Before the End

LILY VIII

September 2nd, 1971

Lily woke up. It was about six o'clock, according to the small clock on the cabinet next to her bed. She was confused for a minute why she hadn't woken up earlier, as she usually did, but realised that the curtains of the bed and its position made it impossible for the sun to wake her up through a window. She shrugged and got dressed.

She had decided not to wake anyone else in the dorm until about seven or so if they weren't awake then. They'd have to get to class by about eight thirty, she thought, and they needed breakfast first.

She looked at Annetta's bed for the first time. The hangings were dark blue with silver trim. Lily wondered when she had done that.

She went to the common room to pass the time.

There was no one else there, and Lily wondered if she was the only student in Gryffindor House who bothered to wake up early. Then she noticed Peter sitting in one of the chairs reading a book. "Hello?" she asked.

He looked up. "Oh. Hi, Lily. I thought I was the only one in this House who got up before seven."

"I would have woken up earlier, but the curtains of my bed were shut."

"You have four poster beds too?"

"Yes. What are you reading?"

"A History of Muggle Awareness and Perceptions of Magic. I nicked it from my sister. I can't make out half of it. Want to play chess? Have you got your own set? You're Muggle-born, aren't you? Have you played wizard chess before?"

"No. Is it very different?"

"I don't know. Do Muggle chess pieces move?"

"Well ... not by themselves."

"I think the rest of it is the same. Here, use these."

They set up the chessboard quickly.

Lily hadn't been that bad at Muggle chess, but it was very difficult to play when the pieces were yelling their opinions of the last moves up at you. Besides, Peter was a very good chess player.

Just after Peter had surrounded her king with several pieces, Remus came down the stairs.

"Hello, Peter. James and Sirius are still out cold. Good morning, Lily. Capture that bishop with your knight."

Lily still lost, but not as badly as she would have otherwise.

By now it was about quarter past seven, and more students were filtering into the common room, but James and Sirius were apparently still asleep. So were the girls in Lily's dormitory. Her king threw his crown at the queen's feet, and Lily went up to wake up Annetta.

Annetta's bed was still dark blue and silver. Lily pulled back the curtains. The only part of Annetta she could see was her hair. Her cat was sleeping at the foot of the bed. She pulled back the covers. "Annetta! Wake up!"

"Why?" Annetta's eyes were closed. "It's seven eighteen and thirty one seconds."

Lily checked. Annetta was right. To the last second.

"How do you do that?"

"It's a skill."

"Do you know when classes start?"

"You woke me up to ask me that?" She still hadn't opened her eyes.

"No. Do you?"

"Eight thirty."

"Yes. So get up."

"That's in an hour and ten minutes."

"And we need to get breakfast."

"How long have you been up?"

"An hour and twenty minutes. Come on, Annetta."

"You've been up since six?"

"Yes. That's an hour later than usual. Get up."

"You normally get up at five? Lily, you're strange."

"I know. Get up. When did you do that to your bed?"

"What?" Annetta opened her eyes. "Oh. I do that in my sleep sometimes. So do a lot of us."

"Oh. Get up." Lily suddenly remembered waking up to find her entire room decorated in bright green. She'd kept it that way. She decided not to continue the conversation in that direction.

"Oh, all right." Annetta's hand reached to the table and she took her glasses and put them on. She finally sat up. Lily went to see if anyone else was awake.

There were three girls in their dormitory other than Lily and Annetta: Jenny Whisp, who was short and thin, with dark brown hair and blue eyes, Cassandra Ollopa, with dark blonde hair and grey eyes, and Anne Weasley, who had flaming red hair and blue eyes. The girls were ready and going out of the dormitory in small groups by about seven forty. Annetta was still braiding her hair.

James and Sirius were also in the common room, looking as if it was four in the morning and not quarter to eight.

It took them at least ten minutes to get to the Great Hall. This was because it took them about one minute to get completely lost. Not only were Hogwarts huge and the Gryffindor common room on the seventh floor, but the staircases changed and the doors never seemed to lead to the same place twice. Eventually, however, they found their way to the Entrance Hall and hurried to get breakfast.

The Great Hall was already full. They quickly sat at the Gryffindor table. On the golden plates were bacon, eggs and toast, with pumpkin juice in goblets by the settings. Lily helped herself.

Very soon, Professor McGonagall handed out timetables. Lily looked down the Wednesday column over her eggs.

"Herbology with the Hufflepuffs," said James, who was sitting next to her and obviously looking over his timetable as well. "The History of Magic, then lunch, then we have Potions with the Slytherins, then Defence Against the Dark Arts. Elizabeth said History of Magic is really boring."

"Why?" Lily asked.

"She said it because she was trying to help me with school - never mind. It's taught by a ghost."

"I think he's been here since Gryffindor hired him," said Annetta from Lily's other side. She had been reading a book; now she looked up from it. Lily read the cover. Hélas, j'ai Transfiguré mes Pieds: Une Pièce Ècrit par Malecrit.

"Do we all have the same classes?"

"I think so," Lily answered. She was nearly finished her breakfast ow. "Do you know where Herbology is?"

"Presumably outside." Annetta had returned to the book.

"What are you reading?"

"Hélas, j'ai Transfiguré mes Pieds."

"What's that in English?"

"Alas, I have Transfigured my Feet."

"Oh."

"It's a very good play."

"I'll take your word for it. I don't speak French."

"I think the library has the English translation."

Suddenly Lily heard a rustling of wings overhead. She looked up and gasped. Hundreds of owls were flying into the Great hall under the enchanted ceiling. They swooped above the students and then flew over to their respective owners. "Oh, wow," Lily whispered. "Oh, wow..."

She paused a moment to look, and then headed towards the doors.

As Lily left to find the Herbology classes, she could hear Remus, who had been across from Annetta, say, "But Malecrit wasn't a very good playwright otherwise..."

Lily got outside of the school quickly; she only had to go through the doors in the Entrance Hall, after all. Outside, the weather was very different from what it had been the night before; the sun was out, and the water on the ground was quickly drying up. She looked around for where Herbology would be - she wasn't sure where. She saw several first year students heading around the school, so she followed them.

Around the corner of the school were several greenhouses. Lily guessed quickly that Herbology was taught there. She was turning toward them when Annetta caught her up.

"Hello. We've got Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, didn't you say that was where your friend was Sorted?"

"Oh, Eve! Yes. Good, I can talk to her. Is that entire play in French?"

"Oui."

"Annetta!"

"Can you speak any French at all?"

"Not much."

They were outside the green houses in a few minutes. The greenhouses were locked. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were all just in time. Just after them came a squat witch with frizzy brown hair streaked with grey.

"Hello," she said. "I am Professor Sprout. Now, as first years, you will not be working with any of the more dangerous plants." James and Sirius looked disappointed. "Will you please all follow me to greenhouse one?"

The inside of the greenhouse was hot and humid and full of plants. Lily didn't recognise anything there.

"Herbology is the study and care of magical plants," said Professor Sprout. "You won't have anything difficult to begin with." She gestured at the trays of small bushes that were spaced around the room. "Abyssinian Shrivelfigs. Professor Circe - she teaches Potions - needs them for her third year classes. We were growing these as an experiment last year, and they grow quite well in greenhouses. You will pick them and collect them in these jars. To pick them, hold them by the stem and pull them gently. And be careful not to bruise them - ruins them, if they're bruised. Four to a tray."

Lily made sure she and Annetta were working with Eve and another Hufflepuff girl. She looked across at Eve at the exact moment Eve looked at her.

"Lily! You're a witch too?"

"Yes. You're Muggle-born?"

"Of course I am. Do you think I knew about all this and didn't tell you?"

"Did you have a ... a..."

"An Obviamir," said Annetta. "My mother was Lily's. I'm Annetta More."

The other Hufflepuff looked up. "Annetta?"

"Eseld," said Annetta. "Lily, this is Eseld Lovegood. Our mothers are friends. This is Lily Evans, Eseld."

Eseld had long dark brown hair. "My mum was Eve's Obviamir," she explained. "Impossible, aren't these things?"

The Shrivelfigs were hard to pick - they seemed to prefer to be on the bush than anywhere else, but Lily had less trouble with them than the other three. She managed to fill a jar with them by the end of class, and the Gryffindors started to look for History of Magic.

One moving staircase, two vanishing steps, three doors that wouldn't open, and several misleading directions from a portrait of an Elizabethan lady on the fourth floor, and they were lost again. The first years had stayed together this time, and they still had no idea where to go.

Actually, they didn't even know what floor they were on.

Actually, they had no idea where they were at all.

"Why don't they have maps of this school?" Lily asked.

"Now there's an idea," said Remus. "But it's probably impossible, unless the map could change itself to fit the school..."

"That is not the problem at the moment," said James. "The problem is how to get to a class, or at least find out where we are."

"But if we're lost for the entire period, we get to miss History of Magic," Sirius remarked.

"On the first day? We'll lose lots of points if we aren't in class on the first day," Peter pointed out.

"Besides, he'll probably tell us something important," said Anne Weasley.

"Can't he just tell us when we get there?" Jenny Whisp asked.

"We should be looking for our class, not talking. And we can't miss anything on the first day - if the whole class isn't there, they'll take off at least fifty points and the rest of Gryffindor House will hate us for the rest of the year." Cassandra Ollopa had said that.

"They can't take off fifty points because we were lost!" Sirius exclaimed.

"The period hasn't even started yet, said Annetta calmly. "There's a ten-minute break between the first two periods, look on your schedules. We have five minutes to find the history of magic classroom. But from what I've heard, Professor Binns probably wouldn't notice if every class was late on the first day."

"Really?" asked Cassandra.

"They say he hasn't even realised that he's dead," said James.

"Really?"

"We need to find the History of Magic classroom in the next five minutes or we will probably be punished, and as I personally don't want to have detention at the beginning of the year, we should find out where it is," said Peter. "And we can't find it by standing around here. We don't even know where we are."

A head fell out of a nearby wall.

"Well, hello," said the ghost, settling his head on properly. "New students? What House are you in?"

"Gryffindor," said Lily.

The ghost beamed. "Excellent! I'm Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington, the Gryffindor House ghost -"

"You're Nearly Headless Nick! My brothers told me about you," said Anne Weasley. Lily wondered why he was called that, then remembered how his head had almost fallen off earlier.

"I prefer to be called -"

"So how do we get to the History of Magic classroom?" asked James.

"Follow me," said Nearly Headless Nick, and he floated off down the corridor, muttering something about respect for the dead.

They followed him quickly, and in a few minutes they were in front of a door. 'Here you are," said the ghost. "Hope you can stay awake through Binns' class. Even we ghosts try not to spend too much time with him. Got up to teach classes one day and left his body behind, they say." He floated off up a set of stairs that had suddenly appeared behind them, and the first years entered the classroom. Lily hoped Professor Binns' class wasn't as boring as Nearly Headless Nick had made it sound.

"Lucky us, there's no one in here," said James looking around. They went to desks anyway. Annetta was beside Lily; she took out Hélas, j'ai Transfiguré mes Pieds while they were waiting for the class to start.

Suddenly Anne Weasley, who was at the front, gasped. Lily looked up quickly.

A ghost had apparently just entered through the blackboard. He peered at them over his spectacles.

"Hello," he said, and Lily thought that perhaps this class would be as boring as Nearly Headless Nick had described it; his voice was dry and reedy, and with just one word he sounded as if he were droning on. "I am your teacher, Professor Binns. This year we will be covering the period of wizarding history before the Founding of Hogwarts. Please turn to page twenty-three in A History of Magic. This period is iortant to our history because..."

Lily tried to listen, but she kept being distracted. Two rows behind her, James and Sirius weren't even trying to pay attention; they were apparently playing hangman with Remus and Peter, just behind her. She looked over at Annetta, who didn't even seem to be aware Binns had entered the room. She was still reading. "Annetta," Lily whispered. She didn't respond. "Annetta?"

Annetta looked up, glaring. "Yes?"

"The lesson has started."

"I know that."

"Then why are you still reading?"

"Because this is a lot more interesting then he is." She went back to her book. Lily turned around in time to jot down something about the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus invading Scotland.

The class seemed to go on forever, but finally they were dismissed. On the way back to Gryffindor Tower, Annetta asked Lily if they had had any homework.

Lily stared at her. "Weren't you listening?"

"No, I was reading. Est-ce nous avons les devoirs?"

"We have to write a three foot long essay on magic as it was practised in ancient Egypt. It's due in a week."

"Thank you."

They took the books for their classes after lunch from their trunks in their dormitory. Lily made a note to carry all her books around for the day in her bag. They hurried to the Great Hall. It didn't take them quite as long this time; they remembered some of the way there. They still got lost, though.

Food appeared on the golden plates just as they walked in, and Lily checked her watch. It was eleven thirty. She sat down at the Gryffindor table.

JAMES IV

September 2nd, 1971

After lunch the first years had Potions. "It's always with the Slytherins," Anne Weasley was telling Cassandra Ollopa.

"Even Andromeda says they're slimy gits," Sirius remarked.

"They can't all be that bad," said Lily. James highly doubted that.

"Remember Snape on the train?" Sirius again, the centre of attention as usual. "He got into Slytherin."

"Oh, were you paying attention then?" asked Annetta innocently.

"Look," said Peter. "All we have to do is find the dungeons. And they're probably underground. We shouldn't be this lost."

"We're not lost!" Sirius protested.

"No, we're not lost," Remus muttered sarcastically, "we're just temporarily unaware of our position."

Sirius heard him. "Exactly!"

"Sirius," said Peter, "that means we're lost."

"That doesn't matter," Sirius answered.

They were lost, despite Sirius' protestations to the contrary. They had walked down a staircase from the Entrance Hall, and were now in a corridor lined with painting of food. The first years had stayed together again, but it hadn't helped anymore than it had the first time.

"Well," said James, "we know we're lower than the Entrance Hall, right? And the dungeons are definitely underground. So we must be close."

No one had a chance to reply.

Because suddenly, Sirius fell sideways and landed against a painting of a bowl of fruit. Then he jumped away. The pear in the bowl had suddenly turned into a large green doorknob. They all stared at it.

"It looks like that painting's a door," said Anne Weasley.

"Thank you for stating the obvious," said Peter nervously. "Should we open it?"

There was a long pause. Finally, Sirius, the reckless idiot as well as the centre of attention, grabbed the doorknob and pulled the painting open.

Immediately a small figure in a tea towel ran to the opening. James quickly recognised it as a House Elf, and so did most of the first years, but Lily was looking confused.

"What is sirs and misses doing here?" the House Elf asked in a very high pitched voice. "Does sirs and misses not have classes? Is it not the first school day?"

Lily's eyes were almost as big as the House Elf's by now, so James felt he'd better explain this.

"It's a House Elf," he muttered to her. Lily didn't look like this helped much. James turned toward the House Elf and found Annetta talking quietly to it.

"... fine ... misses you ... like to know ..." was all he could make out.

"What?" he asked.

"Does that thing know where the dungeons are?" Sirius asked.

"Have you met?" Lily asked Annetta nervously.

"What?" Annetta responded. "Oh. This is Ouphe. She's a friend of one of my House Elfs. These are the kitchens. The dungeons are halfway across the school." She turned back to the elf. "Could you give us directions? We're lost."

"Ouphe is showing sirs and misses where the dungeons is," squeaked the House Elf. "Ouphe is visiting there all the time, because students is blowing things up in Potions and Ouphe is cleaning them. Ouphe is happy to show you where they is, sirs and misses. Is sirs and misses please following her?"

"Yes, thanks," said Annetta, and Ouphe ran off down the corridor in the direction they had come from. The first years followed her.

"What's a House Elf?" Lily asked as they followed.

"A House Elf is a small creature that lives to serve its owner."

"But that's not fair! They're being exploited -"

"They like it, Lily."

"Exactly! They wouldn't if someone bothered to help them, would they?"

"I think they would," said Jenny Whisp, on Lily's other side. "They don't like doing it because they're forced to, they like it because it is in their nature to help humans. You don't know how annoying they can get sometimes - doing everything they possibly can for you ... oh, here we are."

They weren't late, surprisingly. The hallway to the Potions classroom was obviously underground. Like the rest of Hogwarts, it was lit with torches, but some of them seemed to have gone out. Water was dripping from the stone walls. The door was heavy and wooden. About ten more students were grouped around. James caught sight of Snape, and grimaced. They were having Potions with the Slytherins. Damn.

The door opened soon after the Gryffindors arrived, and a tall woman with braided hair looked out.

"Gryffindor and Slytherin first years?" she asked, looking at them. Several students nodded. "Come in."

The Potions classroom was lined with shelves containing jars of ingredients, and things that James did not want to know the names of floating in jars.

He sat at a desk with Sirius. Oddly, or not so oddly, the Gryffindors and Slytherins sat at different ends of the room.

"I," said their teacher, "am Professor Circe, and I am to teach all of you Potions. I do not expect any of you to actually show any great talent at this art. Very few students do. But I can, if you will listen, teach you to bewitch the mind, to ensnare the senses, with only a few herbs - but I don't expect you to listen. Certainly most students do not. However, if I catch one of you not listening, you will have detention and the rest of your House will probably end up hating you for all the points you've lost."

She began to call the role. When she was finished, she looked up.

"I am going to ask you several questions to see if you have read anything at all over the summer," she said. James thought this wasn't very fair, but knew better than to say so. "Please copy the answers down." The first years quickly got out parchment and quills. "What results from a mixture of powdered root of asphodel and an infusion of wormwood? - you."

She pointed at Annetta. Annetta said, calmly, "The Draught of Living Death."

"One point to Gryffindor. And what is that? - you."

"The most powerful sleeping potion in existence," said Snape.

"A point to Slytherin. What is a bezoar? - you."

"I don't know," said Sirius.

"You."

"I don't know," said James.

"One point from Gryffindor. You."

"A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat," said Remus. "It -"

"There's no need to explain it. That is Mr. Avery's task."

"It cures poisons," said one of the Slytherins.

"Close enough. Explain the properties of Gillyweed - you."

This went on for quite a while. Finally, Professor Circe turned to the blackboard.

"You are going to start with a Deflating Draught. Does anyone know what that is? - Mr. Snape?"

"The antidote to a Swelling Solution."

"One point to Slytherin." She began writing on the blackboard. "These are the instructions and ingredients. Please work with your desk partner. You should have all the ingredients with you. Use only one cauldron and measure the ingredients and follow the instructions exactly."

By the time the class was over, Remus had had to go to the Hospital Wing after his potion exploded. He returned as they walked through the halls, looking for the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

"Are you all right?" Lily asked.

"Fine. Not much happened."

"Terrible at Potions, are you?" Sirius asked, grinning. His and James' potion had been finished before anyone else's except Snape's.

Remus turned red. "Here's the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom," he said quickly.

They had found it in much less time than it had taken them to find the other classes. The room was empty as they walked in, but soon a tall man with dark brown, greying hair and an annoyed expression walked in.

"Hello," he said. "I am Professor Egg, and in this class you are supposed to be learning Defence Against the Dark Arts. Anyone who wishes to use this time to socialise or otherwise not pay attention will wish they hadn't made that decision. This year you are simply going to be taught a general overview of techniques useful for defending yourselves against the Dark Arts."

The class went downhill from there. Professor Egg, while very good at introducing a class, seemed to place more importance on theory than actually doing anything, and James finally stopped listening as Peter listed the four major ways to kill vampires.

When the lesson was over, the first years hurried up to Gryffindor tower.