Comedy/Tragedy: The Story of a Doomed Existence

Chapter Ten: H.U.R.L.

That evening, Sirius Black stood in his usual relaxed position, slouching against the fireplace and loosely grasping a bottle of his never-ending supply of butterbeer. When Lily, Lucy, and Alice walked in from the showers, each set of eyes roamed toward the obviously bored boy. They had discussed ways to get him away from the crowd of popular people he associated with, but most of the plans had contained too many 'what-ifs' for Lily's liking. In the end, the girls decided they would stay in the common room for as long as Sirius did, for he tended to stay there until very late. Maybe, just maybe, the tall boy would be the last one left.

Of course, another problem would be that it was very difficult for the trio to stay in the common room. People would shoot nasty glares at them, talk loudly about how awful they were, and the nearest people would leave as soon as they sat down. Luckily, the secluded corner by the window was the perfect place, both to stay away from everyone else and to keep a clear, unobserved eye on Sirius.

Alice, who was very talented with a needle, decided to spend the remaining time stitching HURL onto the back of the Save the trees! shirt. Lucy did her astronomy homework, and Lily read Jane Eyre for what seemed like the billionth time.

The minutes crawled past slowly. Though the common room was as noisy as ever, the corner by the window was chilly and quiet. The only sounds were Alice's faint humming as she sewed, Lily turning the pages, and the exhalations of breath from Lucy that were probably disguising curses. Very slowly, the room began to empty. By ten-thirty, the only people that remained were a cluster of fifth-year girls, a number of the more popular students, and a few lone people. At a quarter to eleven, Hana and Leanna simpered goodbyes to everyone else. Once they were gone, the rest of the girls were quick to follow suit. Then the boys and lone students began to leave, until finally the only people left were Remus, Peter, Sirius, and James. The last yawned loudly and obviously, mussing his hair absentmindedly. Lily watched him over the top of her book.

"Well, mates, I'm beat. Going to go get myself some sleep for tomorrow...Thursdays are the worst, I'm glad it's over. Coming?"

He had been referring to the fact that Thursdays were the only day of the week in which first-years had no free periods.

"I'll come, I'm beat too." Peter leapt up immediately. He tried to imitate James' slouching, but looked more like a hunchback than a hunk.

"I'll stay here and catch up with my ole buddy Remus." Sirius sank down onto the arm of the chair Remus was reading in. "We've got some good, quality bonding to do."

"All right, 'night, mate," James called as he strode off to the dormitories, Peter attempting to follow his example.

"Darn, he's going to stay with that Lupin kid," Lucy muttered under her breath.

"It's okay, Remus isn't that bad," Lily told her. Anyone who read as much as the pale boy did certainly couldn't be all that bad, even if he was friends with Potter.

The redhead stood up and walked over to the fire, taking a deep breath to calm her nerves. What if he said no, or worse, what if he told Potter what the plan was?

Lily cleared her throat nervously. Remus and Sirius looked up.

"What do you want, Evans?" Sirius eyed her with dislike.

"I have an idea, and I need your help," Lily said finally.

"My help? What reason would I possibly have to want to help you?"

"Let her speak, let's see what she has to say," Remus told him quietly.

"Thank you. Now, I don't know what you think of Professor Hurley -"

"She means the Hurler," Lucy said helpfully.

"Erm, yes. The Hurler."

"Why do you want to know?" Sirius asked, still eyeing them with dislike.

"Sirius hates him," Remus helped. "Much as he pretends to hate you, he was pretty angry after what happened in class today."

"Thanks for helping, buddy," Sirius spoke sarcastically. "It's not like you love him either!"

"I never said I did," Remus replied, holding up his hands in mock submission. "So, we have determined that we hate Hurley. How does that affect you?"

"Well, Lily wants to teach him a lesson," Lucy told them bluntly.

"Really?" Sirius looked at Lily appraisingly, far less hatred in his gaze.

"Well - erm...yes," Lily told him finally. "We want to form a sort of club, for Hurley-haters. More formally known as HURL: Hurley's Unfit to Rear Learning. And as an expression of club membership..." she reached over to the silent Alice and pulled her shirt from the girl's grasp. "T-shirts!"

The two boys laughed when they saw the shirt they thought Hurley had confiscated. Lucy grabbed the shirt from Lily and modeled it dramatically, indicating the lovely embroidery Alice had done.

"How did you get it back?" Sirius asked them

"Oh, we never gave it to him. That was a copy of the real shirt -"

"Effingus Charm?" Remus asked curiously.

Lily was glad he knew what it was; she nodded emphatically.

"But the only problem is, I only have one shirt," Lily continued. "And the only way to duplicate it is the Gemino Charm, which is undoubtedly in the Restricted Section. We're not sure how to get there, but if we need more shirts we'll have to."

"Wait right here," Sirius told them. "I have an idea."

"No, Sirius, wait! We shouldn't - he'd kill us!" Remus yelped.

"Eh, well I'm just about ready to kill him. He's been a real prat lately, you know he has. I'll be right back."

Remus hesitated, his hand on Sirius arm, but he eventually sat back down.

"What's going on?" Alice spoke for the first time.

Remus jumped, as though he had not seen her there. "Well, see -"

He was spared answering when Sirius returned, a boyish grin on his face. The tall boy vaulted unnecessarily over a few pieces of furniture, landing eventually on a large pouf.

"You, my friend, have far too much energy," Remus told him. "Especially for eleven-forty on a Thursday night."

"I was stifled as a child," Sirius replied. He turned to Lily and her friends, drawing something from the innards of his robes.

"No way," Lucy gasped as something silvery slid out. "Where'd you get that?"

"Nicked it from Potter," Sirius replied deviously. "And if he finds out, I'm cow turds, so we better make this quick. Restricted Section, did you say?" He threw the silvery thing over himself, and Lily couldn't help but gasp.

Where the tall, dark-haired boy had been standing a moment before, there was nothing but air. There was a soft rustling noise, and his head reappeared, though his body was still somewhere in limbo.

"Pretty nifty, eh? James got it as a present from his parents, for getting accepted to Hogwarts. We've been using it this past week to get into Hogsmeade."

"Sirius, I'm not sure we should be telling them that -" Remus spoke nervously, casting a wary eye over the empty common room.

"Oh, live a little. It'll be fine. So, Gemino Charm, Restricted Section?" He was about to throw the cloak over his head again when Lily reached out and grabbed where she'd guessed his arm was.

"I'm coming with you."

"Don't trust me, eh? Smartest decision you've ever made. Okay, let's go!" With an invisible wave to Remus, Alice, and Lucy, he threw the cloak over himself and the redhead and the duo headed toward the door.

It was a very odd experience, walking under the cloak. Lily tried to match her stride to Sirius', so that the cloak's material wouldn't stretch in odd ways, but it was incredibly difficult. Sirius was two heads taller than she was, and most of this height was due to his legs. She had to undergo some peculiar, quickstep leaping motion to keep up.

"Keep your hair on, woman, no one ever sees us!" Sirius told her after a while.

Moments later, he nearly stepped into The Grey Lady, ghost of Ravenclaw.

"Oops."

"No one, hmm?" Lily asked him, inclined to laugh.

"She didn't see us, now did she?"

Their conversation ended, however, as they had now reached the library. The door was locked, but Sirius whispered a quick "Alohomora" and they were in.

The library was as quiet as anything, a fact that did nothing to lessen Lily's nerves. Sirius wasn't feeling too great either, for when he knocked over a display of books about health potions, he cursed loudly and paused for a good five minutes, nervous that someone had heard.

The Restricted Section was roped off, but the two easily stepped over it. After listening for a few moments, Sirius pulled off the cloak.

"I can't see a damn thing...ah, that's better." He had lit the tip of his wand. "So, Miss Evans, do you have any clue what book this would be in?"

"Not a one," Lily told him cheerfully. "Though I highly doubt it would be in here!" She showed him the book she had picked off the shelf, on which the words 'Moste Potente Potions' were written.

"Nope, I doubt it."

Thus, the pair of first-years began their long search. They found quite a few interesting books. There was one that regurgitated a large spider onto Sirius' robes, another that contained a long list of spells to disfigure people's faces, and one that described particularly gruesome ways to injure Muggles and make it look as though it were their own fault. It was not until the early hours of the morning that they came across anything useful.

"Oy, look at this!" Sirius called a number of hours later. Lily looked over his shoulder as he read the title out loud. "A Glossary of Illegal Charms. That ought to have it!"

"Yeah," Lily agreed, though with less enthusiasm. Unlike Sirius, she was not very talented at being energetic when she was lacking sleep.

Sirius thumbed through the pages. Though the title said it was a glossary, there was no index included in the book, and the pages were not in alphabetical order. A few had even been torn out.

"Here!" Sirius nearly shouted a few moments later. He cursed quietly. "Damn...someone might have heard us! But this is the right book. Now come on, let's get back to the common room, we'll take this with us!" he checked his watch. "It's four-thirty."

With a short intake of breath, Lily leapt under the cloak. She was not a moment too soon, for a light appeared at the end of the library. Lily heard a barely audible Nox from behind her, and Sirius' own wandlight went out.

"Someone's been in the library..." Pringle, the caretaker, said in a singsong voice as he stepped within. He looked down at the pile of books on the floor; they were part of the display on health potions that Sirius had upended. "Someone clumsy...come out, come out, wherever you are..."

Sirius stepped carefully over the ropes separating the Restricted Section from the rest of the large room. Lily followed suit, though she had to leap slightly. Her shoes thudded faintly on the carpeting, and Pringle's head snapped in their direction. He began to walk as quickly as he could toward the Restricted Section. Sirius made a noise of worry in his throat and edged carefully to the side. Pringle's outstretched arm came just inches from Lily's neck.

"Let's go." Sirius spoke so softly Lily could barely hear him. She knew he couldn't see, but she nodded all the same.

Once out of the library, Sirius let out a loud exhalation of relief. The next moment, however, Pringle's head popped out of the doorway. He must have cut straight across the library to get there so quickly; Lily and Sirius had to go around the edges of the walls so that he wouldn't hear them.

"Been in the Restricted Section too, they have. I'll need backup...." Muttering and cackling to himself, the old man hobbled away.

Though both very relieved, Lily and Sirius knew that they needed to get out of this part of the castle as soon as they could. Sirius assured Lily that he knew a lot of secret passages, but the redhead was sure Pringle did too. She told Sirius this, and he agreed that they needed to hurry.

The two broke into a run, feet slapping slightly too loudly on the floor of the castle. But they ran into no one else. Finally, they reached the portrait. Lily stepped forward to say the password, her toe leaving the cloak slightly. However, at that exact moment, someone leapt out from the shadows, and it was the very last person Sirius and Lily wanted to see.

Lily drew her ankle back under the cloak and backed up into Sirius. Part of her wanted to run, now, and the other part thought it would be best if they slunk away slowly. Her wandering mind came up with horrible things he could do to them...why couldn't it have been anyone else? Hana...well, a good curse would do her fine. Leanna...the same thing would follow. As for James...sure, he would be mad at Sirius, but at least he didn't have the power to expel them. At least they weren't making a club for hating him.

Sirius was backing away now too, but he seemed to be sensible in the situation. He had drawn back into the shadows, and was stepping carefully, so that no one could hear him. But it was fairly pointless; Hurley was advancing on them.

"I saw your foot, Lily Evans...I'll get you for this...torturing that poor Hana, using the dark arts from within Hogwarts...It's all over for you! Of course you have an invisibility cloak, I was foolish to think that you wouldn't...I wonder what you've been doing around the castle at night? I wonder if you even are an eleven-year-old, and not some dark wizard under Polyjuice Potion..."

Lily and Sirius sped up. They turned the corner before Hurley did, and Lily took the opportunity to shove Sirius inside an empty classroom.

"You've got the book, he can't find you! It'll be best this way!" she hissed at him. The next instant, Hurley came around the corner. Lily didn't want him to check in the rooms and spot Sirius, so she lunged forward, to look as though she had tripped. But it was too late; Hurley had gone into the very room Sirius was hiding in.

Lily listened carefully for a few moments, hoping, wishing, praying that Hurley wouldn't find the book. The next moment however, a spell rang loud and clear from the room.

"Obliviate!"

The next moment, Sirius dashed out.

"Not very powerful, but better than nothing -" he said, looking around for Lily.

"Over here!" Lily beckoned. He dove under the cloak, and not a moment to late.

Professor Hurley came stumbling out of the room, looking slightly dazed.

"Now, what was I doing? Ah yes...where is that Evans?" He looked up sharply, but Lily and Sirius were already in the common room.

However, as they pulled the cloak off, ready to congratulate each other, they realized that the room was not empty.

"Sirius! I can't believe you! You stole my cloak, and you were out gallivanting with her!!" James Potter stood there, face red and hair standing up everywhere. Lily could see Alice, Lucy, and Remus standing in the background. Alice was wringing her hands nervously, Remus looked apprehensive, and Lucy looked worried. A number of people poked their heads out of the staircases to the dorms; James' shouting had roused them.

"The book..." Lily muttered out the side of her mouth, but Sirius was way ahead of her. He was pretending to scratch his arm, but had stuck the small book inside his robes while waiting.

"Sirius?!" James yelled again. "What is going on?"

"Ah, mate, calm down," Sirius said, cool as ever. "I can't help it - I'm attracted to the bad girls. So I took Lily out, we went for a nice walk around the grounds. A nice, uninterrupted, date."

"What?" James stared at his friend in pure horror. "She's involved with the dark arts, she's mean to everyone around, how could you date her?"

Lily thought this had gone too far. Honestly...she was eleven, what was Sirius doing? She opened her mouth to put him right, but he gave her a sideways glance and the tiniest wink when James wasn't looking.

"Play along," he mouthed. Then, to James and those students who had come downstairs: "Like I said, I've got a thing for bad girls. But I was wrong, James...and you were right. The moment we got down there, she tried to attack me! It nearly worked, but I managed to fend her off with a memory charm. Not the greatest one, perhaps, but -" he looked sideways at Lily, as though wanting her to do something. She understood, and looked around the common room with wide eyes.

"Whoa...it's so big...and red," she said in a dreamy, unfocused voice.

James seemed to believe her impression.

"B-b-but...wait, so you aren't dating? Or anything? You still hate her passionately?"

"The feeling is mutual," Sirius answered him, giving Lily a large, fake scowl. Lily was amazed that James didn't see right through his act. "She'd be yelling her head off if her memory weren't modified." He indicated Lily, who was picking up and examining a pair of coasters as though they were some great treasure. "We'd better get off to bed, in case the effects wear off," he told everyone.

People seemed in a great rush to leave after that; in only a few moments, Lucy, Lily, and Alice were the only people that remained.

"Did you get it?" Lucy asked excitedly. "What took so long?"

Lily explained what had happened to them; the ages of looking through old, rotting books, the encounter with Pringle, the narrow escape and memory modification of Hurley. By the time Lily finished her story, each of her friends had a different reaction.

"So, you really were gallivanting around with Sirius!" Lucy said. "Sounds crazy...I really hope that Hurler's memory doesn't come back."

"Me too..."Alice agreed, though absentmindedly; it appeared she had more on her mind. "But what I don't understand is the way Sirius acted in the common room, just now. He said you were still evil...but that's not true, he knows that now! Why would he want to worsen your reputation even further?"

"See, Alice, we need our distributor to have no possible relation with us," Lily explained expertly. "If Sirius had defended me, there would have been no way he could help us bring down Hurley. But this way, he makes it look as though I almost dragged him down there; I'm evil, I'm a bad girl, and I was trying to brainwash James' best friend into joining the dark side. That's how Potter will see it, and that's a very good thing, because now, in his eyes, it's even less likely that Sirius will have anything to do with us."

"Ohh..." An expression of understanding passed over Alice's round countenance. "I see."

"Good," Lucy cut in. "I'm beat...let's try to get some sleep before Herbology."

"You're tired? But you got plenty of sleep last night, I haven't slept in nearly twenty-four hours!" Lily told her. "I just hope I can get up in time to get to class."

"I'll wake you up," Alice told her. "I can't sleep now, I don't think."

The morning passed in a blur; the only moderately interesting occurrence was when Lily almost fell asleep on top of her pruning shears; she got a nasty cut on her left hand in retribution for her negligence.

During the free period after class, Lily fell asleep in the library. This was not a smart idea, for when the warning bell for Double Potions rang out, rousing her, she awoke to discover that someone had used a curse of some kind to mar her pale cheek with a blood-covered skull design. Lily tried to scrub it off, but nothing worked, so when she went down to Potions she made sure that he long hair covered her cheek.

She walked into the classroom in this fashion, trying to avoid the eyes of the people in the class. She was not looking forward to such a long period of time with the overly sunny Professor Dulcissa, particularly after what had happened yesterday in Hurley's class, and particularly when she would have to hide her face the entire time.

When Lily joined her friends, they looked questioningly at her hair; she never wore it down. Lily turned to face the back wall, letting them see what someone had done to her face.

"Oh...that's awful!" Alice gasped when she saw it. The design looked as though it had been branded into Lily's skin. "How could you not wake up when someone did that to you?"

"Yes, Miss Evans, please do tell the class where you got such an interesting tattoo. Such a dark, plainly evil design." Lily looked up to see Dulcissa, lips pursed, staring down at Lily's mysterious acquisition.

Lily couldn't think of a reasonable excuse, so she decided to do the thing properly.

"I made it," she said bluntly, staring up at the teacher as though begging her to argue.

"What? Something so clearly dark and evil?" Dulcissa seemed surprised that Lily had submitted what she would see as the truth so quickly. "Er...very well then! Back to class! No more disturbances! Keep that nasty thing covered up, Evans!"

Just because she had said that, Lily tied her hair back so that everyone could see. Dulcissa pretended to ignore her; after all, she was head of Slytherin, and if she seemed so against the dark arts, her house wouldn't listen to her.

Lily was utterly bored through the class; she sincerely wished she had skipped. She got absolutely nothing from measuring out proper amounts of dragon liver. That is, nothing but a disgusted feeling in the bottom of her stomach. She would have felt so much better handling pieces of dead animals if there was a point to it all, if Dulcissa wasn't going to throw it all out afterwards.

By the time they left, the brand on Lily's face was getting darker. The redhead was worried that it would become permanent if she didn't get it off soon, so when she prepared to leave she tipped a small amount of a fifth year's cleansing solution into a small bottle she'd found in her book bag. Then she went off to the nearest girl's bathroom.

The cleansing solution helped, but only a little. After scrubbing ferociously for a good ten minutes, all of the color was gone, but a darkened indentation remained over all the lines. It looked rather like a faded sketch. Lily sighed, knowing that this was the best she would get. Perhaps it would fade over time, or maybe she could find a spell or potion to remove skin abrasions.

I must look really beat up, Lily realized as she surveyed herself in the mirror. The cut on her left hand had swelled dreadfully; the plants they had been pruning had poisonous nectar, and it appeared that some had gotten in Lily's sore. It was now a faint yellow color, with purple on the cut itself. Lily's robes were wrinkled and creased peculiarly from the contorted body positions she had reverted to when taking her naps. Other disfiguring aspects were Lily's eyes; they were swollen horribly from lack of sleep. She also sported various cuts and bruises from falling down the stairs, being shoved into things, and purposely falling only a few hours before, when she had been trying to distract Hurley.

Lily looked back in the mirror, and felt a little surprised; suddenly her skin was a bluish color, and she could see through it! It took the redhead a moment to realize that she was looking not at herself, but at a familiar, bespectacled, glum-looking ghost.

"Myrtle?" Lily stepped back so that the ghost could get out of the mirror.

"Hello," she said in her gloomy voice. "I've been looking for you. I wanted to know how the revenge was going. But, from the looks of it, not so good." She surveyed Lily's bedraggled appearance. "I've failed at this...I thought it'd be the one thing I could do...lead one miserable person to the happiness I could never achieve...but I've failed! I'm so horrible...and so miserable...and everyone hates me..." with a very morose sob, Myrtle dove through the ceiling.

A few moments later, Lily heard the noises of overused plumbing a few floors up. She shook her head; despite what Myrtle said, they could still out the plan. All that they needed was a time to meet with Sirius, so that they could duplicate the shirts and work out less trivial details.

At that moment, the door banged open and two second years came in. Lily suddenly realized that she was standing in the middle of the bathroom, staring intently at the ceiling. She quickly walked out of the tiled room, aware that the girls were staring at her as though she were certifiably insane.

As Lily passed the entrance hall, she glanced up at the clock. It was three thirty...as though not attached to her brain, her eyes automatically wandered to the grounds, stopping at the tree she'd been to only a week past. She was halfway to the door when she shook herself mentally; this was stupid, she didn't want to see that Snape kid again. She turned and, before she could change her mind, walked back to the common room.