the Marauder's Map. Tracking Spells and such."

Sirius shook his head and said, "James, we all agreed we'd work on it as a group: either in pairs or all of us together. None of us will know more about it than the others."

"Sirius," James replied as he finally looked up. There was a disquieting soberness in his eyes that told everyone how serious he was. "Do you really think I wouldn't share spells with you guys? After all we've been through? Oh yeah, that's something you would do."

As Sirius' face exploded into fury, Remus interjected, "James, this was totally different. It was a prank. He was in second year. He probably didn't tell you because--"

"Because he knew I'd think it was wrong?"

"No," said Sirius "Because I knew that you'd over-react just because it's Lily Evans. Face it Prongs, you pulled similar rubbish on Christabel when we were dating."

James replied, "But I never lied about it!"

"I didn't lie! It just never came up!"

"Same difference," said James as he buried himself back into the book.

Sirius tried to say something, but Lupin held out a gentle hand to stop him. "Let it go, Padfoot," he said quietly.

Sirius leaned over to whisper in Lupin's ear, "But, Remus, he's being unreasonable!"

"But it's James, and he loves you like a brother. He will forgive you. He's just a little...put off right now," Lupin whispered back.

"That's one way to describe it," said Sirius through clenched teeth. He then collapsed back into his seat, and impatiently tried to count the seconds until he and James could laugh again.

*******

"What? He liked me?" Lily shrieked for the sixteenth time since James Potter had asked her out on a date in front of the entire student body. "How was I supposed to know that all this time he liked me?"

"Likes you, Lily. Believe me, he still likes you," said Dorcas.

Lily flailed her arms in the air. "How was I supposed to know?"

"Oh please, how could you not have known?" came the bored reply of Christabel Watling as she flipped through the latest copy of Witches' Weekly. "Everyone knows. Even Meena knows!"

"Hmm?" Meena Gupta had just entered the train compartment and was obviously dumb to the girls' conversation.

Dorcas filled her in. "You knew, right? That James Potter had a crush on Lily?"

"Oh yeah!" cried Meena. "Didn't Gordon Lovegood put it in a column once in the Babbling Badger?"

"He alluded to it once in a sports article," said Christabel. "Something like, 'Although Gryffindor pummeled Hufflepuff into the ground at the last Quidditch match,' or something, 'Lead Chaser James Potter still appeared glum when it turned out that Prefect Lily Evans was chilled to the victory and still cold to the burning passion residing within the young Potter's heart!'"

Lily replied, "He did not print that!"

Christabel shrugged. "Well something to that effect."

"And how could I have not known he liked me?" Lily cried once more. "Or that my love life was fodder for Gordon Lovegood's tabloid?" She shot a glare in Dorcas' direction.

Dorcas said, "Don't look at me. I don't read that stuff. Ask Christabel or Meena."

Christabel cavalierly responded, "I just think you need to read more magazines." She snapped her issue of Witches' Weekly at the binding and covered her face with it.

"Well, everyone knows that what Gordon Lovegood prints in that thing is made up, so obviously there's no truth to it," said Lily, filled with pride at her logic.

Dorcas chimed in. "Lily, he asked you out in front of the whole school. We know he likes you!"

"How?" asked Lily, narrowing her emerald eyes in distrust.

Dorcas answered, "Because he offered to stop torturing Severus Snape for you! Coming from one of his gang--that's love."

Lily moaned in helplessness and buried her head into her lap. "As if my life could get any worse this summer! First I have to spend the summer with Petunia, now I have to deal with this!"

"Who's Petunia?" asked Meena.

"My sister," Lily said dully.

Dorcas elaborated for the unenlightened ones in the compartment. "Petunia is Lily's unimaginative, completely tyrannical, annoying, cruel and magic-hating older sister. Did I describe her perfectly, Lils?"

"You forgot to mention gold-digging, territorial and tactless," Lily replied in a muffled, sad voice.

Meena scooted forward to pat Lily on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Lils, it'll be alright."

"I suppose..." Lily said, raising her head up. "If only my parents weren't traveling on the continent this summer..."

Christabel's eyebrows raised in interest, and she quickly lowered her magazine to talk to Lily. "You're going to Europe this summer? You're so lucky! I have to stay in London and work."

Lily shook her head. "I'm not going to Europe; my parents are. It's a second honeymoon."

"Aw...how sweet..." Meena said with a romantic sigh.

"Yes," replied Lily, in a much steelier tone, "it is rather romantic. Unfortunately, I have to spend an entire summer with only my sister for company!"

Christabel folded up the issue of Witches' Weekly and stuffed it in her knit sack. Then, she leaned toward Lily and kindly said, "If it ever gets really rough, you can come and visit me. Just tell Petunia that you want to go to London to go shopping or something, and then skip off to see me!"

"Where are you working?"

"At the ice cream shop in Diagon Alley. I'm a waitress."

Dorcas snickered. "Good luck."

"Well, at least I'm earning my money," Christabel said with pride. "Not all of us have wealthy wizard fathers to attend to our allowances."

"Not all of us are unlucky enough to not even know who our fathers are!" Dorcas said in response.

Lily and Meena cringed. "That was low," said Lily in Christabel's defense.

"I know who my father is, thank you very much! He's a guitar player and Buddhist from San Diego, California. My mother met him while on a spiritual quest in India," Christabel cried.

"What's his name?" Dorcas questioned.

Christabel smiled. "Roy. And he sends me cards and gifts every Hannukah...He's a Buddhist, but I think his mom's Jewish."

"Right," said Dorcas, raising her eyebrows and clearly bewildered by what either "Buddhist" or "Jewish" meant.

Lily carefully tried to change the subject. "Well, anyway, that's a great idea, Christa. If things get tough, I'll be sure to drop by Diagon Alley to see you," she said. Lily was beginning to feel as though having Petunia for a sister wasn't nearly as bad as living in Christabel's shoes.

Quickly bouncing from her discomfort, Christabel happily answered, "Yea! I can sneak you some free sundaes."

Lily flashed a wide smile in thanks. By now, she had all but forgotten about James Potter and his ridiculous crush. Perhaps the summer wouldn't be so stressful after all...

*****

Hidden under an invisibility cloak, Aurelia Covington stealthily followed two stately looking wizards into the home of Charles Stonebridge. A human servant, clad in all black, welcomed them into the house, took their robes and directed them to the back den. Aurelia concentrated all her energy on keeping both her breath and footsteps as silent as possible. She was behind enemy lines now, and if she were discovered, she was dead.

Once in the drawing room, Aurelia crept behind an elegant winged back chair that was stationed next to the roaring fireplace. The room had a warmth to it that made her uneasy. Knights of Walpurgis meetings were supposed to be dark, devious and cold of any humanity, and not similar to an after-dinner cigar party. As she looked around the room she noticed clusters of men, many of whom were widely respected in the wizarding community, jovially talking with one another. She was becoming more bewildered by the second.

Suddenly, the double doors of the drawing room were opened once more. Everyone fell silent and turned to watch a smiling Charles Stonebridge enter the room. A tall figure, cloaked in black, followed him in. Aurelia smirked. Her Lord Voldemort was here.

Stonebridge addressed his guests. "Friends, comrades, welcome! I am so pleased you could make it and am honored by your presence."

Nods of thanks and respect came from around the room. Stonebridge turned to the doors and closed them with a flick of his wand. The meeting had apparently begun. The dark figure following Stonebridge in walked over to where Aurelia was. She held her breath as he regally sat down in the winged back chair. After pouring himself a drink, Stonebridge began the business of the meeting.

"I hope you all know why you are here tonight. In recent years, the power of the pureblood clans has faded from the Ministry of Magic. We are continually trying to ward off the influence of muggleborns and halfbloods, and the fight is nowhere near over my friends. As the great Salazar Slytherin once said, 'Pure wizards will always be tainted so long as we live and work side by side with those unfit to control the forces of magic.' But we have a weapon, now. The Heir of Slytherin is about to come to power and purebloods are about to regain their honor."

"Here, here!" said one wizard and replies of approval echoed from around the room.

Stonebridge said, "He has but two things to ask of you...and he is here tonight to beg your alligence."

The dark figure interrupted him and said, "I am not here to beg, Stonebridge, and you know that."

"Yes," Stonebridge answered uneasily, "I am sorry, my Lord. Why don't you take the floor?"

"Very well. I suppose one cannot expect a servant to lead," Voldemort said coldly.

Aurelia felt the nerves in her back twinge in fear as the dark wizard rose from his seat. For a moment, she thought she felt something sway in her head. It was as if all her thoughts had been nudged by some strong force. She shook herself and it was gone. Replacing the presence of that invisible force were the deep, drawing tones of the Dark Lord Voldemort as he address the Knights of Walpurgis.

"You are not Knights of any order. You are the impotent successors of an even more impotent line of failures. You discuss accomplishing great things while others steal your positions of power in society. Of all the people here, I am the only one who can attest to reaching any real goal. I have destroyed the weakness of my mortal self and manipulated magic to make myself worthy of Slytherin." He slowly removed the hood from his cloak. From her place behind the chair, Aurelia could not see what Voldemort's face looked like. She could only surmise from the horrified and awestruck looks on the other men's faces, that he must not have looked human.

He said, "I am Lord Voldemort, Heir of Slytherin and the greatest wizard who has ever lived. Serve me and take your place as witnesses of a new era; defy me, and your entire bloodline will be erased from the annuls of history."

"What about the Ministry of Magic? You can't overthrow an entire government!" one baffled wizard stammered.

"Do you doubt the powers of Lord Voldemort?"

The wizard said nothing in reply.

Voldemort cackled and drew a long, yew wand from his robes. He cried, "Avada Kedavra!"

Aurelia gasped in spite of herself. In fact, everyone in the room had gasped in horror at what Voldemort had just said. As soon as the Killing Curse had been uttered, a green bolt of energy flew from the wand and seized the defenseless man's body. The elderly wizard's form jerked for a moment in surprise and then limply fell to the ground. It was a cleanly executed murder that made Lord Voldemort's claims too serious to lightly ignore.

"For those of you who fear the influence of the Ministry of Magic, I can assure you that their petty laws and incompetent Aurors pose no threat to our plans," continued Lord Voldemort. "To prove this, allow me to introduce you to our invisible guest. None of you gentlemen are aware, but for some time, we have had an interloper."

Aurelia's jaw dropped. How did he know? While Voldemort slowly turned and approached the chair, she attempted to cut across the room to the doors out.

"Ah, ah, ah..." the Dark Lord said in disapproval. "Lady Covington, please do not leave so soon. We're all dying to see you."

With a snap of his unnaturally long fingers, Aurelia's invisibility cloak flew off, revealing her to the entire room. She drew out her wand and looked up to face her enemy. He was perhaps the most monstrous looking man she had ever seen. His blood red eyes were slanted like a cat's and lidless like a devil's. He appeared to have no nose, but snakelike slits for nostrils and his skin was an eerie mix of grey and green. Before she could react, he cried, "Expelliarmus!" Her wand flew out of her hand and into his. She reached for a knife in her boot, but before she could even wrap her fingers around the blade's handle, Voldemort threw her across the room with only the flick of his wrist. She landed with a hard thud and felt pain seep into her skin. Once more, he motioned with his hand, and Aurelia flew across the room. This time her back collided with the brick wall. She felt cold impact of stone on the back of her head, and then, she slipped into unconsciousness and onto the floor.