Lily Evans (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lilium_evansiae) wrote2012-03-01 10:54 pm
lilium_evansiae) wrote2012-03-01 10:54 pm
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Hogwarts Corridors and Kitchens, 15 March 1977
The hardest thing to get at Hogwarts is not, contrary to popular belief, an overt sign of approval from Professor Grindstaff.
It's privacy.
With hundreds of students living four and five to a bedroom, even a castle as big as Hogwarts can feel pretty crowded.
Still, most students have at least one place they go when they want fifteen minutes alone (or alone together), though not all of these places are as private as would be ideal.
Lily has a windowsill in a little niche in a stairwell. She and Mary found it as first years, after a series of wrong turns it still amazes Lily that they could recreate well enough to find it again. It's a stairwell that doesn't seem to be the most direct route to anywhere, so it's generally (but not always) a place that no one else will be.
It's where Lily's headed this evening. Not because anything is wrong, but just because she wants a few minutes to herself.
At least, that was the plan.
Before . . .
"Please, just leave me alone."
It echoes off the walls, from up ahead and around the corner.
And the slight distortion from the echo isn't enough to disguise Mary's voice.
Or Mulciber's.
"You can't go yet. You just got here."
Lily has her wand out before he's finished speaking. Just ahead, at the corner, she can see what she knows is Mary's wand, cherry and unicorn hair, lying on the stone floor, where it was dropped or, more likely, where it landed when Mary was disarmed. Lily moves as quickly as she can without letting her footsteps make any sound – surprise is one advantage she doesn't want to give away, here. She stops just long enough to collect Mary's wand, and then steps around the corner, her own wand level and ready in her left hand.
Mulciber is a few yards ahead, his back to her. At the other end of the short corridor, twenty-five feet or so away, is Avery. And trapped between them is Mary. They're not aiming spells quite at her – not yet – but a few feet to either side, watching her scuttle and twist to get out of the way of the bright green sparks that instead hit the stone walls.
It's worse, somehow.
And Lily just might be angrier than she has ever been in her life.
"That's enough," Lily says, in a loud, cold, steady voice.
Her wand is pointed at Mulciber – he's both a better wizard and a worse person than Avery. But she's not an idiot, she's expecting the curse Avery sends from his end of the hall. "Protego. Impedimentia," she says, and has her wand pointed back to Mulciber to block his spell, even as Avery hits the floor, struggling against the jinx. "Protego. I said that's enough," Lily says, moving toward Mary without ever taking her eyes off Mulciber.
"Evans," Mulciber says, with a leering sort of smile that makes Lily's skin crawl. "If you wanted to play, too, all you had to do was ask."
"We're leaving," Lily says, reaching Mary and handing her wand back to her. "You'll want to get out of our way now."
"Don't think I do, actually," Mulciber says.
"Then you won't like what happens next," Lily says, her eyes and her wand never leaving Mulciber.
Mulciber starts laughing. "Was that a threat, Evans?"
"Yes, it was. We both know you're not the best duelist in this corridor, don't we?"
"Maybe," Mulciber says. "But I'm not the one who's outnumbered."
Out of the corner of her eye, Lily sees Avery getting to his feet again.
"I don't think you can take both of us at the same time. Not for long. Not alone," Mulciber says.
"She's not alone," Mary says, though her voice isn't quite as steady as Lily would like.
Mary has many wonderful qualities, but this is not really her strong suit.
Lily can probably beat Mulciber or Avery, but Mulciber and Avery can probably beat Lily and Mary. Especially as she and Mary are stuck between them, a single target to the double one presented by the Slytherins.
Avery laughs, and those same green sparks shoot past them, a foot to Lily's left.
Mulciber doesn't waste his time with sparks. "Confringo."
"Protego," Lily counters, though she's going to have to get off the defensive to have any chance of getting out of this.
Especially if Mulciber is breaking out curses like that.
Spells flash up and down the corridor for more than a minute, leaving a scorch mark up the wall, blasting a suit of armor's arm off.
And then Avery manages to hit Mary with the same clothes tightening curse from last year, and Lily has to turn away from Mulciber to break it, because that spell will kill her, and it's all looking very bad until …
"Petrificus Totalus," says a voice behind Avery, and he falls forward to reveal Remus Lupin, wand already leveled at Mulciber. "Good evening, Lily. Mary. Mulciber. Avery," he adds, stepping over the fallen Slytherin and into the corridor.
Mary's sitting in the floor, catching her breath, but with the spell broken, Lily can turn her wand back to Mulciber as well. "Remus," she says. "Thank you for stopping by."
"Heard a commotion," Remus says. "Thought I'd check things out. Since I am a prefect."
This last is less conversational and more pointed, a reminder to Mulciber (and the still fallen Avery) of exactly who, and what, they're dealing with here.
"Yes," Mulciber says, with a sneer. "The Mudblood bitch and the half-blood freak. Is that really the best Gryffindor come up with for prefects?"
"Is that really the best you can come up with for an insult, you slithy frumious Bandersnatch?" Lily asks. "Fifty points from Slytherin. Each. For the most repulsive display of disrespect for a fellow student I have ever seen. Even from you. And please rest assured that Professor Slughorn will be hearing about this. Now take Avery and get the hell out of here."
Behind her, she can hear Remus break the jinx on Avery. She doesn't take her eyes off Mulciber, though. "This isn't over," he hisses, as he passes her and Mary.
"Yes, it is," Lily says.
Even though she's fairly sure it's not.
Remus follows them down the hall to the corner, wand still drawn, probably to make sure they're not planning to turn around and come back. Lily turns her attention to Mary. "Are you all right?"
"I'm not hurt," Mary says, which doesn't quite answer the question.
Lily hugs her, gently. "We should go to Slughorn," she says. She looks over Mary's shoulder at Remus. "Right now."
"I – " Mary says. She didn't want anyone to, in her words, 'make a big deal out of it' last year, and Lily suspects she'd like to just pretend this didn't happen, too.
"Mary," Lily says, "we have to. They're getting worse."
After a second Mary nods. "You'll come with me?"
"Both of us," Remus says, coming back over to join them.
"Thank you," Mary says.
"Of course," Remus says.
Professor Slughorn opens his door already in his dressing gown, takes one look at the three of them, and ushers them promptly into his large and not especially office-like office, sends for tea from the kitchens, and listens as they explain what has happened.
He summons first Professor McGonagall and then Madam Pomfrey, as "Suffocation Curses are nothing to take lightly, my dear girl."
Lily sits on the couch in the corner while Madam Pomfrey and the teachers fuss over Mary. Remus comes over to sit beside her. "Are you all right?"
"Me?" Lily asks. "I'm fine. Regretting that I didn't hex something off Mulciber that he'd miss while I had the excuse, but fine otherwise."
Remus smiles, just a little, just for a second, then his expression grows sober again. "What were you doing up there, anyway?"
Lily sighs. "There's a window in that stairwell. Mary and I both go there, when we need a place to think. Or we did. I suspect it's lost its appeal. What were you doing up there?"
"Nearly Headless Nick pointed me in your direction, actually. And then as I got closer, I heard the dueling."
"I'll have to thank him. It's a very good thing you showed up when you did," Lily says.
"You're welcome." There's a second of silence, and then Remus says, in a somewhat lighter tone, "What did you call him, again?"
Lily smiles faintly. "A slithy frumious Bandersnatch."
"Not what I was expecting," Remus says. "Probably not what he was expecting, either."
"Did you think my repertoire was limited to 'arrogant toerag'?" Lily asks.
"You were holding back on James, then."
"A little, maybe," Lily says.
"That's 'Jabberwocky,' right?"
Lily nods. "Yeah. He's lucky I didn't go for Shakespeare. There are some fabulous insults in Shakespeare."
"Save it for next time," Remus suggests.
"You think there'll be a next time?"
"You know there will," Remus says.
Lily looks over at Mary. "She doesn't go anywhere alone for a while," she says. "Not till Easter, anyway. Maybe for the rest of the year."
Muggleborn, Gryffindor, and not a terribly strong duelist. Lacking prefectorial authority, and shielded by neither a friendship with Snape nor a well-known connection to James Potter. Mary is the most obvious target.
She always has been.
Remus nods. "I'll tell the others."
"Good."
Madam Pomfrey decides Mary should spend the night in the hospital wing. Lily thinks she might be better off with her friends in Gryffindor Tower, but there's no sense arguing with Madam Pomfrey. She and Remus walk down with them, leaving to Professor McGonagall's assurances that the Headmaster will be hearing about this -- and handling it -- as soon as he returns to Hogwarts.
They pass a few other students on the way, and from the reactions, Lily is willing to bet that word has started getting around.
Madam Ponfrey throws them out after about twenty minutes, claiming that Mary needs to rest, and on that, at least, she and Lily are in complete agreement. Her own anger and the adrenaline are starting to wear off, and the exhaustion is starting to sink in. And Mary was the one who was properly attacked.
James reaches the hospital wing just as she and Remus are leaving, with an expression on his face that isn't quite like any expression Lily has ever seen there before.
Not that she takes long to study the expression on his face.
She doesn't even take the time to greet him.
Right now, Lily just kind of needs her boyfriend to hold her for a moment.
It's privacy.
With hundreds of students living four and five to a bedroom, even a castle as big as Hogwarts can feel pretty crowded.
Still, most students have at least one place they go when they want fifteen minutes alone (or alone together), though not all of these places are as private as would be ideal.
Lily has a windowsill in a little niche in a stairwell. She and Mary found it as first years, after a series of wrong turns it still amazes Lily that they could recreate well enough to find it again. It's a stairwell that doesn't seem to be the most direct route to anywhere, so it's generally (but not always) a place that no one else will be.
It's where Lily's headed this evening. Not because anything is wrong, but just because she wants a few minutes to herself.
At least, that was the plan.
Before . . .
"Please, just leave me alone."
It echoes off the walls, from up ahead and around the corner.
And the slight distortion from the echo isn't enough to disguise Mary's voice.
Or Mulciber's.
"You can't go yet. You just got here."
Lily has her wand out before he's finished speaking. Just ahead, at the corner, she can see what she knows is Mary's wand, cherry and unicorn hair, lying on the stone floor, where it was dropped or, more likely, where it landed when Mary was disarmed. Lily moves as quickly as she can without letting her footsteps make any sound – surprise is one advantage she doesn't want to give away, here. She stops just long enough to collect Mary's wand, and then steps around the corner, her own wand level and ready in her left hand.
Mulciber is a few yards ahead, his back to her. At the other end of the short corridor, twenty-five feet or so away, is Avery. And trapped between them is Mary. They're not aiming spells quite at her – not yet – but a few feet to either side, watching her scuttle and twist to get out of the way of the bright green sparks that instead hit the stone walls.
It's worse, somehow.
And Lily just might be angrier than she has ever been in her life.
"That's enough," Lily says, in a loud, cold, steady voice.
Her wand is pointed at Mulciber – he's both a better wizard and a worse person than Avery. But she's not an idiot, she's expecting the curse Avery sends from his end of the hall. "Protego. Impedimentia," she says, and has her wand pointed back to Mulciber to block his spell, even as Avery hits the floor, struggling against the jinx. "Protego. I said that's enough," Lily says, moving toward Mary without ever taking her eyes off Mulciber.
"Evans," Mulciber says, with a leering sort of smile that makes Lily's skin crawl. "If you wanted to play, too, all you had to do was ask."
"We're leaving," Lily says, reaching Mary and handing her wand back to her. "You'll want to get out of our way now."
"Don't think I do, actually," Mulciber says.
"Then you won't like what happens next," Lily says, her eyes and her wand never leaving Mulciber.
Mulciber starts laughing. "Was that a threat, Evans?"
"Yes, it was. We both know you're not the best duelist in this corridor, don't we?"
"Maybe," Mulciber says. "But I'm not the one who's outnumbered."
Out of the corner of her eye, Lily sees Avery getting to his feet again.
"I don't think you can take both of us at the same time. Not for long. Not alone," Mulciber says.
"She's not alone," Mary says, though her voice isn't quite as steady as Lily would like.
Mary has many wonderful qualities, but this is not really her strong suit.
Lily can probably beat Mulciber or Avery, but Mulciber and Avery can probably beat Lily and Mary. Especially as she and Mary are stuck between them, a single target to the double one presented by the Slytherins.
Avery laughs, and those same green sparks shoot past them, a foot to Lily's left.
Mulciber doesn't waste his time with sparks. "Confringo."
"Protego," Lily counters, though she's going to have to get off the defensive to have any chance of getting out of this.
Especially if Mulciber is breaking out curses like that.
Spells flash up and down the corridor for more than a minute, leaving a scorch mark up the wall, blasting a suit of armor's arm off.
And then Avery manages to hit Mary with the same clothes tightening curse from last year, and Lily has to turn away from Mulciber to break it, because that spell will kill her, and it's all looking very bad until …
"Petrificus Totalus," says a voice behind Avery, and he falls forward to reveal Remus Lupin, wand already leveled at Mulciber. "Good evening, Lily. Mary. Mulciber. Avery," he adds, stepping over the fallen Slytherin and into the corridor.
Mary's sitting in the floor, catching her breath, but with the spell broken, Lily can turn her wand back to Mulciber as well. "Remus," she says. "Thank you for stopping by."
"Heard a commotion," Remus says. "Thought I'd check things out. Since I am a prefect."
This last is less conversational and more pointed, a reminder to Mulciber (and the still fallen Avery) of exactly who, and what, they're dealing with here.
"Yes," Mulciber says, with a sneer. "The Mudblood bitch and the half-blood freak. Is that really the best Gryffindor come up with for prefects?"
"Is that really the best you can come up with for an insult, you slithy frumious Bandersnatch?" Lily asks. "Fifty points from Slytherin. Each. For the most repulsive display of disrespect for a fellow student I have ever seen. Even from you. And please rest assured that Professor Slughorn will be hearing about this. Now take Avery and get the hell out of here."
Behind her, she can hear Remus break the jinx on Avery. She doesn't take her eyes off Mulciber, though. "This isn't over," he hisses, as he passes her and Mary.
"Yes, it is," Lily says.
Even though she's fairly sure it's not.
Remus follows them down the hall to the corner, wand still drawn, probably to make sure they're not planning to turn around and come back. Lily turns her attention to Mary. "Are you all right?"
"I'm not hurt," Mary says, which doesn't quite answer the question.
Lily hugs her, gently. "We should go to Slughorn," she says. She looks over Mary's shoulder at Remus. "Right now."
"I – " Mary says. She didn't want anyone to, in her words, 'make a big deal out of it' last year, and Lily suspects she'd like to just pretend this didn't happen, too.
"Mary," Lily says, "we have to. They're getting worse."
After a second Mary nods. "You'll come with me?"
"Both of us," Remus says, coming back over to join them.
"Thank you," Mary says.
"Of course," Remus says.
Professor Slughorn opens his door already in his dressing gown, takes one look at the three of them, and ushers them promptly into his large and not especially office-like office, sends for tea from the kitchens, and listens as they explain what has happened.
He summons first Professor McGonagall and then Madam Pomfrey, as "Suffocation Curses are nothing to take lightly, my dear girl."
Lily sits on the couch in the corner while Madam Pomfrey and the teachers fuss over Mary. Remus comes over to sit beside her. "Are you all right?"
"Me?" Lily asks. "I'm fine. Regretting that I didn't hex something off Mulciber that he'd miss while I had the excuse, but fine otherwise."
Remus smiles, just a little, just for a second, then his expression grows sober again. "What were you doing up there, anyway?"
Lily sighs. "There's a window in that stairwell. Mary and I both go there, when we need a place to think. Or we did. I suspect it's lost its appeal. What were you doing up there?"
"Nearly Headless Nick pointed me in your direction, actually. And then as I got closer, I heard the dueling."
"I'll have to thank him. It's a very good thing you showed up when you did," Lily says.
"You're welcome." There's a second of silence, and then Remus says, in a somewhat lighter tone, "What did you call him, again?"
Lily smiles faintly. "A slithy frumious Bandersnatch."
"Not what I was expecting," Remus says. "Probably not what he was expecting, either."
"Did you think my repertoire was limited to 'arrogant toerag'?" Lily asks.
"You were holding back on James, then."
"A little, maybe," Lily says.
"That's 'Jabberwocky,' right?"
Lily nods. "Yeah. He's lucky I didn't go for Shakespeare. There are some fabulous insults in Shakespeare."
"Save it for next time," Remus suggests.
"You think there'll be a next time?"
"You know there will," Remus says.
Lily looks over at Mary. "She doesn't go anywhere alone for a while," she says. "Not till Easter, anyway. Maybe for the rest of the year."
Muggleborn, Gryffindor, and not a terribly strong duelist. Lacking prefectorial authority, and shielded by neither a friendship with Snape nor a well-known connection to James Potter. Mary is the most obvious target.
She always has been.
Remus nods. "I'll tell the others."
"Good."
Madam Pomfrey decides Mary should spend the night in the hospital wing. Lily thinks she might be better off with her friends in Gryffindor Tower, but there's no sense arguing with Madam Pomfrey. She and Remus walk down with them, leaving to Professor McGonagall's assurances that the Headmaster will be hearing about this -- and handling it -- as soon as he returns to Hogwarts.
They pass a few other students on the way, and from the reactions, Lily is willing to bet that word has started getting around.
Madam Ponfrey throws them out after about twenty minutes, claiming that Mary needs to rest, and on that, at least, she and Lily are in complete agreement. Her own anger and the adrenaline are starting to wear off, and the exhaustion is starting to sink in. And Mary was the one who was properly attacked.
James reaches the hospital wing just as she and Remus are leaving, with an expression on his face that isn't quite like any expression Lily has ever seen there before.
Not that she takes long to study the expression on his face.
She doesn't even take the time to greet him.
Right now, Lily just kind of needs her boyfriend to hold her for a moment.
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Something more needs to be done.
He just doesn't know what. And that feeling of unease and helplessness is not one James is used to.
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She just doesn't have it in her, at the moment.
"I kind of just want to get out of this corridor.
"And I might need something chocolate."
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He takes her hand and squeezes gently.
"Come on. We'll grab something quick from the kitchens and then we can find a quiet spot if you want."
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"Wands out, though, maybe. On the way."
Just in case.
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It's a good precaution, given what had just happened.
Wand in hand, he leads the way towards the ever-familiar kitchens near the Hufflepuff common room.
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But it doesn't. At least, not on the way to the kitchens.
The kitchen is warm and bright and feels comfortable and safe.
Maybe it's something about the inherent nature of kitchens.
Maybe it's just the way Lily views this particular kitchen.
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"Hello, Mr Potter, sir!" Milty says pleasantly. "The usual for Mr Potter, then?
"And Miss Evans, too? Hot cocoa? Biscuits?"
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Hot cocoa and biscuits.
And James.
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James nods.
"Better make that just the two mugs of cocoa, please," he requests. "And a plate of biscuits just a bit bigger than Miss Evans' usual."
"Right away, Mr Potter, Miss Evans." Milty nods, bows, and hurries off.
Smiling, James turns back to Lily.
"To the Gryffindor-table-that-isn't-actually-the-Gryffindor-table?" he asks, gesturing to where they sat the last time.
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And if she sits just a bit closer to him than she did the last time they were sitting on top of the Gryffindor-table-that-isn't-actually-the-Gryffindor-table, well, is anyone really all that surprised?
She rests her head against his shoulder while they wait.
"What is 'the usual', James?"
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He laughs softly, shifting to wrap an arm around Lily.
"Sometimes we get it takeaway, which is probably why that lot asks me whether I want 'the usual' every time I come here.
"I think we ought to stop having all of that junk."
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"I'm really glad you're here, James."
Milty arrives with two enormous mugs of hot cocoa and a plate of cookies that is only slightly smaller than serving tray.
"Thank you," Lily says.
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Oh, those houseelves. They're really rather brilliant.
He leans forward to grab his mug of cocoa while Milty distributes the other mug to Lily.
Then, once Milty has gone back (after a series of cheerful and rushed 'you're very welcome, Miss Evans, miss! Mr Potter, sir!') to tend to his usual chores, James has a moment to say, "I'm glad I'm here too."
Because he is.
What happened was horrible, to be sure, but what's worse is the thought of being unable to be there for Lily.
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It'll keep for a moment.
"At the risk of scandalizing the houseelves ... " Lily says, and leans over to kiss James.
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"Brilliant."
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"It's about to get really ugly, isn't it?" she says.
"I mean, I know it got really ugly today, but on a larger scale and all that, yeah?"
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"I wish I could tell you it won't. But the closer we come to graduating Hogwarts ... the more ugly things are going to get."
He sighs a little.
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"D'you think it's getting worse, or do you think
we're just paying more attention?"
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He shrugs.
"But I suppose it doesn't matter either way, does it? The point is that we've got to do something about it."
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"Somehow."
She has no idea just what.
But they will.
"Right?"
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"And you're a hell of a better duelist than Mulciber."
For what it's worth.
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"And honestly, Peter's a better duelist than Mulciber. Give him the chance to, you know, gain a bit of confidence, and he earns the Marauder title."
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Mulciber is a dangerous duelist. James is just better.
And Peter ... is a bit hopeless at it, from what she's seen.
But she's hardly going to say that.
So she just nods.
"I think I want one of those biscuits, now."
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"Hm. Remind me to treat Moony to a couple butterbeers the next time we're at Hogsmeade, by the way," he says, picking a biscuit up for himself when Lily's taken her share. "Now there's a good bloke to count on."
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"Calm and competent and he took Avery out of things almost before any of us knew he was there."
Plus, he recognized Carroll.
If she weren't dating one of his best friends, Lily could almost have kissed him for that.
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"Often the most surprising, too. And he can cast one mean hex."
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"He's not as ... flashy, maybe, as you and Black."
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Flashy is right.
He and Sirius do like to make a scene be exactly what it is: a scene.
... it doesn't always work in their favour. (And James is getting better at spotting that.)
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"An hour ago, I didn't think I was going to laugh again for a week, you know.
"Thank you."
For the wonderful flashy Jamesness of him.
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"You're welcome," he says, before biting into another biscuit.
"You know," he says rather casually, "I think your laugh is probably one of my favourite things to hear."
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Because he really, really is.
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"Now.
"D'you want to stay here, or did you want to go somewhere else for a bit after we're done with the cocoa and biscuits?"
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"I'm not ready to go back to Gryffindor Tower, not just yet."
She suspects she'll get met with rather a lot of questions.
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He understands.
Being bombarded with questions over menial details like homework and who's dating who is bad enough; what happened tonight is going to add another unpleasant layer.
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"Surprise me, then," she says.
He knows the castle better than she does.
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He idly taps the rim of his cocoa mug for a moment, gathering his words properly.
"But before we go," he starts — knowing this could come off sounding incredibly corny, but not quite caring anyway — "I just thought I should remind you of just how brilliant you are. You really are the bravest and most amazing witch I've ever known."
Standing up to Mulciber and Avery like that, at all odds, it's ... James admires her so much.
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She doesn't feel especially brave or brilliant or amazing at the moment.
But sometimes that's the best time to hear that someone thinks you are.
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He means every word, as she already knows.
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And then he nods, reaching down to take her hand.
"Right this way, my lady," he says, guiding her back towards the kitchen's exits.