The Class

Disclaimer: Don't own anything but plot and made up characters.

It was third year, and a group of students were standing at the top of spiral stairs with no doors on the landing. Instead of being bothered, they chatted, mostly about Quidditch and school work and other such Hogwarts interests as that.

The atmosphere of careless chatter suddenly ceased as the newest arrivals came to the top of the staircase.

One girl was short, her shoulder length auburn hair in a loose bun with a pencil stuck in it. Her eyes were long and emerald green and she was carrying a bag over one shoulder. Her friend was tall, almost taller than all of them, except for some. Her blue eyes scanned the area as she brushed raven hair out of them..

They were out of place. For amidst the sea of Gryffindor's red and gold ties, their blue and bronze was a completely different thing. And it was well known that Ravenclaws did not do Divination. Not at all.

So what were these two particular Ravenclaws doing here? Brilliant, even more so than most Ravenclaws, and possibly the cleverest students in the school.

"Hi," said the shorter one, who was not taken aback in the least by the silence. "I'm Lily Evans."

"Yeah. We know," said somebody else. A short girl by the name of Tracey. "Hi Lily, hi Sarah. What a surprise to see you here."

Lily had known it would be like this: barely concealed curiosity, animosity, and some friendliness. She looked at Sarah and could tell from the quick changing silver in her eyes that she was beginning to get a headache. "Yeah well, a surprise to see us here too. We're the only Ravenclaws doing Divination, so we're in your class."

"Cool," said another girl. "We're just waiting for the last six of us to arrive. Then we'll figure out a way to get to class."

Sarah put down her bag, and looked around on the landing. Then she looked up. "You mean the way in is up there?" she asked.

On a hatch, silver curlicue spelled out Cassandra, Divination Teacher.

"No way," muttered Lily, smoothing out her hand feathers. "Up there?" Mental curses slipped through her mind. She wasn't sure if they were hers or Sarah. She suspected that they were both.

"Yeah," said the girl who spoke second. "Don't worry; we don't have much more time to go."

Lily propped on the wall, and took a moment to regroup. Two more people came, and she knew who had to come: The Marauders. The fabled group of pranksters who knew no bounds except for Sarah and herself: she slapped James. And they were almost always late for class. It was a miracle that they actually passed two years of exams.

It was becoming rather peaceful, she thought, her wings pressing against her back and listening to Sarah chatting with the others. And then her ears pricked up: visibly. Luckily, no one was watching.

A quiet step was coming and she knew that it was Remus, the boy whose silence was almost startling, and sometimes his intensity was almost inhuman. And then she could hear the heavier steps of Sirius, then James, then Peter.

Lily sighed. "They're coming," she said, opening her eyes and the others nodded. Nobody questioned her at all, which was fine by her.

And sure enough, a couple of minutes later, four boys burst into view.

"Hello fellow Gryffindors!" said Sirius and James together, enthusiastically. "How are we today?"

Lily heard Sarah's thoughts tingling on her own, telling her to shut up, but she just couldn't resist it.

"James. How rude of you to have forgotten us," she said, and waited for his response.

"Why, dearest of Evans, I didn't know that you were there," he said, but he was a little less boisterous and more wary. "Hello, and how are you and Sarah today?"

Lily pushed herself off the wall and smiled at him. "Quite well." She disliked him. His arrogance was unbearable, and only self control stopped her from throwing him over the Astronomy tower and not catching him when yet another Ravenclaw girl came back from a date with him or Sirius, crying her eyes out. Sometimes she wondered if her animosity didn't grow worse just by looking at him.

Remus, always the peace maker asked "How are we supposed to get up there?"

The class shrugged in unison. "I have no idea," said one of the other girls.

"Perhaps she doesn't know that we're down here."

"Maybe," said Lily, "but that would mean that we have to knock."

They eyed it. "Anybody got anything to knock with? Or should we just open it?" asked Sarah, after unsuccessfully screaming in the woman's mind.

"Open it and do what?" retorted one of the more cynical boys. "I don't think that we can get in."

"If we can knock," said Lily, patiently, "We can get in. Somebody give me a boost up." She looked around. "Remus."

James snorted. "Remus, I hope you're up to lifting Lily." A slap stung his face the next moment, and the third moment after that, Lily put down her bag, took off her robe and nodded at Remus.

And then, with a speed that startled the best of them, Lily was up, right next to the door. "Good!" She wiggled around, and then she said "If you even try to look up my skirt, you are going to be in trouble," she said to Remus.

"Don't tell me that," he said with a chuckle, but he was surprised that Lily was so light. She barely weighed anything. Then he turned and Lily knocked on the hatch. Hard.

She jumped down lightly, folding her wings as she did so. They watched the hatch.

"Nothing," said Sirius. "Alohomora," he said, and it opened. Remus sneezed as the scent of candles, fires, and vapours blew down and whiffs of silver blew his way.

"What is she burning in there?" he asked, listening to the rest of the class sneezing.

Lily shrugged her shoulders, and then he boosted her up again, and she jumped straight inside. The others heard no sound, but Lily had landed, as usual, on her feet.

Silently. She looked around, and there was a woman in the corner, sleeping.

Lily stalked across there, clapped her hands loudly and stared at the woman. "Hello? Professor?" Her wings drew tight as the woman opened her eyes. She felt the feathered mass comforting.

The woman's eyes opened suddenly. "My dear, oh yes, I have a class, call the others."

Lily moved to the corner of the room and threw down a silvery ladder. Then she plopped her books and things into a chair. The rest of the class clambered inside, and soon, the class begun.

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Lily flicked one of her wings and breathed the thin air. She was far above the school and she was thinking about class. On the wing was the best place for her to think, or when she was writing in her diary.

She'd had Divination and they had stared at mushy tea leaves for hours. She was beginning to think that the class was a waste of time. Well. They had been forewarned, but she didn't mind really . . .

Her thoughts drifted back to Sarah, and she smiled. One of her more mysterious prophecies had involved her best friend. And a blonde girl with short hair . . . and a timeturner. And Divination gave her moments to think about them.

Then, with another change of direction and a glance at the grounds far below her, she thought again about herself. In the last couple of years, she'd grown up. She wasn't as carefree, her magic was more powerful, and she was a bit like a huge, powerful bird of prey. She had become famous for slapping people, her temper and her sarcasm at times.

She peered downwards, and began to descend slowly, drifting without a care in the world. Then she reached the astronomy tower, and landed.

She was treated to one of Sirius' snog sessions with some girl, Hufflepuff this time. He'd been leaving Ravenclaws well enough alone. Shuddering, she walked back towards the common room.

She snuck up to bed, her homework already finished and she was happy about it. She turned around and curled into her bed, and watched everyone with green eyes. Then she opened her diary, and flipped to the newest page. After she wrote, she'd sleep.

An Excerpt from Lily's diary

It has been two years since we entered Hogwarts, so yip! I'm a third year. And I haven't wasted the last few years of it. As you know. I've found out quite a few things—secret passages at Hogwarts, for one. And I've discovered that the area around the Astronomy tower has a great deal of nice, high flying thermals. And had good more visions/prophecies/weird feelings of knowing besides, but nothing really major. The time line goes farther forward all the time, and sometimes... it coincides with Sarah's. But sometimes, there is something . . . . I don't know . . . missing. As if there's a missing power. I think the past.

But that's not what most people know—most people see me as Lily Evans, one of the most brilliant students that Hogwarts has ever seen, or ever will see, and 'that Ravenclaw redhead.' And Sarah, too. I only discovered it when I came back this year, enjoying the sorting hat song, and heard

"Look. Over there. Yes, at Ravenclaw."

"Is that . . ?"

"It's Lily Evans!" from the students standing in the line.

I couldn't do anything other than turn a shade of pink, and tuck my hair over my ears.

But that's not all I'm 'famous' for. The Evans temper, apparently, will go down into history. I'm not too surprised, considered the fact that I slapped James fairly hard when he turned my homework bright pink, spilled my books, and then finally changed my hair colour to orange and then wrote Carrot on the back of my black robes. That arrogant twit was too busy laughing with the rest of the Great Hall and Sirius and Peter to notice me. Remus did, but by then it was too late . . . Revenge is sweet.

However the most change that's happened is our new subjects . . . namely Divination .I don't know what to think about it. I really don't know. But sometimes. . . I think that I'm just missing one glimpse of something. Of something important.

I was thinking about Remus today. He's almost always sick. The days of the full moon, it seems to be. And I trust him, somehow, totally illogically. But I trust him. He's strong, and he can be slightly violent. I wonder. I have heard about werewolves. And it all fits right in: his strength, his sicknesses, his intensity, his violence, and his avoidance of Cassandra all bedecked in Silver. Maybe, he's a werewolf. I think that's why I trust him.

Perhaps. I don't know. I'm not always sure of things, but I do know that I need to go to sleep and wipe that image of Sirius' snog session out of my mind. It's disgusting.

Lily locked her diary, and lay backwards. And soon, she was lost to the world, a young, promising woman. And a Seer.

I'm so sorry that I haven't update in such a long while, but I had HUGE WRITER"S BLOCK. I don't like this chapter, really, but I'll work on the upcoming ones. I hope you'll like them.

Huggles.