Chapter 4: Malfoy's Intentions
After dinner that night, Alice went out to the quidditch pitch with Potter to practice for their try-out later that week, and Amelia had decided to go with the other Marauders to watch, so Lily went back to Gryffindor Tower to work on the essay they'd been assigned in Herbology that afternoon. She had found three of the six uses of gillyweed before she tired of the noise and distractions in the common room, and decided to go to the library for a bit of peace and quiet. Once she had arrived at the library, she found several Herbology books and sat down at a table to look through them. After she had been working for awhile, she felt someone's eyes on her, and looked up to see Lucius Malfoy striding toward her.
"Miss Evans," he said silkily, bending down slightly and setting his hands on the table beside her.
She glared at him. "I'm in the middle of an essay for Herbology right now, Malfoy. I don't have time to waste speaking with kidnappers," she said scathingly.
Malfoy's expression darkened. "As I was cleared of all charges-," he began.
"Not because you were innocent," she countered.
"I would suggest that you stop making allegations of that severity about a member of a highly respected wizarding family such as my own," he continued as though he had not heard her.
"Your family is 'highly respected', as you call it, because they bought the respect, not because they earned it," Lily countered. "And I'm not making accusations," she added. "I'm telling the truth."
He chuckled. "There was a time last year," he said slowly, "that lip like that from a mud-blood such as yourself would have gotten to me." Lily had to use all of the willpower that she had to avoid reaching for her wand when he made that statement, forcing herself to remember that Malfoy was here on official business and that hexing the son of a school governor would only earn herself a quick ticket back to London. "Now, however, I realize that I must learn to control my temper until the time comes when your kind are not even allowed in these doors." His lip curled as he surveyed her. "I am here to ask you some questions, Evans," he added. "I need to know how you knew where we were performing the immortality ceremony."
Lily returned Malfoy's gaze. "I've no idea what you're talking about," she said, hoping that her fury would mask the fear she felt that he would be able to tell that she was lying, like his father had.
"I know that you must," he said. "You and Potter are the only two who could have possibly told Dumbledore. Even if he was able to guess what we were planning, he'd never have thought that we were going to be doing it in Hogwarts' backyard. Yet I never mentioned our final destination to you, and neither did Crabbe. So that leaves us back at the original question-how did you know? Who told you?"
Lily folded her arms. "I've already answered your question, Malfoy," she said, reaching for one of the books in front of her.
He reached out and grabbed her hand roughly. "No," he said, "I'm afraid that you're mistaken." He pulled Lily to her feet and drew her near him, looking intently in her eyes. Lily closed them to keep him from using whatever trick it was his father had used to discover the whereabouts of the parchment he had needed. She felt something brush against her throat, and opened her eyes again, half afraid that he now had his wand pointing at her. Instead, he was inspecting her necklace. He yanked it, and Lily winced in pain as the chain bit into her neck, not coming unclasped. She wondered briefly why it was that the chain did not come off into his hands.
"Don't touch that!" Lily said, grabbing the chain, and yanking the locket from his hand. "My father gave that to me."
Malfoy's sneer returned. "The worthless muggle?" he asked. Lily's hand crept closer to her wand.
"I'm going to tell you one more time to leave me alone, Malfoy," she said with barely controlled rage. "If you don't, I will report your behavior to Professor Dumbledore. I do think that the Board of Governors should be made aware when one of their representatives is harassing a student."
Malfoy glanced at her, hatred in his eyes, and leaned over until his face was inches from her own. "There will be a time when you are not under Dumbledore's protection, Evans," he said menancingly. "If I were you, I would not take lightly the threat that I pose to you and your ilk." He turned and strode off, leaving her shaking in anger.
After a moment, Lily sat back down and took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself, and thinking. When Malfoy had asked her how she had known about the location of the ceremony, something had told her not to tell him the truth, but she wasn't sure why. Now that he was gone, she was glad that she had refused to tell him, but was worried nonetheless. Why did he want to know? Unless he suspected that one of the dark Lord's supporters was a spy? And yet…
Lily shook her head, and opened a book sitting nearby, hoping to find within it the sixth and final use for gillyweed. She chewed on her locket absently, and began reading. As she read, she began to feel tired, and her eyes drooped slightly. She shook her head again, trying to wake up, and when she looked up, she was sitting in a new part of the library, a large pile of books in front of her. She glanced around in considerable confusion until she realized that she was having yet another vision. She wondered briefly which of her friends was going to be in grave danger at the library, and heard someone breathing evenly nearby. She tried to look around the books, but, as with her last vision, was unable to tell the vision what it was she wanted to see, so she sat back, waiting for it to reveal its purpose to her. A house-elf that looked a lot like the one that she had seen wherever it was that Malfoy had taken her the previous term appeared, and glanced furtively around the room. Lily stared at him, wondering what he was doing at Hogwarts. She felt someone shaking her shoulder, and when she looked up again, she had returned to her own table at the library.
"Miss! Miss!" Madam Pince was screeching. "I'm afraid that the library is not here for your napping convenience. If you are going to sleep, I'm going to have to ask you to return to your common room. Do you hear me?"
Lily glanced at her in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, Madam," she said sincerely. She was sorry that she had fallen asleep, but she was also a little annoyed that Madam Pince had interrupted her vision. She was now very curious regarding its content, and decided that she'd have to ask Professor Praevidi whether or not there was anyway to summon an interrupted vision. She sighed. "I need to get back to my common room anyway."
She gathered up her books and made her way out of the library.
Lily arrived back at the common room to find Alice and Amelia already there. She walked over to a grouping of overstuffed chairs where her friends were sitting and sat down. "Well, what do you guys want to work on first?" she asked, pulling out a piece of parchment and her quill. "I've already got five of the six uses of gillyweed, but I'll help you out with your essays if you want me-," she began, but stopped when Alice waved her hand around.
"I finished that essay ten minutes ago," Alice responded.
"Ten minutes ago?" Lily asked with a look of disbelief. "How? I've spent all night on it, and you've been out on the quidditch pitch."
"Lily, you've forgotten rule number one of Herbology," Amelia chimed in. "Never attempt it unless Alice is around to help. She finished it about 20 minutes after we got back. We've been here for half an hour or so."
"All right," Lily said. "What's the sixth use, then?"
"Did you get that it's used as the flavoring for rubber in Bertie Bott's beans?" Alice asked.
Lily nodded. "That was one of the first ones that I found," she said. "I've got-"
"James Potter and Lily Evans!" McGonagall's stern voice called out, instantly quieting the chatter in the common room.
Lily glanced at where McGonagall stood by the entrance to the portrait hole and sighed. "I bet she's here to give us our detention assignments," she said, "since she didn't see us in class today." Lily scanned the common room for Potter and saw that he was already making his way over to where McGonagall stood. "I'd better get going."
Lily stood up and walked toward McGonagall, ignoring the curious stares of her classmates who, like herself, were very unused to seeing their head of house in the common room. Lily had only known her to come in there on one other occasion, and that was to fetch Frank the night that his dad had been kidnapped. Lily sighed again, trying to get her mind off of that unpleasant memory as she came to a stop beside Potter. "Yes, Professor?" she asked innocently.
Professor McGonagall did not smile. "I've got your detention assignments for you," she said crisply. "The length of your detention will depend on how well the two of you can work together. It will begin on Friday night at 6pm sharp, and if you work together, you should have it finished that evening. If you can't, however, and you are unfinished by midnight, you will continue on Saturday morning."
Potter's eyes widenend in horror. "Friday night?" Potter sputtered. "But Professor, you must be joking? Surely you know that quidditch try-outs are Friday night! I can't miss-"
"I'm afraid I'm not 'joking', Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said without blinking. "Surely you must realize that you are only one of many talented individuals that we have in this house, and perhaps next year you will remember why you were not on the team this year, and behave accordingly, so that you will not miss your try-out. I will meet the two of you outside of Gryffindor Tower at 6:15 pm tomorrow night. I expect that you won't be late." She turned and strode out of the common room, leaving Lily staring after her in shock. It was no secret that Professor McGonagall was probably Gryffindor House's biggest quidditch fan, and her refusing to allow someone as talented as James Potter to try out for the team indicated to Lily just how much the two of them had upset her the prior night. Lily felt another stab of embarrassment for her own behavior during the sorting. What the new students-and the older ones, for that matter-must have thought of her!
"That's not fair!" Potter shouted, breaking Lily out of her introspection. "I can't believe she isn't letting me try out for the team this year! I'm the best flyer this house has! Madam Alipes has said so. What did we do that was so bad?" Potter turned and started to stalk of toward the waiting three Marauders.
"We ruined the sorting for all of the first years," Lily called after him, annoyed that Potter was blaming Professor McGonagall, and not himself, for the fact that he was missing the try-outs. "If we'd exercised more consideration, you wouldn't be missing the try-out. It's nothing more than we deserve."
Potter whirled around on her. "Nothing more than we deserve? Oh, that's so typical for you to say, Princess Evans! We made a mistake, and we're already being punished, by detention. But because she timed our detention to coincide with the quidditch try-outs, she's punishing me for the ENTIRE year! Unbelievable. And there's you saying I deserve it. Why aren't you being punished for a full-year, then?"
Lily stared at Potter. "So now you're going to use this as a chance to attack me, Potter? That type of behavior is exactly what got us both into trouble in the first place, or have you forgotten already? If you would just leave me alone, we'd neither one of us be in this predicament at all!"
Potter was taking deep breaths, his face flushed, hair, as ever, standing on-end. "This is all MY fault now, then? Just like it's me that-,"
"James Potter and Lily Evans!" a new voice cut through their argument. "I've had enough of the both of you, and if you don't lower your voices immediately, I'll be adding to the detention that Professor McGonagall just gave you, do you understand?"
Lily and Potter looked up to see Andromeda striding furiously toward them. Lily then looked beyond Andromeda and allowed her gaze to travel over the common room, noticing that everyone was now staring at the two of them in surprise. "I'm sorry, Andy," she mumbled, her face flushing furiously. "I'll be sure to stay away from Potter whenever I can arrange it. That should solve the problem entirely," she added, walking back to where Alice and Amelia were sitting with their homework in front of them.
"What happened?" Amelia asked as soon as Lily had slumped into her chair.
"Detention," Lily said, "Friday night."
Alice gasped. "But that's the night of quidditch try-outs!" she exclaimed.
"I know," Lily said, dryly. "I just had Potter screaming that at me." She shrugged. "It's his own fault, though. Just like it's my own fault that I've got detention that night."
Amelia grinned. "And let me guess," she said sardonically, "you told him that, didn't you?"
"Yes," Lily agreed defensively. "It's the truth, isn't it?"
"Yes, but Friday night?" Alice said, apparently unable to believe that McGonagall would do that. "He's the best flyer that Gryffindor's got! I mean, I can't hold a candle to him. I wasn't even sure I was going to try-out, I mean… There's only one position open, and he was a shoo-in!"
Lily shook her head. "You're starting to sound a lot like James," she said.
Alice glared at her. "That's not funny," she said. "I feel bad for him. I mean, to you, it's just one night out of the term. To him, he has to sit out the entire season because of this. Seems a bit unfair, doesn't it?"
Lily sighed deeply. "I've already been warned by Andy once tonight about fighting," she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out potions. "I'd rather not push my luck again."
Alice shook her head, curls bobbing in all directions. "You could be a little more sympathetic, Lils," she admonished.
"And he could be a little less insufferable," Lily retorted. "Can we drop it, please?"
Alice exchanged a glance with Amelia and held up a hand. "All right, Lils. We'll drop it, though it still doesn't seem fair. Let me see your Herbology essay, then. I'll go over it for you."
Lily handed her Herbology essay to Alice. "Have you worked on your Charms homework, yet?" Lily asked. "I'll take a look at it if you have." Alice and Amelia both reached into their bags and pulled out parchment to hand to Lily.
"We'll work on History of Magic as soon as you two are done correcting what we've already done," Amelia said, pulling out her book to get a head start. The girls spent the remainder of the evening working on homework until Lily excused herself to retire to her dorm room and write a letter to Petunia. As she walked up the stairs, she caught a glimpse of the Marauders, who were sitting at a table near the stairs. They were surrounded by Transfiguration texts, and Lily found herself wondering why they were studying Transfiguration. She'd never known them to have to study for that class before. She shrugged, deciding she was probably better off not knowing what they were up to, and continued on her way up to her room without a second glance in their direction.
*************************************
Lily woke up the next morning to shouting coming from the direction of the stairway. "Princesses!" Black shouted. "Oi! Princesses, get down here!"
Lily sat up and glanced groggily at the rock sitting next to her bed. It was a piece of pink quartz that had been charmed to show the time of day. It read 5:30. What on earth could the Marauders possibly want this early in the morning? She pulled open her curtains, which were flashing "Marauders Drool! Princesses Rule!" merrily, and didn't even grin at the sight. The previous year, the Marauders had played a prank on the girls, and charmed their curtains to read "Marauders Rule! Princesses Drool!" It had taken the girls a good length of time to figure out the counter-charm, and by the time that they had, all three had felt that the flashing writing was as much a part of their room as the beds themselves. They had finally decided to leave the writing, with only a small change in wording. She glanced around and saw that all of her roommates were stretching and yawning, and all looked as perplexed as she felt.
"Princesses-Evans! Parker! Bones!" Potter called out to them this time.
"Quiet down you lot!" an unknown voice answered from somewhere further up the steps.
"You quiet down!" Black retorted. "Princesses!"
"What?" Alice shouted finally, getting up and striding angrily over to the door. "What do you want?"
"We need to talk to you three, so get dressed and meet us down here!" Black returned.
"Have you gone completely mad, Black?" Alice snapped, and Lily grinned. Of all the wonderful things that Alice Parker happened to be, a morning person was not one of them. "It's 5:30 in the bloody morning!"
"We know what time it is, Parker-," Potter this time, "-this is important!"
"So is sleep," Amelia muttered, but she had already started pulling on her robes.
"Oh, just go already!" Kaylie snapped. "They're clearly not going to let any of us sleep until you do."
Alice glanced at Lily, who shrugged, and at Amelia, who was now rifling through her nightstand for her brush. "Give us a few minutes, and we'll be down. This better be good, or I will personally ensure that every girl that you woke up today has the opportunity to hex all of you to their heart's content!"
Lily heard Potter's and Black's laughter as she started to get dressed, and shook her head at their audacity. They didn't even seem to care that they had woken up the entire dorm! She was quite surprised that neither Andromeda or the other prefects had gone downstairs to quiet them down.
"Is Remus down there?" Amelia asked apprehensively. Lily grinned.
"I'm sure he will understand if you don't look your best, Meli," Alice reassured her.
Amelia blushed. "I just wondered if he was back in the Marauders now, that's all," she said defensively. "Besides, I could go down there wearing my pajamas or my best dress robes and he wouldn't notice the difference."
Lily gave Amelia a sympathetic smile. "I'm sure that he would," she said.
"Indeed," Alice agreed, pulling open the door and motioning for her friends to follow. "You just wouldn't notice that he'd noticed."
Lily and Alice laughed as all three hurried down the steps to the common room. When they arrived, they found the four Marauders in various states of repose, waiting for them. All four boys scrambled to their feet once the girls had arrived.
"Ladies," Black said, as he and Potter bowed graciously.
"Evans," Potter added. Lily glared at him, and then turned to glance at Lupin, who shrugged apologetically.
"I didn't get up at 5:30 in the morning so that you would have a few extra hours to make fun of me today, Potter," Lily said pointedly.
"You didn't?" Potter asked, an expression of mock surprise dancing across his eyes. "Pity."
"No," Alice agreed. "She didn't. Nor did we, Potter, and I've got most of Gryffindor's girls just waiting for an opportunity to hex you, so you may want to stop joking around and tell us what it is that you want."
"Well," Black said, grinning, "I'm not sure we're going to tell you now. I mean, I'm feeling a rather lot of hostility coming from the three of you, and I'm not sure that I like it."
"Remus," Amelia said, red tingeing her cheeks as it always did whenever she addressed Lupin directly, "do you mind letting us in on what's oh-so-important that it couldn't wait until a reasonable hour?"
Lupin had settled into a chair after the girls had arrived, and had his eyes closed peacefully. He opened them and glanced up at Amelia sleepily. "I've no idea," he said, yawning and closing his eyes again. "Siri and Jamesy haven't told Petey and I yet, either."
Lily slouched into a chair beside Lupin. "You have five minutes," she said, waving her wand and charming a nearby pillow into counting down from five, "to get my attention before I put a silencing charm on both of you, and go back upstairs to bed."
Potter glanced at the pillow, and then turned to Black, raising an eyebrow. "I agree mate, so hostile. And here we are, trying to warn them."
"Indeed," Black concurred, also raising his eyebrow.
"Get on with it, Black," Alice said warningly.
"Fine, fine," Potter said with a heavy sigh. He, Pettigrew and Black all settled onto a couch opposite the girls as Alice and Amelia sat on either arm of Lily's chair.
"Malfoy knows that you tipped Dumbledore off to the ceremony location last year," Black began and Lily groaned loudly, waving her wand and shutting the countdown off.
"Is that all?" she asked dismissively.
"What do you mean, is that all?" Potter asked. Clearly, he had been expecting a different reaction from her.
"I mean, I already know that. Although you're wrong, slightly. He doesn't know that it was me, he only suspects it. He tried to intimidate me into admitting it, and telling him how I knew," she answered.
At her words, Lupin opened his eyes and sat up, the other three Marauders, Alice and Amelia gasped, and everyone began talking at once.
"He did what?" Potter said angrily.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Alice demanded.
"How does he know?" Amelia queried curiously.
"You didn't tell him, did you?" Pettigrew asked fearfully.
"What do you mean, intimidate?" Black questioned roughly.
"Everybody calm down," Lupin appealed. "Why don't we let Lily tell us what happened?"
Everybody quieted and looked at Lily expectantly. She glanced apologetically at Alice and Amelia. With all of the fuss last night regarding the timing of her detention with Potter, she had completely forgotten to tell them what had happened with Malfoy. She repeated the story and by the end of it, Potter was pacing and muttering things like, "How dare he threaten you!" and "He's lucky I wasn't there."
"Well, as it happens," Lily snapped finally, annoyed that Potter was acting as though she had needed his assistance, "you weren't there, and I handled the situation just fine, didn't I?"
Potter stopped pacing and turned his gaze to Lily. "No, Evans, you didn't 'handle' anything," he replied, scathingly. "You got lucky that when he found you, you were still within the relative safety of the library and there was very little he could to you without attracting Madam Pince's attention. You completely failed at coming up with a believable explanation that did not involve you."
"Well, excuse me Potter, for not being as skilled in the fine art of deception as yourself. I did the best that I could under the circumstances, and-"
"I'm sure you did, Lily," Lupin said soothingly. "And no one's asking you to be able to lie like Jamesy and Siri can," he added with a wry glance in Potter's direction. Potter stopped pacing, and started breathing deeply, as though trying to calm himself down.
"Well then, what do you want me to do?" Lily asked.
"He isn't going to leave you alone," Black stated, "until he finds out for sure whether or not you and Jamesy told Dumbledore where the ceremony was being held, and while Jamesy here would like to think that it's only you that's in danger because of that, he's wrong. You are both going to be targets. This dark wizard's supporters are going to be wanting retaliation that his bid for immortality was spoiled, and they're going to be looking for the two of you to get it."
"Siri's right, Evans," Potter agreed. "We were hoping that they wouldn't make the connection between our involvement that night, and Dumbledore crashing their party, but they have. We're pretty certain that that's the reason that Malfoy and his father are here right now."
Pettigrew squeaked and tumbled out of his chair in fright while the three girls stared at the boys in silence.
"Have you spoken with Dumbledore about this?" Amelia asked finally, her voice trembling slightly.
The boys nodded. "Last night," Black said, "when we figured this out. Fortunately for us, he chose not to punish us for sneaking out after hours to…gather proof…of our theory."
"So we're okay, then?" Alice asked, relief evident in her voice. "I mean, Malfoy won't be so stupid as to try anything now that Dumbledore is onto his plan, right?"
Potter and Black shrugged. "That's anyone's guess. Malfoy knows that Dumbledore can't watch you all the time, and he's already shown that he can escape the consequences of the law, should he be caught," Black replied.
Amelia let out a sigh of frustration. "How that man is even allowed to walk around free after what he did to you
two," she began.
Lupin cut her off. "We know, Amelia," he said tiredly, "but he is, and not only is he walking around
free, he's been allowed back into Hogwarts, at least through next week." Lupin turned to Potter and Black.
"Do you have a plan, then?"
Black shrugged. "The best that we can come up with so far is to make sure that James and Lily are never alone. We've got to deny Malfoy the opportunity to 'interrogate' them."
Lily felt herself growing impatient. "I hardly need a baby-sitter, Black," she began.
"He's just telling you what Dumbledore told us," Potter returned. "If you don't like it, I suggest that you take it up with the headmaster himself."
Lily opened her mouth to reply, but found that she didn't have a retort. They were right, what else could she do? She shrugged. "You woke the entire Gryffindor dormitory up so that you could tell us that," she said finally.
Potter and Black nodded.
"And that's all you wanted to tell us?" Amelia asked.
Potter and Black nodded again. "Well, that, and one other thing," Black said, a bit guiltily.
"And what is that?" Lily asked suspiciously.
"We wanted to discuss our detention tonight," Potter began.
"I'm not helping you," Lily caught him off.
"What do you have planned?" Alice asked at the same time, and Lily glanced sharply at her. Alice shrugged. "I've already told you I don't think it's fair. I don't want to make the team just because Potter couldn't try out. So, what is it?"
"Well, we're not actually sure yet," Potter confessed. "I mean, we've thought of plenty of things, except how to get around the fact that if I make the quidditch team, McGonagall will know I wasn't in detention."
"So, we were thinking, maybe there's a way we could get try-outs…postponed," Black continued.
"The only problem is, none of us has any idea how we might do that."
"I'll help you think of something," Amelia said. She had been looking back and forth between the boys. "I don't think it's fair, either," she explained. "I mean that Lily gets punished for one night, and you get punished for a whole season."
"Thank you!" Potter said, looking pointedly at Lily. "So you'll help us brainstorm, then."
"Absolutely," Alice said.
"Petey and Remmy have said they'll help, too, so that leaves you, Evans," Black said, a note of pleading in his voice. "Please do this," he added. "None of us wants to listen to Jamesy go on about how stubborn you are, and if you don't help, we'll be hearing about it for months."
Lily laughed in spite of herself. Black and Potter were both giving her pleading, puppy-dog eyes. "I'm sorry I yelled at you last night, Evans," Potter said. "I was just frustrated about try-outs, and…"
Well, that did it. James Potter was apologizing to her, and before he'd pushed her to her limit. She might as well return the favor, and maybe he'd learn a thing or two about how to treat her if he wanted her assistance. "All right," she said, "I'll help, as long as it doesn't involve you wheedling out of detention. If you're as good as Alice says you are-and you must be, for her to want to give you a chance to make the team-it'd be nice to have you on the team to give Gryffindor a chance at the cup. But I fully expect you to be there with me Friday night!"
"Wonderful," Alice exclaimed, clapping her hands together, and sitting forward. "Let's figure out
the plan. Anyone have any ideas?"