The Rise of Terror

Chapter 4: Wands

**********

"What have we here?"

Lily stiffened and slowly turned around to confront the voice of her dream with a look of badly concealed horror on her face. She looked up into the cold, grey eyes of a man who had faced many hardships. He was young, only about twenty five years old. He had a long, thin, raised scar across his right cheek that started from the outside corner of his eye and ended at the corner of his mouth. He was wearing a black robe over a black clothes which, when coupled with his black hair, made his pale skin seem unnaturally white. Despite the warmth of the day, he had a maroon cloak draped across his left shoulder, concealing his left arm.

Lily shuddered involuntarily as his eyes seemed to see through her. His face was a mask of indifference. Lily searched, but couldn't detect any human emotions anywhere on his face or within his eyes. He made a strange disapproving noise in the back of his throat and looked away from her. Lily felt like she had failed an important test.

"New students? Who are you?" he asked harshly.

"L-Lily, sir," Lily stammered.

"Surely you have a last name, or are your parents barbarians?"

Lily was shocked by his rudeness, but his countenance evoked such fear in her that she lowered her eyes and said quietly, "My name is Lily Evans, sir."

"Hmph!" he replied, still inspecting her. "You must be a Muggle-born," he commented with scorn.

Lily looked at him with confusion.

"Of course, you wouldn't know what that means, would you," he added with visible disdain.

By that time, the boys had finished paying for their purchases and started to walk toward the girls when Sirius suddenly noticed the man.

"Mr. Jacane!" Sirius exclaimed.

The man turned and spotted Sirius and he smiled a half smile.

He's actually kinda handsome when he smiles like that, Lily thought. Ew! No! He's a rude, evil man with absolutely no feelings.

"Sirius, it's been a while," he replied, walking over to shake Sirius's hand. "I hear you're going to Hogwarts this year."

"Yes, sir."

"Then I'm sure you'd be happy to know that I'm going to be your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this year."

"My parents would be very happy."

"Yes, of course. How is your mother?"

"She's fine, I suppose."

"And how is your dear brother? I hear he is doing very well at the village school," Mr. Jacane said with a sly smile.

"Yes, he's doing very well, too." Sirius was steadily getting discouraged by this discussion that was veering away from him.

A lady dressed in purple robes came up to Mr. Jacane and handed him a package saying, "Here are the robes you ordered last week, sir."

"Thank you," he replied. He paid for his purchases and turned back to Sirius. "Well, I must be off now. I shall see you at the beginning of your school term." He shook Sirius's hand again and ignored the others. The easy manner he had had with Sirius was immediately replaced by his previous indifferent expression.

Turning swiftly enough to make his cloak billow around him, he left.

The children stared after him for a few moments before Lily asked, "Who was that?"

Sirius merely replied, "He's an old family friend." He walked out of the store with James and Anthony following, leaving a very confused Lily and Jules.

**********

Since their parents were getting their books, they passed the book store and split up. James, Sirius, and Anthony decided to make a stop at the joke shop while Lily and Jules continued on to a small antique jewellery store.

It was dark and slightly dusty. All the jewellery was contained in glass cases scattered randomly around the shop and were categorized by stone and colour.

"Did you know who that man was?" Lily asked Jules as they browsed.

"Nope, I've never seen him in my life," Jules replied.

"He seemed pretty scary to me. And just think, he's going to be our teacher in a little over a month."

"I think we should be careful around him. He seems the type to take off house points at the slightest provocation."

"House points? And what was that class he said he's going to teach?"

"The class he's going to teach is Defence Against the Dark Arts. It's class that's supposed to teach us about the different types of dark creatures and dark arts along with how to defeat them. House points are basically a reward system. In the beginning of your first year, you're sorted with other people your age into four houses. They sort of become your second family while you're away from home. You earn or lose points based on your performance in school and in classes. The houses compete each year to earn the most points. That house wins the house cup. There is also a Quidditch cup. I'll lend you my copy of Hogwarts: A History later. You could probably learn more about the classes and house points there."

"Oh, thanks," Lily said, trying to absorb all the information. "What's Quidditch?"

"Oh, that's a magical sport played on brooms. That's about the best explanation I can give you. If you want to know anything more, you should ask Sirius or James."

They browsed among the cases in companionable silence for a while. Eventually Jules remarked, "We better leave and head towards Ollivander's to get out wands. Our parents are probably wondering about what's taking us so long."

Lily and Jules had each decided to buy a beautiful pair of dangling earrings that matched their eyes. They made their way across the dusty store and paid for their purchases. The earrings were surprisingly cheap.

They picked up their purchases and turned to quickly leave the store. They weren't looking where they were going and ran into a person carrying many packages who was trying to enter. They all fell on the floor in a heap with their packages scattered on the floor.

Lily and Jules looked up to see who they had knocked over. It was a woman who looked to be somewhere in her late twenties. She was harshly beautiful with pale blue eyes. Her golden blond hair hung in loose, silky curls that cascaded halfway down her back. Her eyes were outlined thickly in black eyeliner and her robes matched her eyes.

"We're so sorry," Lily and Jules both said trying to help the lady pick up her packages.

"Oh, don't worry about it," the lady replied. Then she noticed their Hogwarts letters that had fallen. "Will you be attending Hogwarts this year?"

They finished picking up the packages.

"Yes, we're first years," Jules answered proudly.

"Congratulations," she said. "My name is Aunet Tiane. I'm going to be the new potions teacher this term, so it'll be like we're all first years!" She smiled at them.

Suddenly Lily exclaimed, "Oh no! We have to go now! We're meeting our parents at Ollivander's and they're probably wondering where we are."

"Well, it was nice meeting you," Aunet called as Lily and Jules ran out of the store.

**********

Lily and Jules arrived at the entrance of Ollivander's wand shop before anyone else. Lily took this as a chance to examine the store. An old wooden sign flapped above the door. It read:

Ollivander's

Makers of Fine Wands

Since 382 BC

It was small and relatively shabby. In a dirty window, Lily could see a faded purple pillow on which a single wand rested.

After a few minutes, the adult Potters and Evans, along with Petunia, walked up to the store. The women and men were talking animatedly with each other. They were all burdened with stacks of books. Petunia followed a little ways behind with a large scowl on her face.

"Let's get this over with," Petunia complained. "Mum, can we go shopping when we go home?"

"Not today. Maybe some other time," her mother replied distractedly before saying to Mrs. Potter, "All of this is so fascinating. We need to get together for tea sometime and talk."

Mr. Potter remarked, "I see James isn't here yet."

As if he had been summoned, James, along with Sirius and Anthony, ran up to them and skidded to a halt.

"We're here," James panted breathlessly.

They walked into the store and Lily was immediately attacked by a vicious case of coughing and sneezing from the incredible amount of dust covering everything. The layer had to be at least a half an inch thick.

Lily looked around in wonder at what must have been thousands of cardboard boxes that lined the walls and were stacked in random places around the shop. In a corner, almost completely hidden, a flimsy wooden chair was near collapsing under the weight of more boxes.

Suddenly, a rather short old man with eerie, large round eyes walked out from behind a stack of boxes and greeted them. "Ah, more first years. I'm Mr. Ollivander. Please, come this way and let me find a wand for you."

All the children stood in a row at the direction of Mr. Ollivander. He set magical tape measures on them that immediately started measuring them while he grabbed wands from random boxes.

At a word from Mr. Ollivander, the tape measures dropped to the floor. He shoved a wand into each of their hands. "Give them a wave," he said.

They all waved their wands. Boxes exploded all around the store.

"Switch!" he commanded. When no one moved, he clarified, "Switch wands with the person on your left."

They switched and swished the wands again. The tip of James's wand erupted into red and gold sparks that sprinkled the floor before disappearing.

"Ah, very good, very good," Mr. Ollivander commented. "Mahogany, eleven inches, pliable, excellent for transfiguration."

The rest continued to switch and swish until Lily was the last person left.

Mr. Ollivander walked over to the window and took the wand off the faded purple pillow and handed it to Lily.

"This is the last wand made by my father," he said.

Lily took it reverently and gently swished it. Green sparks shot out of the end and gracefully fell to the floor.

"Yes," Mr. Ollivander said to himself. "Interesting. Willow, ten and a fourth inches, swishy, very nice wand for charm work."

Lily stared at her wand, excitement rising inside her at the thought that she now had a wand. This is really happening, she thought, this isn't just a dream.

The adults paid for the wands and decided to continue their wandering among the shops. Lily dropped her packages with her parents and followed the rest of the children to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour for a treat. Petunia was nowhere to be seen, but no one noticed.

*********

"I bet you the girls would be too scared to go into Knockturn Alley. It's supposed to be a very scary place," James stage whispered to Sirius and Anthony. Lily was trying to ignore him, but he had piqued her interest.

"Definitely," Sirius whispered back loudly. "I mean, with all the Dark wizards and scary stuff there, they wouldn't last two minutes."

"My uncle once went in and never came back," Anthony added.

Lily and Jules turned around. Jules said, "Of course we won't go, it's too dangerous and Mum would kill us so stop trying to make us."

"How about it, Lily?" James asked, ignoring Jules. "I bet you can't spend five minutes in there."

He pointed to the alley that was situated between two buildings. It was dark and did, indeed, look very scary. But Lily Evans never turned down a bet.

"On what terms?" Lily asked.

"Don't do it Lily!" Jules exclaimed.

They both ignored her.

"Loser buys sweets for everyone."

"You're on."

They shook hands with Jules, Sirius, and Anthony as witnesses.

Lily looked into the dark and dirty alley. She took a deep breath and walked in. All the shops were old and falling apart, but there were a lot of people. Very scary people. An old woman suddenly stood in front of Lily and asked, "Would you like to buy some newt brains?"

Lily screamed and turned to run back the way she had come, but she couldn't find see the other alleyway. She was lost.

She was unbelievably scared. She had a wand, but she didn't know how to use it. Little good that does me, she thought. I'll just find some nice person who will tell me how to get out of here.

With this thought, she started to purposefully walk the street looking for someone to ask. She didn't find anyone. She turned into another part of the alley and ran into a man and a boy. The boy seemed to be in his late teens. They both had white blond hair.

"Hi," Lily began nervously. "Could you tell me how to get back to Diagon Alley? I think I'm lost."

The man laughed. "You must be a Mudblood. Only Mudbloods wouldn't have the sense to know not to come here," he scoffed.

Lily started to have a bad feeling about this.

"Father, she doesn't know what that means," the boy giggled.

He shouldn't giggle. An evil laugh I would have expected, but a giggle? Lily thought.

"I think we'll have to teach her a lesson. A Mudblood is a Muggle-born witch or wizard, the filth of the wizarding world. They are a stain on the wizarding community and should be eliminated. You are a Mudblood, filth, and scum. I am ashamed that my son will be going to school with you," the man sneered with such obvious loathing that Lily started to cry.

Lily ran. She ran as far and as fast as she could, the man and his son's laughter ringing down the alleyway behind her. Lily was crying at the man's cruel words, at James for making her go into the alley, and at herself for not standing up to the man.

She was crying so hard that she didn't see where she was going. She didn't notice that she had run out of Knockturn Alley and was in Diagon Alley, where she was safe. She didn't look up until she had run headlong into someone standing in the street.

"I'm sorry," Lily sniffed, her face red and puffy and wet with tears.

"I'm fine," the boy she had run into said. "Are you okay?"

"NO!" she wailed, her tears pouring out again.

"Come here." The boy led her to a bench. "Tell me what's wrong."

Lily looked closely at his face through her tears to determine if he would make fun of her and if she could trust him. He was tall and thin, with light brown hair. He had a little patch of abnormally grey hair above his right eyebrow. His eyes were also brown, and very kind and comforting. His clothes were a little on the worn side, but relatively well taken care of. When she had determined his trustworthiness, she began to tell her story.

Her story began at the football game and continued at the party afterwards. She told about receiving her Hogwarts letter, the confrontation at the Potters, her dream, the strange man in the robe shop, the woman in the jewellery shop, getting her wand, and finally James's bet.

Out of breath, Lily waited for the boy's response.

"Wow," he said. "You've had a very interesting few days. This James guy doesn't seem very nice."

"No, he's not," Lily replied, pouting.

"So you just found out about the wizarding world?" he asked.

"Yup."

"It must be hard. It's also a bit hard for me too, my mom is a witch and my dad is a Muggle and they normally stayed away from the wizarding world due to certain...circumstances. But when I was accepted to Hogwarts, my mom had to give us a crash course on the wizarding community."

"Really?" Lily asked. "Maybe we're not that different after all."

"I guess not. But a bit of advice; even though I don't know that much about this community, I don't think dreams are regarded with too much credibility, so I wouldn't really tell many people unless you trusted them."

"Can I trust you?"

"Yes. I promise. You can always come to me if you have a problem and I won't tell anyone."

They sat in silence for a while. Lily had stopped crying a while ago and wiped her face with a handkerchief she had found in her bag.

"Oh, by the way, my name is Remus Lupin."

"I'm Lily Evans."

Once the puffiness was gone and Lily looked like herself again, she and Remus decided to try and find Jules, Sirius, Anthony, and James.

Lily had been in Knockturn Alley for only ten minutes and had spent about twenty minutes of rapid pace talking with Remus, so she thought it was a safe bet that the others would be at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.

They were all seated at a table in the corner; the boys apparently had just finished an ice cream eating contest because they were each holding their nose trying to stop the brain freezes. Jules wasn't paying attention to them, nor had she touched her ice cream. She kept looking at the street for some sign of Lily. I'm glad someone cares, Lily thought sarcastically.

Suddenly Jules caught sight of Lily and she immediately jumped up, knocking over her chair, and ran over to her. James and Sirius turned around; Anthony was still holding his nose.

Jules hugged Lily and struggled to keep herself from crying, "What happened? We've been looking for you for the past half hour! Actually, I've been looking for you, they have been pigging out." She glared at the guys who, suspecting nothing was wrong, grinned and waved. "Come sit with us and tell me what happened."

Then she caught sight of Remus. "Who is this?" she asked.

"Oh, this is Remus Lupin. He found me after I escaped Knockturn Alley. Remus, this is Julianne Potter."

"You may call me Jules," she said throatily, staring at Remus.

Lily started walking to the table and Remus followed her. Jules followed Remus. They sat down and James pushed up his glasses and stared. "I thought you were gone for good."

"Gee, thanks for your confidence in my survival," Lily replied sarcastically. She then introduced Remus to the others.

"So what happened when you were in the Alley?" Anthony asked. He had finally gotten over his brain freeze.

Lily retold her story, beginning when James bet her to go into Knockturn Alley and ending when she ran into Remus. "And then I told him about meeting you and then getting my letter, going to James's house to talk about it with his parents, and then the trip here."

James, Sirius and Anthony each had identical dark looks on their faces.

"What?" Lily asked.

"Those blonde men, I think I know then from somewhere..." Sirius began.

"Yeah," Anthony began, thinking hard.

The three boys sat their raking their brains while the others sat in confusion.

"I GOT IT!" Sirius exclaimed, standing up and knocking over his chair. "The Malfoys! It must have been Lucius and his father. Lucius is dating my cousin. I think they're going to get married when they graduate."

"Yes," Anthony said, "The Malfoys are friends with my family. I don't know why I didn't remember them."

"My parents told me they are very prejudiced against Muggle-borns," James added.

"Hey, James. I won the bet. You owe me," Lily reminded James.

"What?" he exclaimed. "How do we even know you were in there for five minutes?"

"Based on what she told us, her conversation with the Malfoys lasted almost five minutes by itself," Jules commented.

"Fine," James grumbled.

Remus, who had been silent during this exchange smiled at Lily when she asked him to join them.

Seeing Lily's and Jules's interest in Remus, James immediately came over and steered him into the group of boys and immersed him in conversation while the girls scowled at the back of his head.

They soon arrived at the sweet shop and began browsing. Lily and Jules each chose a small block of milk chocolate and the boys selected several pound blocks of chocolate each. James paid for it all.

Since Sirius had been whining about visiting the Quidditch store all day, they decided to go now.

Once in the store, James pulled Lily aside, telling Jules that he had something "private to tell Lily".

"Lily, I'm really sorry about making you go into Knockturn Alley," James began. "I hope you accept my apology."

"Fine, I accept your apology."

"Great!" James smiled a huge smile. "Oh! I almost forgot. I got you something special." He pulled out a lollipop from his pocket and handed it to Lily. It was a good-sized lollipop in a red wrapper.

"Thank you," Lily said, opening it and beginning to eat it.

James was watching her expectantly. She thought he was just hoping she still forgave him. She was about to reply, but her mouth felt funny. Something was wrong. She walked over to a mirror beside some Quidditch robes and opened her mouth. She took one look at the inside of her mouth and screamed.

She had a huge hole in the middle of her tongue and James, that little git, was laughing. She was about to throw the lollipop into the trash when James stopped her.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. The hole will only go away if you finish the Acid Pop."

By then the rest of the group, plus the patrons and the clerks, had gathered to witness the scene. Jules and Remus were trying to come forward to help Lily, but the shoving crowd held them back.

Although they couldn't get to the front, they still were able to see Lily smack James as hard as she could before stomping out of the store with tears running down her face again.