Comedy/Tragedy: The Story of a Doomed Existence

Chapter Thirteen: The Anna Banana's Doom

October passed in a similar fashion to September: classes grew steadily harder, and people continued to torture Lily.

Lily was happy to note that no one noticed she was behind H.U.R.L., but she also saw a good deal more of the shirts. Sirius had told her he was going to duplicate more, and sure enough, he had. There was not one Defense Against the Dark Arts class Lily participated in - or heard about - that involved one or more students 'accidentally' showing Hurley their shirts, and being forced to take them off and give them to him. Lily even heard rumors that the annoying professor would check people's robes when they came in, though this stopped abruptly after a fifth-year girl had complained to Professor McGonagall that Hurley had tried to touch her inappropriately.

Finally, the effects of H.U.R.L. were showing, and Lily had no obvious connection to it. Hana remained free of the knowledge of Lily's influence toward the project, and Sirius remained their happy distributor.

But not all was well. Though she remained unconnected to H.U.R.L., Lily still had to live through the torture of the students. This month, however, was worse than ever: Hana and Leanna were furious that Lily didn't seem to care what they were doing, so they were sure to whisper whatever horrible things they could come up with. The attempted revenges on Lily resulted in a couple of very nasty incidents, finally culminating on Monday the 18^th of October.

Lily had awakened rather late to find a note from Alice:

Lil~

Sorry to abandon you like this, but Lucy sleepwalked into the common room and now she wants breakfast. She's happier than I've seen her in weeks, I hope you don't mind if we left without you.

- Alice -

Lily grinned at this. It would be marvelous if Lucy came out of her isolated, sad reverie. She changed quickly into a simple skirt and wide-sleeved shirt, pulled on her robes, and hurried downstairs. She and her mother had been exchanging letters, and finally Mrs. Evans sent back the watch Lily had requested. She fastened it onto her wrist happily and turned through the portrait. She only had ten minutes left until class, but that was okay, she wasn't very hungry. The redhead stumbled through the hallways, pulling her hair into an auburn plait down her back.

Lily walked quickly to the stairs to the entrance hall and was about to turn down them when a shout from behind her caused her to whirl about. The next instant, conjured honey covered her entire body. Lily tried to get through the sticky mess - what was going on? - but it was no use. A moment later, Lily felt something crawling on her arm. Many somethings, all with eight hairy legs, crawling all over her body. The redhead had nothing against spiders - actually, they were one of her favorite many-legged animals - but when they were crawling all over her sticky, sweet clothing, she couldn't help but be slightly revolted.

Trying to claw her way through the honey still pouring onto her head, Lily had opened her mouth and swallowed a good deal of the arachnid-infested, sticky substance. She coughed horribly, trying to get it out of her system, but nothing helped. A pale, long-fingernailed hand reached out of nowhere, shoving Lily backwards.

"Meet you at the bottom," the familiar, icy voice told her before the redhead sailed down the oiled banister.

But Lily did not see Hana at the bottom. She did not remember seeing the bottom at all, for as soon as she had reached the floor of the entrance hall, she had slid across the floor and blacked out when her temple slammed into the heavy wooden door.

The next thing Lily knew, she was lying in a soft bed, and something wet was on her face. Soft powder was drifting onto her skin. Snow! Lily wondered how long she'd been asleep, if it were snowing already. Then she opened her eyes, and the truth was revealed.

There was no snow in the sparkling clean hospital wing. Instead, the revolting Madam Klagensteril was sponging her forehead. Falling slowly onto her face were dead skin cells, not snow. Completely disgusted, Lily had tried to get up.

"Ahh...you're awake, nein?" the woman's ancient, cracked voice asked her, callused palms preventing Lily from moving. "Been asleep for nearly twenty-four hours, though one can never really tell what of that was actual unconsciousness and what was sleep. Durchficken die Jugend, you get as much sleep as you want! You are feeling better?"

"Much," Lily told her. Her head still throbbed painfully, but she was anxious to get away from Klagensteril. "Might you tell me what had happened?"

"Lily!" A new voice burst in; the voice of the headmaster, Professor Dumbledore. Lily stared at him. She had never seen him from closer than the teacher's table; how did he know her first name? "We would like to ask you the very same question. You were found outside of the Great Hall, unconscious, but no one was nearby. Do you remember what happened?"

"Er...yes," Lily told him finally. She was quite nervous about being in the presence of such an esteemed wizard, but something about his twinkling blue eyes made her want to please him. "I - I was running a little late to Potions, and I was turning down the stairs when a voice came from behind me. I turned, to see who it was, and suddenly I was covered in the honey and - and the spiders -"

"Honey? Spiders?" Professor McGonagall, who had entered the ward with the headmaster, was speaking now. "Miss Evans, are you sure you are feeling alright? When we found you, there were no spiders and no honey, just you, crumpled against the doors, and a good deal of blood -" she indicated the heavy bandages around Lily's head, "where you had slammed your head."

"Minerva, let the girl speak," Dumbledore told her.

"There - there was honey. And the spiders too," Lily told her foggily. There had been, hadn't there? Her memory was slightly polluted from her lengthy sleep. "And then - I was pushed down the stairs. I don't remember what happened next."

"And who pushed you?" McGonagall pressed.

Lily opened her mouth, about to get Hana in all the trouble she deserved, but paused slightly, to think. She suddenly didn't want the teachers to punish Hana. Merlin knew the girl deserved it, but Lily felt as though she really oughtn't tattle. It wasn't chivalrous, and it looked as though she cared what the girl did. For reasons that Lily could barely explain, the redhead opened her mouth.

"Ha - I - er, I'm afraid I can't remember. I might not have known them at all," she told the teachers.

"Very well," Dumbledore surveyed her through his half-moon glasses. Lily had the odd feeling that he could see what she was thinking. Nervously, the girl wiped Klagensteril's skin from her tightly tucked blankets. "Miss Evans, if you are feeling well enough, you are free to go to your next class."

He gave her a nod and turned toward the door. McGonagall followed suit, though she stared at Lily for a few moments, almost as though she knew whom Lily had saved from punishment.

Much as she would dearly have loved to stay away from Defense Against the Dark Arts, Lily would rather be away from Klagensteril's slightly cooked smell. She clambered into her strangely honey-free robes and bid the Healer goodbye ("Guten Morgen, gering die Hure!").

Then, walking slowly off to class, Lily wondered what stroke of madness had caused her to let Hana off.

She would have liked to say that she thought Hana didn't deserve the punishment she might've received. She have would liked to say that she didn't wish Hana as much - or more - ill than the girl had brought her.

But, much as she didn't want to admit it, the one and only reason that Lily had prevented the teachers from punishing Hana was that she wanted to deal with the girl herself. It wasn't something she was proud of, but Lily suddenly wanted to cause Hana that pain, make the girl suffer at her own hands. It was an uncomfortable feeling, to have such uncontrollable hatred for someone. Lily shuddered and tried her best to think of something else, but the only prospect that came to mind was Hana, and getting reprisal. Sighing and shaking her head at her own folly, Lily pushed open the door to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Miss Evans, you are late," Hurley told her primly. He had never really liked her, probably because of his association with Hana, but ever since she had walked out on the memorable magic-trick class, he had been particularly untrustworthy.

Lily rolled her eyes.

"In case you hadn't noticed, there are bandages covering my head," the redhead explained, a dry note in her voice. She cast her eyeballs up toward the heavy white mass in annoyance. "Maybe the lesser teachers don't find out this sort of thing, but I've spent the last twenty-four hours unconscious in the hospital wing."

"Miss Evans, you do not speak to me like that. I didn't know about your - problems - because I try hard not to involve myself with the students. Five points from Gryffindor for implying that I am a poor teacher."

Lily rolled her eyes yet again. Yes, good old Hurley was still as miserable as ever. Lily sank down in her chair and glanced around the room. Many people were looking at her differently; Amelia Hawthorne was looking at her bandages appraisingly, Brendan seemed less nervous around her than was normal, and Peter wasn't completely avoiding her eye. The redhead took her normal seat next to Lucy and ignored the rest of the lesson (a very long and completely uninformative continuation of the banshee lecture).

"So. Not only a dark witch, but also one who begs for attention," a familiar voice came from behind Lily, once the lesson had ended and the redhead had made her escape.

"Shove off, Thompson," Lucy spat before Lily could reply.

"I wasn't speaking to you, Lucifer," Leanna said primly. Lucy went into such a fit of giggles at her words that she had to lean on Alice, gasping for breath and trying her best to stay upright.

"Lu - Lucifer?" she gasped, once she could breathe fairly normally.

"Yes, Bones, it is a nickname to describe your personality," Sirius' voice joined the throng. Lily looked up at him and was relieved to see that his countenance was deeply amused.

"Beg for attention, do I?" Lily addressed the brunette as though no one else had spoken. "Would you mind telling me what ludicrous scam you are cooking up now?"

"Isn't it obvious? You faked falling down the stairs so that you would get more attention," Leanna announced pompously.

"Shall I remove my bandages so that it can be proved that I actually am injured?" Lily began unwinding the white cloth from her scalp.

"Urgh!" Leanna squealed as Lily's still slightly mangled temple came into view. Madam Klagensteril, a woman of no extraordinary magical dexterity, had been able to do no more than stop the bleeding and give Lily a potion that would heal the wound in a speeded-up rate. At the moment, however, it remained scabbed and distorted.

"Urgh! Ew, put it away!" Leanna continued to squeal, dancing on the spot nervously. She waved her hands through the air and looked completely mortified.

"Good for you, Evans," Yet another person had come into the corridor's hold-up. "You threw yourself down the stairs to make it look like someone had pushed you. Very clever."

"Honestly," Lily felt truly annoyed now. She wasn't going to let Hana twist this situation to her own advantage. "Potter, for your information, I did not 'throw myself' down the stairs. As I have tried over and over to convince you, I do not care what you or your friends," she cast an arm carelessly over Hana, Leanna, and the rest of their followers, "think of me, and therefore care even less for attention. Contrary to what you all believe, I did not have any wish to spend Potions with a severe head injury, no more than I wish to attract more attention from my classmates. I don't care if you consider this fact or not, but I didn't purposely fall down the stairs. I no longer wish to prove this to you, nor do I want to make indictments that remind me so forcefully of your own weak accusations. I will, however, remind you once more that I am eleven years old and hardly capable of what you are suggesting."

She turned and stalked out of the corridor, unaware to the fact that she had, in her anger, used many words that none of James' crowd would comprehend. It would have been helpful if there were a lesson next, so that there would be a destination of her stalking, but the redhead contented herself with moving toward the library. Back in the corridor, there was silence for a few moments before anyone spoke.

"Some people are so contradictory," Hana sniffed. Head held high in the air, she trooped off, quickly followed by her entourage. With the absence of her usual crew of admirers, the hallway seemed a lot larger.

'Lucifer' and Alice glared after them contemptuously, then left the corridor in search of their friend. A few stragglers - Amelia and Brendan, from class, and a number of other students they didn't know - followed the two blonde girls.

"Bonkers," muttered James Potter, one of the few people left in the corridor. "She talks like she's way older than eleven."

"And that's why you like her so much, eh, mate?" Sirius shoved his friend playfully.

"I don't like her!" the hazel-eyed boy turned to his friend, anger replacing the confusion in his voice. "She's stupid and dark arts-loving and acts mature and all-mighty but I know she's not! She needs to act her age and stop telling other people to do the same!"

"All right, all right!" Sirius held his hands up in submission. "Whatever you say."

But Sirius secretly wished that the tousle-headed boy could see his own expression when Lily was anywhere nearby. He shook his head in exasperation and left the hallway, wondering why James was making such a big deal of pretending to hate the girl he couldn't take his eyes off of.

"So."

"More of this? Lily, it's got to stop. This is getting insane."

"Don't you think I know that? I wish it would stop!"

Lucy, Alice, and Lily were sitting at a table in the library, discussing what had happened within the last twenty-four hours.

"Well, you know what we need to do then, don't you?" Lucy asked. Without waiting for an answer, she plunged on, "We need to get back at them. Put them in their place. I'm sick of this, Lily, I am. Life has been really difficult ever since that happened, and it's so stupid! I know that you don't care what everyone else thinks of you, but I don't want to be connected with evilness for the rest of my time at Hogwarts!"

She seemed to have forgotten about the morose state she had held ever since the memorable Quidditch tryouts.

"Well, I'm not making you stay!" Lily told her, temper rising. "Go on, go, and tell them you aren't evil and I am. I don't care."

"Come on, Lily, yes you do," Alice wheedled. "I never thought I'd be begging to break the rules, but we've got to show them! You know that you don't want this around anymore."

"Maybe I don't, but -" Lily couldn't manage to find an excuse not to take out revenge on Hana and Leanna. She thought back to the discussion she had had with herself on the way to Defense Against the Dark Arts. She felt partially glad that her friends had expressed the revenge prospect, and not herself. Feeling as though doing so were sending her to her doom, Lily nodded.

"Marvelous. So, our best plan is to undertake simple, yet effective, plots to bring the Anna Bananas to their doom!" Lucy yelled enthusiastically, earning herself a number of annoyed glances from the students at nearby tables. Lily was happy to see the girl so enthused about something, albeit something potentially rule-breaking.

The three girls spent the remainder of their free period debating small pranks to play on the girls who had made their lives nothing short of living hell. By the time double Herbology was scheduled to start, Lily and her friends had come up with a number of what, in Lucy's terms, were foolproof and ingenious plots. Lily couldn't help but think that what they were doing was childish and unnecessary, but the truth remained that it was more satisfying than anything else.

"Snake root!" Professor Sprout indicated the trays beneath her, and Lily gazed down upon a rather ugly flower with large leaves. The bell had just rang, signaling the beginning of the lesson. "It's native to North America, but the conditions of this greenhouse -" she stared lovingly around, "allow me to procure plants at different times than they would normally flourish. Now, snake root is quite similar to the ginger we have been studying; it does belong to the same family. But there are a few key differences..."

Like every other Herbology lesson, Sprout spent the first minutes explaining the plant. Then, she set up students at tables to interact with the plants. Today, she announced, partners would use careful precision to snip off the larger leaves; apparently, such elements of the plant proved useful poultice for sores and abrasions. Lily wondered if they might help her still-throbbing head.

"I think I'll be choosing partners today, to mix it up a little," Sprout told them cheerily. Lily didn't mind much; Lucy and Alice normally worked together anyway, so Sprout's decision would spare her from having to find someone who didn't mind working with a 'crazed lunatic.' "Mr. Fawcett, you may work with Mr. Pettigrew, Miss Surrideo, please partner Mr. Boot..." she spent the next few minutes pairing up the students. "Ah, who is left now?" she cried over the heads of the class, a good number who were already quite involved in the trimming of their plants. "Alright...Miss Evans, please partner Miss Suzuki, and Mr. Potter, please partner Miss Bones. Get to work, chop chop!" she clapped her hands for emphasis.

Not feeling very pleased with the prospect of joining Hana at a tray of snake root, Lily stalked over to where the girl was sitting.

"Try one of our ideas," Lucy winked as Lily passed her.

A revenge, right in the middle of Herbology? It was easy for Lucy to say, she wasn't the one who would have to carry it out. Unsure of whether her own resolution would be enough to embark on one of the plans she and her friends had come up with, Lily vaulted over the stool next to Hana's.

"Oh, act your age," Hana told her sniffily before picking up a pair of the scissors Professor Sprout had given them.

"What, like you do? Acting like you have a boyfriend when you're only eleven," Lily spoke derisively. She held out the leaf so that Hana could chop it off properly.

"I do have a boyfriend," the girl spoke as though this settled the matter. She shut the scissors with a resounding snap over the leaf Lily was holding, a good three inches from where she was supposed to.

"Careful, Suzuki!" Professor Sprout yelled across the greenhouse from where she was helping Peter Pettigrew to extract the scissors he had dropped into a pot of biting fern.

"Would you like me to take those for you?" Lily asked her angrily. She did not want to lose points in the lesson, just because her partner couldn't manage to operate a pair of gardening scissors.

"I'm perfectly capable of using pruning shears," Hana told her, meeting Lily's eyes with a stare of equal hatred.

"Really?" There was obvious cynicism in Lily's voice.

"Girls, the snake root!" Professor Sprout called across the greenhouse a second time; apparently she had been watching Lily and Hana to make sure that they got back on task.

Lily seized the shears from the grip of Hana's pale fingers.

"Would you mind?" Lily asked after a few moments of sitting there immobile; the Japanese girl didn't seem to want to touch the stem of the plant. After giving Lily another look of pure hatred, Hana reached forward tentatively and grasped the plant's damp stalk.

"There you go, I'm glad that you could figure that out," Lily told her angrily. She picked up the scissors again and leaned forward, about to cleanly remove the plant's excess leaves.

However, at the last moment possible, Hana jerked her arm away from the plant. She was obviously trying to get Lily to make an even larger mistake than she had. Lily, who was already closing the large shears, could do nothing to prevent the loud snap that echoed through the greenhouse. She'd missed the now swaying plant entirely, and instead -

"You horrible, horrible girl!" Hana told her, icy voice rising to a squeal like Leanna's.

Though Lily's pruning shears had missed the plant, they had closed with a snap over the sleeve of Hana's robes. In a panic, the girl wrenched her sleeve from within the shears. A horrible ripping noise was heard, then the entire right sleeve of Hana's robes came ripping off, revealing the length of Hana's arm.

"Those were designer robes!" She squealed again. "I can't believe this - you - you've ruined them!"

Half the greenhouse was watching now, though Lily was pleased to see that there were a number of people looking at Hana, not Lily, with hatred. Silence reigned for a moment or two, then Hana stood up and abandoned all self-control. She leapt onto Lily, knocking the redhead from her chair, and began attempting to fight.

Now, Lily had never engaged in physical battle with anyone - she hated violence, and no one had liked her enough to want to fight her. But, even in her inexperienced state, Lily did process what was happening.

Hana had jumped on top of her, and was trying to pin Lily down by sitting on her legs. Both girls were relatively the same size, but equally tiny, so Lily had very little trouble throwing Hana off. The redhead would have preferred not to fight, but when Hana ran into her with the force of a rampaging hippogriff, she had little choice. Hana obviously didn't want to break her own nails, so she started yanking on Lily's hair, as opposed to punching. Feeling her eyes water with pain - why did she have to wear her hair down today, only the day after she had been allowed to remove her bandages? - Lily tried to twist away from Hana's surprisingly strong grip. This did not prove to be a smart conquest, however, because it only meant that Hana was pulling harder on her hair. Biting her lip against the unwelcome tears in her eyes, Lily turned and aimed a fist wildly at Hana.

She'd never fought before, but her aim was surprisingly accurate. Hana shrieked as Lily's fist collided with her eye, and the hands on Lily's auburn locks loosened as Hana reached up to her damaged iris.

Lily was aware of voices above them, shouting, talking, screaming, and even the worried tone of Professor Sprout's voice, but she was unable to pay more attention. Hana had by now regained the strength of her arms and was pulling on Lily's hair again. The redhead slammed her fist into Hana's stomach - she couldn't reach the girl's face, not now that she had been twisted around. The subsequent groan of pain from Hana allowed Lily to scramble away. She was trying to get away from her mad assailant, but she wasn't fast enough. Hana leapt through the air and pinned Lily to the ground. Before Lily could throw her off, Hana's fingernails scrabbled over Lily's face, surely rupturing the skin in a number of places.

With a strength she did not know she had, Lily kicked Hana off of her own body. When moments ago she would have taken this marvelous opportunity to retreat, Lily's anger now prevented her from anything as sane. She raced across the packed dirt floor of the greenhouse and hit the other girl as hard as she could. Lily managed to throw one last punch at Hana before arms from behind restrained her. Caught up in battle rage, Lily struggled against her captors. She could see Hana doing the same thing. However, someone had the brilliant idea to cool the girls off with the water from within a nearby watering can.

Now dripping wet and cold, Lily's breathing returned to normal. She sank onto a nearby stool and breathed carefully, willing her throbbing scalp to return to its normal state.

Professor Sprout was completely irate.

"What were you doing? Wait until I report you to your head of house, I can't believe you two! Miss Evans, you are one of the best students in this class, what were you thinking? Miss Suzuki, I just can't -" she seemed unable to find words to express her fury. "Look what you've done to my greenhouse! Hundreds of plants, squashed...look at my Burning Begonias! Oh dear..."

Lily was almost frightened to see how angry the normally cheerful Sprout was.

"Professor, I'm so sorry," she spoke quietly.

"Oh -" the professor turned to look at her. "Thank you for apologizing, Miss Evans."

She didn't seem so angry anymore. Lily felt immensely grateful that she had answered so many questions in class, and never strayed from what she was supposed to be doing - not until now, that is.

"Now that this class has been almost entirely wasted -" Sprout began, but no sooner had she spoken than the loud, clanging bell from the castle indicated that class was over. Lily was amazed. An hour and a half, already? A number of students gathered their things and headed toward the greenhouse exit.

"Do not move! DO NOT MOVE!" Professor Sprout screeched, so very unlike herself. Her face, framed by dark, flyaway hair and centered around furious gray eyes, was so frightening that not a student dared move. Those already moving sank quickly back into their seats. "As I was saying," she continued in a far calmer tone. "The lesson has been almost entirely wasted, so as opposed to the two rolls of parchment on snake root, I want ten rolls and a comparison between ginger and snake root, all due next Tuesday! You are dismissed. Miss Evans and Miss Suzuki, I will arrange a meeting between Professor McGonagall and myself, in which you can tell her what you did!"

Everyone left the greenhouse rather quickly after this. Lily, looking back, still felt rather amazed. Professor Sprout had always seemed so nice, so easy going. She made a mental note never to so much as step on one of the plants in the greenhouse.

"Lily! That was brilliant!" Lucy yelled as soon as they were heading up the hill to the castle.

"Well - yes, yes it was, but Lily, are you okay?" Alice was clearly having an inner struggle between worry and excitement.

"Well - my head feels as though I have no hair left, but otherwise, I'm fine. Do I look okay?" Lily answered, smiling at her friends.

"Er -"

Truth be told, Lily did not look okay. There were flecks of blood all over her face from Hana's scrabbling fingernails, and one particularly long scratch across her left cheek. Some of her hair had come out with Hana's pulling, and her robes were muddy and wrinkled from rolling around on the greenhouse floor.

At that moment, however, Hana passed by in front of Lily.

"You look a whole lot better than she does," Alice said, tactfully not mentioning how close the comparison was.

And she was right: Hana's face was a complete disaster. Her thin sliver of a right eye, along with much of the skin surrounding it, was a shade of violent purple. Her nose was slightly squashed and bleeding freely, and there was a deep cut on her lip. The missing sleeve of her robes was nowhere to be found, though her robes weren't as dirty as Lily's.

"I suppose that's an accomplishment," Lily announced after she had surveyed Hana for a moment.

She and her friends laughed, and they headed up toward the castle, so that Lily could clean up a bit.

For the rest of the day, Lily couldn't help but grin. Her scalp might still throb painfully, but she hadn't been worst off in the fight. People weren't all against her, either. Though Hana had done her best to spread around a tale of Lily attacking her bloodily, some had heard the truth. The rest of the day passed quickly and more pleasantly than anything Lily had experienced so far. By the time she had taken a nice long shower and cleaned up her wounds, Lily felt truly uplifted. Her scalp had even stopped burning, whereas Hana's face was very mutated. Sprout hadn't forbidden them from going to the hospital wing, but Lily presumed that Hana would rather suffer than come into any room that contained Madam Klagensteril. Lily felt the same way.

"So, Lily, up for another practical joke?" Lucy asked her, mid-afternoon.

"Another one? Not that the fight was meant to be one...look, Luce, I don't know if this is such a good idea..." Lily told her, still having doubts.

"Come on, it'll be fun. Anyway, it isn't fair if you're the only one who gets revenge on her!" Lucy told her. "Now, we have astronomy tonight, right? Well, I'm thinking we use a classic revenge that I'm sure never gets old, like..."

She proceeded to explain her plan. Lily had her doubts, but Lucy seemed determined, and even Alice was looking forward to carrying it out. The three girls hurried up to their dormitory to take care of Lucy's idea, and spent the rest of the evening doing homework. Before they knew it, it was half past eleven, and Astronomy with the rest of the first years would take place in thirty minutes. The girls walked to the North Tower with their Astronomy supplies, chatting happily and each thinking about Hana's reaction to their plan.

"No moon tonight!" Professor Sidustus called to the students, once midnight had arrived. "It's quite marvelous to survey the stars when the light of our most prominent astrological object is obscured by darkness. Please point your telescopes to the westernmost hemisphere, I want to show you the odd contrast between these two stars..."

Lily let his melodic voice wash over her as she gazed up at the heavens. It sure was beautiful up there. Thinking about its beauty converted her mind to thoughts of the tree she had climbed in the beginning of the school year, as well as erasing any thoughts about Hana from her mind. She looked down toward the tree, marveling in the immensity of the object. Subjects she hadn't thought about for a long time began to pop into her mind, Snape being the most accented. It seemed like ages since she had climbed the tree, and even longer since James had blown up at the greasy-haired boy for calling her a Mudblood.

Lily glanced over at Potter. He was having a good time with his telescope, looking into the forbidden forest instead of where he was supposed to. Snape was a good deal further along the tower-top, greasy hair falling in front of his face as he read a book. Lily did not need to use her telescope to tell that his book involved serious dark material. Lily's eyes moved back down the line, with the intention of gazing through her own telescope, but before she reached her destination, the sight of a hysterical Hana met her eyes. It looked like the revenge, which Lily had nearly forgotten about, had gone into full swing.

Hana and Leanna were leaping about, screaming and creating general ruckus. Leanna, of course, was the loudest - she acted as though she were having a heart attack - but even Hana had dropped much of the calm, collected aura that she normally presented, and was screaming as well.

"What is going on? Girls, girls, calm down!" Professor Sidustus called out.

It was a number of minutes before the girls could be calmed. When finally they had been convinced to sit down on the stone floor, neither would look up.

"Miss Suzuki, Miss Thompson, whatever is wrong?" Sidustus asked, both curious and alarmed at the behavior of the two first-years.

There was no answer; Leanna continued to sob into her hands and Hana put her hands over her face, whimpering slightly.

"Girls! What is it?" the teacher asked a second time. When he still received no answer, he moved forward and pried Hana's hands away from her face.

Everyone around them gasped. Even in the half-light of a few torches, a ring of easily visible pimples ran all the way around Hana's eye, right where she would have been looking through her microscope. The blemishes were huge and red, oily and bulbous. A tear dropped out of Hana's eye and into the lower part of the ring; it was absorbed by one of the spots.

"Oh dear," Professor Sidustus said, clearly trying to avoid looking disgusted. "This looks like the work of Professor Papule's Pimple Producing Paste..."

At these words, Hana collected herself once more.

"She did it!" she screeched, pointing a finger at Lily. "I know she did!"

"What are you talking about, Miss Suzuki?" Sidustus continued in his calming voice.

"She put the paste on my telescope!" Leanna had joined in.

"No, I didn't!" Lily told them. Actually, this was the truth - Lucy had done the actual slathering. "I haven't been anywhere near your telescopes! And I don't even know what that pimple cream stuff is!"

Not again...she'd known the revenge idea was stupid, and now she was being blamed for this! Why, why had she agreed?

"Let me take care of it," Lucy spoke in an undertone as she passed Lily.

Strangely enough, this did nothing to relieve Lily's worries.

"Why do you say Lily did it?" the tall blonde asked Hana and Leanna, her voice now carrying to the entire class.

"Because - she's evil - and -" Leanna yelped, as though she'd never been asked a stupider question.

"It could have been anyone, though," Lucy explained, in a similar tone to Leanna's - as though explaining that one and one made two. "When would Lily have the chance to buy Mr. Pappy's Pimple Cream, or whatever you claim she used? Maybe if it were a curse or spell, because we all know that Lily's a genius, but this is clearly some kind of magical joke product. Were I you, Hana, I would consider the people who would be likely to be involved in a practical joke, not innocent bystanders."

The comment that Lily was an innocent bystander did not go down well with Hana. Her face turned a nasty puce color, and what was visible of her eyes (one was purple and the other surrounded by acne) darkened considerably.

However, before Hana could retaliate, James Potter's schoolbag exploded with a loud 'BANG.' Everyone turned to look at him, watching papers float haphazardly around. Lily could almost see the connection forming behind people's minds: James was a troublemaker, and the very sort of person who would own acne-inducing paste. And sure enough, with a loud clunk, a container of Professor Papule's Pimple Producing Paste rolled out of the mass of blackened cloth. This was the very container Alice had placed there earlier, so as to draw attention away from Lily, the person everyone would connect with such a heinous crime. Lily was amazed - the scheme was actually working - working just like they had planned.

Potter, who was laughing jubilantly at his situation, had not noticed that anything else was going on. Slowly, the presence of over a hundred sets of eyeballs brought him back down to earth.

"Pretty funny, eh?" he spoke when the silence grew too oppressive for his liking. A nervous laugh punctuated his comment. "Simple Dungpowder...took it out of a dungbomb, see? And there's the smell..." he laughed again as the entire class covered their noses. The entire class, that is, not including Hana. She ran forward and slapped James across the face with as much strength as she could manage - which Lily knew was a lot, having fought the girl only hours earlier.

"You - hopeless - jerk!" the girl cried. "Look at my face! And it's your entire fault! You don't even care...you - you're laughing about it!

Bursting into tears of anguish, Hana fled the tower, closely followed by Leanna. Lily wondered if their fear of Madam Klagensteril would be sufficient to convince the girls to walk around with rings of acne on their previously clean faces. She doubted it.

"Wait - what's going on? Hana - what?" James let the normal cool and collected look fall off of his face, to be replaced by confusion. "And what the devil happened to her face?"

"Oh, that's really low, Potter!" A Ravenclaw girl with curly black hair told him. "Acting like you don't know - and you're supposed to be her boyfriend!"

"Yeah - what's your problem, man?" the Black boy Lily recognized as the one who had been standing next to Alice at the sorting - his afro was unmistakable - called out. He had a look of strong dislike on his dark face.

James still looked very confused.

"Students! Please," Professor Sidustus called over the tumult of noise that was mainly insults to James. "If we could get back to Astronomy? Mr. Potter, what you did was very low and degrading. You will stay after class to arrange a detention with me."

Lily didn't concentrate much on the following lecture - a detailed analysis of Mars' curious angle to where the moon would be. Normally, the night sky fascinated her, but she was too surprised that their plan had worked to pay the slightest attention.

"Can you believe it, Lil?" Lucy asked her. Neither of Lily's partners-in-crime were any more interested in Mars than Lily was. "Perfect. Not one flaw. And we got all three of them at once!"

"Brilliant," said Alice.

"It was pretty clever," a new voice - one Lily had never heard before - joined the conversation.

All three girls jumped and looked around for the speaker. Who was it that knew what they had done?

It took a moment for Lily to register the face of who had spoken. A small girl with frizzy hair and big glasses was looking up - remarkably, she was shorter than Lily - at the girls surrounding her.

"How do you know?" Lily asked.

"Who are you?" Alice wondered.

"Why are you talking to us?" Lucy demanded.

Struggling through the onslaught of vocalization, all in the same moment, the girl peered up at them through her large glasses.

"I'm Bretta Bumforth," she told them. "I know you did it because I heard you talking, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out," she adjusted her glasses. "I'm talking to you because it's obvious you aren't capable of what everyone thinks."

"Er..." Lily wasn't sure whether she should be grateful that Bretta didn't think she was evil, or annoyed that the girl figured that she was incompetent.

"It's a compliment," Bretta told her.

"Erm...thanks," Lily said.

"So - er - like astronomy, do you?" Alice made a wild stab at conversation. Clearly, this girl appeared as odd to her as she did to Lily.

"It's interesting," Bretta told her elusively.

"That's - great." Alice smiled uncertainly.

"So, you don't know who we are, do you? I'm Lily Evans -"

"Of course I know that. Who doesn't know of the evil first-year?"

"Er...right. This is Lucy Bones -"

"Everyone knows Lucifer."

"...and Alice Surrideo."

"The girl who fell off the stool at the Sorting."

Alice's face burned.

"Okay, I guess you kind of know us then," Lily told her, surprised at the girl's bluntness. "So you know that we're in Gryffindor."

"Indeed I do. I'm a Ravenclaw, which is a good thing. Brains are far more important than brawn."

"I know that," Lily said, annoyed. Why would this girl think she thought muscle was at all more important than school? But then she realized - if this girl were a Ravenclaw, then she would have seen the fight in the greenhouses. Gryffindor first years shared Double Herbology with the Ravenclaws.

"Well - see you around," Bretta spoke glumly when there was silence for a few moments.

"What's up with her?" Alice asked, staring after the girl's messy hair.

"Bum - forth -" Lucy couldn't contain her laughter. "It's a BUM! Hahaha...a bum - a forward bum! A blunt bum!" she was clutching the wall in an effort to stay upright.

"She was blunt," Lily nodded, her brow furrowed in contemplation while she chose to ignore the laughing of her friend. Bretta was certainly odd - odder than that Snape fellow, and that was saying something.

Astronomy carried on for a number of minutes, though the class was nearly over. When Professor Sidustus told them class was over - no bell rang at one in the morning - Lily was grateful to be free of keeping consciousness. Bretta gave her a small wave as the redhead departed with Lucy and Alice. Lily returned it reluctantly, and hurried back to the dorms. She was exhausted after all that had happened during the day, and looking forward to the comforting slumber before Wednesday truly began.

When she got back to the dormitories, Lily was glad to see that Hana and Leanna had not yet returned from the hospital wing; she wasn't sure if the girls would have decided that she was guilty or if they still believed James was the culprit. Much as she would have liked to share Lucy and Alice's optimism, Lily couldn't help but worry that perhaps the situation had not been dealt with. Before nodding off, the tired first-year implanted one thought in her mind: no matter how enticing the plots of revenge sounded, she would not involve herself in them.

Unfortunately, like many such resolutions reveal, it became very difficult for Lily to keep her word to herself, mainly because of a number of occurrences within the next week.