Crumble to Ash
A large gust of wind stirred up different coloured leaves from the ground up into the air and across the darkness of the night sky. The half moon created frightening shadows from the stalking trees that were stripped bare of their leaves. The vegetation from the hot summer was dying, and many animals had already felt the urgency to start thinking about winter migration. A chilly autumn breeze blew around an ancient castle that was unseen by most. The stone fortress seemed somewhat mysterious, but carried a sense of warmth and welcome in its doors. Inside the quiet confines of this old building sat an ambitious sixteen-year-old boy in the library.
The teen held a tired look to him as if he was living on too many coffees and sleepless nights. The fact that his head kept nodding up and down over his thick book reassured this inference. His hazel eyes were slightly blood-shot behind his round rimmed glasses, and his lips were curved in a bored frown. As the bespectacled boy leaned back on his wooden chair, he yawned and rumpled the back of his naturally untidy jet black hair. A couple of girls leaving the library that caught sight of him, smiled flirtingly. He hadn’t noticed though, he was too tired to notice.
His name was James Potter. The majority of students knew it, in fact, if someone at Hogwarts didn’t know it, they were assumed to be crazy or a socially blind outcast. He and his four other friends (who called themselves the Marauders) were considered the pinnacle of popularity. He was an extremely bright student, an amazing Chaser on his house (Gryffindor) Quidditch team, but slightly mischievous as many professors knew. He and his group knew all passageways through Hogwarts and broke almost every possible rule that could be broken. James was often caught hexing and jinxing people in the halls just because “he could” and the number of times he had gotten detention was now too many times to count. Even so, professors couldn’t help but adore him, and the student body couldn’t help but admire him. He was a wizard with many talents and charms.
Ironically, the library was an odd place for James to be seen. He was rarely ever there, and usually, he would most likely be planning his next prank or studying in the Gryffindor common room, but tonight was different. Tonight, there was something he wanted to check when no one else was around.
Unfortunately, there were still many students studying, and the library didn’t close for another hour. Out of impatience and boredom, James drew a moustache on a picture of a pudgy historical woman in his text book with his quill. Stretching, he took off his glasses and laid them down beside his sixth year Potions text book. Putting his head down against his arm, he gazed dreamily at a blurry bookshelf loaded with huge encyclopedias until he felt his eyes darken his site…
BANG!
“Huh? Wha-" stuttered James like a drunk as he felt his heart pound through his chest.
“The library is closing, Mr. Potter,” stated Irma Pince (the librarian) annoyingly as she tightly grasped the ruler that she had just slammed on the oak table.
Peering at James’ text book that he drew in, her eyes widened with disbelief.
“I suggest you leave before you don’t have time to make it back to your common room,” she added with a tone of irritation mixed with anger.
With that, she turned her back abruptly and headed over toward her desk to close-up. While doing so, she mumbled about vandalism and disrespect for pudgy historical woman in text books.
The sudden rude awakening James had just received seemed to wake him straight up. Grasping his glasses and glancing around the library quickly, he noticed that every student that was studying before had gone. Slowly and silently, he slipped his text books, wand, quill, and ink into his book bag. Just as soundlessly, he swiftly pulled out his invisibility cloak and threw it on top of himself as he walked over to a secluded corner of the library. A few minutes later, Madam Pince dimmed all the candles and left hurriedly through the library door.
This was his chance.
He hastily went over toward the “Restricted” section of the library and browsed through the sections until he came across a novel labeled “Hexes”. James felt his heart beat three times faster than usual at the site of this and cautiously made sure no one was around again. Exhaling sharply, he grasped the book off the shelf, sat down on the floor, and leaned against another bookshelf. Turning to chapter one with interest, he opened his book bag and took out an extra piece of parchment, his quill, and ink.
James spent a few hours in the library studying and reading over chapter one and two, occasionally putting down interesting hexes onto his piece of parchment.
Hex to produce growth twice as big? James examined interestedly glancing at page sixteen.
After reading chapter two and producing one piece of parchment full of notes, James peered at the hour glass on the wall which read: 11:09 P.M. Deciding it was time to go to bed, he placed the book back on the shelf where he had first grabbed it, packed up all his stuff, made sure not a trace of him being there remained, and left silently.
Rushing through the corridor with his invisibility cloak still on and his book bag bustling up and down, he thought about what he had been doing.
Sirius owes me big time for getting these. thought James.
The big problem all the Marauders ran into lately was that Madam Pince was very careful on what they were checking up or what books they were looking through. If the book held the slightest trace of any illegal hexes or jinxes, they were immediately told to get out of the library.
Swinging a left, James caught sight of the portrait hole and was about to whisper the password to the sleeping Fat Lady when it swung open to reveal somebody who carried a slight smell of cinnamon. Leaping toward the side, James inhaled sharply and peered up to see the one girl who made his knees weak.
Standing in front of the now closed portrait hole was Lily Evans. Her flowing auburn hair hung gracefully down to her shoulders. She wore a white shirt (which looked like part of her school uniform) that had the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. James noticed that instead of wearing a skirt and black shoes like in uniform, she wore a pair of denim jeans and navy flip-flop sandals. Her expression appeared listless, yet somewhat exhausted, and she seemed to be stopping her eye lids from falling over her fine, oval-shaped eyes. Biting the bottom of her rose coloured lips, she placed her wand into the pocket of her jeans and glanced around the hall. Lily sighed wearily and proceeded toward the corridor (which James had just come running from) to do her night patrol as prefect.
James knew that recently, because of recent rumors of something called "Death Eater" attacks becoming increasingly frequent, the patrols of Head Boy, Head Girl, and prefects were increased even into the late of night.
James felt deeply torn between his two choices: going back to his warm bed or following Lily. He thought instantly about what his best mate, Sirius, would do in his shoes, but reminded himself that asking for Sirius’ help on the subject of “Lily” had not exactly proven to be successful. Every time he had taken any of his advice he ended up being burned, scolded, or despised even more by her. Although, the honest truth that James hated to admit was that he had dug himself so deep into Lily’s “Most-hated list”, even without Sirius’ help, that he sometimes doubted whether he could get on her “Most-liked list”.
Finally, making up his mind and gulping down nerves, James followed Lily at a distance, watching her tiredly patrolling the halls.
He observed that she would often stop at some sleeping portraits and read the rationales accompanying them, yet he failed to notice that her eyes were glazed over with longing thoughts.
Why is she so amazing? pondered James dreamily as he continued to follow her from a few meters behind.
He had completely lost track of the time.
After Lily had read a rationale about a portrait of an Italian wine field, James decided to muster all his courage and get a closer look at her. The fact was that he had never been this close to her without making a fool of himself or getting yelled at. He tip-toed swiftly behind her until, suddenly, she halted to a stop mid-step. With a small gasp of horror, James used all his force not to bump into her. Turning around hastily, Lily peered down the corridor.
James was now eye-to-eye and face-to-face with Lily Evans. He could smell the faint scent of cinnamon she always carried, and her emerald eyes gleamed brightly in the dimness of the marble hallway.
At that moment, Lily stepped forward almost literally into James, and he had to scuffle backward awkwardly.
Then, a small, wooden something hit the floor and echoed throughout the corridor shattering the silence like glass being broken.
With a look of utter dismay, James saw that his thin wand had fell clumsily from his bag onto the cold, stone floor and rolled right to her foot. Deciding he needed to get out of this situation immediately, he clutched his wand quickly off the ground before Lily could grasp it, and was about to dash away to the common room as fast as his thin legs could carry him until he heard her yell, “Expelliarmus!”
With widened eyes, James watched his wand fly six meters away from him. Lily gripped the edge of his invisibility cloak with lightening speed and ripped it off to reveal a disarrayed and confused James Potter.
“H- Hey Evans,” stuttered James with one hand clutching the back of his untidy hair.
“Potter,” sighed Lily irritably while pointing her wand warningly at him, “don’t you have anything better to do? Or is this some way of exercising your nocturnal instincts?”
“Ha ha ha,” replied James sarcastically. “Gee Evans, I have to say, I’m slightly disappointed.”
“What is that suppose to mean?” she asked un-amused.
“Patrolling the halls not in full uniform? And you call yourself a prefect.”
“I don’t have time to bicker with you, Potter,” stated Lily. “I have better things to do.”
“So, you’re telling me that you’d rather glance at musty old portraits for another ten minutes instead of having a healthy conversation with me?” questioned James with a grin.
Unfortunately, Lily’s lips remained curved into a deep frown.
“Anything to do with you is unhealthy, Potter, and for the record, I have had more stimulating conversations with a tree.”
“A tree?!” yelped James. “C’mon, you’re just exaggerating!”
“No, actually I’m not!” replied Lily, her tone rising. “You’re rude, arrogant, and disgusting Potter! You’re living in your own whipped cream, bullying, la-la land that you find so amusing, but I think it’s sick. Really sick.”
She grasped James’ wand using a spell and tucked it into her jean pocket.
“Let’s see how the ‘famous’ toerag Potter gets himself out of this one,” responded Lily coldly, and then she walked around the corner and out of sight.
As the sound of her footsteps eventually vanished, James thought of going after her and demanding the return of his wand, but he knew that that wasn’t going to get him anywhere except onto Lily’s “Never going to speak to again list”. With a heavy heart, he dragged his feet back to the portrait hole (where the Fat Lady complained about being woken up) and into the common room. Once there, he glanced up to see the common room fire still burning brightly. With anger and frustration, James plunged his hand into his book bag and gripped the “Hex” notes he had taken just a few hours ago. He furiously crumpled the piece of parchment and threw it savagely into the blazing flames to watch it turn bloody red and crumble to ash.
Way to go Potter, you just made a fool out of yourself in front of Evans, again. You’ve just made a great impression! This is already turning out to be another bad year with her. thought James with resentment as he went up to his dormitory.
Little did he know that this year would be one of the best years of his life with Lily, and the Marauders, but he would be the only one to remember it all.