“Lily? You have been awfully quiet the past few days.”
Lily just picked at her food. She rolled the pea across her plate and into her demented gravy volcano. She hadn’t heard Maya’s remark. She was about to roll another pea into the gravy-filled mountain when Maya tugged her arm.
“Lily!” Maya yelled.
“What?!?” Lily yelled louder. But then she lowered her voice after a few disapproving glances from other students. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“You didn’t hear anything Julianne or I have said, did you?”
“Um… no?”
“I didn’t think so.” Lily gave a very weak smile and crushed her pea.
“Well,” Julianne continued, “It is Chaser try-outs tonight and I want you all to try-out.”
Maya looked at Amy in an is-she-really-serious-because-I-can’t-stay-on-a-broom way.
“Oh, come on! At least try! You won’t kill yourselves!”
“Oh yeah, sure, Julianne,” Amy said, serving herself more chicken, “As if I’m going to survive a fall of a broom 50 feet in the air!”
“I can’t hold a quaffle and throw it without sending anyone, including me, to the hospital wing,” Maya agreed.
“Fine, you can watch in the stands, but at least be there,” Julianne stuck out her chin at her friends and then asked Lily who was about to resume playing Roll The Peas Into the Messed-Up Volcano. “Will you try out Lily? Please?”
“Well… I don’t know…”
“James said you’d make a great Chaser.”
Lily began choking on her pumpkin juice. “WHO said that?”
“Lily has returned to us! Praise the Lord!” Maya laughed.
“James Potter?” Julianne ignored Maya and her nonsense giddiness.
“And he would think that, why?”
Julianne struggled to find a correct way to put it without Lily blowing off her head. “Well, there was that day with Peeves. I heard you chucked a glass orb right through his greedy head.”
Lily thought back to that unfortunate morning. “Oh yeah. I remember that.”
“So PLEASE try-out! I beg of you!”
“You beg of everyone, Julie,” Amy remarked.
“Fine. I’ll try-out.”
~
James was secretly watching Julianne ask Lily to try-out for him. Of course, he couldn’t walk right up to Lily and beg on one knee for her to try-out. So, last night, he had “accidentally” slipped to Julianne a list of people who he thought were good. He emphasized when he mentioned Lily. Even though Julianne knew where he was going, she was going to ask Lily, all the same.
James watched Lily slowly nod her head and Julianne smile.
“Hello? Prongs?”
James snapped out of her reverie and took his chin off his arm. “What?”
“We’re in the middle of forcing Padfoot to tell us what happened on full moon.” Remus stared at Sirius again.
“You know: the night Lily became extra quiet and distant?” Peter asked.
“Those are my words, you rat,” James hissed at Peter.
“Sorry.”
“What… happened, Sirius?” Remus demanded.
Sirius looked up at the rainy ceiling above and sighed. In an annoyed voice, he said, “I told you guys a million times: I can not tell you in the middle of lunch! I’m not really sure I can even tell you! If you really, really, really want to know, you’re going to have to either wait or ask Lily.”
“Well, what can you tell us?” James inquired.
“Um… well, nothing here, really.”
“Was it Slytherins? I’ll kill them all if it was.”
“Calm down, James,” Remus advised.
“Maybe… or it could have been evil house-elves on strike and she fells all bad for them and going to start a stupid Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare.”
“Did you make that spell ‘spew’ on purpose?” James asked momentarily distracted by the corny joke, “’Cause it’s not very funny, you know.”
“Stay on task, Prongs,” Remus ordered. “Sirius, I’m really serious about this. There was a huge mountain of rocks blocking the staircase when everyone went down for breakfast the next morning!”
“I recall hearing that… though I don’t know who caused that.”
“Did you give Lily back her wand, at least?”
“Yeah. I left it in her bag that was lying about in the common room. Do you know what else I saw in there?”
“A book?”
“Yeah, that too, but something else.”
“Did you conduct a whole security search of her belongings?”
Sirius ignored Remus’ comment and skipped to what he was originally going to say. “I found a flower.”
“A flower? That’s all?” Remus rolled his eyes.
James’ jaw dropped. That was not all! She still had it? She still had the lily from the first night of school? That made it one week!”
“It was a lily.”
Remus sighed and started jabbing his meat. He obviously didn’t notice James’ expression. Sirius served himself some more corn, shooting James curious looks. Peter started nibbling his bread like a mouse. He hadn’t paid attention to the lily conversation. James didn’t fell hungry anymore. He decided he was sick and announced he was getting a head start to the next class.
“Why?” Sirius asked.
James shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Meet me at Potions.”
“Right then, mate.” Then Sirius returned to stabbing his defenseless chicken leg.
James walked out the Great Hall door and began walking down to the dungeons. He passed a small, metal door and shuddered. He had been hung by his wrists there twice already. One was for jinxing the knights so that they would try to skewer any Slytherin that passed them. Another was for bewitching other student’s quills so that they wrote inappropriate words on parchment paper. His arms had never felt so numb. But it had been worth it, seeing screaming Slytherins and befuddled first years.
He rested his back on the arch of the N.E.W.T. Potions door and flipped open his textbook. He was just reviewing in case Professor Madres decided to pick on him again, like he usually did.
He remembered a moment in which an angry spark flickered between them two.
~~()~~
“Potter!” Professor Madres tapped his wand at the brim of James’ cauldron.
“Yes, sir?” James asked politely.
“What is this?”
“Draught of Peace.”
“It looks more like your useless mind.”
“Looks like someone forgot their naptime. You should use the Draught of Peace more often.”
~~()~~
“You are early, Potter,” came a cold and sharp voice. James’ head shot up and he saw Professor Madres peering at him through the small barred window.
“I-I wasn’t hungry anymore, sir,” James said. Seeing two pale eyes staring at him through a barred window had scared him quite a bit.
“Then why don’t you step inside the classroom and take a seat?” he asked. James swallowed and nodded. He wasn’t exactly thrilled to be alone in the head of Slytherins’ classroom with no Sirius or Remus to back him up, if needed.
The classroom door opened by itself and James cautiously stepped inside. It was pitch-black dark and James had no idea where the teacher had gone.
My theory is correct, James thought, he is a vampire!
But as soon as James was about to let his imagination get the best of him, all the candles wicks were ignited and the room wasn’t as dark as before. Professor Madres was sitting in front of the classroom at his broken and old wooden desk. His hands were folded in front of him. To James, it was his sigh language or “Run now or get hung by your wrists again.”
James quickly sat down in the farthest table back. He rapidly resumed scanning the pages of his book. He was in for a rough period.
He hated Professor Madres. He hated the way his brown hair went down in curly locks to his neck. He hated his french mustache and his one golden tooth. He hated his soulless eyes that only shined for Slytherins.
A hand appeared on top of the book’s spine and slammed the book down. James yelled as his left hand was wedged in between the cover and rough wood table. He yanked it out and hid it under the table.
“What was that for?” James half yelled, half asked.
“You know perfectly well what that was for, Potter,” Professor Madres snarled.
“I bloody well do not!” James shot back.
The creepy teacher leaned forward across the table so that his nose was an inch from James’s. His breath smelled of garlic. He definitely isn’t a vampire, he thought while holding his breath.
“Stubborn, I see. Maybe a night hanging by your wrists will help you remember.”