Lily paused at the top of the staircase, panting slightly. Her first week back as a seventh year was already over. It was a chilly Friday afternoon, and, once again, Lily was late to an important event.
Along with nightly patrols and meetings with the prefects, the Head Girl and Boy also had to tutor at the after school tutoring program every Friday. Dumbledore had explained that it was about showing care or something or another. Lily couldn’t really remember at the moment; and besides, she was too preoccupied to really care. It was her N.E.W.T. year, and that meant all the Professors were determined to make the seventh years’ lives a living nightmare. She was already buried underneath a mountain of homework, and, with her new responsibilities, Lily was starting to feel a wee bit stressed.
“At least Anne is prefect too,“ Lily encouraged herself. Anne’s new duties were also causing her a lot of pressure. “Now if only Potter was out of the picture,” she thought miserably.
“But he’s been behaving himself. The patrols have been going well,” whispered a small voice in Lily’s head.
“And let’s not forget that you almost kissed him…”
“NO! Don’t think about that. Don’t think about that! Argh!” Lily shouted out loud.
Lily stopped suddenly, as she realized that she had walked herself to the tutoring room already.
It was her first time being a tutor, and she had nervously prayed that things would go smoothly and flawlessly. Lily paused in front of the door with her hand on the brass handle. Being a tutor would be hard, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready.
“Be confident! You’ll do fine, just don’t screw up like an idiot!” laughed Anne’s voice inside Lily’s head from the night before.
“Anne, you’re just making her even more nervous! Lily, darling, don’t worry. You’ll be wonderful, as usual!” Alice’s voice piped up.
Lily gave a small smile.
That’s right. I’ll be fine. And even if things do go horribly wrong, I’ll always have my friends to cheer me up. Yes, think of your friends Lily. They have confidence in you!”
Lily tightened her grip on the door handle. She let out a deep breath and turned the handle.
Lily stepped through the door and found herself standing in a large rectangular room. She gave a small gasp as she gazed up at the high stone arches that soared into the ceiling. Arched, gothic-looking windows were scattered across the vast stone wall. A magnificent golden chandelier hung from the peak of the ceiling, throwing its warm light on the clumps of students that were whispering and scribbling down notes and answers on their parchment below.
Not bad for a tutoring room.
Lily immediately spotted James in a corner, busily tutoring a small blonde Hufflepuff who was staring at James open-mouthed and apparently not taking in anything except his face.
Lily growled and was considering going over, slapping the girl, and telling her to lay off the goods, but then she remembered it was good-for-nothing-Potter that she was talking about. Fuming, she stormed off to the way other side of the room and slammed her things down on a desk.
James saw Lily but didn’t say anything. He was still feeling a little uncomfortable about their near kiss. He lowered his eyes and turned away.
The first half hour went by without any disruptions. Lily weaved in and out of the groups of students, asking if anyone needed help. As the minutes slipped by, she began to relax.
I was worried for nothing. This isn’t so ba-
BOOM!
Several people screamed; the stone walls shook from the impact of an explosion that seemed to have gone off somewhere in the halls outside. Lily and James barely had time to exchange nervous glances before a second explosion followed, the shock causing a small avalanche of dust to shake off from the chandelier high above. The flood of dust seemed to descend in slow motion in front of Lily’s eyes. Everyone threw up their arms in an attempt to shield themselves from the cascade of dust.
“Scourgify! Lily yelled, quickly pulling out her wand and pointing it at the torrent of falling dust. The dust immediately vanished, leaving everything perfectly spotless. Students peaked out from under their arms, staring cautiously up at the ceiling.
James whipped out his own wand as a third explosion followed. His face was set with determination.
“Don’t worry everyone! Er- I’m Head Boy, so I’ll go and check out what all this is. Lily, the Head Girl, will stay here to help anyone else who needs it,” and with that, James was off.
Lily was still marveling at how well James was handling his new position, when the door opened with a sharp snap. A group of fifth year Slytherins, lead by a tall, blonde and freckled boy, entered the room. They swaggered arrogantly towards some empty seats at the end of the room, smacking some of the students’ heads as they walked by.
They flung their things down on the table next to where Lily’s things lay. Lily groaned and rolled her eyes.
Why did they have to choose that particular table?
Lily walked over to retrieve her things and put them someplace more secure. As she passed next to the table the Slytherins had settled themselves at, the leader of their gang suddenly addressed Lily.
“Hey redhead, what the hell are you looking at?”
Lily turned around.
“Are you talking to me?”
“Are you talking to me?’” the Slytherin mimicked Lily. His gang sniggered. “Well, duh, I’m talking to you. You were giving me a look. I don’t like that look,” he grinned nastily.
Lily rolled her eyes and turned to go.
“Hey! I’m not done talking to you bitch!”
Lily halted dead in her tracks. The Slytherin sneered maliciously.
“How come you’re ignoring me? You’re supposed to tutor right? Well, I need some help, and you’re not giving it.”
“You need some help all right,” Lily shot back. The Slytherins all let out a low whistle and starting mocking Lily once again with more imitations of her comments.
“Oh well excuse me,” hissed the blonde leader. “Someone has a fucking attitude problem. Have I ever done anything to you? Come on, what did I ever do to you?”
Lily felt her temper boiling to a breaking point, but tried to cool it down.
I have to keep myself composed. I must set a good example. A good example, a good example…
“Look, just stop it. You’re not cool, and you’re being really imma-”
“Hey, are you pureblood?” one of the Slytherin boys interjected suddenly.
Lily raised an eyebrow.
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Just because. I want to know what kind of person is tutoring around this damn place,” said the Slytherin in a bored voice.
“Well, not that it’s important, but I’m Muggleborn,” Lily said hesitantly.
“You are? That’s good!“ the leader of the gang spoke up unexpectedly.
Lily was taken aback.
“Er…thank-”
“Then you can help me with my homework,” he took out a piece of paper with a picture of a human on it.
“We’re supposed to identify this guy on the paper. Now tell me- is he a Muggle, or is he just a Mudblood like you?”
Lily blinked.
“What did you just say to me?”
“What, can’t you Mudbloods hear me? I said, is this guy a Muggle or a Mud-” But the boy never finished his sentence, for a hand had flown out of nowhere, grabbed him by the collar, and hoisted him a foot off the ground.
“What did you just say to her?”
James had grabbed a hold of the Slytherin in one hand and was using the other to press his wand directly into the boy’s throat.
“Hey, hey let go man! I was just kidd-”
“Don’t give me any of that crap. Apologize to her before I turn your head into a squid.”
“I’m-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Now let go! Please, please let go!” the boy choked.
James pressed his wand more deeply into his neck.
“That’s right, you had better be sorry,” James looked up and glowered at the rest of the students, who were all looking on rather fearfully.
“I’ll take this chance to say it now. My name is James Potter, and I’m one of the well known Marauders.”
Everyone gulped.
“I’m also known for being very fond of Lily Evans. So, be warned that if you mess with Evans, you mess with the Marauders. Get it? Got it? Good,” James gave them all a threatening glare, then let the Slytherin fall to the ground, where upon he immediately grabbed his things and scampered off. The rest of his gang glanced fearfully at James before following suit. The bell rang, and the other students rushed to the door to escape any remainders of the wrath of James.
James scowled at the last of the students to run out the door, then turned to Lily.
“That stupid prat. He should go shove his wand up his- Evans? Evans, what’s the matter?”
Lily was still standing exactly where she had been when the Slytherin boy had insulted her. Despite her effort to hold back the flood of tears that had begun to well up in her brilliantly green eyes, the tears were starting to stream down her cheeks.
“E-Evans? What’s wrong? Are you okay, well, duh you’re not okay but, is it that Slytherin? You want me to go get the others so we can curse him?” James had no idea what else to say. Lily had many a times yelled at him and lost her temper in front of him, but never had she cried in front of him.
“It’s all right. I can handle it. I…just really hate it when people say things like that to me!” Lily rushed through the last part of her sentence because she could feel her voice starting to break.
Lily really did hate it when anyone called her a Mudblood or discriminated her just because of her heritage. Normally, she would have just shrugged the insult off, pried James off the boy, reprimanded James, and gone on with life. But today was different.
Today had been her first time being a tutor, and she was stressed due to the heap of homework that she was starting to fall behind on. She had hoped that the position of Head Girl would have commanded some respect out of her piers despite the fact that she was Muggle-born. She guessed she was wrong. She had tried so hard to fit in and do her best, to prove that she was as good as everyone else, but she was too weak to even come up with a proper comeback to a stupid insult a fifth year had made. To top it all off, James was looking at her and she was actually crying.
Lily couldn’t handle it anymore. The stress was too much. The homework, the duties, the insults…just everything…
Lily collapsed to her knees and began to sob her heart out, causing James to jump with shock.
Beads of sweat erupted on James’s forehead. What on earth was he supposed to do in a situation like this? Well, of course he should comfort her, but what on earth was he supposed to say?
He nervously wiped his forehead on his sleeve and stared numbly down at Lily. She was just crumpled into a small heap and crying and crying.
Then, suddenly, in that moment, James felt more sorrowful than he had ever been in his entire life. He couldn’t stand the fact that Lily was crying. It made his heart feel as if it were ripping in two. He would have given anything to cheer her up, to put an end to those tears that were flowing down her beautiful face.
He kneeled down beside her. Lily continued to sob. Then, more by instinct than thought, James pulled Lily into a gentle hug.
Lily almost stopped crying out of sheer surprise, but, for some reason, it felt so right wrapped up in his arms. She could feel his warmth spreading through her own body, heating her very soul. She could smell the fresh scent of the wind in his pitch-black hair. She closed her eyes.
She wanted to stay there with him forever and just forget. Forget everything bad, forget everything stressful. Just forget and be in James’s arms. Before she could stop herself, she flung her arms around his neck and let the tears flow.
“One…two…three…four galleons. There. Good job! You were very convincing. I applaud you and your friends. Your services were very much appreciated,” Anne handed four galleons to a blonde freckled boy in Slytherin robes.
“No problem! It was nice to help out. I hope Potter finally wins over his girl. But I really feel bad about making her cry,” the blond boy replied, cautiously glancing into the tutoring room.
“Don’t worry. It’s not really your fault. I, er…” Anne leaned in closer and whispered, “I slipped some Depression Potion into her morning drink,” she winked.
“Depression Potion? How much?” the boy asked curiously.
“Er…about, well, eight ounces.”
“EIGHT OUNCES? Sheesh, no wonder she’s crying,” he exclaimed, “well, I suppose it’ll wear off in a couple of minutes. Anyways, me and my friends should hurry up and go and change back to our real robes, before any of our fellow Hufflepuffs see us in Slytherin robes,” the boy said in a hushed tone.
“Thanks again,” Anne called, as the boy and his friends hurried to the nearest bathroom to change into their regular robes.
“For a Hufflepuff, he was a really good actor, wouldn’t you say?” Anne inquired, as she turned to face Sirius, Remus, and Alice. Evil grins split across their faces.
A/N: He he he. I love scams. The tutoring session and the insults the Slytherin (actually Hufflepuff) boy had said to Lily were inspired by a boy who said almost the exact same things to me a couple weeks ago. Hope you hated him! ( ; REVIEW PLEASE!
A/N #2: Speaking of scams, Mugglenet-you guys are good! You got me good with your April Fool's prank and nearly gave me a heart attack with it!