Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry was not in a good mood.
It wasn’t actually the building that was in a bad mood, of course; it was the students that inhabited it, myself included. The constant exams were getting on everyone’s nerves, even those who didn’t have to take any, and the fact that Quidditch matches and Hogsmeade trips kept getting cancelled due to the exceptionally horrible weather did nothing to lift the heavy curtain of grumpiness that lay thickly over the entire castle. The only one who seemed totally unaffected by all of the gloominess was Dumbledore. And so it was only fitting that, one month into the new year, he was the one to break the tension that held the whole school in it’s unrelenting grip.
***
Jackie and I sniggered into our glasses of carrot- and orange-juice, respectively (Jackie had a weird thing for carrot-juice in the mornings, though she couldn’t stand it any other time) as James, Sirius and Peter (Remus was in the hospital again”he had had an especially nasty full moon two nights ago) walked in, all looking as tired and disheveled as I felt. James’ hair, of course, always looked like he had just gotten into a fight with his broomstick, but Sirius could be just a teensy bit vain at times. Hence the perfectly groomed curly black locks that all the girls fell in love with (including the Slytherins, but excepting Jackie and me; we knew how much time he really spent on his hair every morning, and believe me, it wasn’t the “two seconds” he told all of his female admirers). Today, though, he hadn’t taken the time to pay any attention to his hair, and believe me, you could tell.
Anyway, we continued chuckling and snorting into our drinks until we saw the murderous looks on their faces that warned us not to crack a single joke as they reached our table. At that point we swallowed our giggles (and our juice; I forgot to do that once and stained my robes beyond repair), tilted our heads in the same directions and chirped our a sweet and docile “good morning”. They grunted in response as they reached for toast, cereal, muffins and eggs, although Peter offered a small smile before digging into his breakfast.
Sighing, I scraped the remains of my now-congealed oatmeal from my bowl and into my mouth. Everyone had been very tense due to the huge workload lately, but honestly, if Jackie and I could make an effort at cheerfulness, the least they could do was manage a simple “good morning”.
Finished with breakfast, slightly put out with the Marauders and thoroughly ready to enjoy a day outside in the sudden (and welcome) warmth and sunshine, I stood up, startling Jackie from an apparently intriguing study of toast, and, just as abruptly, sat down again.
“Damn,” I muttered, my good mood slipping away like water in a tub. “I forgot. Prefect’s meeting today. Damn.”
Jackie looked at me amusedly and returned to her examination of her toast while patting my back in false sympathy and saying, “Ah, the prices of perfect Prefect-ness. Lily dear, when you were born perfect, you knew you would have to take on these kinds of responsibilities when you got older. After all, you’re perfect! Hence, you were chosen for prefect. While I am the farthest possible distance from perfect. And so, I get to indulge in the activities that un-perfect people are totally able to participate in.”
Glaring at Jackie, I sullenly focused on folding my napkin into an origami star box to amuse myself. There were still twenty more minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin, and I felt like wasting my last moments of freedom before the inevitable boredom, pointlessness and eventual doom the Prefect’s meeting would bring.
“Er, Lily,” James said rather unintelligibly, meeting my eyes for the first time that morning but still managing to shovel even more bacon in his mouth. He paused to swallow and I gestured impatiently at him.
“Yes?” I asked with annoyance, and he made a jerky hand movement towards Dumbledore, who happened to be standing up and raising his hands for silence. I lifted an eyebrow at James and grinned, knowing that for Dumbledore to be making an announcement during breakfast (he believed, as I do, that breakfast is a most important meal, and should not be interrupted) it must be important enough to cancel the Prefect’s meeting.
Maybe he’d say that the Hogsmeade trips would begin again next weekend, or maybe all the Professors had decided to cancel all the exams; an unlikely thought, but it was possible. And as much as I loved exams (I’m not a totally play-by-the-rules, always-study-never-play kind of person, but there’s a sort of satisfaction I get from taking-and doing well on-exams), I wasn’t crazy enough to be pleased about the daily tests and pop quizzes we kept getting in all of our classes, not to mention the homework.
Suddenly I realized that Dumbledore was speaking and that I had been zoning out. I’ve been zoning out a lot lately, I mused to myself, taking a small sip of orange juice and tapping my foot against the floor to no particular rhythm. I bet its all the homework we’re getting nowadays. I just haven’t been getting enough sleep, that’s the problem. And my lack of sleep has absolutely nothing to do with thinking about a certain Jam-. Realizing I was zoning out yet again, and also not wanting to follow that line of thought, I all but dropped my glass of juice onto the table and leaned forward intently, cheeks burning at my strange thoughts, and concentrated on listening to Dumbledore.
“…and so I have decided that it is high time I played a prank!” Dumbledore finished, a smile playing at his mouth and blue eyes twinkling merrily from behind his spectacles.
My mouth dropped open in surprise. Dumbledore? Pulling a prank? Impossible. I must have missed something. It’s got to be a hallucination, I told myself weakly. It’s got to be lack of sleep again. Yet a quick glance at my classmates told me that they were just as shocked as I. I shook my head in disbelief and slight amusement at our young headmaster (well, he himself wasn’t young, it was just that he was a rather new headmaster for Hogwarts”this was only his fifth year as professor).
“Yes, I know what you all may be thinking: ‘Is it truly proper for our headmaster to pull a prank on the rest of the school?’ And my answer to that question is that in this circumstance, yes, it is not only proper, but it is necessary. You might not have noticed the strain that all this work has put on you-” (this raised a few skeptical eyebrows and brought out some snorts from the bolder students) “-but we as your professors have, and I think that the time has come to put an end to all of the anxiety and tension that your work has brought to you this past month since vacations. As of this morning, whenever any student feels like studying, doing homework or any kind of schoolwork in general, said student will suddenly have a headache, backache or tongue-ache, whatever ailment necessary to detain that student from studying. Oh, it won’t hurt them much, it’s not really anything serious,” he hurried to assure us as indignant cries rose up from the professors’ table-apparently they hadn’t been let in on it-but everything was quickly silenced with a roar of approval from the entire school.
I looked around in dismay at the students cheering themselves hoarse and grinning in jollity as I absently chewed on a piece of buttered toast”how could everyone be so excited? Sure, we’d be getting out of a few days of school, but we would get so very behind in our classes, and what’s more, it would be a terrible example to set for all the younger students! Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed James’ and Sirius’ occasional harmless pranks (well, maybe slightly more regular than occasional) but only so long as they were totally harmless”otherwise, I made sure to give them a good, well-deserved lecture.
I groaned as I thought hopelessly of the Herbology exam we were going to have had first hour the following Monday, and of all the hours I had spent studying The Dangers of Plants: A Thorough Study of the Wonders of the Butober the night before.
As soon as the thought of that exam was in my head, I had a fierce headache. “Ow, ow, ow,” I muttered, screwing up my face in pain and gripping my forehead.
“Lily, are you alright?” Jackie asked, concern plain on her face.
“I’m fine, I just have the worst bloody headache ever, cause of that stupid bloody spell Dumbledore just did,” I answered her, gritting my teeth.
The pounding in my head grew louder and more painful as I concentrated on not concentrating on the exam. Unfortunately, the more you try not to think about something, the harder it is not to think about it. The pain increased once again, until it was nearly unbearable. I put my elbows on the table and closed my eyes, swallowing the wave of nausea that threatened to take me. Oh, Merlin, this was embarrassing. I was probably the only one who was sick from thinking about exams.
“Lily? Lily what’s wrong? Jackie, what happened to her?” I heard James’ worried voice over the thunder of students exiting the Great Hall to go and enjoy a homework-free Saturday outside. Or was it the thunder in my head that I heard? I couldn’t tell, I only knew I had to answer James.
I opened my eyes, blinked a few times to clear away the stars, and then forced myself to smile through the pain. Sirius, Peter and James were staring at me anxiously like over-protective brothers. In fact, that’s pretty much what they were to Jackie and me.
“I’m just fine, guys, honestly.”
“Right,” Peter said dryly, “and I’m a Quidditch star.” (At this he gazed wistfully into nothing for a moment, probably wishing he was a Quidditch star, before returning his gaze to me.) “Lils, you don’t have to pretend you’re fine, we’ll just go up to Dumbledore and ask him to take the spell off of you.”
“Yeah,” Jackie put in, “I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Sirius and James just stared at me. I growled in frustration. I hated it when they acted like that. Like overprotective brothers, I mean. But then again, even Jackie and Peter were acting a little bit too concerned. Honestly, I only had a headache from thinking about the Herbology exam.
No! I told myself frantically, don’t think about that! Don’t think about exams! But the information that I had studied the night before persisted in showing itself and making me see it inside my head, and the headache I hadn’t noticed had subsided renewed itself with fresh vigor. With a cry of pain I put my head back in my hands and shut my eyes tightly, barely aware of Jackie’s soothing voice telling me that they were taking me to the Infirmary and that Madame Pomfrey would help me.
I felt a pair of strong arms envelope me from behind and I weakly sagged into them. “Sirius, can you help me with her?” James’ voice sounded so far away; but if he wasn’t holding me, who was?
Suddenly I realized that everyone sounded far away. I must be fainting, I thought dreamily as I drifted away even farther. That’s interesting. I’ve never fainted before. And with that last thought, I lost consciousness.