Chapter 15: Career Prospects
With only a few days left until the start of term, James, Remus and Sirius were making every minute of their freedom count. They often disappeared for long periods of time to places unknown to Lily. In a way she envied their knowledge of the castle’s secrets. They still had no idea that Raven was now an orphan and that Natalie Jada possibly was too.
Not that Lily hadn’t wanted to tell James; she was fairly certain that he would want to know. It would have been a totally different matter if James was just an acquaintance of Raven’s, but that wasn’t the case. Raven and James had been teammates since they both tried out for the Quidditch team (and made it) four years ago. Over that time they had become fairly good friends. Not enough that they hung out with one another very often, but they would always walk down to quidditch practice together and on the morning of a game they’d sit together “ much to Lily’s dismay up until recently “ at breakfast in the Great Hall.
So when Raven told Lily that she didn’t want to tell any of the marauders about her parents death; that she’d rather they just stumble upon it by themselves, Lily felt slightly confused and upset. For one thing she didn’t understand why exactly Raven wanted to keep it a secret from people she was friends with “ not exactly including Sirius “ when practically the rest of England knew.
“I hate people pitying me, Lily. I get enough sympathy letters from complete strangers; I don’t need them to act weird around me too,” Raven had told her. During the past week, Raven had received a numerous amount of letters from complete strangers. Most told her that they were sorry for her loss; but there was the odd one that told her to bite the dust as her parents had done. Knowing that this was a battle she would never win, Lily backed off, but Raven seemed to sense that she was not quite convinced. “It’ll be easier for me to cope, with them not knowing. It’s a little normality for me amongst all this craziness.” Lily was too sentimental to argue with that and Raven knew it. However, she still made Lily swear her secrecy.
“Anyway,” Raven continued in a lighter tone as they sifted through the countless envelopes that were strewn across the common room table they were sitting at. She had enlisted Lily’s help in opening all of her ‘sympathy’ letters. Also, they’d had an awful time trying to conceal it all from the marauders, who would have been suspicious of the sudden onslaught of mail.“On a happier note, I have finally decided what I want to be when we leave this hell hole!”
Lily gave a snort of laughter. “This guy spelt ‘deserve’ with a ‘z’ and a ‘w’. I bet you a sickle he’s a troll,” she said, rolling her eyes. She balled up the grubby letter and threw it into the fire. “I can think of worse places to be than Hogwarts,” she added, dodging the other part of Raven’s sentence.
Raven gave her an unimpressed look, and Lily laughed. “Alright,” she gave in, “What do you want to be?”
“An Auror.”
Lily paused in the act of tearing open another letter. “That’s really great Raven!” she said enthusiastically, like the good, supportive, friend that she was. However, she couldn’t help adding, in a cautious tone, “Isn’t that fairly er... fairly dangerous, though?”
“Well, yeah, but nothing I can’t handle.” Lily was still concerned. In an effort to convince her, Raven plunged on, “They give you loads of training. In fact, it’ll probably be like going into eighth year, except at a different school and everything. There’s this test I’ll have to pass too, otherwise they won’t accept me into training. Plus I have to have a tone of N.E.W.Ts. It’ll be so exciting though! And I’ll be helping people!”
“You get yourself killed, and so help me I’ll never forgive you,” Lily told her.
“That’s not much of a threat, considering I’d be dead and I wouldn’t have the faintest idea,” Raven retorted with a grin.
Lily laughed. “Then I’d find a way into the realm of the dead and I’d let you know that I wouldn’t forgive you!”
“Fine, I guess I could deal with that...” Raven suddenly became serious. “Why don’t you become an Auror with me Lily? You’re smart enough. You’d pass all the tests easily.”
Lily looked at Raven disbelievingly. “I’m not brave enough. I’d see the convict and then I’d run as fast as I could the other way.”
Raven shook her head and said, “No you wouldn’t. All those times you stood up for people... You stood up against James, even though you had a huge crush on him“ ”
“Did not!” Lily protested, but Raven ignored her.
“And that was for Snivellus of all people! You never let what the Slytherins say get to you; you deal with that wretch of a creature who does nothing but scratch and peck you. If it were anyone else they’d have drowned the thing by now.”
“After a few years of the same insults, it’s hard to take offense. I still lose my temper at them though. I’m not completely immune,” Lily said dismissively, “And Blizzard can’t help it; he’s a wild creature.”
“Wild or not, I still fantasize about drowning the little buggar,” Raven muttered, bringing a smile to Lily’s face. Blizzard had assaulted Raven with his sharp beak a few times. “At least think about it, okay? It’d be a lot more fun if you were there.”
“Fine, I’ll think about it,” Lily relented, but could think of better ways to spend her time. She didn’t find the thought of being an Auror all that appealing, although it would be fun to have the same career as Raven.
“Promise?” Raven pressed. “I know you won’t think about it if you don’t promise.”
I wish she didn’t know me so well, Lily thought while she forced her features into an expression of pure innocence. “I promise. Now let’s get back to these letters. You have a bunch of ‘thank you for your support’ notes to send.”
“No I don’t!” Raven replied brightly. “Not if you use that duplication charm!”
“And why would I want to do that?” Lily asked, pretending to be aloof.
“Because I’ll get arthritis if you don’t! Look at all these bloody things!” Raven dramatized the effect by charming the letters so they all lined up and started chanting in squeaky voices, “Open me! Open me!”
Lily burst out laughing as the letter she was holding jumped out of her hand and started doing a bizarre jig, all the while singing ‘Come on baby, just open me, read me baby. Open me. Open me.’
“I guess I should be glad you want to be an Auror; you’d be a disaster as a songwriter.”
~*~
After some amount of time, Lily left Raven to feed Blizzard. As she made her way back down to the common room, mourning over the new wounds she had acquired and the loss of blood. She could’ve sworn that she’d shed at least a pint of blood over the past week.
Raven was right, she thought as she retook her seat beside Raven, he’s cute, but he’s bloody menace!
“What’s going to happen with him anyways?” Raven asked, with a nod at Lily’s freshly bleeding wounds to indicate she meant Blizzard.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lily said absently. “When school starts again I might take him down to Professor Kettleburn. Or I could try giving him to Hagrid. He likes bothersome little creatures.”
“Well I hope so, because no way are Stephanie and Elise going to put up with him very long.” She put on a high-pitched voice and made a terrified face, “He took my hair ribbon!! What ever will I doooo?”
Lily laughed, picturing the scene. Before she had learnt to keep all her trinkets locked up, Blizzard had stolen a lot of Lily and Raven’s things to make up his nest. They’d had a horrible time trying to pick out the things from the far corner post of Lily’s four-poster bed which was where he had built his nest. They found it humourous now the wounds had somewhat healed. At the time it had been quite painful.
“I am so bored of opening letters,” Lily said after a momentary silence. She tossed another piece of hate-mail into the fire, a look of disgust on her face. Sometimes, she just didn’t get how people could be so inhumane. “Let’s do something fun tomorrow.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?” Lily asked curiously, wondering what on earth Raven could have planned. She couldn’t possibly want to keep reading these letters!
“My aunt and brother are coming to Hogwarts. I’m supposed to spend the day with them in Hogsmede to... to work things out.” As usual, Raven wouldn’t look at Lily when she talked of anything slightly related to her family. Lily had gotten used to it, and came to accept it.
“Do you want me to walk down with you?” Lily asked. “I can’t go into Hogsmede, not without permission from Dumbledore, but I’ll walk you to the gates
Raven nodded. “Thanks Lily.” She paused for a moment, struggling with her thoughts. “Really, I mean it. You’ve been really supportive through out this, and I know I haven’t been the most fun person to hang around with...” at this Lily gave a noise of protest. “But I appreciate everything. You’ve made it that much easier for me.”
“Think nothing of it,” Lily said sincerely as she leant over and hugged Raven.
At that moment the portrait swung open and in came the only other inhabitants of Gryffindor Tower. The two girls began stuffing all evidence of the letters into their book bags. Thankfully the marauders were too involved in tackling each other to notice.
For awhile the group chatted about idle things, while sitting before the fire. It was peaceful and eventually everyone became absorbed in their own thoughts and a silence fell upon them. Sometimes Lily mused about how odd it was that she had come to be with James. It was still hard for her to believe that she liked him so much. It made her wonder if it would have been the same if she had said yes to him the first time he asked her out all those years ago...
“I’m dead. I think I’ll hit the sack before it hits me,” Raven said, interupting Lily’s musings and covering a yawn. “If I scream, the beast has gotten me.”
“Doubtful. You’d probably get Blizzard before he could get you,” Lily replied.
Raven could only respond with a smile and salute, before she disappeared up the girls’ staircase. Shortly after, Sirius and Remus rose to go. They bid James and Lily goodnight before they too vanished up their own staircase. Lily didn’t even want to think about climbing the stairs and she felt that James thought the same.
“You know what McGonagall said? About this being our last year? I’ve been thinking about it. What is it you want to do when we leave?” James asked.
“I don’t know,” Lily said, twisting her head so that she could see his face. “I’ve thought of a lot of things. I always come back to healing though.”
“Madam Pomfrey will be thrilled,” James said dryly.
Lily gave a small smile. “What do you want to be?”
“An Auror.”
“That seems to be a popular choice these days,” Lily said weakly, thinking of Raven.
She felt James’ body lift in a shrug. “It runs in the family. My dad used to be one. He’s retired now, but still working for the Ministry. And my mother quit when she became pregnant with me.”
“But it’s so dangerous now with Voldemort and his supporters.”
“They won’t last much longer,” James said lazily. “There hasn’t been an attack here since Timothy and I haven’t heard about any other appearances by him. I’m sure they’ve already died down.”
Lily felt a pain somewhere deep within her stomach. “I guess,” she forced herself to say. She wondered if he’d be mad at her when everyone returned to school and he found out that Voldemort’s group hadn’t died down after all.
He’ll understand, she tried to console herself, I was being loyal to Raven. He’d do the same for Sirius. Though she continued to tell herself this, it never did ease her conscience.