Inevitable

Chapter Twelve

It's Only Fair

It isn't easy to keep your mouth and your mind open at the same time - Anonymous

Lily was on her way to the library to return a book during her rounds late one night when she heard scuffling noises behind a statue she had just passed. Sighing, she backed up a few steps and tapped her foot against the stone floor, waiting for the culprits to emerge. As she had expected, two sixth year Hufflepuffs came out guiltily, knowing they had been caught.

"Josh, Lauren," she said, using her Head Girl voice, "you're breaking curfew. You should get back to your common room. Next time I'll have to give detention."

She watched them make their way down the hall, smiling slightly, thinking of the close calls she had had in past years. She was about to continue to the library when she heard Josh say something, in a loud whisper she was meant to hear.

"It's because she plays favourites," he said. "You'd never see her punishing her boyfriend, James Potter, and he breaks the rules worse than anyone else in the school."

Lily gave a snort of laughter and continued on her way. Everyone knew it was Sirius Black who broke the rules worse than anyone else in the school, although James was a close second. Shaking her head and laughing silently, she continued along to the library.

She was nearly at the end of the hall when she realised that Josh had been right, and this sudden awareness nearly knocked her off her feet. She never had punished James, she hardly even ever told him off. Even before they were dating, when she hated him, she would never do more then give him a warning. Well, scream a warning, but nothing more.

Did she play favourites? Did anyone else think this? As Head Girl she had to treat everyone equally, and Lily took her responsibilities seriously.

Completely forgetting about the overdue book she was carrying and the rounds she hadn't yet completed, she wandered back to Gryffindor Tower, pondering her treatment of other students. She had always thought that she was easy-going but fair. Little things she would let go, she didn't often give detentions, but gave warnings.

After all, she had let them off! She wasn't even going to report them this time.

The idea that she treated James and his friends differently had never occurred to her before, but if others whom she hardly knew could see it, then it might be true.

*

Potions was always an interesting class. For one thing, it was simple in its difficulty - there was little theory, only precise measurements and ingredients. It was also the best time to have a conversation, as Professor Hubert was rather deaf. Lily had dedicated herself to working hard in Potions for the past month; she knew that she would need top marks in the subject to become a Healer. It was nowhere near charms on her list of favourite classes, but she paid close attention all the same.

For the first time in weeks, however, Lily was having difficulty paying attention to what she was doing. Josh's comments the night before were replaying themselves over and over in her head, and she kept glancing at the table where James and Sirius were pretending to work. She was so distracted that she almost dumped her entire pile of dried hazel leaves in her cauldron before she had even added the cobra venom, a mistake that would have made her cauldron explode if Lene hadn't seen her at the last moment and intervened.

"Honestly, Lily," she said. "What's wrong with you today? Pass me the beetles. You've been out of it all morning - didn't say anything at breakfast. You were all in a daze when you got back from Ancient Runes. Here's the measuring glass." Marlene and Lily were both rather skilled in the ability to do about five things at once, Lene continued preparing her ingredients as she lectured Lily.

"I'm just thinking," Lily said. "Is it five drops or five millilitres of water that we're supposed to put in?"

"Millilitres. What are you thinking about? It must be important to keep you so sidetracked."

Lily sighed; Lene would be brutally honest with her, no matter what. "Lene," she said, lowering her voice, "do you think I go easy on some people? Do I play favourites as Head Girl?"

Lene looked up at her quizzically. "Why?"

Lily explained the events of the night before.

"Oh," Lene said, rolling her eyes. "No. Not really. Is widdershins clockwise or counterclockwise? Well, you tend to let James off a lot, but that's completely understandable. Even before you guys were together you were easy on him- there's never proof anyway, so you can't punish him. You're fair, you don't let off Gryffindors as a House or anything."

Lily began to stir her cauldron rather forcefully. "Widdershins is counterclockwise. So you think I play favourites?"

"Not exactly... you just tend to take character into account as well as what they did. No matter what they do, the guys are great, so it's hard to be mad at them. Besides, as his girlfriend you have much better ways - No! don't add that yet - ways of punishing James. The whole school knows you're fair."

"Really?"

"Ninety-eight point seven percent of the time."

Lily began to laugh, Lene could be ridiculous.

So I do favour some people. Well, I won't anymore. I will be completely neutral at all times. She's right though, I know much better ways than detention for punishing James.

"Let's talk about something else," Lene said suddenly. "Do you want to help me pick out the theme colours for my dance?"

Lily groaned. "You still haven't given up on that?"

"Of course not! It's my life-long dream!"

Lily snorted, accidentally chopping her dandelion root much smaller that she had meant to.

"Okay, maybe not life-long. But remember that thing we went to see when I stayed at your house after fifth year? The Muggle pictures thing? With all the girls in those dresses and they made a huge deal out of it... It looked like so much fun!"

Now Lily rolled her eyes. This was not typical Marlene attitude. "Since when is your goal in life to prance around on some guy's arm in a frilly dress?"

"Since I figured out that I'm eventually - no, the roots go in after the tentacles - eventually going to have to stop being a tomboy. Besides, I've never had a preppy dress up day, it'll be fun. I might as well jump in head first, don't you agree?" Lene grinned.

Oh please. She couldn't pull off a preppy dress up if she was being offered a million Galleons and Sirius Black to boot! She'd end up messing up the entire outfit by wearing too much eyeliner, or... one of her hairstyles or something. Hate to tell ya this Lene, but you weren't cut out to be a prep. I will not support her in this, but they're eventually going to have to ask Greg and I, as Head Boy and Girl... What'll I say?

*

Lily was sitting alone in the library, analyzing yet another failed raid, when a shadow passed over her. Quickly she flipped over the parchment and closed her books; she couldn't let anyone see what she was doing.

"Just me," Sirius said, sitting down beside her. "How's it going?"

"Badly," Lily admitted. "None of the mistakes here could have been fixed. It was just a bad turn of events, so I don't know what to say."

"Tell them to let me lead," he said jokingly. "Now come with me, we need your help with something, and have shiny things to give you in return."

"Okay," she said, "but I want the shiny stuff in advance." Lily packed up her bag, thankful for any distraction, and followed Sirius out of the library. He led her up several floors and through a few passages she had never been in before. In the past few months Lily thought she had learned quite a lot about passages in the school, as James never liked to go through the same one twice in a row, but still, there were so many more. Finally, Sirius ducked into an unused classroom.

In the classroom desks and chairs had been pushed up against the walls, save for a large table and two benches in the middle. Around and on this table were James, Remus and Peter. Peter was standing on one of the benches, while Remus crouched down and muttered angrily, and James was watching over it all with an exasperated and thoughtful expression, twirling his wand around.

Lily stopped in the doorway. She had been rather nervous around Remus for the past week and a half, unsure of what to say, unsure of how he felt. He had been very gentle with her, speaking softly, treating her like something that might break, and she didn't think she liked that development much either. Although she kept telling herself that there was nothing wrong with Remus, that he was one of the nicest people she knew, that underlying fact remained. He had tried to kill her. Not that he had meant it - but it had still happened.

"Here she is!" Sirius exclaimed, leading Lily over to the table.

"Good, now I can get down," Peter said, hopping over Remus' head and stumbling a bit on his landing.

Lily looked around at their expectant faces, thoroughly confused. "Why exactly am I here? And where are my shiny things, Sirius?" she asked.

"You didn't tell her?" James asked Sirius, rolling his eyes. "We are in need of your expertise, Lily," he continued. "We need to charm the bench so that no one can touch it, and we're not having much luck. We've got it now so that no one can sit on it, but still stand. What d'you think?"

Lily eyed the table suspiciously.

"Why?" she asked.

"So that none of the Slytherins can sit at their table tomorrow morning," Peter said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"They have insulted us in a way that we cannot forgive," Remus added.

"And we must have our revenge," Sirius said dramatically.

"Please help us..." James pleaded. "We'd get it eventually of course, but we know you know how, so your help would make it so much easier."

Lily opened her mouth to tell them what to do, but then voices intruded into her thoughts. "You'd never see her punishing her boyfriend, James Potter, and he breaks the rules worse than anyone else in the school." And Marlene's comment from the day before, "Even before you guys were together you were easy on him..."

"No," she said. "You can't sabotage the Slytherin's table. It's completely against the rules. All of them couldn't have insulted you; you don't have to do anything flashy to get even with Snape."

Four sets of wide eyes stared back at her.

Sirius cleared his throat. "But we have shiny things," he pleaded comically.

When she shook her head again, James led her out of the classroom and into the hall.

"Lily," he whispered, "please will you help? Think of how funny it would be. No one would think you did anything, and no one can ever prove that it was us." He stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and nuzzling her neck.

"I already told you," she said firmly, trying to turn her head to face him and ignore that warm, fuzzy feeling. "I will not help you and you shouldn't be doing this. If you do anything to the tables in the Great Hall, I'll have to give you all detention."

"No you won't," James said, laughing, burying his face in her hair, making it very difficult for her to stay firm.

She stepped away and turned to face him. "Don't do anything, or I won't speak to you for a week," she commanded before walking away, leaving a very confused James Potter behind her.

"Unfair tactics!" he called to her back.

"Look who's talking!" she called, without pausing or turning her head.

*

Saturday morning Lily got up at six o'clock and went down to the Great Hall alone. Luckily, she was the first to arrive, and the Hall was completely empty. Blinking sleepily, Lily pulled out her report for the Order and began to read over it while stirring some brown sugar into her porridge.

Half an hour later she had almost completed it, but was forced to put it away as some students began trailing in for breakfast. The first Gryffindors to arrive were those she wanted to watch carefully: James, Sirius, Remus and Peter. They sat down around her silently, looking completely innocent, if not very sleepy.

"Good morning," Lily said brightly.

"G'morning," they replied together.

James gave her a quick kiss as he sat down, but displayed no sign of guilt.

As they ate, Lily tried to see if their glances went over to the Slytherin table more often than usual, but they all kept blank expressions.

When Lily had finally decided that they hadn't, in fact, done anything to the Slytherin table, she stood up, on her way back to her dormitory for some more sleep. Then something happened that made her choose to stay a bit longer: a group of five Slytherins came through the doors, and simultaneously all four boys' heads raised. Sitting back down, Lily watched the Slytherins carefully as they made their way to their table.

At first it seemed that there was no problem, they stepped over the bench with no difficulty. It was as they sat that it happened. All five were shot three feet in the air and landed behind the bench. They stood up angrily, and one of them tried again, with the same results.

The boys around Lily were almost doubled over in silent laughter.

Lily was furious. She stood up, grabbed a handful of James' hair, right against his scalp, and marched out of the Great Hall. James was forced to follow, bent double, and where James went, the other three went.

"How could you," she said between gritted teeth.

"Once we figured it out it was simple," James said proudly, straightening up and rubbing his head once she had released him.

Sirius nodded. "I can't wait to see Avery try."

Lily took a deep breath, willing herself not to shout. "Detention tonight, all of you. I'll tell Professor McGonagall to expect you," she said curtly.

They looked outraged.

"Argh..." Remus growled, turning back into the Great Hall, Peter scampering after him.

"You're not serious," James said in disbelief.

Lily simply glared back. How could they do this! How could they force me to do this!

Sirius threw up his hands and walked away. The Entrance Hall was becoming more crowded, but James stayed to argue.

"Lily, you can't do that to us," he said.

"Yes," she said, "I can. I'm Head Girl, remember? I warned you yesterday. It's your own fault that you didn't listen."

"You won't give us detention, you're my girlfriend, you wouldn't do that!"

"Oh, is that how you see me?" Lily's voice began to rise in volume, unaware of the people pausing to watch on their way to breakfast. "A way to get out of trouble? Well, don't I feel special now."

"That's not what I -"

"I can't live up to any of my responsibilities if it gets in your way! I'm just some sort of trophy to you - I'm Head Girl so it makes that Quidditch Captain title you love so much look better!"

"Lily-"

"I can't believe you!" She spun on her heel and stormed up the staircase, on her way to sleep off her anger.

"Lily," James called to her retreating back. "Come on Lily! That's not what I meant and you know it!"

*

"You know that's not what he meant," Pat said consolingly.

"I don't care."

Lene shook her head. "You have a habit of taking things the wrong way, you know that? Of course, James has a habit of saying stupid things..."

"I don't care. They expected me to ignore what they did just because of him."

"I hate to tell you this Lil," Lene said, "but they expected you to ignore what they did because that's what you've always done. James had nothing to do with it, well, very little anyway. You've never actually punished them before, just yelled."

"How could they do that? It's a horrible joke!" Lily hit her pillow as hard as she could. Once she had returned to her dormitory, sleep was no longer an option as Lene and Pat interrogated her.

"Come on," Pat said, "Let's go for a walk around the lake, you can cool down."

Lily nodded, a path had been made around the lake and it was quite pretty with all the snow and ice in the trees. When they got there, however, she saw none of this beauty; she was starting to feel bad for what she had said.

I do tend to over-react. I know I know, she said to that little voice in her head (which sounded a lot like her mother), the one who does the most talking is the one in the wrong. You've told me a million times!

"I was really stupid, wasn't I?" she said quietly.

"Aw, don't worry about it," Lene said. "He shouldn't have said that, or at least, he should have worded it differently."

Pat scowled at Lene. "I think you should go apologise, Lily. It's almost Valentine's Day, you don't want James mad at you."

It was Lene's turn to scowl. "Why? Do you think Lily's so shallow that she'll give up her pride for a gift? So she over-reacted a bit, that doesn't mean she should go begging for forgiveness. James still shouldn't have done that to the Slytherins, he can't expect her to ignore something that big."

Lily felt more confused than ever as her friends began to argue. Pat had a point, Lily was wrong, so she should apologise. Lene also had a point, she was not going to let James walk all over her, he did expect her to ignore it when he broke rules.

"Will you two just shut up!" she said finally. "I feel bad enough without you fighting because of me."

Lene grinned. "I have the best idea, it'll make you feel lots better!"

"What?"

"Let's go to the kitchens and eat ice cream."

Lily grinned. "Hot fudge sundaes..."

Pat licked her lips. "Mmm... I can taste the whipped cream now."

"Ew!" Lene exclaimed. "You don't put whipped cream on hot fudge!"

"Yes you do!" Lily and Pat said together.

"With a cherry and peanuts," Pat continued.

"No peanuts," Lily said, wrinkling her nose.

"Yes peanuts, no whipped cream." Lene started running back up to the castle, Lily and Pat scrambling after her, their feet slipping occasionally on the icy snow.