Black’s Heir
- "So the infamous Sirius Black has an heir? And it's you of all people?" -
“Very good, Jameson, five points to Gryffindor,” said a very pleased Professor McGonagall as she observed Lily successfully transfigure the colour of her eyes.
Closing her eyes again, Lily attempted to change them from green back to blue. Opening her eyes and glancing at her reflection in the window, she saw she had done it. Leaning back in her seat and checking her watch, she saw that there was only two minutes left in class. Everyone around her was frantically trying to complete the assignment before the before the bell rang.
Once the bell rang only five students had managed to complete the assignment “ Lily, Hermione Granger (of course), Ernie McMillan, Terry Boot and Pansy Parkinson. The entire class was eager to leave, as it was the last class of the day and this lesson had been considerably brutal. Everyone did a mad dash towards the door, except Lily who told her friends to head on to dinner. She would catch up with them later; she needed to discuss something with Professor McGonagall. She hesitated for a moment before going up to the professor’s desk. Professor McGonagall looked up from her paperwork and said,
“Can I help you, Jameson?”
“Yes,” she replied, feeling awkward. “I just wanted to ask if… if… if you could call me by my real surname.”
Professor McGonagall started so fast she dropped the ink bottle she was holding. Lily ducked down just in time to catch it and place it back on the desk before it shattered. “Thank you,” said the professor, though she did not sound relieved. “Now… your real surname?”
“Black,” Lily supplied.
“Well,” the professor breathed, sounding thoroughly startled. “I never thought I would see this day. I knew you had found out, but I never thought you would wish to be called Black. At the very least I thought you would adopt Lupin as your name.”
“I had thought of that, but it seemed too strange.”
“Your mother will be happy to hear that. She had been worried that you would want to be called Jameson for the rest of your life.”
Lily smiled. “I thought of that too, but I don’t think Sirius “ or Dad I guess “ would want that.”
Professor McGonagall looked up reminiscently for a moment, before coming back to reality. She gestured for Lily to sit down, while she took a seat as well. “No, your father wouldn’t have wanted that,” she said fairly. “But it would still be your decision to make. Your mother should never have given you up.”
“She was scared,” Lily argued. “After hearing from her own brother that Sirius had killed Harry’s parents, why wouldn’t she be scared?”
Professor McGonagall suddenly looked reluctant when she next spoke, and it showed it her tone.
“Yes, she was scared of that, but “ I don’t suppose she’s told you much about her childhood, outside of Hogwarts, that is.” Lily shook her head. In truth, she knew very little about her mother’s Hogwarts days. It just wasn’t a topic Rachael liked to talk about.
Professor McGonagall nodded her head in understanding. “I suppose she won’t ever get over what happened to her.”
Lily raised an eyebrow. What could have been so horrible about it that it scarred her for life?
Professor McGonagall sensed what was going through her student’s mind, so she elaborated. “Your mother didn’t have a very good relationship with your grandmother.” Lily nodded. She knew that much, she just didn’t know what. Now she was finally going to get the answers she had been longing for, the answers her mother wouldn’t tell her. “Your mother was accused of being the reason that your uncle was bitten by a werewolf.” Lily’s eyes widened, that was absurd. “Yes, it was rather ridiculous,” the professor agreed as though reading her mind. “But Rachael was fine her first year here; it was her second year when things went bad.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked, a little too eagerly, but she wanted answers. However, taking one glance at her teacher’s expression showed her that Professor McGonagall thought it wasn’t her place to disclose this information. “I get it. My mum has to tell me.”
“Yes she does,” the professor concurred. “I will tell you that her life wasn’t all bad. Her second and fifth years were just rough patches. After that everything came together until… until…”
“Until James and Lily Potter died.”
“Sirius would never have done it, but we were all too scared to realise that wasn’t the kind of person he was. I should have convinced your mother that, I should never have let her give you up.”
“What?”
“I was the one who handle your adoption; I handpicked the family that was going to adopt you. I figured you were better off with a Muggle family; no wizard family would take you in. The Jameson family didn’t care if your father had murdered thirteen Muggles; they knew it wouldn’t affect you at all.” Professor McGonagall glanced at the wall clock and down at her watch. “Dinner is already halfway over, why don’t you go down there now and see what’s left.” Lily nodded and made to leave. “And Lily,” said the professor. “Do not be ashamed of your surname.”
Lily smiled. “I won’t professor.” She shut the door behind her. She was halfway down the hall, thinking about what she had heard, when an only too familiar voice spoke from behind her. She turned around to see a boy with sleek blonde hair and cold grey eyes - Draco Malfoy. His grey eyes were shining madly, which gave her the distinct impression that he heard something he shouldn’t have.
“Black?” he said, smiling menacingly. “So, the infamous Sirius Black has an heir? And it’s you, of all people?”
Lily’s eyes flashed dangerously. This wasn’t the right day for Malfoy to pick a fight with her.
“Yes it’s me,” she said, letting her pride show in her voice. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw several first years scurry off in the other direction immediately after she said that. She now knew what it felt like to be Harry.
“The traitor, Black!” Malfoy exclaimed, relishing every moment of this confrontation. “I can hardly believe it!”
Lily’s insides burned with rage. She tried to conceal it when she spoke, but failed dismally.
“Shut it, Malfoy,” she spat, almost ready to whip her wand out. “You, of all people, should know he wasn’t a traitor! Why don’t you go ask your father who’s so chummy with Voldemort?”
Malfoy’s face, if possible, grew paler than it already was. He took a threatening step towards her and, for a moment, lost the use of his tongue. Lily took advantage of this.
“What’s wrong, Malfoy?” she snarled. “Afraid to admit your dad’s right up there with Voldemort on the list of the biggest scumbags on the planet?”
“Don’t you insult my dad,” he muttered evilly.
“Don’t you insult my dad,” she retorted.
“I’ll insult anyone I please! Whether it’s your dad, your filthy mother, your half bred uncle, or you, you disgusting werewolf!”
“That’s it!”
Before Malfoy knew what happened Lily’s wand was out and she held it in between his eyes. She wanted to blast the brains right out of him; she wanted to make him feel so much pain that he would be reduced to a crying heap on the floor. Before she even got a chance to utter a hex, Professor Snape had run over and snatched the wand out of her hand. She turned to look at him and saw his eyes were blazing wildly.
“Black!” he spat. Lily didn’t even bother to wonder why Snape had called her Black, when she had only just asked Professor McGonagall moments ago. She was too angry with Malfoy to care. “What did you think you were doing?”
She wanted so much to give him a snappy comeback, but the looming thought of the Wolfsbane Potion kept her from doing so. “I… you didn’t hear what he said!” she defended lamely.
Snape laughed harshly and twirled Lily’s wand in between his fingers. “Oh and what did he say?” Snape questioned.
“He was insulting my family and me!”
“Oh, but Mr. Malfoy hardly needs to insult your family, they’re a joke on their own.”
This touched the wrong nerve.
“Shut up!” she yelled, stealing her wand back and backing up towards the stairwell. “Just SHUT UP!” She turned on her heel and broke into a furious run towards the Great Hall, the events that had just taken place flashing before her eyes as she desperately tried to block them out. Oh, how she hated Snape and Malfoy. Words couldn’t describe how much she despised their very existence. She didn’t understand how Snape could defend such a rat. Then again, Snape was no better with what he said. She burst into the Great Hall and immediately spotted Ron, Hermione and Harry. They were talking to Ron’s little sister Ginny and Neville Longbottom and paid her absolutely no mind when she sat down.
Only when Hermione turned to see that she was on the verge of tears did they notice her. “What happened?” she asked, her voice full of concern.
Lily shook her head wildly, trying to block the tears the wanted to fall.
“I hate them!” she finally spat, her voice breaking.
“Who?” Ron asked.
“Malfoy and Snape! The stuff they said to me… I hate them!”
The three looked down at her sympathetically; they seemed to know what had taken place without even asking.
“Malfoy knows you’re a Black,” Harry stated. She nodded miserably. “And he decided to rub your family history in your face.”
“Yes! He said my dad was a traitor, my mum was filthy, Remus was a worthless half breed and I’m nothing but a disgusting werewolf! And Snape only made it worse by saying no one needed to insult my family because we were bad enough on our own!”
“But that’s just Snape and Malfoy,” said Hermione, trying to offer words of comfort. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“I know they don’t… I just can’t take it anymore! First Malfoy tells everyone I’m a werewolf and now he’s going to make it public knowledge that I’m a Black. I’m not ashamed of it… but I can’t take it anymore!” She rubbed her hands over her face and took a trembling breath, all the while thinking I’m not going to cry. She barely listened as Hermione talked to her, saying that she shouldn’t let Malfoy and Snape bother her, they weren’t worth her time. But the confrontation was still blaring in her ears and prevented her from hearing half of what her friend was saying. She hated them and no one was going to make her think different.
“Aw, did I make you cry?” Malfoy drawled.
They looked up to see Malfoy smirking at them. Lily grimaced and wiped her eyes clean. Did Malfoy ever learn when to stop? He was milking this for all it was worth.
“Go away,” she muttered.
“Is that the best you’ve got? I would’ve thought that with Black as a father you could think of something better,” he mocked, smirking.
“Shove off, Malfoy!”
“What is going on here?”
All five heads turned to see Professor McGonagall striding towards them. She stopped when she reached them and looked over to Malfoy, who didn’t look the least bit deterred by the professor’s appearance.
“Mr. Malfoy, I believe your table is over there,” said Professor McGonagall, pointing a finger at the Slytherin table. Reluctantly, Malfoy retreated to his table, the smirk not leaving his face for a second. She waited until he was seated before turning to the four Gryffindors.
“What was Mr. Malfoy going on about?” she asked them.
“Nothing, Professor,” Harry said quickly.
“Well, it must have been something to reduce Miss Black to tears.”
Harry, Ron and Hermione turned to find Lily’s face buried in her hands, her shoulders trembling dangerously.
“Its not just Malfoy,” she said, looking up at the Transfiguration teacher. “It’s Professor Snape too!”
“And what did the Potions Master say?”
“That my family is a joke.”
Professor McGonagall shook her head and excused herself to have a few words with Professor Snape. Lily looked up at the staff table to see the two professors bickering, and it looked like Professor McGonagall was winning. Lily was glad about this; she couldn’t stand that sorry excuse for a man. She didn’t care if he never made the Wolfsbane Potion for her again; it was as if he was holding that over her head. She looked at the food on the table and decided she wasn’t very hungry. Saying she would see her friends later, she left the Great Hall and made her way down to the Quidditch Pitch.
Sitting in the stands, she found herself wanting to see her mother. She didn’t know why, she found that she wasn’t as interested in finding out why her second year was so horrible. She just needed someone to talk to. If being ridiculed for being a werewolf wasn’t enough, why did they have to make fun of her because she was a Black? She couldn’t help who she was born to, and being related to Sirius wasn’t being related to a cold blooded murderer. She remembered those little first years running away in terror when Malfoy shouted her surname. Was that what Harry felt when they were in their fifth year? He had everyone skirting him in the corridors as he passed, and all of those horrible stories written about him and Dumbledore. He probably felt worse than what she was feeling. Word hadn’t spread around the castle yet, but she had no doubt in her mind that it would be by the time she woke up the next morning.
She hated this, she really did. Why was it that people like Malfoy could walk away from fights unscathed, but the good people are the ones injured or the ones who break down? Burying her face in her hands once more, she sat on the bleachers and closed her eyes tightly. It had been in May of her sixth year. She had disappeared for a good number of days during that entire year, and, of course, Malfoy couldn’t resist finding out why she would vanish and she knew he would go to any lengths to find out why. The day she walked into the Great Hall and heard all of the howling, it was like nails scratching on a blackboard. Her eyes were wide in terror when she heard it; she stood rooted to the spot before she was able to collect herself and dash over to the Gryffindor table, where she hid in her Charms textbook. Professor McGonagall realised what was going on and immediately deducted fifty points from Slytherin, and from anyone in any other house that participated in the ridiculing. That day was right up there in the worst days of her life.
Looking around, she saw a group of people in red robes standing in the centre of the pitch, looking for something… or someone. Checking her watch, she realised she had Quidditch practise. She high-tailed it out of the stands and hurried to the changing rooms to change into her robes and grabbed her broom from the shed and ran onto the pitch, apologising for being late. The team turned upon spotting their captain’s arrival.
“Sorry,” she said, catching her breath. “I’ve been having a bad day.”
“It’s alright,” said her fellow Chaser, Ginny Weasley. “So, are we learning any new plays?”
Lily shook her head; she had spent all of the previous practise drilling them in numerous new plays. “Nah, we’re just going to run those plays, do a scrimmage and that should be enough before the break.”
The team sighed in relief at not having to learn new plays. Immediately they kicked off and began the practise.
“Black, in case you’re forgetting, you’re supposed to come to me for the potion. I do not want to look for you all over the castle.”
Lily had just entered the castle after Quidditch practise and Professor Snape had seemingly come out of nowhere. He looked like he would rather shove the goblet down her throat than hand it to her. She had been walking up the steps in the Entrance Hall and Snape had descended upon her like a vampire.
“Oh,” she said, not bothering to keep the hostility out of her voice. “I’m sorry if I forgot, but I did have Quidditch practise.” She snatched the goblet from the professor and downed it in one gulp, though wanting to vomit it back up due to the nauseating taste. Snape took the goblet back from her.
She dashed up to Gryffindor Tower and thought she should start packing some of her robes. Christmas break started the day after next and she would be going to her mother’s house to spend the holidays. A few days after Christmas, however, would be the full moon and she wasn’t looking forward to it. She hated that the transformation had to be so close to New Years Eve; she usually had a good time with the Jameson’s on that day. Now she would be spending it recovering from her transformation and catching up on lost sleep.
Shaking the thought out of her head, Lily began packing some robes into her trunk, waiting for Hermione to come to the dormitory. Right now she was alone, not even Parvati or Lavender was in the room, but she didn’t care. They would interrogate her about why she had broken down in the Great Hall and would try, as they thought they were doing, to comfort her. Usually when they attempted to comfort someone they made them feel worse.
Luckily when the dormitory door opened it was Hermione who strolled in, holding her Ancient Runes textbook. Hermione smiled at Lily when she saw her and sat down on her bed.
“How’re you feeling?” she asked.
Lily immediately knew that she was referring to her spat in the hallway with Malfoy and Snape, and then the one following in the Great Hall. Lily shrugged, she still felt bad, but not as much as before.
“Okay, I guess,” she answered truthfully. “Just a little tired.”
Hermione nodded.
“Full moon’s coming isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yeah… next Friday, I think. I just took my potion before I got up here.”
“Snape didn’t seem too happy when Professor McGonagall talked to him. You shouldn’t have yelled at him.”
“Why not? He insulted my family, that’s the least I could have done.”
“It’s just… I was talking to Harry before, and what he told me worries me, no matter how far fetched it seemed. Snape could take whatever Professor McGonagall said to him the wrong way, and he could take his anger out on you.”
Lily raised an eyebrow; she doubted Snape would do anything of the sort while Dumbledore was watching him. Harry was on to something, though. Snape could take it the wrong way. The only thing was - how was he going to do it? What did he have of hers that he could use against her? Unless… no… he couldn’t.
“You wouldn’t think it would be the Wolfsbane Potion, do you?” she asked her friend timidly. Hermione didn’t answer at first, but slowly nodded her head when Lily asked her again.
Lily’s eyes widened, she had just taken the potion not even an hour ago. What if Snape had done something to it? What if he tampered with it and now it was digesting in her? But she felt fine, nothing could be wrong with her. After all, Snape wouldn’t dare pull something with Professor Dumbledore watching his every move. Would he? Hermione seemed to have guessed what she was thinking because she assured her that he wouldn’t try anything, it was just a thought.
“I hope it is,” Lily muttered as her stomach lurched painfully.