Chapter 8: A Future Career
The next few weeks went by as a blur for James. Homework was piling up every day, and he also had Quidditch practices and his duties as Head Boy to deal with. He had so far avoided much responsibility as Head of the School, but since Dumbledore had taken the trouble to trust James with this important role, he decided he should knuckle down and help Lily out once in a while.
Lily had been released from the hospital wing with a perfectly healed and working arm. James noticed that although she still seemed to avoid him most of the time, Lily was much less off-hand with him on the occasions they did bump into each other. She seemed to smile more often when he was around, instead of scowling and telling him to get lost. One Herbology lesson, she even went so far as to quite calmly tell him he was re-plotting his Tarangula upside down, and offered to help him.
One cold Thursday morning in mid-October, Lily came out of a classroom just as James was passing.
“Ah, I was hoping to bump into you soon,” she said.
James’s stomach did a flip. “Really?” he asked, keeping cool.
“Yeah, McGonagall wants us to spread the word: Hogsmeade has been cancelled this weekend. There’s an Anti Dark Arts security check being done on the village, and Dumbledore wants us all to remain in the castle.”
James looked at the floor to hide his embarrassment. “Oh, sure Lily. I can just about handle that.” He looked up, smiling. “Can I walk you to Potions?”
She flushed, then smiled slyly. “I can walk myself to Potions, thanks, but you can most certainly walk my bag…”
She handed it to James, who was weighed down by its immense weight. “What do you keep in here? Rocks?”
Lily laughed, “They’re called books, Potter. You should try acquiring some.” She motioned him forward. “Come on, we’ll be late.”
Their Potions lesson was particularly interesting. Professor Slughorn let them out into the grounds to find and pick a certain type of weed specifically good at counteracting the effects of a Sneeze Charm.
“Next lesson we will be stewing the weed into the correct potion. Remember, it only grows where it’s damp, so you won’t find any lying about the grass on a warm sunny day like this!”
The class hugged themselves, shivering slightly. It was far from warm or sunny. But it was an excuse to get out of the dungeons and walk around chatting.
“So off you go, the group that picks the most will be rewarded!”
The class wandered off in their various groups. Since Yves didn’t take Potions at N.E.W.T level, Lily decided to team up with the Marauders. This was something James took great interest in.
“This is turning into ‘the Marauders plus one’, you know,” he said, pulling up some grass from the ground and smelling it. “Yep, definitely grass.”
“What do you mean by that?” Lily asked.
“Well, its green, it came from the soil, and it smells like cows food.”
“Ha ha,” she retorted, not hiding the sarcasm from her voice.
“What James means,” Sirius said, “is that you’re spending more time with us than you used to.”
Lily shrugged. “It was either group up with you guys, that dirty bunch of Slytherins, or those others I never talk to. You do the maths.”
“Don’t try it,” James said, nudging her playfully. “We rule and you know it.”
Remus called from the lake. “Hey guys, I think I found some!”
They meandered slowly over, keen to spend the lesson doing as little actual work as possible. On reaching the lake, Remus handed Sirius a handful of weeds.
“Smell those. They about right?” he asked.
Sirius put the plants to his nose and sniffed. He pulled a face. “They stink!”
“Exactly. And they have the correct leaf shape and the rough edges. Here look, there’s some more over there.”
“Remus is in his prime,” James said to Lily. “Look at him, so peaceful…”
“Shut up, Prongs, or I’ll shove this mud in your face! Come on, I need some help, they’re rooted really deep.”
After 10 minutes of tugging soggy weed from the earth, Frank Longbottom approached.
“Hey Frank, where have you been all lesson?” James asked.
“Looking for Alice. She’s missing.” He looked pale,
They all stopped fighting with the weeds and turned to Frank. “Missing? How come?” Lily said.
“She was called to Dumbledore’s office this morning after breakfast. Her father’s been murdered by Death Eaters. She hasn’t been seen since.”
All five jaws dropped. Lily crossed to Frank and put her arm around him. “I’m so sorry. Do you want us to help you look?”
“No, Dumbledore’s got it covered. I just don’t want to be doing nothing. I feel helpless.”
“Sure. We’ll help,” Sirius said. “The more the better, really.”
“No really, you guys go back to what you were doing. If anyone can find her, Dumbledore can. I was just wondering if you had seen her recently, that’s all.”
They shook their heads.
“Sorry, mate,” James said.
“Alice is the one with brown hair, right?” Peter interjected. “I always get her confused with Sandy.”
“Yes, Alice has brown hair.”
“I think I saw her, you know…” Frank looked up and stared at him. “At morning break, I went to the Owlery to send a letter. There was a girl sitting on the windowsill of one of the windows on the staircase leading up to it.”
“The Owlery’s been checked!” Frank said.
“I’m just saying what I saw,” Peter mumbled.
Frank shot off. “I’ve got to go! Catch you later!”
There was a few minutes silence. Lily broke it.
“Poor Alice. I know what it’s like to lose someone, but not like that.”
“Who did you lose?” Remus asked.
“My sister, Rose. A long time ago now.” She touched the locket James had given her around her neck, which she had been wearing since the night she found out the Marauders’s secret. She decided not to dwell on it. “Those Death Eaters are pure evil.”
“Well look who they work for,” James said. “It’s like a sport to him. ‘Kill 10 and you get the next one free!’”
“James Potter, sometimes you can be extremely insensitive!” Lily said, colour rising to her cheeks.
“When have I ever been insensitive?”
“Right now!”
“I wasn’t! It was a joke, Lily.”
Remus sighed as they continued to argue. “Some things never change,” he said, picking up the weeds they had gathered and walking with the others back to the castle. “Come on guys, let it drop. The lesson’s almost over.”
***
Alice had come wandering back into the castle later that day. She admitted to having gone into the Forbidden Forest to cry in peace. She claimed she had never been near the Owlery all day.
She was sent home immediately, something that she had refused on first hearing the news. But her short disappearance had worried her mother, who said that for her own sanity she wanted her daughter home until after the funeral.
There was a gloomy atmosphere in the Gryffindor common room that evening. No one seemed to want to talk about what had happened, but it was clear that it was all that was on anyone’s minds. Frank never stopped moving. He had been pacing around the room silently for 15 minutes before Sirius said, “Sit down, mate. You’re not helping anyone tiring yourself out.”
Frank sank into the empty armchair next to James and rubbed his forehead. “Poor Alice,” was all he could be heard saying.
What had shocked everybody so much was that this was the first death of a family member for a long time, and never before had it been such a close relative.
Just before the summer, the twins in Hufflepuff Fourth Year had lost their aunt and uncle to a group of Death Eaters. They were tormented to death. A few pupils had come back from the summer holidays having lost friends or a cousin, but while sympathy had been felt and condolences passed around, most people believed the danger would pass. Since the rumours of Voldemort’s army had escaped, nobody had heard anything mysterious. Until Alice’s father was murdered.
Frank suddenly sat up. “Someone has to stop him,” he said. “When I have kids, I don’t want them growing up without me because of some crazy lunatic harbouring fantasies about ruling the world for his own selfish and cruel glory. He has to be stopped.”
“He does,” James said. “And we have to believe that he will be. But there’s no use cutting yourself up about it. With any luck, all our kids will grow up in a world free of You-Know-Who. Just leave it to the experts.”
“I’m gonna be an Auror.” James and Sirius looked at him. “Yeah, I’ve decided. I’m doing all the right subjects for it. When I leave Hogwarts at the end of the year, I’m gonna train to be an Auror and stop all this madness.”
“Sounds good, you know,” James said. “I mean, the way things are going, there won’t be any other job worth doing. Nothing’s going to make any difference once the chaos really gets going. We might as well do something productive.”
“Well that’s a while away yet. Let’s just get through this year first.”
At that moment, Lily approached. She sat on the arm of James’s chair. “Hey Frank, how you doing?”
“Great! I’m training to be an Auror.”
“You are?”
“Well not right now, but once I leave Hogwarts.”
“I’ve always wanted to be an Auror,” Lily said.
James looked at her. “You have?”
“Well don’t act so surprised, Potter. I can be outrageous too you know. Just because I actually do some school work, doesn’t mean I’m going to end up behind a desk somewhere.”
“That’s not what I meant, I think it’s a great idea.” He smiled. “Now I definitely want to be an Auror! It’ll be great, you, me and Frank, fighting the evil of the world!”
“Hey, what about me?” Sirius interjected.
“And Sirius.”
“Remus will want in, too.”
“OK and Remus.”
“And we should probably include Peter in this-“
“Fine! Frank, me, Lily, Sirius, Remus and Peter will all train to be Aurors.”
Remus, who had just come in the portrait hole, approached. “What’s all this about Aurors?” he asked.
The others laughed. Sirius patted his shoulder. “Never mind, Moony, never mind.”
Love Conquers by dumbly_dorr
Chapter Notes: This chapter sees Lily becoming closer to the Marauders. But what has happened to Alice? Hope you enjoy...please read and review.