Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Never have, never will.
(A/N Thank you so much to everyone for all your lovely reviews! I know it took me awhile to get this out and it's not extremely long so I don't really have an excuse except that I blame school!!!!!! Hope you enjoy ^_^)
Chapter 8: Pure-blood Prejudice
She didn’t attend the Halloween feast. Lily remained in Dumbledore’s office, seated in an armchair next to Natalie and James. They had all been asked to remain there by Dumbledore and received a ‘feast’ of sandwiches and pumpkin juice, which none of them touched.
Although it was about three hours later from the moment Lily had first found Timothy’s seemingly lifeless body, to Lily it seemed she had only just woken up from a weird dream. She finally had a sense of where she was and wasn’t just floating around hearing odd muffled noises. She looked over at Natalie who was sobbing loudly in her chair and was amazed she hadn’t heard her sooner.
“It’ll be okay Nat,” she said, leaning over and patting the distressed girl’s arm. Of course, everything wasn’t going to be okay. How could it? Timothy had been attacked and Lily couldn’t help but blame herself. She kept remembering the time when Timothy had come up to her looking scared and she had let him get away with some stupid answer to an obviously fake question about werewolves.
“I d-don’t want to b-be questioned by the m-ministry!” Natalie sobbed. When Dumbledore had shown them into his office he had said that the ministry had questions for all of them and they’d be there shortly after he had discussed something with them. He had also reassured them that Timothy would live, but he would be unconscious for several days time most probably.
“Don’t worry, they just want to know what we saw. It’ll help them catch whoever did this,” Lily said soothingly.
Lily was still comforting Natalie, and James was looking at the many portraits of past Head Masters who appeared to be sleeping, when Remus came in. At the sound of him entering they all span around in their chairs. He looked pail, but not in a sick way, it looked more like he was frightened.
“Moony?” James asked giving him a curious look. “What’re you doing here?”
“You will find out later, if Mr Lupin desires to tell you,” Dumbledore entered behind Remus, looking at them all with a small sad expression on his usually cheerful face. “I must ask you, however, to leave him be for now.”
James eyebrows arched in a confused expression. He shot Remus a concerned look before nodding at Dumbledore.
“I know this has been a terrible day for all of you, but I must ask you to answer the Ministry’s questions as truthfully and descriptively as you can.” He looked at all of them kindly and Lily felt a little more confident. “Now I“ ”
Dumbledore was interrupted by a stout young man with sandy brown hair and a long nose banging his way into the office. “The child was a pureblood! He was a pureblood Dumbledore! We found this note on him...” He reached out to Dumbledore, a small piece of parchment in his hand. Dumbledore took it, unfolded it and read it quickly. He returned it to the wide-eyed young man standing in front of him.
Lily’s whole body felt like it had been plunged in a bucket of ice. If Timothy had been a pure-blood than that meant...
“What’re we going to do Dumbledore? No student is safe...”
“No one has been completely safe for a long time, Paul,” Dumbledore sighed. “We will increase security around the castle. Do your Ministry officials still have questions for these students?” he asked, indicating to Lily, James and Natalie.
The man named Paul show his head. “No, not now. Maybe later on, we need to“ ”
Dumbledore gave him a silencing look and Paul shut up mid-sentence. He turned to his confused students and said, “You may go back to your common rooms. Miss Jada, I realize that you are the only Hufflepuff here. Professor Sprout is waiting for you out in the corridor. She will escort you to your house.” Natalie nodded and stood up from her chair. She walked out of the office with a tired look on her face. “Lily, James, if you could wait outside a moment; I’d like to have a quick word with Mr Lupin,” Lily vaguely noted that Dumbledore had addressed them by their first names. It seemed natural really. She walked beside James as they exited the office, went down the spiral staircase and out behind the gargoyle into the corridor.
“Hey, are you okay?” James turned to her, a concerned expression on his face. He reached out and grabbed Lily’s hand, gently squeezing it.
“Fine. I’m fine,” she managed. For some reason she was having difficulty breathing.
James reached up and ran a hand through his messy black hair, making it even untidier. Lily remembered the last time she’d seen him do that. It was in fifth year, by the lake when she’d yelled at him for it, among other things.
“No you’re not,” James said bluntly, but in a soft voice. “I know you cared about him.”
“I can’t believe he was a pureblood.” She found it difficult to speak around the lump in her throat. “James, I can’t believe this. It means you’re endanger too...”
James shook his head. “I’ll be fine.” He stepped closer to Lily and she didn’t back away. Their eyes met and that one moment was like magic. He started leaning in towards her and Lily went to meet him, their lips were barely an inch apart. The loud crunching noise of the stone gargoyle sliding aside to let someone out forced them to their senses and Lily jumped away from him as Remus walked out.
“Thanks for waiting,” he said in a depressed way. He didn’t seem to notice that both James and Lily were looking extremely awkward after their almost-kiss.
They began making their way towards Gryffindor tower. As they passed the hospital wing, Lily craned her neck, attempting to catch a glimpse of Timothy to see if he had gotten better or not. She didn’t see him, but a pair of male voices reached her ears.
“Parents were killed by dark wizards back in the fifties. That was the attack that got everyone raving about Grindelwald again. Poor boy was sent to an orphanage and then he was adopted by muggles. Been living with them ever since.” said the first voice. Lily stopped walking and edged closer to the hospital wing entrance, making sure to keep out of site. James and Remus did the same. All of them eager for more information.
“You think that’s why they attacked him?” Asked a second voice.
“Dunno. I think it was the werewolf. Mighty suspicious if you ask me.”
Lily and James both looked at Remus, who shrugged his shoulders. Lily was burning with anger. First Hagrid, now Remus? And on what grounds? That they were simply a little different from the rest of the wizarding world?
“Naw, he’s just a kid. Dumbledore trusts him, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t.” said the other man, and Lily felt a rush of liking towards him.
“I’m not saying that Dumbledore’s not a good man, but he can sometimes be blind when it comes to situations like these. He likes to believe the best of people. But me? I didn’t like the look of him. He was too nervous for my liking,” the first voice said darkly. Lily, on impulse, plunged her hand into her robes, fingering her wand. Debating whether or not to hex the guy.
She felts James’s hand on her wand arm and looked at him. “Lily, you can’t take on a ministry official, no matter how thick they are,” he whispered, and Lily felt his breath tickle her ear, he was so close. She relaxed and took her hand out of her pocket, but her whole body was tingling. Painfully aware that James was still extremely close to her.
“I don’t know, these days it’s hard to tell who’s on your side and who’s the one about to curse you,” the other man said sadly. “Let’s go catch up with the others.”
Lily, Remus and James took this as their cue to leave and hurriedly ran around the corner towards one of Hogwarts’s many staircases, just as the two men exited the hospital wing. They didn’t know what would have happened if they’d gotten caught for eavesdropping, but Lily was sure that it would’ve made Remus look worse in the eyes of that one man, and maybe even change the other’s mind about him.
“That is so stupid Remus, I can’t believe they actually questioned you! It’s not like you’re a werewolf all the time,” Lily whispered as quietly as she could. “If only they knew you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you hurt someone.”
“He hasn’t hurt anyone. Not ever,” James confirmed. “Don’t listen to them Moony, they’re paranoid right now. You just happen to be an excuse that fits with their prejudice. They never would have questioned you otherwise.”
Remus gave them both a small, thankful smile. “That’s what Dumbledore told me.” But he looked much happier now that James and Lily had reinforced the Head Master’s words. They spent the rest of their walk to Gryffindor tower talking about the upcoming quidditch match that would take place in November. They purposely avoided the subject of Timothy’s attack, although it was still on Lily’s mind.
When they walked into the common room through the portrait hole, Lily was immediately ambushed by Raven and Stephanie. They were like two blurs running straight at her.
“Lily! Are you alright?” They demanded, throwing their arms around her and squeezing her tightly in what was supposed to be a hug, but was practically giving Lily a spinal injury.
“I’m fine!” Lily forced out. “Let go! You’re hurting me!”
“Oi! Prongs! Moony! Stop goggling and get over here! We have mischief to plan!” Sirius called loudly, disrupting the girls’ moment.
James rolled his eyes. “Come on Moony. We’d better go before Padfoot wets himself with impatience.”
“Then let’s stay here. That could be fun to see,” Remus replied, but despite his threat he started walking towards the back corner where Sirius and Peter sat, with James beside him.
Lily watched them, wondering what it was they were planning. Perhaps a prank, but maybe it was just a simple raid of the kitchens. Remus and James hadn’t attended the feast after all. And although Dumbledore had provided them with sandwiches, they hadn’t actually eaten any.
“We’ve got so much to tell you Lily!” Stephanie said, her face illuminated with joy. One of her favourite things to do was fill people in on events they didn’t know about.
“Alright,” Lily yawned. She felt so tired. “Let’s talk about it in our dorm, okay? I’m really sleepy.”
Stephanie nodded in agreement and the three girls made their way up the spiral staircase and into their dorm. Lily immediately collapsed on her bed.
“What did I miss at the feast?” she mumbled into her bedspread.
“Just delicious food and fantastic entertainment,” Raven said, plopping down onto her own bed.
Lily looked at them curiously. “Then what do you have to tell me?”
“They have a suspect for the attacks!” Stephanie exclaimed.
“Really? Who?” Lily asked eagerly. If they had a suspect than that meant this whole thing would be over soon!
“Remus Lupin,” Stephanie said with a lopsided smile on her face.
Lily snorted. “He’s not a suspect.”
“He is! He was taken in for questioning right before the feast began!” Stephanie exclaimed.
“Steph, that doesn’t mean he’s a suspect. That just means he might’ve had some helpful information or something. Do you think they would’ve let him go if they honestly thought he was responsible? Do you think they would’ve let James and I walk with him back here?” Lily pointed out sensibly.
Stephanie opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it. She seemed to be thinking things over.
“Stupid of us to believe the rumors anyways,” Raven said after a while. “Especially this one. Remus Lupin, a vicious attacker of muggle-borns? That’d be the day.”
“It’s not just muggle-borns,” Lily said suddenly, before she could stop herself. Raven and Stephanie looked at her curiously.
“What do you mean?”
Lily looked at her two friends, wondering if she should tell them or not. If they spread it around the school than everyone would panic. But if she couldn’t trust her best friends, who could she trust? “This is one of those things you can’t tell a single soul,” she said, making up her mind. Raven and Stephanie had never told anyone any of her secrets before, partly because they knew if they did, Lily would probably hex them into oblivion. No one liked being on the receiving end of her fiery temper.
(A/N yay! Congrats on getting through it all! I'm not extremely please with that chapter. I don't think it's my best work, but hopefully it wasn't so bad that you are now scratching your eyes out from the pain of reading it. Let me know what you think ^_^)