A Change of Heart

Grave News

"I'm not getting the spell right, obviously. I don't know what I'm doing wrong," she whined looking frustrated.

"I think it's your wand movement," James said lifting himself from the desk he was leaning against.

"What about it? Professor Munin said all one had to do was flick their wand at the object one was aiming at," she said without understanding.

"You're not flicking Lily, you're trying to poke someone's eye out!" he said with a small chuckle. She gave him a sour look and his smile got broader. He loved it when she got frustrated. "Here let me show you."

He stood exactly behind her and put his left hand on her shoulder and his left hand on hers, gripping her wand with her. She felt a small flutter in her stomach at the touch but ignored it. Slowly he motioned the movement for the spell, telling her to try it with him. The words 'destruccio' came from Lily's lips and the little box they had set to practice on blew up. Lily jumped around happily at the sight of her destruction while James looked at her amused.

"I can't believe I did it! I think that's the most successful spell I've had so far!" she said smiling broadly at James.

"I reckon you would've been able to do it earlier if you hadn't kept asking about the history behind each spell," he said laughing.

"Oh shut up! I like to know everything there is to know about what I'm studying," Lily said still grinning.

"I think you just wanted to make sure I knew it, to see if I was fit to teach you," said James raising an eyebrow in her direction.

"Well, in all truth, I've never really seen you pick up a book. I just wanted to be certain you knew," she said looking embarrassed.

"It's okay, I mean, I know I'm not the first person you connect with studying. I do pay attention even though it doesn't seem like it," he said looking around the classroom.

"It's not any harder than transfiguration," James said as they were gathering their books signaling the end of the tutoring lesson.

"Says you. Even I know that it's your favorite and possibly best subject," Lily said smiling. "I like defense against the dark arts, I really do, but regrettably it's not my best subject."

"Well, we'll change that," he said giving her a brilliant smile.

"Hopefully," she said happy about how much she had learnt already. She had actually rather enjoyed herself studying with James. He had been very understanding of her confusion and had explained all the things she hadn't understood with the utmost patience. She was almost sad to go as she had enjoyed his company so much. "When is the next class Professor Potter?"

He gave a slight chuckle and grinned at the name. "I don't know how much I like the idea of being a professor... so much responsibility."

"You mean like your Head Boy responsibilities?" she said. She regretted as she said it, his smile faltered, probably remembering what she had said nearly two hours ago.

"Yeah, like that..." he said giving her a weak smile.

She gave him a sympathetic look and smiled hoping to show him there was no remorse from her behalf. "I'm sorry about earlier. I do seem to have a big mouth don't I? I just thought--and you wanted to know---it wasn't my place to say--"

"It's alright, I'm a big boy Lily, and I can take constructive criticism. Besides, it's not like you were wrong," he said avoiding her eyes.

"But maybe I am wrong. I never knew you could be as pleasant as you were these last--" she looked down at her watch and grinned. "Two hours? Wow, that did not feel like two hours!"

"You're right, all those questions made it seem like five hours!" he said jokingly.

She smiled at the joke and gave him a soft friendly push as they walk together out of the classroom.

"So are you always this mean to your friends?" Lily said as they walked to their common room.

"Only to the ones I tutor," he said smiling. He had never imagined he would be where he was then, walking to the common room, and beginning a friendship with the girl of his dreams.

***

"So let me get this straight, Potter, James Potter is your tutor?" Sarah said looking absolutely amused.

Lily simply nodded absentmindedly still looking at her charms book, apparently completely transfixed in what it was that she was reading. In all honesty, she was trying to keep from looking at her friend's shocked faces after she had told them the news. If she appeared distracted, maybe they wouldn't tease her so much.

"How come you're so calm about this? I thought you said you hated him," Hannah asked curiously.

Lily finally looked up at Hannah's words. "Hate is an extremely strong feeling... I don't think I said I hated him."

"Oh yeah you did Lily, if I recall correctly you said that he was, what was it Hannah?" Sarah said smiling widely now that Lily had finally torn her eyes from the book.

"Lets see, you said and I quote, that he is insufferable, stupid, an idiot, a bully, completely unbearable, a humongous git, a bloody jerk, a hateful moron, and as bad as Malfoy. Mind you I don't think there's any worse insult as that... did I get them all?" Hannah said counting each insult with her fingers as she went along.

"I think you're missing a few," Sarah said giggling.

"I think you are..." Lily said thoughtfully. She snapped from her thought as she looked at her friends. "Well, I was a bit harsh, I admit it. I still think he's not all that great, I mean, he was still a bully for the longest time, but he was very civil during tutoring and very considerate."

"So are you two friends now?" Hannah asked confused.

"We're on speaking terms," Lily said plainly.

"Does Sirius know James is tutoring you?" Sarah asked curiously.

"I don't know actually. I haven't seen him since dinner last night," she said sighing. "I think I'll go look for him before I go to bed. Besides I need to ask James when we have the next tutoring session. "

"It's late, isn't it past your curfew?" Sarah said teasingly.

"Well, Daya and Aurora aren't here yet either are they?" Lily shot back as she walked out of her dormitory. She heard vaguely as Sarah sent a raspberry her way and she became somber as she walked downstairs. She needed to ask the boys if they had any information about the mysterious teacher.

***

That night, Lily didn't get much information from the boys. They refused to tell her if they had done anything yet. Sirius had been having one of his confused moments, while James and Remus claimed that there was nothing at all to say. A week later, they still had no news. The owl that Remus' friend had sent listed the teacher's name, none to which they could even think to connect the name Kyrie. Halfway through the week, the boys finally decided to tell Lily of their initial plan of action in one of their late night meetings. While Lily had objected to the time and place of the meeting, the common room had been the only place where they surely wouldn't get in trouble. The boys had suggested meeting outside the common room, somewhere outside the castle even, but Lily had fatly refused. Since they couldn't have a good secret conversation with all the people listening in any earlier than 11, they had decided upon midnight.

Lily waited until her other four room mates had gone to bed until she made her way out of bed. She carefully put on her night robe and tiptoed her way towards the door. She was careful to make as little noise possible as she opened the squeaky door out of the dormitory, but heard a slight squeak at which she herself winced. She heard a rustling of sheets and stood still for a moment, hoping it wasn't one of her friends waking up. After a moment of absolutely no movement or noise, she convinced herself that no one had woken up and soundlessly made her way downstairs.

The boys were there already, in their night clothes, obviously waiting for her.

"Took your time," James said jokingly as Lily approached them.

"You might all be experienced in sneaking out late at night, but I am not. I don't suppose you woke Frank up with those squeaky doors," she said annoyed.

"He's used to it now. During most of first year he would wake up to just about any noise we would make, but I guess he got used to our raucous. He doesn't even move at the loud sounds anymore," Sirius said good-naturedly.

"I think that's because he wears earplugs now Sirius," Remus said smiling.

"He wears earplugs?" James said looking surprised as well.

"He's a rather light-sleeper actually," Peter said amused.

"Aren't we self-centered?" Lily said smiling smugly at both boys. She made her way to the chair Sirius was sitting in and sat on the arm of the chair, running her hand through his hair. Unlike the several confusing times earlier that week, Sirius looked perfectly normal for a change.

James looked a bit jealous at the motion but plainly cleared his throat, making everyone's attention turn to him. "We sent an owl to a friend of Remus'", James informed her as the five of them sat down in the darkest part of the common room.

"When? Today?" Lily asked now looking focused.

"No, last weekend, on Sunday," Remus cleared up fixing his eyes on Lily.

"Why didn't you tell me this before when I asked?" Lily said mildly annoyed.

"Because you wanted to know if we knew anything yet. That's the point, we didn't, and we still don't know," James said retrieving a piece of parchment from his pocket. "Alice works in the Ministry and Remus asked her if she could give us a list of full names of female teachers that work here at Hogwarts."

He unfolded the parchment and handed it to Lily.

Remus,

These are the names you asked me to retrieve for you. I hope they help you in whatever it is you're researching. Take care and say hello to Frank and the rest of the marauders for me.

Alice.

Ms. Isadora Iris

Mrs. Ariadne Hydra

Ms. Aine V. Ammit

Ms. Deadren Rhea

Ms. Lycia E. Shiva

Lily eyed it curiously reading the names in the list recognizing them as the teachers she had known for the last few years at Hogwarts. It was hard to believe that one of those teachers was a traitor, someone who had taught them, and yet was in league with something that went against what Hogwarts and Dumbledore stood for. It occurred to her that, like James had said before showing her the list, they indeed had nothing to go on.

"So I guess the option we have to consider is that, whoever this teacher is, they have an alias," Remus said thoughtfully.

"Well, there's more to these people that we need to know besides their names," Lily said thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?" Peter piped in curiously.

"Well, what are these initials? Professors Shiva and Ammit both have them, we need to take into account that they could be the source of the name 'Kyrie'," Lily explained.

"They don't start with a K," Peter said dumbly. (Can you tell I hate him?)

"Obviously Peter!" James said annoyed.

Remus held in laughter while Sirius shook his head and chuckled lightly. Peter just blushed and muttered a silent apology for his momentary silliness.

"Leave it to you Wormtail," Sirius said softly.

"Oh stop laughing you lot! Let's focus---what else was I going to say?" she said giving the three laughing boys a glare. "That's right, the time."

"What time?" Sirius asked now looking confused.

"How long have all these women taught here? That's a factor that needs to be taken into account. I mean, our suspect is most likely to be those who have been here at Hogwarts the shortest amount of time."

"Very true," James said thoughtfully. "Well, we discarded McGonagall and Sprout form the get-go, they couldn't possibly be Death Eaters. They've been here forever!"

"That's right and then we have Professor Iris who, out of that list has been here the longest," Remus contributed.

"I think I know where this is going..." Sirius said glancing at the list that was still in Lily's hand. "We're only going to be left with Ammit and Shiva."

"And just our luck," James said looking now frustrated. "We're going to have to write to your Alice again Remus."

"That might take another week," Sirius said annoyed.

"We'll just have to be patient," James said irritated. "I hate that. There must be something we can do. At least we have more than what we started with."

"But what can we do? We don't know the name, we don't know who it is that we're looking for," Peter said frustrated.

"James is right, we have more than what we started with. We don't know anything about Professors Ammit and Shiva, and maybe it's time that we get to know our teachers a little bit more," she said, green eyes glinting.

She had an idea, but before she could even open her mouth to say it, they heard a sound coming from the stairwell leading to the girls' dormitories.

"Ouch! Hannah, get off!" a voice came from a mess of black and dirty blonde hair.

Lily rose from her seat swiftly and rushed to find her two best friends sprawled on the floor. The boys followed quickly and helped in getting them untangled and standing. Lily just looked at them with a dumbfounded look. They wouldn't be happy about not knowing of her late night meeting. They wouldn't be happy not knowing what had happened a week ago or that she had lied about what had happened the night she had gone looking for Sirius with James. She gulped as she fixed her emerald green eyes on her sulky friends.

"What's going on Lily?" Hannah said looking confused. "You sneak out in the middle of the night to meet with the mischief makers when we know how much you hate causing mischief and getting in trouble. Then we come down here and you're talking about investigating teachers and suspecting McGonagall and Sprout of being Death Eaters! What is going on here?"

Lily just stood there quiet, lacking words to explain what it was that she was doing with the four boys she would've never be caught spending any time with, especially not at midnight.

"Lily come on, you're gonna have to tell us what's going on," Sarah said as a matter-of-factly.

Lily dreaded opening her mouth to explain the situation but they didn't have to wait long. As James was about to open his mouth and explain for Lily, an owl pecked the window like crazy. Peter rushed to open the window for the desperate-looking owl, who as soon as he flew in, dropped an envelope in Sarah's lap. The envelope bore the Hogwarts seal and as everyone looked in confusion, Sarah tore open the envelope to pull out a piece of parchment.

Ms. Bones

It's imperative that you head to see Professor Dumbledore straight away. I will be up to the common room to take you to his office within minutes.

Professor McGonagall.

The letter had been written in a hurry and as Sarah finished reading the letter out loud, the group of teenagers started questioning Sarah about the possibilities of the letter and its urgency. After a few minutes of 'I don't know' responses from Sarah, they heard the portrait open and Professor McGonagall came through the whole in the wall, obviously surprised to see so many people out of bed. She, however just gave the other students a curt look, and with a soft voice and sympathetic look, directed to Sarah, "There are grave news Professor Dumbledore needs to speak to you about." Sarah nodded looking confused and worried, but by the time she turned to look back at Lily and Hannah, she was already being guided out of the common room by McGonagall towards Dumbledore's office.