Disclaimer: Nothing Harry Potter is mine. That's depressing.
(A/N I tried to make this fairly long because I havn't posted in a while. Sorry about that. I hope you enjoy it :) Thanks for reading!)
Chapter 3: Cowboys, Mudbloods and NEWTs
Lily made her way somewhat groggily into the great hall, with her friends Raven and Stephanie on either side of her. They took a seat at the first available spot and instantly Lily began piling things on her plate. The breakfast layout was always the same every year. She knew where all her favourite things were off by heart.
She was almost done her meal, when the hooting of owls announced that the post had arrived. Lily looked up and spotted the usual sleek Daily Prophet owl. When Voldemort’s attacks had started to involve muggle communities in fifth year, Lily had subscribed to the Daily Prophet. Besides, it was far better finding things out for herself than by Hogwarts twisted rumors that were usually contained a quarter of truth at the most. She scanned the front page, and then a few inside pages. Seeing no alarming headings, she rolled up the paper and shoved it in her book-bag. That’s when it happened. The bench under her gave a horrible lurch, almost unseating her. She sat up fast as lighting and gripped the bench tightly with her hands.
“Did you feel that?” She demanded of Raven and Stephanie. Judging by the nervous looks on their faces and the way they were clutching the bench as Lily was, they had.
Before they could respond, the bench gave a shudder and did an odd sort of leap into the air, only to come back down and repeat the action. Not only that, Lily could feel an odd sensation along the parts of her body covered by her robes and on her head. She looked down to see them turning into a tan coloured, decorative outfit. Like a muggle cowgirl outfit, Lily thought. And it was. It had a red lining and a little Gryffindor symbol on one of the chest pockets. If Lily could have seen the back of herself, she would have noticed a larger Gryffindor symbol embroidered on the back of her new cowgirl jacket. She could see the brim of a stereotypical old western hat forming over her brow. All around the Great Hall, everyone was experiencing the same thing she was.
The bench hit the ground again, and this time Lily took the opportunity to grab her wand from inside her bag. Clinging on desperately with one hand, she tapped her wand on the bench and commanded, “Finite Incantatem!” Bad move, Lily thought as the bench gave a frightening lurch into the air as though angry at her for trying to stop it. She wasn’t about to give up though. All this bouncing around was making her breakfast start to come up.
She flicked her wand in a complicated motion and whispered a few well chosen words. Instantly the bench stopped mid-leap. It gave a shudder and then collapsed into a normal bench position. Lily didn’t let go. When she was certain that it wasn’t about to spring back into like she looked around her. Chaos had broken out in the great hall. Most people lay on the floor, and those who had managed to cling on were looking rather green faced. Everyone wore an outfit similar to hers. The only difference was that each house had their own emblem embroidered in the same places Lily did.
The only people who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves were the marauders. James and Sirius in particular were riding separate benches like they were bucking broncos (which Lily was pretty sure they were meant to be) and laughing. They were suited in cowboy attire as well. Similar to Lily’s except slightly more masculine: instead of a skirt, they had pants. The staff were all around. Casting charms on the out of control benches like Lily had just done. Most Professors were concentrating on the first years, who looked petrified. Lily swung herself off her bench and got into action, freezing benches as she went along, and picking people off the floor.
Twenty minutes later, order in the Great hall was somewhat restored. However, no one seemed to be able to charm their clothes back to their Hogwarts robes. Everyone’s outfits were similar, except each houses’ emblem was embroidered on their front and back.
Most people were laughing at each other, remembering moments of hilarity. Raven had come over after the chaos had died down a bit and was currently laughing herself silly at the look of terror Lily had given her when she’d felt the first lurch.
Lily grinned. “Well your face was pretty funny too!” she said and then made an imitation Raven’s face. They burst into laughter, but quickly stifled it as a bunch of fireworks were shot out of Dumbledore’s wand.
“I know you are all worked up from this morning’s amusing events, but we must not forget that there are still classes to attend. Please stay seated as the head of your house hands out your timetables,” Dumbledore said cheerfully, with a bit more of a twinkle in his eye then usual. There was some shuffling as everyone got (somewhat hesitantly) back to their seats “As for these rather creative outfits, I see no harm in them, but if you must go to your dormitory and change then do so. Classes, however, will not wait for you.”
Dumbledore paused, looking around at everyone, beaming.
“Actually, all robes have been transfigured. But at midnight they’ll transform back,” James had stood up and was smiling at everyone. It was a cheerful smile, but Lily also got the hidden meaning. He was daring anyone to object, even though he knew perfectly well that no one would. Everyone knew better than to challenge James Potter, except for Severus Snape and Lily herself. There were always predictable results after every confrontation. Snape would end up completely humiliated, or/and in the hospital wing. Lily would end up turning James down for yet another date, and life in Hogwarts would go on.
Lily couldn’t deny that it had taken a lot of planning, not to mention power, to set up this prank properly. Plus the spells had to be timed to go off at a precise point. Probably spent their whole summer on it, Lily thought shaking her head a little and smiling to herself.
“What’re you smiling at?” Stephanie asked.
“What? Oh nothing...” Lily said, taking the timetable the McGonagall was handing to her. “Hey look! We have Transfiguration first!” She said happily, getting off her seat.
The three girls made their way out of the Great Hall, past the marauders who were currently being scolded by Professor McGonagall and Professor Morton, the potions teacher.
~*~
“This year will be your last at Hogwarts,” Professor McGonagall had decided to open up her lesson with a lecture. “But before you start to celebrate remember that this year you can expect to be loaded down with all the information you can possibly handle, maybe impossibly for some of you. NEWTs testing is at the end of the year and to do well you must pay attention,” she directed this comment towards James and Sirius who were attempting to throw their cowboy hats on top of Remus and Peter’s. Whenever they missed, they’d summon it back. Under McGonagall’s piercing stare though, they stopped and composed themselves into what Lily guessed, they thought was an excellent imitation of well-mannered students.
Somewhat convinced that she now had the whole classes attention, Professor McGonagall continued, “I have no doubts that all of you will achieve at least an ‘Acceptable’ in your transfiguration NEWT exam. That is, as long as you apply yourselves. Now, for today’s lesson...”
Fifteen minutes later, Lily found herself paired with Raven. They were trying to turn one another into an animal, and then use the counter-spell to change back.
“You transfigure me first, Lily,” Raven said, looking a little nervous.
“What? Why?” Lily asked. Raven always wanted to go first. In everything. She was quite competitive. It was one of the reasons why she was such a formidable beater on the Gryffindor quidditch team. That’s why she was so convinced that James was a good person. Apparently he was a great quidditch captain, and had earned her respect on many occasion. She could never quite get Lily to see it her way though.
“I might do it wrong, and you’ll get stuck as half a flamingo or something,” Raven explained.
“How comforting of you to say so,” Lily responded sarcastically, but she rolled up her sleeves and held her wand out in front of her. “Ready?” she asked Raven, who nodded, but closed her eyes as though afraid of the impact.
Lily waved her wand in the complicated motion that Professor McGonagall had demonstrated earlier. She opened her mouth to say the incantation, but suddenly Sirius was stumbling into her view. Lily watched as he collided with Raven and they both fell onto the floor. Instantly they started to morph into what looked like someone had attached a horse and giraffe together as some sort of cruel joke. But, oddly, they still had human characteristics. The horse had Raven’s hair style (tied back into a messy bun), and it was wearing her cowgirl vest. The giraffe was considerably short, it had human lips and, funnily enough, it had a cowboy hat on the top of it’s head. It seemed that even without the incantation, Lily’s spell had half worked. But who had cast the spell on Sirius?
Lily ran to the creature that was half her friend. “Raven! Are you okay?” she asked in a high-pitched voice.
“Sirius! I told you to brace yourself!” A familiar voice said harshly. Lily turned to see James coming towards her. As he sat down she took a glance at him. He looked a bit ashen faced, and Lily guessed that, although his voice was harsh, he was actually quite concerned for his best friend’s well-being.
“What happened here?” McGonagall demanded sharply. Lily and James hurriedly explained what they thought had happened, while Sirius and Raven simply complained in the background. Lily caught a few curses and once ‘A giraffe? A giraffe??’
“Take them down to the hospital wing you two! Don’t delay!” McGonagall commanded. James and Lily wasted no time in doing as they were told, grabbing onto their literally attached friends and leading them through the corridors. It was slow going. Especially on the stairs, and some corridors were too small for the horse-giraffe to fit in. They had to keep on taking detours and once in a while one of James’s shortcuts.
“I am so sorry Raven!” Lily kept apologizing. “This is why you always go first!”
And every time she said this James would say, “It’s not your fault. Sirius wasn’t paying attention. Blundering idiot”
To which Sirius-the-giraffe would make a snorting sound and angrily attempt to stomp on James’s foot. Lily was rather greatful for Sirius’s reaction. This prevented her from having to respond to James. She so wanted to point out that if James had given Sirius proper warning, this probably wouldn’t have happened. She remembered the agreement they had made the night before though, so she held her tongue and busied herself with assisting Raven and Sirius through particularly difficult passages.
After what seemed like ages to Lily, they finally entered the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey hurried over to them instantly, and once again Lily and James found themselves muttering explanations. In the end Madam Pomfrey practically kicked them out, demanding that her patients needed rest.
“I hope that’s not an indication of how the rest of the day will be...” James said, as they headed back to the Transfiguration classroom.
“I can’t believe that happened. What a weird effect,” Lily mused. “Well, Raven should be thankful that she gets to miss some classes. Although she’s attached to a person she despises...”
James nodded in agreement. “They’ll either both be dead, or the best of friends when we see them again.”
“I don’t know which would be worse,” Lily said mockingly. She looked up at James to see him smiling at her, and felt an odd fluttery feeling in her chest. What was that? She thought.
Lily went to turn a corner. BAM. She walked head on into someone.
“Oh, I’m so...” Lily stopped, catching sight of the person. Standing in front of her was none other than Severus Snape.
“Filthy little mudblood! Watch where you’re going!” Snape spat. He’d probably meant to be intimidating, but that’s a rare feat when one is outfitted in a cowboy outfit.
“Appol “ ” James started angrily but Lily cut him off.
“After six years you’d think you’d be able to come up with something new,” Lily said icily. “I’m not the one who has such greasy hair, it looks like they’ve never taken a shower in their life. If being pure-blood means being exactly like you, then I’m glad I’m a muggle-born.” She walked past him, holding her head determinedly high. She didn’t see the flash of light, nor did she see a Slytherin Cowboy slump to the floor, unconscious, with fish tails spilling out of his mouth and purple boils covering his face. She didn’t notice that James, after a disgusted look, turned the boy on his side so he wouldn’t choke to death on the fish tails.
In fact, Lily was very good at missing the moments in which James’s more human side pronounced itself.
Lily was walking so fast through the corridors that James only really caught up to her in time to walk into the classroom together.
McGonagall, noticing their return, said sharply, “You two will have to be partners now, and let’s hope this time there will be better results!”
“That wasn’t my fault!” both Lily and James protested at the same time.
McGonagall responded with a severe look, and the two hurried to find a clear spot to preform the spell on each other. McGonagall’s looks always had that effect on students.
“Ladies first,” James said, once they’d settled into a place.
Lily fought back the hundreds of comebacks she had to that simple line. She raised her wand a little hesitant because of what had just happened to Raven. “Ready?” she asked.
James nodded, bracing himself, but unlike Raven he didn’t seem scared. He’d simply shifted his feet so that he was in a more stable position. The corners of his mouth were turned up in a small smile, and Lily felt like he had confidence in her. She felt braver because of it.
She thought of the animal to turn him into, and then once again waved her wand in a complicated motion and uttered the incantation. Instantly James started to morph in a big grizzly bear. Although, the effect was a bit ruined by it standing up on it’s hind legs and looking down at itself. It gave Lily what she thought was meant to be an incredulous look.
“Well done! Everyone take a look over here. Miss Evans has successfully transfigured Mr Potter!” James was stuck as a bear for about ten minutes as McGonagall walked around him, pointing out to the class how Lily had managed to avoid the common effect of transfiguring someone only partly, so they were still human but with some animal features.
“Alright, Miss Evans, you may turn him back now,” Professor McGonagall said once she had finished and everyone had gone back to transfiguring each other.
“But Professor, I was hoping we could submit him into a muggle zoo,” Lily said, grinning as James-the-bear shook it’s head and stared up at her reproachfully.
Professor McGonagall gave Lily a rare smile and said, “As tempting as that is, Hogwarts needs a Head Boy, Miss Evans.”
The bear gave a kind of snort, but McGonagall ignored it. She walked off to supervise other groups and give help to those who needed it.
Lily muttered the counter-spell and the bear disappeared. In it’s place now stood James. Lily grinned. “Did you enjoy your time as a bear?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with hidden laughter.
“Well done, but you wouldn’t have had the heart to put me in a zoo,” James replied, ignoring her question.
Lily shrugged. “I might’ve,” she said. “Anyways, it’s your turn.”
“Revenge will be sweet,” he joked, raising his wand. Lily poked her tongue out at him childishly, but shifted herself into a more steady position.
“Do your worst,” she dared, but it was somewhat ruined by the smile on her face that she was not aware of.
By the end of the class Lily had been turned into a tiger, an eagle, a parrot and (oddly enough) a newt. She, in turn, had successfully transfigured James into a kangaroo, a turtle and a coyote as well as the bear. She was in a considerably happy mood for the rest of her morning classes (Arithmancy and Charms). She’d completely forgotten about the state Raven was in, until she noticed her absence at lunch. She felt a pang of guilt at not remembering, and quickly began to gather food into a napkin.
“I’m going to the hospital wing to visit Raven,” Lily told Stephanie.
“Oh, I’ll come with you,” Stephanie said. There was a slight red tinge to her cheeks and Lily thought she knew who else Stephanie wanted to see. She didn’t say anything to Stephanie about it, just waited as she grabbed food and put it into her napkin as Lily had done. They started to walk down the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables.
“Hey, Lily!” Lily stopped and turned to face James. She mentally noted that he had called her by her first name, and not last. If it had been a year earlier, Lily would have reacted angrily. However, it was not last year, so she gave him a mild look of polite interest.
I’m being civil for now, but if he asks me out, I’ll curse him, she thought, fingering the wand in her pocket.
But it turned out that James didn’t want a date, he wanted to join her and Stephanie on their visit to the hospital wing. Lily found no harm in it, so as a response she shrugged and said, “Shove some food in your pockets, and come on. Lunch will be half over by the time we get there.”
She purposely ignored the amazed looks Stephanie, Peter and Remus were giving her. She hadn’t told Stephanie or Raven about her patrol with James the night before, but she supposed she was going to have to later in the common room.
They walked for a bit in a silence that Lily couldn’t stand, so she decided to keep up a friendly conversation. “Nice prank this morning. How long do you have detention for?” she asked James.
“Only for one night since no one was harmed by it. Don't worry, I’ll still be able to patrol with you,” he said, grinning.
“Oh, joy,” Lily said sarcastically, but she was smiling. “That reminds me. We have the first prefect meeting tonight, and I still don’t know who took my place.”
“Elise did,” Stephanie said. “I should know, she wouldn’t shut up about it during Ancient Runes.”
“Well, she was probably just excited about it,” Lily offered in Elise’s defense. Although Lily never really hung out with Elise, she was a nice girl, a little talkative, but nice none the less.
Stephanie replied by rolling her eyes, “You have an excuse for everyone, don’t you?”
“No, you just make people seem worse than they really are,” Lily countered.
“Huh. I wonder who else does that...” Stephanie replied. Lily blushed a bit, knowing she was referring to the way she’d treated James for the past few years.
Lily hastily changed the conversation topic to quidditch, and it held them until they entered the hospital wing. They saw that Raven and Sirius were human, but still attached at the shoulder. They lay on the same hospital bed, bickering.
“It is all your bloody fault! You better run for your life once we’re separated because I am going to curse the living daylights out of you!” Raven shouted.
Sirius opened his mouth to retort something back, but James hastily went, “Hey mate, how are things holding up?”
Both Raven and Sirius looked over and saw the three coming over to them.
“I’ll never forgive you, Prongs,” Sirius replied icily. “I can’t believe you attached me to this... this... thing,” he said grotesquely.
James grinned. “I see that you’ve suffered no lasting damage,” he said.
“No lasting damage? Are you kidding me? She is“ ”
But what Raven was, they never found out. For at that moment, a group of sixth year Ravenclaw girls rushed in. Some were crying, and others were dead white. They were carrying what looked like a fellow Ravenclaw girl.
“Where’s Madam Pomfrey?” One demanded of Lily, after helping set the girl on the bed next to Raven and Sirius’s.
“Here, what’s wrong?” Lily jumped, Madam Pomfrey had arrived, seemingly from no where.
The girls all started explaining at once, making it impossible to understand. Madam Pomfrey held up her hand and said, “Quiet!” in such a commanding voice, that they all fell silent at once.
“You,” she addressed the girl who had asked for her whereabouts upon entering. “What happened?”
“Well,” she began tearfully, “We found her unconscious on the third floor, in the little niche behind the statue of that witch. We tried to use the energizing spell, but it didn’t work. And there’s this thing on her forehead...” she reached over and brushed back Darlene’s bangs with her hand. Lily saw the words ‘First Mudblood’ etched there, as though someone had indented them into her forehead.
Everyone gasped, but the girl wasn’t done. “And there was a note lying on her,” she said, handing it to Madam Pomfrey. She took it and unfolded it. Lily stared as Madam Pomfrey went a horrible grey colour.
“Someone get the Head Master!” She cried, and dropped the piece of parchment. Lily bent down and scooped it up as one of the Ravenclaw girls ran out of the hospital wing.
She read it and trembled violently, for written in dark green ink was “The cleansing of Hogwarts begins” and underneath the Dark Mark sparkled threateningly.