Snape, as if he was bored of this routine, just looked at James. Then he pulled out his own wand and pointed it to someone behind him. James was stunned. Snape had done it so easily, as if he had rehearsed it!
No! James pushed back that thought. Snape hadn’t outwitted him!
“Let down your wand, Potter,” Snape said coolly, “Or your little friend will pay a special visit to the Hospital Wing.”
Without thinking, James turned his head and saw Snape’s wand pointing, not at Sirius, but at Lily. Sirius stepped in front of Lily like a bodyguard.
“Leave Evans out of this, Snivellus,” Sirius warned, “She didn’t do anything wrong…. James, look out!”
Suddenly, a fist collided with James’s bottom jaw. Before James was able to react, his stomach was hit with a ball of dark green light. James was thrown backwards into the blackboard in the front of the room. He then crumbled to the floor, along with several other blackboard pieces, stomach threatening to burn him alive. Warm blood was sliding down his mouth.
He heard Lily scream and Sirius start cursing his head off. James knelt over, clutching his aching stomach. A hand rested on top of his head and shoulder.
“Are you alright, James?” he heard Lily ask. He wished he could say something, or nod at least, but he felt that if he moved, his chest would explode.
He heard a cold laugh and Snape’s voice say to Sirius, “I’ve been waiting so long to do that. How could I have missed that opportunity?”
Sirius was in the middle of shouting a curse and a spell at Snape, but another, much older, voice broke in, a flash of white light burst, and Sirius’ dark brown wand skidded across the floor.
“Dueling, are we, Mr. Black?” Professor Madres asked. “Twenty points from Gryffindor. Please take a seat, both of you.” Snape and Sirius sat down in opposite ends of the rows, shooting each other their most deadly look.
Lily stood up from behind the teacher’s desk.
“Miss Evans! What are you doing behind my desk? Why is my board destroyed? Another twenty points from Gryffindor!”
“But, sir! I have to take James to the Hospital Wing!”
“Potter? To the Hospital Wing? What is this? I turn my back for five minutes and havoc wrecks in my classroom!”
Several other students had begun entering the classroom, inspecting the blackboard in front of them, but Professor Madres started bellowing at them. “OUT! OUT! OUT!” He ushered them all out into the hallway and slammed the door shut.
Students swarmed outside the window, fighting to catch a glimpse of what was happening at the scene. But Professor Madres flicked his wand in the air and the shutters came together and James could hear the groans and mutter of disappointment of the students.
“Where is Potter? What has he done to my desk and chalkboard? This is worth a detention!”
James wasn’t about to be caught lying helpless on the floor with blood all over his mouth. He wiped his face with his robe and stood up. He rested his arm, inconspicuously, on the desk for support and gave Professor Madres a weak smile.
“I was just inspecting your floors, Professor. They’re a little on the dirty side, if I say so myself.” James almost collapsed again. His stomach felt as if it were melting. He cursed Snape under his breath.
“You look a bit on the poor side yourself, Potter. Off to the Hospital Wing, then. I want two rolls of parchment tomorrow on why dueling in my classroom would be a rather stupid idea!”
“Oh, no! I’m fine, Professor. Snape just tried to stun me, that’s all.”
“What nonsense is this? A student from my house attacking another?”
“Yes! It’s something they would do.” The boiling in James’ chest had bubbled down. Snape was smirking.
James looked on the ground and saw his wand lying underneath Sirius’. Professor Madres summoned them to his hand and said, “I’ll be holding on to these until the end of the period.” He then pointed his wand at the board and all the pieces flew back together. A small piece of white chalk began writing complicated procedures for a potion on the board.
“Take seat, Potter, Evans! Or I’ll chip more points off Gryffindor!”
James took a seat next to Sirius and Lily sat behind them.
Professor Madres flicked his wand in the air again and the classroom door opened again. Students poured inside excitedly, but took their seats glumly when they realized that there was nothing interesting to see.
~Halfway through the class~
Lily was adding pixie dust to her blue bubbling potion, which immediately turned to a golden color, when a crumbled up piece of paper fell next to her hand. She picked it up and looked in the direction in which it came from. Malfoy was looking at her through the corner of his eye. Lily looked at Maya next to her, who was stirring the cauldron, absent-mindedly and had not noticed the unwelcome note.
Slowly, she unwrapped the parchment of paper.
It wrote: Don’t try any tricks next time, mudblood, or I’ll teach Snape more that that simple spell he practiced on Potter. And there are your parents to consider.
Lily shivered. James, who was about to retrieve troll’s hair from the cabinet, saw Lily holding the note. Lily caught sight of him raising his eyebrows and she knew he had recognized Malfoy’s handwriting.
He was about to snatch it out of her hands and read it, when it burst into flames.
Lily gasped in surprise and dropped in onto the wooden table. The flames rose higher and higher. Lily backed away from the fire, stunned and in shock, like the majority of the class. Malfoy pocketed his wand and took a step away.
~
“Holy smokes!” Sirius shouted. His voice triggered the nerves in James’s system. He swept the burning parchment of the flammable table.
He was too late. The fire had caught onto the wood and had begun burning. The fire quickly engulfed Lily’s and Maya’s desk. Amy grabbed Maya and Julianne pulled Lily away from the blaze.
“FIRE!!!” James roared. “EVERYONE OUT NOW!” Screams erupted everywhere and everyone made a run to the only exit. Professor Madres took out his wand and pushed everyone quickly out of the room.
A flame leapt from Lily’s desk to James’. Then another flew onto Julianne’s desk. James saw Julianne’s hand licked by fire and she let go of Lily.
Amy had already left the room, screaming her lungs out. Julianne ripped off a piece of her robe and wrapped it around her hand. Remus ran next to her and stared, frightfully, at the tall flames scraping the ceiling.
Lily, Maya, Sirius, and James were trapped in a circle of fire. Smoke began clouding the room.
“REMUS!” James coughed as loudly as he possibly could. “GET DUMBLEDORE!” Remus didn’t need telling twice. He sped out of the door and bolted past the crowd of students and up the stairs bellowing, “Fire in the dungeons!!! Fire!!!”
“Julianne! You get out, too!” James was using his robe to swat the fire out, but he had to take it off for it too had caught fire.
“But you’ll die!” Julianne cried. “You’ll burn to a crisp, or even ashes!” She pulled out her wand and a stream of water splattered onto the table. It didn’t work. The fire was too big. Another table caught fire.
“Julianne! PLEASE get help instead of describing various kinds of terrible ways to end our mortality!” Tears were forming in Lily’s eyes because of the stinging smoke.
Lily’s cauldron tipped over and the contents spilled all over the table, dissolving Maya’s cauldron and the table into dust and ash. Sirius leaped over the ashes and melting pewter and stood by Maya, protecting her from the flames. James buried Lily’s head in his chest against her will and better judgment.
“Let go of me, Potter!” Lily ordered. She had begun trying to push him away, but James didn’t loosen his grip.
The fire had now spread to all the desks and way beyond the control of the four teenagers.
James frantically looked around. The fire slid onto a few strands of unicorn hair and they exploded and sparks flew everywhere.
“There!” Maya pointed to an empty corner of the room with only a stone floor.
“No! We can’t get here unless losing a limb!”
“Oh sure, Maya has permission to see see, but I can’t?” came Lily’s muffled voice.
“We don’t want to ruin those beautiful eyes of yours, Lily.”
Lily gave one final shove and pinched his arm. “O.K. O.K. I’m letting go of you. Happy?”
Lily panted and clasped her forehead with her sweaty hand. She took off her robe and folded it into a rectangle.
“How is that going to help?” Sirius asked.
“I put it over a section of the fire. It will extinguish for a few seconds, which is just enough time for us to get out of this flaming square of death.”
“Oh… I knew that.”
Lily stomped her robe over a part of the fire, creating a thin walkway. Lily jumped over it, followed by James, Maya, and Sirius.
“Um… James? Our wands?”
“Right, you go with them. I’ll get the wands. GO!!!” James ran towards Professor Madres’ desk. The wands weren’t on the top. He looked back up at Sirius. He was dragging Maya and Lily towards the door.
He opened one drawer. It only contained several spell books. He pulled in out and threw it to the floor. Flames greedily swallowed it.
He opened the next one. It only had plans for the next several classes. He threw that one into the fire.
“JAMES! GET OUT OF THERE NOW!” James eyed the doorway. It was now completely filled with smoke and flames. A figure was standing on the other side. He was trapped in the classroom. A huge boulder fell from the ceiling and shattered on the floor. James closed his eyes and told himself the truth.
I’m going to die. I’m going to burn too toast and all the Slytherins will celebrate my death.
He opened his eyes one last time and focused his entire mind on the doorway when the ceiling finally crumbled down.
~
“JAMES!” Sirius hollered back into the classroom. “JAMES! COME OUT!!!”
Lily was standing a few meters away from Sirius. Maya was standing right behind her, hand over her mouth in shock.
1… 2… 3… The seconds ticked by. With each passing moment, Sirius shouted louder and the tears and misery of Lily Evans grew larger. Sirius’ voiced weakened and he fell to his knees.
Sirius took a deep breath and shouted at the classroom, “PRONGS!!!”
The only reply was more unicorn hairs meeting the fire and exploding. Sparks poured out of the doorway and one window.
Lily screamed and took a step forward. She wanted to assist. But what was there to help? She had no way of getting in there.
“James… why James?” Lily found herself saying.
Suddenly, a figure leapt through the doorway and bounced off the stone floor on his back.
“James!” Sirius yelped. James shirt was playing host to flames. James rolled around the floor, shouting as if he had been hit with “Crucio.”
“Create a thunderstorm, Maya!” Lily ordered.
“A what?”
“A thunderstorm! You’re the only one who has the ability to make one! Hurry!”
Maya whipped out her want and muttered a quiet incantation. A thick cloud erupted from Maya’s wand and floated to the ceiling. Rain immediately splattered onto the staircase, the dungeons, James, and everyone else.
Girls started shrieking about their hair and boy started swearing about Maya.
James was lying on his stomach, breathing heavily. Sirius was bent over him, pouring water from his hands to James’ back. Lily ran over to James and fingered all his scars.
She shook her dripping wet head and said, “This does not look good. He needs immediate help.”
“I was thinking along the same lines. But we can’t move him.”
James groaned and turned over, coughing.
“James, James,” Sirius said, “You’re alive. Calm down, man.”
James slowly opened his eyes and raindrops trickled on his glasses. “It’s raining indoors,” he said faintly. Then he flinched as Sirius poured more water over him. “Ouch. Stop it, Padfoot, that hurts.”
The students had now gathered around the three of them, but Sirius suddenly stood up and flapped his arms at them. “Spread out, spread out! Give him room to breathe!”
Lily knelt down next to James and wrapped her hand around his.
“You gave me a good scare there, James.”
“Sorry. I was just trying to find my wand.”
“Bloody hell, you almost died! I wouldn’t want that on my conscious!”
James gave a teasing smile. “You couldn’t last another year without me, could you?”
Lily was about to snap back a reply, but Remus and Dumbledore pushed their way through the crowds.
“My God, James. Are you O.K.” Remus bent down next to Lily.
James said, “I’m fine.”
Dumbledore held out two wands. “I believe these belong to both you and Mr. Black.”
James took his wand and twirled it. “Yup, it is. Where was it?”
“Professor Madres had it. Next time, I would recommended valuing your life about a piece of wood, Mr. Potter.”
James nodded.
“Let me through! Let me through, children! A fire! My, my! Who needs my medical attention? Oh, you, Potter? Again? Heavens, I always knew something like this would happen!” Madame Curtis tripped through the crowd of people and put her hands on her hips.
“Well, I assume I can fix you up, Potter, so you’ll be able to hold the try-outs tonight. But just don’t fly too fast. I’m getting quite tired of you and you’re recklessness.”
~~~
A/N: Yes, it was Malfoy who caused the note to catch fire, but he didn't intend for the entire classroom to burst into flame! Please R&R! I'm very lonely.