First Year (cont.)
"Remember what I said about nailing Snape?" Everyone nodded. "Well, I think I have him for something. I think that he's stealing potion ingredients from Jigger."
Lily looked at him, "How can you be sure?"
James added, "Plus why do you care? You hate the boy."
But Arabella leaned in and said, "Tell me more. If you want to get Snape, I'm in."
Sirius' smile grew even broader. "Thanks Arabella. Ok, I think that after that Forgetfulness Potion last week Snape went to talk to Jigger. Probably to brag, the slimy git. Anyway, I was cleaning up the dragon liver juice that I spilled on the floor and I saw Professor Jigger leave. Snape looked around--I don't think he saw me there--and then started rummaging through cabinets."
Peter cut Sirius off, "But that's the student store cupboard. We are allowed to go in there."
"Yeah, I know, but then he went into Jigger's office. I waited for about five minutes until he came back out. He said something like 'he doesn't have it' and left. I'll bet anything he was trying to find something for one of his bloody potions that only Jigger would have. And did you know that stealing from here is punishable by explosion?" Sirius gave an evil grin.
"You mean expulsion, Sirius," corrected Remus.
"Whatever. The point is Snape could be gone forever! We just need to catch him stealing something from Jigger, report it and BOOM! Snape is out of our hair."
"I don't know if that's a good idea," said Lily uneasily, "I mean, it could go seriously wrong."
But James, Remus, Peter and Arabella nodded enthusiastically about Sirius' plan. James voiced the opinion that they would need to figure our a way to catch Snape, and then they would be all set. Ignoring her best instincts, Lily agreed to go along with the plans. The group finished eating and walked upstairs to the common room, with Sirius leading the way. He was walking up the stair backwards, chatting excitedly about the plans.
"…just imagine, us going to Professor Dumbledore and saying 'sir, we are aware that slimy Severus Snape has been stealing from poor Professor Jigger's private store of potion ingredients'… what? Do I have something on my face?" Sirius looked at everyone's now horrified expressions and turned around.
Snape was standing on the landing at the top of the staircase. His face wore an expression of mixed fury and… something unreadable.
"You," Sirius growled, though his pale face showed horror at being caught talking about the other boy, "shouldn't you be in your common room?"
"Ah yes, I should be, Black." Snape replied coolly. "But, as you are not a prefect, what are you going to do about it?"
Sirius scowled. If it was possible, his loathing of Snape intensified even more with that last comment. Snape smirked, knowing that he had irked Sirius and swept past the group.
"Don't worry, Sirius. We'll get him… just wait."
The first snow of the year came in the beginning of December. The weather made everything colder. Arabella and Lily could be seen giving warming potions and charms to the boys in order to keep colds at bay. James was too stubborn to take anything that the girls offered, and ended up having to go to the nurse for some Pepper Up Potion. Seeing James with steam shooting out of his ears was so amusing, Lily found it hard not to say "I told you so!" But after that, James' cold went away and he let Lily perform a warming charm without complaint.
About a week before the Christmas holidays, a list was passed around for students to sign saying whether or not they would be staying at Hogwarts over the holiday. Thinking it would be nice to be with her friends and family over the break, Lily wrote her parents asking if she could invite them over. Two days later, she got her answer:
Dearest Lily:
Of course we would love to have your new friends over for the holiday. Petunia was adamantly against it but I'm sure she'll have a change of heart once she gets to know them. I suggest that your friends write to their parents asking for permission. Otherwise, we will see you in a week. Much love, and we miss you!
Love always~ Mummy
P.S: This owl post is so strange--don't you think? Or perhaps you're used to it.
Lily bounded up the stairs and woke up Arabella.
"Guess what?!? You can stay! Everyone can stay! You're all coming over!"
Arabella rubbed her eyes and then grinned. "Well, come on then, let's go and tell the boys!"
"But they're in the boys dormitory. We're not allowed in there!"
But Arabella had already dragged Lily over to where the four boys lay sleeping. She climbed onto Sirius' bed and shook him. He just rolled over and continued to sleep. Arabella grinned wickedly and muttered the Aquatiqus spell. Suddenly water was dumped onto Sirius' head. That got him up. He sat bolt upright in his bed, sopping wet.
"Urgh!" he gurgled, "Arabella, what was that for?!?"
She giggled, "Time to get up! Lily's got some good news."
Arabella proceeded to bounce on Peter's bed while Lily prodded James and Remus awake. Once the boys' eyes were open, Lily told them about the invitation to stay over the holidays.
"So you'll all be staying at my house and since James lives down the road, we can visit his parents on Boxing Day. Won't that be lovely?"
Everyone was really excited about staying at Lily's house except Remus, who was looking downcast.
"I'm sorry Lily, but I don't think I'll be able to make it. My…my parents really wanted me home for Christmas this year. Maybe some other time. I'm really sorry."
Lily's face fell. "Oh, its ok. Yeah, maybe some other time." She really had been hoping everyone would want to stay over. Remus gave her an apologetic smile and looked down at his feet.
Something is up, she thought, I don't know what, but something is up with him.
It was freezing at the Hogsmeade Station. The group waited in the snow impatiently for the Hogwarts Express to arrive so they could thaw out. Finally after what seemed like forever, the scarlet steam engine chugged into view. There was a huge scramble to get onto the train and then they were off. The whole day was spent chatting and playing games. When they arrived at platform 9¾, a wizened old wizard them go through the barrier two at a time. "As not to scare them Muggles. Now get in line!" was what the man said when James bugged him about the wait.
Everyone said their goodbyes to Remus, whose parents were waiting for him. Lily spotted her own parents above the sea of students and ran over to them.
"Mum! Daddy! I missed you so much!"
Mr. Evans gathered her up in his arms in a tight hug. "My girl, we've missed you as well. Now, lets meet your charming friends." He smiled at the group who had made their way over.
"Oh! Well," she started gesturing at them, "this is Sirius Black, Arabella Figg, Peter Pettigrew and of course you know James."
"Pleased to meet you" they chorused as James said, "Nice to see you Mr. and Mrs. Evans."
"Likewise!", said Mrs. Evans, smiling. "Now, let's head out. Lily's father has borrowed a car from a friend. We weren't sure all of us could fit into our family's car. Got all your things? Alright, lets go!"
Everyone piled into the car, which was in fact large, enough for everyone. It only took about twenty minutes to get to Lily's house. She led the way into the sitting room, where an enormous Christmas tree had been decorated. On the couch sat Petunia, reading. Upon hearing her sister and her friends enter the room she looked up.
"Oh, it's you. Have a good term?" she asked snidely. "I see you've brought your freak friends. And oh my, is that James Potter? Well, I always knew he was a bit off."
Lily could feel her face burning. "Petunia, you know very well that we are not freaks, so kindly shut up. If you don't have anything nice to say, we will leave. Besides, you guys, I want to show you my room and where you will be staying."
The group filed out of the room and climbed up the stairs.
"This is my room," said Lily, gesturing towards the tidy space, "Arabella and I will be sleeping here. You," she pointed at the boys, "will be sleeping the in the guest room."
They followed Lily down the hall to the guest room, which had a bed and two cots set up.
"I get the bed!" yelled James. There was a mad dash to claim the bed. Arabella and Lily looked at each other.
"Boys!" they moaned.
The next day, Christmas Eve, Lily and Arabella helped Mrs. Evans bake for the family dinner. They set the shepards' pie in the oven and then settled in the living room to watch James, Sirius and Peter's snowball fight in the garden. Dinner that night was the most fun Lily had had in a long time. The food was delicious and at the end of dessert, Sirius set off a round of Filibuster's No Heat, Wet Start Fireworks. Full and very sleepy, Lily and her friends trudged upstairs while her mother and Petunia cleaned the kitchen.
"Wake up! Come on, get up! Happy Christmas!"
Lily was awakened by the sound of James' voice. She got up before anyone could pour water on her. She was surprised to see that only James was there.
"Happy Christmas to you as well," she said groggily, "where is everyone?"
"Downstairs opening the gifts their parents sent them. Come on, get up!"
Lily slid out of bed and followed James down the stairs. In the family room sat Arabella, Sirius and Peter. Lily could hear her parents in the kitchen and she supposed Petunia was still upstairs.
Lily found that her friends had given her magnificent gifts. Sirius gave her a book, "Olde and Forgotten Bewitchments and Charmes", James had given her a silver charm bracelet. From Arabella, an enchanted diary that only opened if Lily spoke the password and Peter had given her a box of Chocolate Frogs. In turn, Lily had given each of them a set of stationary with their initials embossed onto the parchment, and a brand new quill.
"Merlin Lily, these are great! Thanks!" exclaimed Peter.
Just then, Lily's mother walked into the room. "James, your mother called. They decided to visit a family friend and won't be here to see you tomorrow. They dropped off your present, though. Its right there, underneath the tree."
James walked over to where a package lay under the tree. He sat back down and tore off the wrapping paper. He opened the box and held up a something made of silvery fabric. James shook it out and then he realized it was a cloak.
"Ooh, James, its so pretty!" admired Lily.
"Hang on, there's a note," he said, noticing the card that was pinned to the hood of the cloak. James opened the envelope and read the note inside:
"Dear James:
Happy Christmas. We hope you like your gift. It has been handed down from generation to generation on your mother's side of the family. The invisibility cloak you hold in your hands once belonged to Jack the Giant Killer, and now it belongs to you. Happy Christmas, and we love you very much.
Mum and Father"
"Merlin." whispered James.
"That's amazing," exclaimed Sirius, "just think of what you could do with this cloak! Hey!" his eyes shined malevolently, "you can use this to spy on Snape, this is perfect!"
"I suppose, but Sirius, maybe not right away. We still need to think of a plan, remember?" James was reluctant to let it be used by someone other than himself. If Sirius was disappointed, he didn't show it. James did however, hand it over to his friends to try on.
While Peter was admiring James' gift, James walked over to the Evans' fireplace, where pictures adorned the mantel. He smiled as he looked at a picture of Lily and himself taken when they had been five years old. It had been at James' birthday party and there were both wearing party hats, their arms around each other's shoulders. Lily had chocolate frosting smudged on her cheek but they both had huge smiles on their faces.
"Hey, Lily-- look at this," he gently lifted the photo from its place and brought it to the group.
"Goodness, look at how little we were!" she exclaimed.
"How fascinating," mocked Sirius, "c'mon, I want to do something else."
Lily laughed and threw a pillow at him. This started a furious pillow fight, which only ended when the room was filled with floating feathers.
****
Knowing that they had to go back to school made it hard to leave. Lily's parents drove them to King's Cross and made a proper fuss over their daughter and her friends. Sirius shot Lily a pained look but Lily knew he was loving the attention.
"Oh look Mum, its Remus. We've got to go. Yes, I'll write. Ok, bye now." she waved them off and then led the group over to where Remus was waiting for a few fifth years to got through the barrier. He looked tired but very happy to see his friends.
"Hey guys. How was Christmas?"
"Great. Guess what James got from his parents? He got a…" started Arabella.
"I'll tell him on the train." interrupted James, who received a curious look from everyone. For some reason he felt that sharing the information about his gift was something to be done in the privacy of the train compartment. They got a space at the end of the train and spent an uneventful day on the way back to Hogwarts.
Much to Sirius' disappointment, classes started the following day. Fortunately, they hadn't had any homework over the holiday but the lack of magical training made classes difficult. Potions was the traditional nightmare but Sirius found that if he paid attention to Snape and what he was doing, the class moved along much more quickly.
In Defense Against the Dark Arts later that afternoon, the class was horrified to learn that Moody was to be performing mild curses on them.
"Is he mad? We're only first years!" whispered Julia Carlino, her blue eyes wide with fright. Arabella was as pale as a ghost and both Sirius and James looked as if they were about to lose the lunch they had just eaten.
Moody cleared the desks with a wave of his wand. One by one he called up the students and gave them a curse they had to block. And one by one the first years fell victim to the curses they unsuccessfully blocked. By the time Remus had to walk to the center of the room, Sirius had danced the tango, Lily had cat ears sprouting out of head (much to James' amusement) and the Figg twins had their cropped brown hair turned long and white. Remus glanced at his classmates, who all looked worse for the wear and held up his wand to signal he was ready.
"Rictusempra!" bellowed Professor Moody.
At the same time, Remus shouted "Expelliarmus" and dodged the curse. Moody's wand flew into the air and Remus caught it, grinning like mad. James gave an admiring whoop, while Sirius and Peter just had their mouths hanging open.
"Well done, Lupin. Very well done." Moody growled. He even had the decency to look impressed.
"How did you do that?" asked Lily later on. They were still goggling at Remus' performance today.
"Julie told me," he said, referring to his sister who had already graduated, "she remembered Moody giving them the same surprise practical her first year. I'd read about disarming spells but when she told me about the practical, I had her actually teach it to me. Julie said that we should officially learn it next year."
In a fit of boredom the next day, Sirius stole a package of Albino Sandalius seeds. Found mostly by oceans, Professor Verde had told them that if eaten the seeds would save the eater from jellyfish stings. As she talked, Lily saw Sirius slip the package into the pocket of his robes. However, the incident was pushed out of her mind when she noticed a growing Devil's Snare plant start to crawl up her arm.
****
At breakfast a week later, as everyone was reviving from slumber over jelly and toast, they were startled by a boom and then a shout of surprise from the Slytherin table. There sat Snape with jelly covering his face, his robes and his hair. A look of shock spread across his features that Lily would remember for years to come. While everyone else was confused as to what had just happened, Sirius was shaking with suppressed laughter. And only then did Lily remember the Sandalius seeds and the effect they had on jelly…
"Sirius, what did you do?" Lily asked slowly.
"What do you mean?" asked Sirius innocently. However, he quelled when she shot him a death look.
"Oh, that. I thought that it would be interesting to study the effect Albino Sandalius seeds have when ingested with jelly. So I planted the seeds into Snape's breakfast. Well, now we know, I suppose," replied Sirius mischievously, "I do feel bad for him though. He'll have to wash his hair to get the jelly out."
Everyone except Lily laughed at this. As they walked out of the Great Hall they unfortunately ran into Snape, who was walking out as well.
"Morning, Snape," Sirius smirked, "did you enjoy breakfast? With all the jelly in your hair, you can save it and eat your lunch in potions."
Snape's eyes reduced to slits as he glared at Sirius. "It was you, wasn't it? Well Black, you just wait and see what's coming to you." He pushed past the group of Gryffindors.
****
That day in Double Potions, Sirius paid even closer attention to Snape than usual. Jigger was in an unusually good mood that day. He even awarded Gryffindor points when Arabella correctly answered a question he asked her.
"He's hoarding something, I'm sure of it." said Sirius as they walked to the common room.
"Who?" asked Lily, although she thought she knew the answer.
"Snape, of course! I saw him stuffing ingredients down his robes all day. I wonder what he's doing."
They reached the common room. Everyone flopped down into chairs in front of the fire except for James, who ran upstairs to the boys' dormitory. He reappeared about thirty seconds later with the invisibility cloak.
"Well, there's one way to find out. We'll sneak out of here, go to the Slytherin common room and see what Snape is up to."
"Oh, that's a fine idea," observed Remus, "just how are we going to find the Slytherin common room? And what about a password, we'll need that as well. For another thing, I'm sure that Snape is not going to be brewing whatever potion he's got going on right in front of everyone."
James looked hurt. Remus had shot down every one of his ideas.
"Well, let's see if you've got a better plan," snapped Lily, coming to James' defense, "if we're going to do this everything must be thought out perfectly."
"What if," Peter said slowly, "we send some sort of note to Snape telling him to meet us in the potions room."
Everyone laughed.
"Oh yes, like that'll work! Why would Snape come to see us?" chortled Arabella.
Remus sat up, looking inspired. "Actually, that's a brilliant plan. We will send some note with a school owl telling Snape to meet us in the potions room. And then we sign it as Professor Jigger. I'm sure that Snape will take the opportunity to steal stuff then, don't you think? And we'll be under James' invisibility cloak, so he won't see us! When should we do this?"
"Next week," replied James firmly, "that will give us time to think of a believable letter and to send it."
Remus looked hesitant. "Er, next week? Can't we do it some other time?"
Sirius looked up. "No, we have to do it then. We might not get another chance. Why?"
Remus looked down, "Never mind, it's not important." He stared into the fire as if lost in thought.
There it is again, thought Lily, who recognized the look Remus had on his face as the same one he gave her before the Christmas holidays. She wondered if there was something her friend wasn't telling her.
James and Sirius had noticed, too. They weren't sure what Remus wasn't saying but James was sure that it was something big. Sirius agreed with James that they should both try and find out what was wrong with Remus.
****
"Werewolves," said Moody. The class had moved from defense against curses to common dark creatures, "now, who can tell me about werewolves?"
As usual, Remus raised his hand. "Sir, werewolves are humans that have been bitten by another werewolf. They lead normal lives until the full moon. It is then that they transform into werewolves themselves, and seek human flesh. The werewolf is killed by silver, which is it's only enemy." he shuddered, as if repulsed.
"Good, Lupin. Five points to Gryffindor." growled Moody.
As the class took notes on werewolves, it dawned on James. Remus was a werewolf! All the pieces of the puzzle were there. He wouldn't go near Lily when she had her charm bracelet on. He was gone whenever there was a full moon and came back as soon as it was gone. There was just one more thing he needed to check. Quietly, he tore a piece from the sheet of parchment he was taking notes on. He scrawled a note to Sirius saying to meet him in the library after class and passed it to him. Sirius read it and gave his friend a look as if to say "have you gone mad?" and James mouthed back "Just do it." Sirius nodded.
After class the two boys shook off the rest of the group and raced to the library. James still wouldn't tell Sirius why they needed to be there but as soon as they walked in, James started searching for a lunar calendar.
"Will you please tell me why we're here instead of eating lunch?" Sirius nearly shouted, earning him a reproving stare from Madame Pince, the librarian.
"I'm looking to see what stage the moon will be in next week. I think that then we'll know what Remus isn't telling us," replied James, who was still scanning books.
"What?" asked a bewildered Sirius.
"I think--and this is going to sound crazy--but I think Remus is a werewolf. Here," he shoved the notes they had taken that day at Sirius, "read this and think about it. When has Remus ever touched the silver candlesticks in our dormitory? And he's always gone during the full moon. Remember Christmas? And here: next week there will be a full moon! I'll bet anything Remus will say his mum is ill or something and he'll leave."
James watched as Sirius' eyes widened. "Merlin, you're right! Come on, we'll need to talk to him."
They raced down to the Great Hall, preparing to talk to Remus.