Chapter 7: Halloween at Hogwarts
The storm the Friday night that she and Potter had had detention had marked the end of summer at Hogwarts. The days
were now filled with overcast skies and a cold drizzling rain that was often accompanied by bone-chilling wind. Flying
lessons were now everybody's least favorite class, although Madam Alipes was always kind enough to conjure up a
warming fire for them. Everyone was improving at a steady pace, and Madam Alipes had told them that they might start
playing some pick-up Quidditch during the period. Potter had beamed when Alipes had remarked that she had never done
anything like that before, but felt that Potter would be a shoo-in for the Gryffindor house team next year, and she
wanted to give him as much practice as possible.
Flying lessons weren't the worst class, however. Transfiguration hadn't gotten any easier for Lily. Potter and Black were consistently the first in the class to correctly perform the given transfiguration, although Lily was never able to figure out how, given that they never appeared to study. The other classes were no picnic, either. In Potions, she now had to constantly double check both her ingredients, and her cauldron, as she had found it laced with salamander blood one day, which would have caused her potion to erupt like a volcano if she hadn't caught it. In Charms, after they had learned a simple knotting charm, Potter had knotted Lily's shoelaces to her desk. It had taken her fifteen minutes to work out the countercharm, and she had been late for Defense Against the Dark Arts, costing Gryffindor 5 points. The only time that she ever got a break from their near constant harassment was when Snape was around, and that hardly made Lily feel better. Unlike Lily, however, Snape wasn't taking their teasing lying down, and was as likely to fight back with a jinx if a teacher wasn't around as Lily was to fight back with words. So far, she knew that he had succeeded on putting the jelly-legs curse on Black, and since nobody knew the countercurse, he wobbled around for an hour in the common room until Lupin had looked it up; and Snape had also succeeded in leg-locking Potter. Lily couldn't help but feel a little satisfaction every time she saw Potter and Black suffering the effects of a well-placed hex by Snape, but all the same she disapproved of the actions of both parties. Still, as far as she could see, Snape would leave them alone if they'd do him the same courtesy. It had worked with Bellatrix, after all. She had baited Alice for weeks after their initial encounter, but when Alice refused to rise, she had given up, and gone back to simply glaring every time they went by. Lily had tried to tell the boys that on several occasions, but they had just laughed at her.
Of course the weekend following the Hogsmeade weekend, the boys had stopped talking to Lily altogether, but the reason they weren't talking to her made her feel worse. The marauders had succeeded in sneaking down to Hogsmeade, and came back with pockets stuffed full of candy from Honeydukes, dung bombs, and Fillibusters Fireworks. They, along with several older students, were setting them off in the common room a week later when Joshua McKinnon had come storming down from the boy's dormitory. He quickly told the third years to knock it off, then noticed the fireworks in the hands of the marauders. "And where did the four of you get these?" McKinnon had asked.
"Hogsmeade, where else?" Lily had said disdainfully to her friends. Or at least, she had meant it to be for Alice's and Amelia's ears only. Unfortunately, the common room had gotten so quiet with Joshua's arrival that he was able to overhear her.
He strode over quickly. "Did they go into Hogsmeade?" McKinnon demanded.
Lily, who had always been a terrible liar, was unable to come up with any explanation for what she had said. Joshua had ended up telling the four boys that as punishment for going into Hogsmeade illegally, they would not be able to attend the first Quidditch match of the year between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. They had all been furious at her, of course, even Lupin. None of them would listen when she had tried to convince them that she hadn't meant to get them into trouble, either, although Lupin had told Amelia that Potter and Black didn't really hate Lily, they were just very angry. He had finally started talking to her again when he'd arrived back from a weekend visiting his grandmother.
While she appreciated the break in the constant teasing, the fact that the boys were not talking to her seemed to cause more problems than it solved. Even with all of his teasing, Potter had been a great help to her in Transfiguration, and she was now struggling without his assistance. She had also been hoping to talk with them about the piece of parchment that had fallen out of the book that the Slytherins had been taking to the dark wizard. The parchment was now hiding in the bottom drawer of her desk in the dormitory, as unreadable as ever. Lily wanted to figure out what it was about, but couldn't think of any ideas save asking Dumbledore. They also hadn't heard anything back from Alice's grandpa, and while she knew that Black was getting a little worried about Snuffles, he didn't say anything to her.
And so, October slipped away quickly, until Halloween arrived at last. As Lily was preparing to go down to the Great Hall with Alice and Amelia, she noticed the four marauders huddled with Frank Longbottom at a table in the common room, apparently planning something. Potter, Black and Longbottom all looked excited, Lupin looked apprehensive, and Pettigrew was so gleeful that he actually fell off of his chair twice, laughing, as Lily watched. Lily couldn't hear most of their conversation, but at one point, she heard Frank say, "My mum wears a tall hat with a stuffed vulture on top!" and Potter wrote something down. The five then burst into laughter. Alice tugged Lily on the arm, and as she crawled out of the common room after Alice and Amelia, she made a mental note to keep an eye on the boys, wondering apprehensively as she did so what, exactly, they had been planning.
Lily looked around in wonder as they entered the Great Hall. The usual house banners and school decorations were gone.
In their place were cackling witches that looked like muggles believed witches to look, with green faces, long noses
and warts, hissing black cats, glaring goblins (again looking as muggles picture them), and glowing jack-o-lanterns.
The Hogwarts' ghosts were swooping around, performing some sort of ballet in the air above the tables, and a
handful of students were clustered around a coat of armor that had been bewitched to tell ghost stories. The three
girls walked over to the Gryffindor table, and sat down next to Kaylie and Desdamona. Shortly after they had arrived,
Dumbledore stood up, welcomed all of the students, and said "Let the feast begin!" With that, the platters in
front of them filled with food. There were the usual dishes, like lamb chops and steak and kidney pie, but mainly, the
tables were filled with candies and pastries of every description imaginable. Lily bit into one piece of pie and was
amazed to find that it tasted like watermelon. Amelia was ecstatic when she saw that among the wizarding candies were
muggle favorites such as lemon drops and candy corn.
After she had filled her plate and started eating, Lily looked around the hall and realized that the four Marauders were absent. Frank, however, had arrived sometime earlier, wearing a smug grin, and acting stubbornly innocent when questioned about what the five boys had been planning in the common room. "Nothing, Evans," he said, his eyes wide. "You always think the worst of Potter and Black! Do you think I'd be in on anything like that?" She had let it go, feeling it was worthless. And besides, Frank had a point. Lily did like him quite a bit, and thought that he would probably have stopped Black and Potter if what they were doing was going to cause too much trouble.
At that moment, the four house ghosts came together at the front of the hall, and began to tell a story of how muggles celebrate Halloween. Most of the hall listened intently, but because Lily knew the muggle-rituals for celebrating Halloween quite well after 10 years of celebrating it as a muggle herself, she whispered to Alice and Amelia that she was going to find out where the boys were. Alice wanted to come along, but Amelia wanted to stay and listen to the ghosts. Lily and Alice stood up quietly and quickly made their way to the door. With a last glance at the teachers' table to make sure that all of the teachers were still sitting up there, they slipped out into the hallway.
Lily began to head toward Gryffindor Tower, but Alice tugged on her robes, and pointed into a room off of the main entry. "Listen," she said quietly.
Lily listened, and heard the sound of muffled laughter coming from the room. "Come on," she said, creeping toward the door. Alice followed. When they arrived, she put a finger to her lips, unnecessarily motioning for Alice to be quiet. They both put their ears against the door, listening intently. The heard some banging, an occasional quiet yell, and laughter that definitely belonged to the four Marauders. "Let's go in," Lily whispered. Alice's eyes opened in shock.
"Have you gone mad?" she whispered back. "What are we going to do? We don't even know if they're just goofing off, or if they're really causing trouble."
Lily tried to convince her, but Alice insisted on trying to figure out what was going on from their position in the entrance hall, so Lily put her ear back to the door and heard, "I think he's ready!" The door burst open, and she and Alice just had time to jump out of the way before Snape walked, or rather hopped, out, apparently having been hit with a leg-locker and arm-binding hex. The fact that he was hopping, however, was not the funniest thing about his appearance. He was dressed in emerald green robes with a lacy collar, a string of pearls was hanging around his neck, his fingernails had been bewitched to flash back and forth between red and gold, a hand bag was knotted around his wrist, and on his head sat a tall witch's hat with a stuffed vulture on top. Alice and Lily stared at him, momentarily frozen by their shock.
Snape was glaring at them malevolently. "Someone unlock me!" he spat.
Lily pulled out her wand, trying to remember the countercurse that would unbind Snape's legs. She had seen Lupin perform it on Potter when Snape had hit him, but couldn't remember the wand movement off hand. At that moment, the doors to the Great Hall opened, and students began pouring out. To a man, they all stopped and stared at the scene in front of them: Snape dressed as a witch, and Lily with her wand pointing at him. Most of the students started laughing, including the group of Slytherins that Snape normally hung around with. Professor McGonagall pushed her way to the front to find out what was going on, and her lips tightened in anger. "Everybody back to your dormitories!" she snapped, muttering the countercurse to release Snape. He stumbled as his legs were freed, and when his arms were unbound, he immediately threw down the handbag, tore off the necklace and hat, and began climbing out of the robes. The crowd began to disperse, and Lily saw that the four Marauders had slipped out of the room off the hall without McGonagall noticing, and were now heading up the stairs with the rest of the Gryffindors. McGonagall finished assisting Snape, then turned to glare at Lily, who was still standing there with her wand up. "What is the meaning of this, girls?" she sputtered. "Never, in all my time at Hogwarts! I suppose you thought it was funny-," but Snape interrupted her.
"It wasn't them," he snapped, rolling his shoulders as he walked around, stretching out his legs.
McGonagall turned her attention to Snape. "Then who was responsible?" she asked them.
"They wouldn't know," Snape said, rubbing his wrists. "They just happened to stumble upon me."
"Do you know, then?" she asked, now looking at Snape.
"Yes."
"Well," McGonagall prompted. "Aren't you going to tell me?"
Snape glared at the two girls, and then looked back at McGonagall. "No," he said softly, his eyes full of venom. McGonagall was quite taken aback, but, unable to convince Snape to give her a name, reluctantly told the three of them to get to their dormitories.
"I'd have thought Snape would be thrilled to get the Marauders into trouble," Lily said to Alice as they walked toward the staircase. "Wonder why he didn't say anything?"
"Maybe he didn't want to admit in front of us that Potter and Black got the best of him," Alice said with a shrug. "He had no way of knowing that we'd overheard anything."
Lily nodded. "Or maybe he wants to get them back himself," she offered. "I'd be careful if I were the two of them."
"According to Frank, he knows a lot worse curses than a leg-locker or jelly-legs jinx," Alice agreed. "Frank says that he knows more about the dark arts than a lot of the seventh years studying to become aurors."
"Wouldn't surprise me," Lily agreed thoughtfully. "I mean, given the group he hangs out with. We know from Andy that Bellatrix is into that type of thing, and I wouldn't put anything past that LeStrange character."
"And he's always sitting with Malfoy at dinner, too. And we know that he's supposedly working for a dark lord."
"Speaking of that," Lily said as they turned the corner and arrived in front of the fat lady, "have you gotten back anything from your Grandpa yet?"
Alice shook her head. "No, and it's not looking too good. I guess Snuffles gave up on waiting for a response, too. Black told me yesterday that he arrived back at Hogwarts last night."
"Too bad, it'd be nice if we knew what he thinks about-," they looked up as they heard a huff from the fat lady.
"I suppose I'll just sit here all night, waiting for the two of you to finish your conversation then." she said angrily. "It's not as though I have any Halloween parties to be attending!"
"Sorry," Lily mutter, "Aprasio, then" and the fat lady swung open to let them in. Upon entering the common room, they found that all of Gryffindor house seemed to be talking about what had happened with Snape. One of the Marauders had apparently snapped a picture before they had pushed him into the hall, because an enlarged Snape was now glaring down at them from the walls. The Marauders were accepting congratulations in the corner, and some fifth years were handing out butterbeers and candy to anyone that wanted them. Potter and Black got up as soon as they spotted Lily and Alice come in.
"I want to thank you two for not giving us over to McGonagall," Potter said, holding out his hand to shake. Lily ignored it.
"Oh come on Evans," Potter said, his eyes twinkling. "We were just helping Snape to get into the Halloween spirit."
"That's right," Black agreed. "We just wanted to show him how much fun the muggles have dressing up for Halloween."
"So I suppose you think it's funny, then?" Alice said, by way of reply.
"Hysterical," Black corrected. "And yes, it is. We made Snape look like a fool in front of the entire school."
"And we got away with it! What could be better?" Potter and Black clinked their butterbeer bottles together.
Lily just glared. "I want to know what Snape did to deserve that humiliation?"
"He showed his ugly face at Hogwarts, Evans," Potter said with a smirk.
"I quite agree," Black added. "That's the only crime necessary, really."
Lily snorted in disgust and turned toward Lupin and Pettigrew, who were now making their way over to them. "I'm not surprised at the two of them," Lily snapped as they came to a halt in front of her. "But I expected more of the two of you." Lupin had the courtesy to flush, and Pettigrew again looked scared, but neither one apologized. Quite the contrary, Lupin muttered something about how Snape deserved it for other reasons than being ugly, and Pettigrew added that he'd go into it, but Black would probably hex him in his sleep that night if he did. Lily and Alice stared at the four boys, all looking very pleased with themselves.
"You're very lucky that we didn't say anything to McGonagall," Alice said finally, but her voice had lost its ring of anger.
"And we've already thanked you for that," Black said with a grin. "As you'll recall."
"We don't need your thanks." Lily shot back. "I just figured that Snape would take care of you himself. You never know, I might even help him!"
Potter's face turned serious in an instant. "I don't know why you're wasting your time defending him, Lily," he said, looking at her with an intensity she had only seen after the incident with Bellatrix. "He wouldn't defend you. He's just like Sirius's cousin, you're not even fit to study magic in his eyes."
"Between the two of you," she said to Potter, her tone now icy, "he's the only one not to have tried to put a spider in my bed, mocked me about my transfiguration, humiliated me in front of all of Gryffindor, floated my telescope around and gotten me extra homework, mixed up my potion ingredients, gotten me detention, laced my cauldron with salamander blood, and knotted my shoes to my desk."
"That's not true," Potter objected. "I didn't levitate your telescope, Sirius did."
Black nodded in agreement. "Jamesy's right. That was me."
Lily looked at both of them furiously. "Between the three of you, then," she said. "He's been nicer to me than the two of you ever have," and she stomped so quickly over to where Amelia was sitting by the fireplace that she didn't see Potter flinch at her words.
"I don't know why she's so mad," she heard Black say to Potter.
"It's no worse than what we do to Petey," Potter agreed.
"That's true," Pettigrew squeaked in agreement. Lily sighed heavily and settled into her chair.