Chapter One ~ Transfiguration
"Ms. Evans."
"MS. EVANS," Professor McGonagall yelled harder this time and Lily Evans snapped out of her dream world, "I hope that you will continue to pay attention in class from now on." Some of the other Gryffindors sniggered a little, laughing poorly at her plight.
"Yes, of course, Professor," Lily replied, grumbling, a little embarrassed. How anyone could find Transfiguration interesting was beyond her. McGonagall seemed to drone on and on almost as badly as Professor Binns. Lily returned to the only thing that she did well in Transfiguration—feigning attention to it. Normally she didn't get caught, and it was impossible to tell that she wasn't actually listening to a word. But today she had been late and she was stuck in a chair further to the front of the classroom than she would have ever chosen herself. Today was not her lucky day.
She thought about Charms, now that was a class that she liked. She was easily the best of the whole sixth year. The rest of her grades were really pretty good—excluding Transfiguration. She hadn't had a problem with it before, but ever since this year had begun she had been lost. She had always heard work really escalated in your sixth year, but she never thought it would be this bad. I suppose, she considered playfully, if I didn't actually go to all the effort to get myself lost, this might not be an issue.
"MS. EVANS!!!!!!!" Professor McGonagall yelled.
"What?!?" Ironically, Lily was caught daydreaming in Transfiguration while she was daydreaming about daydreaming in Transfiguration. She looked down, abashed, realizing how she had just responded to her teacher and the Gryffindor head of House. Absently, Lily noticed she was the only one remaining in the room and cringed.
"The class has left," McGonagall said primly, though reprimand oozed in her voice in a way that made Lily want to hide behind her chair. "Maybe you should too; you wouldn't want to miss lunch." Lily sat up warily and started to pack her bags, muttering a statement with many repetitions of "very" and "sorry". She had just about made it to the door when McGonagall stopped her. Lily had to suppress a groan.
"Lily, I was upset at your performance today," Professor McGonagall said, resembling an overbearing mother-in-law who was very cross though truly cared deep, deep, down.
"I really am sorry Professor, it won't happen again," she promised in what she hoped was a believable voice. Just let me get out of here, she repeated pleadingly in her mind. Please! She felt like she was getting lectured by her mother on something she had known she had done wrong—she fully felt badly about it, and though she may resent it, her guilt would make her fix the problem in the end. Lily's mother, then, after the apologies were made (though they were usually a tad more sincere) would let her off the hook.
McGonagall was like a cookie left to sit on the kitchen counter for a little too long; she was tough to break. "Really?" she asked Lily rhetorically. "Because you seem to always drift off during class. For these first two months of school your performance has truly been lacking," she continued pointedly, pausing to look at Lily who stared incredulously back. A string of worried expletives ran through her mind, and Lily fully realized that McGonagall, though certainly as boring as Binns, was nowhere near as dim. "I hate to have to say this, but if you don't bring your performance up then you'll never remember enough to pass your final exams." Lily looked at the floor resentfully. "You do remember you are to be tested on this in June, don't you?" she asked again in that patronizing tone. She stared at Lily, who was still gazing at the ground, and realized she had been too harsh. She was used to reprimanding the sixth-year boys, not the girls, for heaven's sakes, she thought wearily. They are the death of me. Never were there such troublemakers as Potter, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew. In a kinder voice, Professor McGonagall responded to Lily's silence, "Time to go to lunch, Lily. If you need help don't hesitate to ask."
Lily calmly walked out the door, and then started to walk down the corridor to the Great Hall. "Don't hesitate to ask, Lily," she repeated in a whiny, annoying voice, mostly just to vent her anger at herself more than because she was mad at McGonagall. She was tearing up and repeating to herself, How could I be failing? As she walked she gained momentum and anger. "I mean, what use is Transfiguration anyway? It has to be the dumbest, most pointless, idiotic subject EVER!!!" As Lily approached the Great Hall she decided to take a minute to calm herself down. She had realized that when she got angry she got other people angry at her, so she always tried to calm herself down when she got mad.
As Lily walked into the Great Hall she surveyed the Gryffindor table for a place to sit. As soon as she walked in she saw all of the other sixth-year Gryffindors, everyone except her best friend and one of her roommates—Evelyn. James Potter, Evelyn's boyfriend and general troublemaker, was talking very secretively to Remus Lupin, who looked sick, and Peter Pettigrew, who seemed petrified, both of whom were his cohorts in any significant prank that was pulled. Their fourth accessory, Sirius Black, was being unsuccessfully coerced into paying attention by James. But Sirius was not one to usually listen to anyone, even his best friend, and was busy flirting with Lily's other roommates, Laura Lucila and Cecil Aveneere. These four boys were generally hated amongst the faculty—something in which they took much pride. Lily grinned; Sirius was a flirt if there ever was one. She guessed it was just because he enjoyed making other people laugh, but he was a flirt all the same. They all always sat together, so Lily, upon not seeing Evelyn with them, figured that Evelyn must have had to talk with another teacher or drop something off at their dorm.
"Hey everyone!" she said, trying to exude happiness even as she worried about her Transfiguration grade.
"Oh, hey Lily," Cecil said, and Laura waved, thoroughly absorbed in Sirius's story of how he had managed to turn the pipes from the prefect bathtub connect into the air vents that led to Filch's office. For some odd reason, Filch's office seemed to be curiously Muggle-ish, though no one knew why. It was one of the great mysteries of Hogwarts that Sirius planned to expose someday.
"I'll find out sooner or later, though. I've been into his office enough times to find my way around blindfolded," he declared proudly, and Lily laughed.
"Wouldn't that mean that you just have a bad habit at getting caught?" His smile faded into a frown, though an amused one, as Lily and Sirius bantered, as usual. Sometimes the other Marauders joined in to gang up on her, and sometimes the girls to overpower him. Nonetheless, their lunch period began to pass with lots of laughs, even managing to make her forget about Transfiguration.
When out of the corner of her eye Lily spied Evelyn poking morosely at her food with her fork all the way at the other end of the table, she was completely startled. "Guys, why isn't Evelyn sitting with us?" she asked wonderingly.
"I don't know," James said quickly, making Peter stare pointedly. Remus and Sirius were calm though, and James raised his eyebrows an exasperated fraction of an inch at Peter.
"She's been there all period," Peter explained. "She walked right part us all and just sat down by herself," he said, though as he said it you could tell he didn't understand it one bit. Lily got up and walked to her and sat down at her side. She was sad, Lily noticed right away, though she still looked gorgeous. Evelyn was one of those girls that had classic beauty. Long black hair, deep brown eyes, and a great smile that she usually beamed 24 hours a day. Evelyn must have been in a really bad mood, because she wore the most sullen face Lily had ever seen.
Lily plastered on her fake smile ever stronger than before, hoping to brighten her friend's spirits. Misery loves company, as her dad always said. Evelyn was so absorbed in her lunch that she only noticed Lily when she had sat down. So Evelyn missed the fact that Lily's smile didn't quite reach her eyes, something she would have noticed otherwise. Lily, likewise, was so distressed that Evelyn was so sad that she didn't notice that Evelyn was really only staring off into space, not at her plate.
"Hey Ev," Lily called her by her nickname. "What's the matter? You look really upset," she asked worriedly. Lily didn't want get her friend even more depressed by going on her problems, so she tried to sound remotely cheerful. Evelyn, though, as if she had an allergic reaction to Lily's 'happiness,' gasped quickly and raised her head, letting Lily view the tears that were falling down her face.
Lily stared at her friend, openmouthed. She tried to remember if she had ever seen Evelyn cry. Evelyn never let things get her down, even in bad situations. She was always optimistic, and sensible, but much more serious than Lily. That's part of the reason why I'm friends with her, she knew, Ev never let's me feel sorry for myself.
It took just a split-second for all that to flash through Lily's mind, and in another split-second she was hugging Evelyn and reassuring her, just as Evelyn had always done with Lily. After her quick gasps (even those seemed graceful, Lily's pale skin would be red and blotchy) had been reduced to occasional sniffles, Lily gently tried to get some information out of her.
"Ev, I've never seen you so upset. What happened?"
"It seems so stupid now. I was just in shock, I mean, I never could have guessed, everything was going fine and then…" she trailed off, and resumed staring into space. Lily had no clue what she was saying, and though she really didn't want to pry she tried asking again.
"I'm confused, what was going fine?" Lily asked softly, trying to look Evelyn in the eye.
"Well," she gulped and looked at Lily, "me and James."
Lily stared astonished at her friend. She practically squeaked, "James Potter broke up with you!" The only thing Evelyn could do was nod; she obviously didn't want to talk anymore. She had a good guess at what James had been whispering to Remus and Peter a few minutes ago. That prick! He said he didn't know why she was down here by herself, she thought madly.
At the very least, Lily was surprised. James wasn't one of those guys that just went through girls tirelessly. Or at least she didn't think so. But she had never seen them unhappy together and they had never fought. They were one of those couples that people, including Lily, looked at and became jealous because they just looked so good and so content together. Obviously, she was not on the same page as James, and neither was Evelyn, or probably anyone in the school except for Remus, Sirius, and Peter. She continued mulling over it until lunch was over. Lily using as many tactics as a Quidditch team to try and keep Evelyn off the subject of James. As soon as lunch ended she and Evelyn got up and walked to Herbology.
* * *
In Herbology the Professor announced that they were going to be working in pairs. Lily silently prayed that Evelyn would not be with James, she honestly didn't think that she could take it. "Today we will be working on practice ferns for when you work with the real biting ferns. Carefully extract five leaves each from the stems, they are enchanted to thrash about and try and get you." Lily listened, though she was unimpressed. The Professor rattled off names, "Now, let's see, Evelyn why don't you go over and work with… S i r i u s." she said slowly, rightfully not trusting him to behave. "Well now, I believe that's everyone. Get to work."
She sat at her seat, dazed. Over her anxiety for her Evelyn she had completely missed her own partner. She scanned the room and saw Remus mouthing, "Over here." He still looked a little off-color, but Lily decided that it was simply the badly lit room. Herbology wasn't being held in the greenhouse today, the weather had just started to get cold as November was just about half-way through. The class had a long winter of indoor Herbology ahead.
Lily and Remus worked well together, and when the Professor complimented them Lily beamed. It was a welcome change from the ultimatum she had received in Transfiguration. She was stealing glances at Evelyn the whole time; thankfully, Evelyn was having a good time. Sirius even made her laugh once or twice, she noticed.
It was during one of those glances when Remus tapped her shoulder. "Umm, Lily. What's up? You look paranoid, always looking over your shoulder like that." He said smiling. Remus' pallid face wasn't so noticeable when he smiled.
"I was just checking up on Evelyn, she's really distressed, you know. I don't blame her; I didn't think that James would break up with her." Remus looked surprised. Lily doubted he thought she would bring it up.
"Same here. Usually I'll know if James or Sirius wants to end it with their girlfriends. He never even hinted…" Remus trailed off as he shook his head. "I have absolutely no clue why he would do it," Remus said with a sigh. Lily knew he was truly a kind person; he really hated to see anyone hurt. He walked with an air of sadness though, and Lily guessed it was because of his sick grandmother that he went to visit every month. Or maybe it was his mother, or his uncle, or something. She never quite remembered.
"Really? James didn't tell you why?" Remus shook his head again and Lily's hopes fell. James and his best friends, Remus, Peter, and Sirius—the Marauders as they called themselves, though nobody had the faintest clue why—were the only people Lily could hope to find this out from. She was the closest with Sirius out of all of them, he was atrocious at Charms, and she helped him a lot, but you could never count on Sirius for a straight answer. She hardly knew Peter, he was awfully quiet most of the time he was around her and she didn't have any reason to really want to get to know him, so he stayed as a friendly acquaintance. She completely believed that Remus didn't know—he was a trustworthy person. And if none of them were available then there was only one way left to find out, and that was to ask James.
Remus interrupted her thoughts by actually answering her question, "I tried to ask him, but he kind of mumbled and stalked off. I don't think he'll tell anyone. I think it only happened last night, so he still feels really badly about it… probably," he added. James was his friend, but he wasn't blinded by that enough so he couldn't see that James was a little egotistical. He was top in Transfiguration and a Quidditch star, as well as being friendly and known for pranking, so it was a little well-deserved, but still.
"Well, he certainly doesn't feel as badly about it as Evelyn does. So, whether he wants to talk about it or not, he is telling me," she said forcefully, making Remus take a small step back, even as she delicately trimmed the very last leaf from her fern and displayed it proudly. Remus simply looked on with a sense of foreboding, and across the room Evelyn began to rave with laughter as their plant wrapped around Sirius, gagging him at the mouth and making him toppled their table in surprise. Lily was happy, and she started to hum a little song as she arranged her fern clippings.
But she wasn't fooling Remus, oh no. He scratched the back of head and sighed. Things are about to get ugly… he thought.
* * *
Okay, this is an updated version of chapter 1 for all you new readers, since I realized that the hit count dropped drastically after about chapter 3. I do have support services so you can email me at [email protected]. The Harry Potter materials are all ©JK Rowling and Warner Bros. for all remaining chapters. I hope you enjoy the fic!