Comedy/Tragedy: The Story of a Doomed Existence

Chapter Twenty-Six - Professor Dulcissa Unleashed

Potions was, as always, incredibly dull. Lily's nerves, already pulled taut by her anger in the morning and the apprehension she felt for what the Marauders wanted her to do, not to mention the strain of schoolwork, finally snapped about halfway through the class.

"Okay, little ones, can anyone tell me how to skin an Abyssinian shrivelfig? This is a strange sort of plant, or rather the fruit of a plant, or actually the harvested fruit of a plant, that -"

She stopped speaking as Lily stood up. The redhead allowed her stool to clatter loudly on the dungeon's floor, but the noise didn't bother her. She felt a drumming in her temples. She hadn't lost her temper like this for months.

"Miss Evans, if you need anything, please raise your hand and I will come to you at the end of my little lecture," Professor Dulcissa regained her composure quickly. "Ooh! I don't like that word...it suggests I'm as boring as Professor Binns!" she squealed, whispering the teacher's name.

Needless to say, Lily did not comply with her teacher's request.

"Professor Binns is a good teacher," she told Dulcissa quietly.

Strangely, her soft voice carried to all corners of the spacious dungeon. When a few people snorted or made other equally disbelieving sounds, Lily continued.

"At least better than one who repeats the first lesson of the year halfway through! Don't you care how unprepared this is making us? How're we supposed to pass the O.W.L.s in fifth year if we don't start making potions at all until fourth?" Lily asked, her voice strangely steady for all of the anger and hatred that pervaded its every aspect. "Not one of us gets anything out of this. We don't need to be protected! If there is a student who is incapable of making a first year potion, then they will fail the class! That's how school works! You don't carry us the whole way, or whatever nonsense metaphors you use!"

She glared forcefully at the teacher, who was now looking a bit flustered.

"Repeating the lesson?"

"We studied shrivelfigs on the first day of the first term!" Lily shouted, annoyed that the teacher didn't even remember.

"I thought that people needed a bit more practice," Professor Dulcissa explained nervously.

"What do you even do with all the procured materials?" Lily pressed her suddenly.

Maybe she could get the truth from Dulcissa while the woman was flustered.

There was also the problem that, once she was this mad, it was impossible for her to control her tongue. The only difference between Lily's anger now and the anger she remembered from only a few months before was that her voice now stayed a lot calmer. She presumed this was a good thing.

"Other - other students use them," Professor Dulcissa said hurriedly, though she looked strangely worried and her face was curiously flushed for how frigid the dungeon was.

"All of -" Lily began, but she was cut off by a most unwelcome voice.

"Professor, you don't need to listen to her," Hana simpered. She had stood up and was glaring at Lily from her seat beside Leanna. Lily was struck once again by how differently Hana spoke to teachers and students.

"Remember, you are the teacher. She's just a student who is too lazy to appreciate the cleverness and quality of your lessons."

She had earned a warm smile from the teacher she addressed; Lily got a glare.

"That's right, Miss Evans. I set my classes the way they are for a reason. It is not in your place to criticize this. I would ask that you spend the rest of the class period in the hallway, thinking over what you have done wrong."

"Fine, whatever," Lily muttered angrily. She hated this class.

"Tsk tsk..." Rather than click her tongue in the 'normal' way, Professor Dulcissa said the words aloud.

She's such an idiot! Lily thought angrily.

"Miss Evans, always remember, if you have something to say, you can share it with the rest of us or have it removed in a way you would like a good deal less!" she continued.

Lily scowled at her.

"Use a smile, not a frown, for even in sorrow no one likes it upside-down!" Dulcissa squealed. This, like the rhyming phrase before it, did nothing to remove Lily's disgusted expression.

"Now, now, we can't have that! Maybe this will help you," the professor continued. Hana's comments seemed to have overly encouraged her. Lily's mouth fell open in horror as the teacher strode toward her with a witch's hat in her grasp. A particularly tall, particularly pink one.

"If you wear this for a bit, I'm sure that your mind - or something else, maybe - will change your attitude!" And she dropped the hat onto Lily's head.

Lily did not even have a chance to wonder at what Professor Dulcissa meant before a horrible pain spread over her face. She had to dig her fingernails into her palms to stop from screaming.

"Something wrong, Evans?" the teacher smirked evilly.

"No," Lily told her forcefully, though it was now difficult to open her mouth.

"Good," Dulcissa simpered. "Now, hallway?"

Lily stomped out.

Behind her she left puzzled Gryffindors, each trying to disguise disgust behind concern, a pleased Hana, and the Slytherins looking at their Head of House with newfound respect.

The hallway seemed strangely dim after the classroom's stifling fumes of the dungeon (Dulcissa used a bit too much incense, and shrivelfigs did not smell very pleasant). Lily's anger slowly faded to be replaced with screaming pain in her face. She reached up and prodded where her mouth was normally located, and promptly had to disguise a yelp of horror.

Instead of being held in the grim frown that Lily would more likely have after such an experience, the corners of her mouth had been turned up and moved up her face until they were only a few centimeters from the bottom of her eyes. The pink hat, it seemed, had forced her face into an overly done smile, stretching the skin so that her lips split and bled and the skin that normally made up her cheeks was bunched at the corners of her eyes.

Lily was quite positive that she had never experienced this much pain in her lifetime. She was thankful, at least, that she could not see her own face; even imagining how grotesque she probably looked created thousands of revolting images in Lily's mind.

She felt her eyes leak a few droplets of water, though these weren't tears. They were simply sweat, or could be described as what happened when your face was forced into a gigantic smile - or what was, in Lily's case, a grimace.

After she had determined that trying to force her face out of such a position was impossible, Lily spent a long time trying to remove the repulsive hat from her head. But alas, no success could be made. It seemed to have attached itself to her hair in a suction cup-like fashion. So Lily resigned herself to sitting for a long while, ruing many things. Among this long list were herself, Dulcissa, Hana, Potions, Dulcissa, Fridays, Hogwarts, and Dulcissa. Finally, though, the pain in her face began to recede to a slow, pounding ache. By the time the bell rang to end Double Potions, Lily was almost used to her face's painful expression. She began to get up, with the intention of racing away from the classroom as fast as was humanly possible, but she stopped when she realized that her things were still in the classroom. As she waited for the rest of the class to appear, Lily remembered that Dulcissa would undoubtedly want to speak with her about 'her inappropriate attitude' or something of the sort.

With these thoughts in mind, Lily sat back down to endure the rest of the class filing past her. The Slytherins laughed unmercifully, to a point that looked nearly as painful as Lily's own smile. Hana and Leanna glared as they passed, and the rest of the Gryffindors looked as though they were hiding grins of amusement behind apprehensive faces.

When Alice passed, she looked as though she wanted to say something encouraging to Lily, but before she could do so, she stopped and took one look at Lucy, who was walking beside her. The expression on her best friend's face seemed to change Alice's mind and tighten her resolution; she ignored Lily.

The Marauders were properly concerned for their friend, and suggested all sorts of ways to get revenge on Hana and the Potions professor. Lily's favorite was the idea of putting Dungbombs in Dulcissa's hat.

"Just go on without me," Lily managed to tell them. It was very difficult to talk when her faced looked and felt as it did.

Once everyone had vacated the rough stone hallway, Lily reentered the classroom.

"Well, Evans, I have to hope that you learned your lesson," Professor Dulcissa smiled. "You may remove the hat."

Lily reached up and took it off; apparently it could be removed if the teacher had given permission for such to happen.

"Oh, your lips look awful," Dulcissa continued sympathetically. "Here, I think I have a Potion that will help."

Her long fingernails traced over a rack of potions that hung on the blackboard. She hesitated at the potion marked 'Healing' for what Lily presumed was a little too long. The Potions 'Master' apparently felt Lily's accusing gaze, for she looked up and considered the short girl.

"Oh, I'm just not sure which potion is right! Sometimes I get them a bit confused..." she turned back to the rack, completely obscuring it from view.

This place is for the dogs, Lily thought, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. If she hadn't known that she had no choice in the matter of staying, she would have run from the room before Dulcissa could do anything about it. Perhaps it was because she was not paying attention to what the professor was doing that she did not realize that its label read Veritaserum, not Healing.

"Here, dear, just drink a goblet of this," Dulcissa continued. She pulled out a bottle of what looked like pumpkin juice and tapped a lot of potion in to the cup.

Had Lily not been in so much pain, had she not been wanting nothing more than a way to get rid of her bleeding lips, she would have noticed how suspicious Professor Dulcissa was acting.

The pumpkin juice tasted a bit past its prime, but Lily drank it all anyways. But before she could hand the goblet back to the teacher, she felt her mouth go slack and her eyes roll back into her head. She found that she was unable to control her own actions; she dropped the goblet onto the floor with a clatter and sank back into a chair.

Something isn't right.

But Lily's last thought faded away quickly. She turned to face her grinning teacher, the curious expression the pumpkin juice had given her molded onto her pale face.

Devon Dulcissa hopped onto her desk and perched there, facing the body of her class' most disruptive student. The girl's soul had been pinned within her by the deadly and famed Truth Potion, the potion that would force whoever drank it to pour out their deepest and most important secrets to whoever asked them any questions. But Lily Evans didn't know this. She merely stared blankly at her Potions professor.

"Well, Miss Evans, I have to be honest with you: that wasn't a healing potion. It was actually the deadliest truth potion in existence, made by yours truly for this very purpose. But you don't really know that, do you?"

"No," Lily said quietly.

"But now I can find out what I really need to know. You met up with a supporter of Grindlewald's over the Christmas break, did you not?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me, girl!" Dulcissa's face contorted in anger. She reached over to the bottle of Veritaserum and poured more into Lily's mouth.

"Who did you meet over the winter holidays? What evil wizard?"

"A man named..." Lily trailed off, trying to remember. Even in her poisoned state, she could not report something she didn't remember. Perhaps part of her was fighting the potion, or perhaps it was poorly made. Whatever the reason, she simply improvised, and said the name as she remembered it: "Boldfart. Someone named Boldfart."

"Don't be coy with me!" Dulcissa shrieked. But she looked down at Lily's slack expression and realized that the girl must have been telling the truth. "Very well. This Boldfart...what did he say to you?"

"Told me about his transformations. Said he was the most evil wizard ever. Killed Muggles. Threatened me not to tell. Told me I'd regret getting on his bad side." The poisoned Lily spoke in strange partial sentences, her eyes dead and her face lifeless. If the person looking upon her had possessed any heart at all, they would have taken pity on the poor trapped being.

"Transformations? So this could be Grindlewald himself? Oh, my dreams have come true!" Dulcissa smirked. "And where? Where were you when he said these things?"

"Where? In an alley. Went after him to ask what happened after...after..."

"Right," Dulcissa interrupted carelessly. "And what did he do?"

"Showed me his face. Had a struggle between our eyes. Dropped...a ring."

"Eyes? Whatever, I don't want to know. More importantly...a ring?" Dulcissa leaned forward and looked, if possible, even more interested than she had before. "This ring...did you pick it up?"

"Yes."

"Can I see it? Will you give it to me?"

"N-yes," Lily experienced a second struggle of her will against the potion, but even in its poorly made state, it was simply too strong to allow her to fight at all. She fell back into her trance. She held her hand out to Dulcissa so that the professor could see the ring glittering there.

"Perfect." Dulcissa reached out and snatched it from her. The entranced Lily couldn't even feel the pain that Dulcissa's fingernails inflicted on her own pale skin.

"Perfect," Dulcissa repeated. "Did he do anything else? Say anything else?"

"No."

"Was that article true? About you defeating him?"

"No."

"That's all I need to know, Evans. Just one thing left to do...I can't have you remembering this little instance..." she pulled a mahogany wand from her robes and waved it at the slack-faced first-year.

"Obliviate!"

A yawn of incredible size escaped the lips of a girl lying on the cold, hard floor of a dungeon. Her extremely red hair created an odd, almost surreal contrast between the dank dungeon and her own pale face. She yawned again, and then allowed her dark reddish eyelashes to flutter open and reveal her almond-shaped green eyes. At the moment, these eyes were filled with the twinkle of confusion that the girl felt sweep over her entirely. Where was she?

Lily Evans lifted her head from the grimy floor and looked around. She felt rather funny...as though she was floating in some sort of pleasant dew. Her mind felt thick and clouded, as though she wasn't herself. She couldn't remember anything past following the tall witch - Professor McGonagall - into the castle. But then why was she here? And not wet...and not wearing what she had been...she stood up, tenderly, for her legs felt very sore.

A dungeon? That was clearly where she was, and she remembered Alice telling her about Potions taking place in a dungeon.

But that didn't make sense at all! Classes didn't start until tomorrow! What could Lily be doing down here? She would get in so much trouble! Lily leapt up, brushed herself off, and hurried out of the gaping cavern of the room.

As she was closing the door behind herself, she almost smashed into a boy with wild, dark hair and square glasses. He looked vaguely familiar...

"Jack!" Lily exclaimed, excited to see someone she knew. "Jack Palmer, isn't it? I just wanted to apologize...we got off onto a bit of the wrong foot."

She smiled up at him. This was the boy who had pulled her into the lake, whose lap she had unintentionally sat upon, but at the moment he was the only familiar face in the area, and Lily had to figure out where she was.

"Lil? Where've you been?" One of the boy's companions, a boy with black hair that hung into his brown eyes, looked at her curiously. "And why are you calling him Jack?" He gestured at his best friend.

"Wasn't that your name?" Lily was very confused now.

"My name is James," the tousle-headed boy told her, his face contorted in confusion.

"Oh...oh, right," Lily answered. How could she have forgotten? It had only been a few hours, hadn't it?

"Lily?" Another boy added his voice to the corridor's medley. His rather scratchy tone was filled with unsuppressed chuckles, as though he thought Lily were putting on some sort of act.

"Oh, hi Roger. Frankenstein's a good book, isn't it?" Lily asked him, remembering what he had been reading back at the train. She felt as though it would be important to show that she could remember something, and wasn't a complete dolt.

"My name is Remus," he answered from below raised eyebrows. "And I haven't read Frankenstein since the beginning of the first term."

"How'd I get down here?" Lily asked curiously, ignoring Remus' comments in favor of trying to determine why she was currently a part of this strange milieu. "The boats...did they take us here? Hmm, it's strange, I'm not even wet..."

"What is she on about?" the fourth boy in the corridor asked curiously.

"Look, Lily, I don't know what Dulcissa did to you, but we don't have much time! The feast starts in five minutes, and you have to do that thing."

"Be sorted? Yes, I do, we'd best hurry," Lily answered hastily.

Before any of the boys could reply, she was rushing down the hall in the opposite direction from the exit. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter stared after her, amazed. Barely a few moments passed before there was an "OW!" and Lily came back up the hallway.

"A dead end," she said blushingly once she had reached the intersection at which they were congregated.

"James, stop thinking about the party for just a second!" Remus told the tousle-headed boy, who was checking his watch nervously. "Can't you tell something's wrong with her?"

He gestured at Lily, who now sported a bump on her head. She had clearly just walked into a wall, again.

Lily felt a rosy tinge creep over her cheeks. She hadn't meant to do that! She just couldn't control herself as well as she remembered. She had never had a problem with coordination before this. It was almost as if she'd grown without knowing it, but that was impossible!

"I'm fine, but won't be if we don't get sorted soon!" Lily told them impatiently.

"What are you talking about?" The chubby boy, whose name Lily couldn't for the life of her remember, picked at his cheek as he surveyed Lily curiously.

"You're a Gryffindor, Lily, you know that!" Remus chuckled.

"B-b-but...what?" This made no sense at all! The Sorting was supposed to be a big deal; how could these boys already know where she belonged? Unless...

"Oh! I see! So this is the Sorting! A test, to see where I best belong?"

"Yes, Lily, it's the Sorting. We have decided that you are a Gryffindor - no, wait, or better yet - a SNARGLEFARK!" said James' strait-haired friend - Sirius, Lily remembered suddenly. James and Remus scowled at him, but Lily couldn't be bothered - she hadn't noticed that anything had gone wrong.

"Now, we'll go to the Great Hall, and then would you please come back to reality?" Sirius' sardonic voice continued.

"Oh, really? That's great, I can't wait to tell Alice and Lucy that I'm in Gryffindor!" Lily said happily. "Because...the Snarglefark thing was a joke. Right?" she added hastily.

She took Sirius' eye roll as a yes and started away, thankfully in the correct direction this time.

"Sirius? What's going on?" Peter muttered as he watched Lily smash into another wall whilst weaving her way through the hall.

"It's funny; almost as though she's asleep, and thinks she's dreaming," Remus said thoughtfully as Lily stood up and brushed herself off, face brilliantly colored. "That's possible, you know. When people sleepwalk, their eyes are open. And she could be sleep talking too, maybe?"

"That's the most far-fetched explanation I've ever heard," James snorted. "What could have happened to her in Dulcissa's dungeon?" He inclined his head toward the door.

"Maybe we should take a look arou - wait, James, did she say something about those two awful girls - Bones and Surrideo?" Sirius gasped, thinking of the less-than-pleasant terms Lily now held with her previous best friends. "One of us had better accompany her, before she does something foolish."

"Like what?" Peter asked.

"Like talk to them."

"Oh..." James looked longingly at the door and then up the hallway. "Let's all go to supper, then we can come back and poke around, set a few Dungbombs, all that good stuff."

Unanimous agreement preceded a chase through the halls and the difficult mission of preventing Lily from crashing into anything else.