History Lessons

Chapter Six

Lily Potter had taken to studying in a corridor.

Yesterday she'd tried the library and found Devon Hopkins sitting across from her for the rest of the evening. He'd attempted various conversation-starters for three straight hours, apparently not noticing that Lily was writing a Herbology essay. The previous night she'd been in Gryffindor Tower but Blaine Deverill had dragged all his mates over and enjoyed himself by levitating her ink bottle or lifting her textbooks like weights. She'd tried to study in her dormitory but this was Evie and Erato's favorite haunt and their giggling was as distracting as it was annoying.

And so Lily Potter had taken to studying in a seventh-floor corridor.

She sat quite a ways down from the Fat Lady, the curve of the corridor hiding the portrait from view. Very few students ever used this walkway; the tapestry-hidden passageway was extremely popular and was placed strategically close to the tower, so most students never passed further than that.

She had her textbook in her lap, a cushion charm on the hard floor, and a scroll of parchment levitated steadily next to her for convenient writing. She had chosen a spot right across from the bright new stones she had noticed earlier that term, but she did not let them distract her. Finally, she was at peace.

"What are you doing on the ground?" drawled Malfoy, and Lily jumped. He was standing a couple meters away, a book tucked under one arm, and was staring at her with one eyebrow raised.

"You scared me," she said, her hand on her chest. "Don't sneak up on people like that!"

"You're doing homework in a corridor," he continued, sneering. "Surely the Gryffindor hovel can't stink that badly."

"Clever," said Lily, going back to her essay. "Very witty, Malfoy."

Malfoy sat down next to her on the stone floor, letting his head fall back against the wall. Lily tutted, annoyed. "If I wanted company, Malfoy, I would be in the library."

"What, with Hopkins?"

She looked up. He was smirking still, but in a more good-natured way. "I believe I've asked you this before: Are you spying on me?"

"I just happened to be in the library last night as well."

"Hmm." She crossed out her last sentence and flipped the page in her book.

"I forgot to tell you happy birthday."

"I forgive you," she said, trailing her finger along a paragraph. There was a pause in conversation as Malfoy leaned over to see what essay she was writing.

"You'd use the Impediment Curse," he said, pointing out the paragraph below. "For temporary effects."

"Right." She wrote another sentence. "Why are you here?"

"To help you with your homework, since you obviously are illiterate and slightly blind."

"What?"

"'Impediment Curse' was even in bold print, Potter."

"I was having trouble concentrating."

"And why was that?" he said softly in a mocking tone.

Lily's heart zoomed and her stomach curled. She felt the heat rise to her cheeks and immediately began counting her breaths, trying to get rid of the blush. What was that about?

She knew Malfoy was still watching her, so she lowered her head to the book once more, shaking her head very slightly so that a sheet of hair fell between her face and him.

"So how is your O.W.L. year going?" Malfoy asked, back in his regular tone.

"It's a bit tough," she answered vaguely.

"Defense isn't too bad though," he said. "Quirke's a pushover, you can get away with anything in that class."

"Oh? And what have you 'gotten away with'?"

"Let's see...ice down Hornby's shirt...sugar quills--thought that gets messy if you forget and accidentally use ink"--Lily inadvertently smiled--"and if I'm having a rough day I can forge a note and spend the hour on the pitch."

"Quidditch?"

"Just flying," he replied. "At home we've got loads of land far from Muggles. If it weren't for food and sleep, I'd just stay on my broom all summer and never go home."

Lily had stopped working, though she kept staring at the page. "That bad?"

"Not terrible, I suppose. Lonely. I try to spend a couple weeks at Sylvester's, but my mother likes to see me at home."

"I can't imagine being lonely," Lily said. "I'm the youngest of three and I spend the summer either with my cousins at home or at my cousins' houses. And Christmas is just one huge Weasley party -- there's no peace unless I'm on my broom...and even then, there's always someone who wants to ride along or start up a game."

"God, aren't you ever alone?"

"What do you mean?" She finally raised her head, surprised as his vehemence.

"You've got this family the size of Hufflepuff house and the only way to escape your friends is to stake out a deserted corridor."

"Why are you here?" Lily said flatly, cutting through his speech.

Malfoy's face didn't reveal his emotion. "Bored," he said. "I've finished all my work, see."

"Why are you here?"

"You're starting to repeat yourself." He smirked again.

"I will until you give me a real answer."

"Why're you named Lily?"

The question was so random that it caught her off-guard -- which was probably what Malfoy had intended anyway.

"What? Why am I named...What do you care?"

"I'm curious, Potter. Humor me."

Lily glowered at her essay for a moment before looking up. "Why are you here?" His expression fell a little and she felt a small sense of victory. "And I don't just mean here. Why did you ever start talking to me?"

Malfoy's eyes locked on her own, as though trying to intimidate her, she thought. But his gray eyes weren't intimidating, they were searching. He was evaluating her, judging her...

"I'm curious, Potter."

She sighed, rubbing her temples. "My dad's mum was named Lily. Her sister was Petunia. Themed names, you know?"

"I know," he said. "How do you think I ended up with Scorpius? I'm from a family tree of stars and constellations."

"Scorpius," said Lily, trying it out. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the wall. "Scorpius."

"Mmm-hmm," he hummed, an easy smile on his face.

The torch on the wall above him shone yellow in his white-blonde hair and honeyed his pale complexion. Watching him, Lily knew exactly why her innards had zoomed and curled earlier, and they now graced her with an encore.

"I heard you cursed some Ravenclaw in Hogsmeade the other weekend."

Lily grinned. "Maybe so."

"Lucky it was off school grounds, or I'd have had to dock you some points," Malfoy said, smirking as he tapped his Head Boy badge.

"You'd love the opportunity to take points from Gryffindor, wouldn't you?" said Lily.

"Absolutely," he agreed. "So what'd he do?"

"Goldstein? Nothing unusual," she said. "Just being a git...prattling on about things he didn't understand."

"Like what?"

Lily paused, wondering whether to say or not. "He made a Lestrange joke."

Malfoy's face fell. "My great-uncle Rodolphus..."

Lily almost kicked herself. He was related to the Lestranges.

"So what'd he say?"

She thought for a moment on the best phrasing for her response. "It...it wasn't what he said. It was how he said it. He just made a joke about Gryffindors killing Death Eaters for fun." She was now avoiding Malfoy's eyes entirely. "Just mentioned the Lestranges. But what bothered me is how they know nothing of what happened, of what the Lestranges did..." She chanced a glance at his face; he was staring somberly ahead of him.

"Tell me a story?" he finally said as though he were forcing the words out.

"Sorry?"

"You must've grown up with them," he continued hesitantly. "The last war...it wasn't a favorite subject in my home, with my parents...What do you know?"

Something resembling a mix between pity and affection rose in Lily's chest. He wanted a story. "Well, er, what do you want to hear about?"

He blinked. "Do you know much about the Lestranges?"

"You really want to hear..." She trailed off uncomfortably.

"I don't mind," he said quickly, making eye contact. "They're not family to me; I never knew them even."

Lily nodded, pushed her textbook off her lap, and turned to face Malfoy, leaning her shoulder against the wall and looking up at him. He looked so serious. She scanned her mind quickly, collecting all the information she'd heard from her parents, her brothers, and her relatives, compiling it into one long narrative tracing back over forty years...and, feeling as though she were telling a bedtime story to the quiet Scorpius Malfoy, she began to speak.

Malfoy didn't move an inch as she spoke. She told about the fate of Professor Longbottom's parents, about the stint at Azkaban, their escape, and their welcome back into Lord Voldemort's circle. She told about the Department of Mysteries -- what limited knowledge she had -- and of the internal siege of Hogwarts that led to the death of Albus Dumbledore. She related what she knew of her aunt Hermione's capture and torture. On these last two events she avoided mentioning Malfoy's family and his eyes betrayed no flicker of knowledge that his father and grandfather had anything to do with them. She gave the facts she knew of the battle at Hogwarts and of the demise of Bellatrix at Lily's own grandmother's hand -- this she glossed over quickly, though. Despite what he said, she was still unsure as to how attached he was to his family. She finished with Rabastan and Rodolphus's capture and imprisonment.

"Was that your father?" he asked stiffly when she'd finished. "Who put them in Azkaban, I mean?"

"My uncle."

He nodded. The corridor was so silent and Lily began to feel a little awkward.

"Why did you ask?" she said quietly.

"Because I'm tired of being accused of crimes I've never heard of," he said bitterly.

Lily, unsure of what to say, moved so that her back was again against the wall and lightly traced the cover of her textbook. This last motion seemed to reawaken Malfoy as he sat up quickly.

"I'll go then," he said. "You've got homework to do and I should finish my patrol..."

"Oh," was all Lily said, looking up. Malfoy got to his feet and smoothed his robes. He looked down at Lily and his face was in shadows. "Goodnight," he said.

"Goodnight," she responded, and he turned and went back to the tapestry passageway.

~

"Where were you last night?" Jocasta demanded.

"Studying."

"I was in the library until eight thirty and I didn't see you at all," she said. "And Jordan hadn't seen you all evening in the common room. You weren't in bed until eleven, Lily; where were you?"

"Who are you, my mum?"

"That'd be an interesting twist," said Jordan, looking up from his breakfast.

It was true; Lily had been so distracted after Malfoy's visit that she'd taken twice as long to complete her essay. Once she finally had lain down in bed for the night it took all of her willpower think of something other than him. Him in the torchlight, him asking for a story, him telling her happy birthday....This was not how Lily wanted to think of Scorpius Malfoy and so she shoved these thoughts away. Now under the bright sun shining through the Great Hall's ceiling it seemed much easier to think of him in a purely platonic light.

"Hey, Lily!" Devon Hopkins climbed over the bench and took a seat next to her. "How're you?"

"All right," she said.

"You were in the library!" said Jocasta suddenly, leaning across the table and staring at Devon. "Did you see Lily?"

"No, not last night," Devon said, startled.

Lily stood, grabbed her bag, and set off down the aisle between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. This was getting ridiculous. First she has everyone all worried about her seeing Scorpius Malfoy; once she employs the solution of not telling anyone, they get on her back for spending a few hours alone doing homework!

She passed Ravenclaw and saw Phoebe sitting alone as usual. She felt a pang of guilt as she walked by, wishing she was in a better mood to stop and chat. She slowed her walk as she went by the Slytherin table; Malfoy was sitting, as usual, with Flint, Vaisley, and Vane. He looked up as she went by and nodded slightly. She smiled quickly; she had barely been expecting him to recognize her at all.

Once out on the Entrance Hall she didn't know what to do with herself. Stimpson wouldn't have opened her Muggle Studies classroom yet and she didn't want to wait on the staircase for breakfast to end. She headed instead to the doors onto the grounds; maybe some fresh air would do her good, though she found her temper had mostly subsided.

"Lily," a voice called from the other side of the hall. She turned to see Albus coming through the Great Hall's doors. "Hey, can I have a word?"

"Yeah," she said. "Sure."

He jogged over to where she stood and said, without preamble, "I know you were with Malfoy last night."

"You what?"

"Lily." He looked serious. "You've got to hear me out."

"I don't need another lecture, Al," she said. "I've heard it from Jordan, Clement, Uncle George -- I'm surprised I haven't gotten owls from Ron, Percy, and Charlie as well."

"I'm not here to argue," said Albus, his brow knitted in concern. "Just hear me out. He's a right snob."

Lily, who could not remember one instance where Albus had ever insulted anyone, gaped.

"He's selfish, proud, and ambitious," he continued.

"You barely know him," Lily said. "Who are you to judge?"

"Hear me out!" Albus repeated. "What I'm getting to is that although --"

The doors to the Great Hall swung open again and students poured into the Entrance Hall. Lily shot Albus an irate glare before joining the crowd going up the marble staircase.

~

Lily continued to use her own secluded corridor for studying and Malfoy continued to visit her there. Sometimes he'd only stay for a minute and continue with his Head Boy patrol; other times he'd sit down and help her with her homework or ask for another story. She talked once about Fenrir Greyback and Remus Lupin. Malfoy reacted predictably to the thought of a werewolf teaching at Hogwarts and being a friend to her own father, but Lily explained his character as best she could, having never met Remus himself. He was pacified by these further explanations which pleased Lily a great deal.

Scorpius Malfoy never lost an opportunity to make fun of Gryffindor and he did make small jabs at her father from time to time, but the more Lily told him about the last war the more open-minded he seemed to become. He was horrified at first by the idea of a werewolf teacher and mentor but he seriously thought about it, trying to be fair to her beliefs and not judge rely merely on what values he'd been brought up on in the home of Draco Malfoy.

Lily never mentioned Draco. It seemed too intimate a topic to bring up again.

~

Lily was now working on a transfiguration essay. She already had eleven inches when Malfoy came around the corner. She finished her sentence quickly and looked up expectantly, but he didn't join her on the floor.

"Why do you sit here?" he asked bluntly.

"I don't know," she said curiously. "Shouldn't I?"

"It's just strange," he said stiffly. "Why not sit on the stairs, no one ever uses those stairs."

"There's a huge portrait of some descendant of Hufflepuff's right there, I can't stand even walking those stairs sometimes because of her. She's all covered in pox and is just so mopey about it."

"Of course."

"Besides," she added, and she pointed at the wall opposite. "I like looking at that pattern there, where the stones are whiter. I wonder whatever happened there."

Malfoy turned to look at them and an odd expression passed over his features, an emotion Lily had never seen him display before. She couldn't quite recognize it.

He turned back. "Come on. I'm going to find you somewhere else to study." And he held out his hand to her.

"No. I'm comfortable here, thanks."

"Lily..."

She wrinkled her nose. "Lily?"

"Potter. Whatever."

"You just dislike using my surname because it reminds you of my father."

A smile passed fleetingly over Malfoy's lips. "Let's go," he said. "Let's take a walk."

"I'm doing homework."

"Potter..."

"Scorpius..." she mimicked, grinning at him before returning to her essay.

"Let's go," he repeated.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said firmly. "If you've got a problem you're going to have to take it up with the corridor itself, and not me."

Malfoy quickly became just as annoying as both Devon and Blaine. She was totally unaware of any danger in studying in the corridor and did finally pack up; Malfoy was not helping her concentration.

Lily and Phoebe resumed their study partnership in the library. This generally meant that Lily spent less time in the corridor than previously, but whenever she didn't finish her work with Phoebe before the library closed she'd retreat to her old haunt and, without fail, Malfoy would turn up and try to convince her to move.

If she had been asked three months ago to put an adjective on Malfoy, she would never have thought up annoying...but here it was.