chapter twelve -- little red riding hood
Jul. 8th, 2005 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thirty2flavorsI have wanted to write for quite some time now, but I have the worst writer's block imagineable. I cannot think of a single new idea or thought to try and put down on paper... it's awful, really. Hell, if anyone has a one-shot or something they'd like to see written, comment here and maybe I'll get it done? I'm desperate for ideas.
On the bright side, I guess, that means since I can't write anything new I'm just going to post old stuff. Yay.
So here's the next installment.
Chapter Twelve – Little Red Riding Hood
What a big heart I have
The better to love you with
Little red riding hood, even bad wolves can be good
I’ll try to keep satisfied just to walk close by your side
Maybe you’ll see things my way
Before we get to Grandma’s place
-Little Red Riding Hood, Sam the Sham
--
Lily’s gaze stayed fixed on James for a moment, eyes widened. James held her gaze, mouth opening and closing helplessly as he tried to continue the argument and failed to find something to say.
“It’s a he?” Lily said after a second, finally finding her voice.
“No?” answered James. His tone rose at the end, making it more of a question than a statement, and he sounded uncharacteristically unsure.
She hardly heard him. Her eyes were wide and her gaze was still straight at him, but somehow James was pretty sure she wasn’t looking at anything in particular anymore. “How do you know?” Her voice grew excited with the potential of knowledge.
“I don’t!” he answered instantly. “Look, it’s just—“
“You said he,” Lily continued, voice sounding far off, “you kept saying he! Why would you say that unless it’s a he?”
“Because I ... just … did! That’s all! Look, it’s just… boats! You know, boats? They’re always called she, right? It’s just a thing. Like in French, you’ve got masculin and féminin…”
Had Lily not been focusing more on the recent revelation, she would’ve laughed. It was almost hilarious to listen to James Potter try so frantically to explain something to her while using the weakest arguments possible. She had a hard time believing it; why would he suddenly assign a gender to the word werewolf? Most people didn’t. It was, after all, a Dark Creature. They didn’t call boggarts male or female, did they?
“Who is it?”
James, who had up until that point been trying to string together an argument using French articles, shut his mouth for a second before sighing. “I don’t know – why would I know, Evans?”
Lily, it seemed, was in no mood to answer any questions. Now that the tap was turned slightly, the fountain of questions could pour out. There was no time to interrupt the flow in order to answer his questions.
“Why were you out there?”
“It… look, Evans—“
“What were you doing?”
“Evans-“
“How did you know there was a werewolf out there?”
“Evans!”
“How did you know that other thing wasn’t a werewolf, anyway?”
“It didn’t look like one. Evans-“
For all her eagerness, it didn’t seem as though she’d even paid attention to his answers. With a bit of a far-off look in her eyes she took off down the hall. “We have to tell the staff, Potter.”
Once again he sprinted to catch up to her.
“They’ve got to know! The Ministry has got to know! They can’t allow a werewolf to run around school property! Someone has got to take care of it—“
“Take care of it?” James repeated again, indignant. “Does it even occur to you that by ‘taking care of it’ they’re going to kill it?” There was the slightest bit of a pause between ‘kill’ and ‘it’, during which James seemed to consider what pronoun to use. “Or how about the fact those twenty-seven days out of twenty-eight it,” his voice was dripping with sarcasm, “is human?”
Lily frowned at him, shaking her head. “A werewolf is a werewolf, Potter.”
His eyes narrowed. “A werewolf is a person, Evans.”
Still walking briskly down the hall, glancing from side to side as she tried to find where the staff meeting might be being held, Lily brushed some of her hair back. “The fact remains that a werewolf is a very dangerous creature and the staff has to know! …Why are you so defensive, anyway?” She glanced over her shoulder at him, brow furrowing.
“Someone’s got to be!” he snapped back, matching her pace. “Honestly, with the whole bleeding-heart thing you do so often you’d think you’d be able to realize how absurd your idea is! What’s the difference between me publicly ostracizing a Slytherin and you shooting a werewolf?”
Lily arched an eyebrow. “Well for one, Potter, the Slytherin is not trying to eat you.”
“A werewolf isn’t trying to eat you!”
Their voices were rising, oblivious to the fact it was nighttime and they were in the hallways after-hours. It was turning into the typical Evans-Potter spat with a bit of role reversal; his voice was the one rising with righteousness.
“Oh no?” she asked sarcastically, staring over at him. “That’s funny, coming from someone who saw the werewolf try to eat me!” She let out a high-pitched laugh. “Honestly, Potter, what was it doing, then? Having a playful romp?”
“Do you think it was the werewolf’s choice?”
She turned to continue on her way, but James caught her arm again, tugging her back. When she couldn’t rip her arm out of his grasp, she exhaled an exasperated sigh and continued.
“Do you think it matters? If you or I or one of the kids had been bitten or worse, would it matter that the werewolf meant to? My lord, Potter, say I stabbed you in the back accidentally and you died, would it matter that I didn’t mean to?”
James frowned at her, eyes still narrowed. “There’s a difference, Evans. You have control over stabbing me in the face. R—a werewolf has no control over—“
“Control or no control, intentional or accidental, what’s the difference? The end result is what’s important, not the path to get there!”
“How can you say that?” he asked, incredulous. “The end result is important, yes, but you can’t disregard how you got there. That’s… Merlin, Lily, that’s just stupid.”
She arched an eyebrow and stared at him over her shoulder for a moment. “Is it? Say a parent gets drunk and drowns their child – technically, it wasn’t intentional, because they were drunk, but does that matter? Or does it matter more that they drowned their child?”
Gritting his teeth, James rolled his eyes. “That’s not the same,” he snapped, and Lily noticed that he was using that defensive tone again, the tone he’d used at the dance. “It’s the parent’s fault for getting drunk in the first place, for being irresponsible...”
“It’s the werewolf’s fault for being bitten, by that logic,” she countered.
“No it isn’t! My God, do you think anyone wanders into a forest hoping to be bitten by a werewolf so they have an excuse to run around monthly and eat people?”
“People don’t usually get drunk just so they can drown their children.”
“No, but …” he gave a hiss of frustration. “You’re a bright girl, Evans, think about what you’re saying!”
The hand on her arm had tugged her a little closer and Lily had to notice what a close vicinity of each other they were in. He looked exhausted, up close and in better lighting. The worn-down look of someone who’s been working just a bit harder than usual surprised her, although she wasn’t sure why. Giving her head a little shake, she ripped her arm from his grip. “Unlike you, Potter, I usually do.”
The staff room was just down the hall, as she recalled. Thinking about it now, it only made sense that they have the staff meeting in the staff room. Exhaling softly, she glanced over at him. “Whether they shoot it or not, the staff needs to know. Whether they react using my thinking or yours doesn’t matter.”
With a quiet sigh of something like defeat, James kept at her heels. “Evans, please, let’s just go back to the common room.”
Lily shook her head. A few more steps and they neared the door to the staff room, ajar and casting a little sprinkle of light into the otherwise dark hallway. She opened her mouth to speak, to knock on the door and say ‘excuse me, Professors’, but in a second before she could James placed a hand over her mouth and tugged her out of reach of the door.
She wanted to protest. With a muffled noise she reached up to pry his hands off of her, only to discover that James was stronger than he looked. An irrational sense of panic struck her when she couldn’t get herself out of his arms and she found herself pulling harder, although James only held tighter. How dare he? She knew James was known for his determination, but this wasn’t right. He couldn’t just stand there restraining her while—
“—but why would they kill Agatha and Marmaduke?”
As Professor Skentelbury’s voice came from within the staffroom, the words which she spoke grabbed Lily and James’ immediate attention. James’ grip on Lily slackened greatly, but the Head Girl was already ensnared in the trap of eavesdropping. Curiosity was an overwhelming force, and her attention was drawn away from worming out of James’ arms and towards the discussion in the staff room.
“The Prewetts are a powerful family, Carina,” came Dumbledore’s voice.
“A powerful pureblooded family,” added Professor McGonagall.
“Exactly!” exclaimed Skentelbury. “Purebloods – isn’t that whom he’s trying to appeal to, whom he’s trying to exalt?”
“The Prewetts have been advocates for equality for years. They’ve been decidedly against Dark Magic for decades now and You-Know-Who is not going to be able to change that,” another added.
“But Agatha and Marmaduke aren’t even involved with the Ministry! They-”
“It’s a way of enforcing what they’re trying to enforce,” came the voice of their Defense Against Dark Arts teacher, “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us. It’s a warning to all the respectable pureblooded families.”
Lily felt James’ arms slacken around her, although she was no longer paying him much attention. His hand slid from her mouth and fell around her waist, the arm around her waist loosened, and she could have pulled herself away, had she tried.
She could have spoken up, but she didn’t. Not now. She was too interested in what the teachers were talking about.
“That’s exactly it, Emma,” said Dumbledore with another sigh. “They’re trying to scare families like the Prewetts into siding with them, and they’re going to do it whatever way they can.”
Narcissa Black’s words floated to mind.
The only thing worse than a mudblood is an idiotic mudblood lover.
Was that some kind of creed among the rich and prejudiced?
“Things are going to get bad,” said the airy voice of Professor Martinkovitch. “I can See it. There’s a lot of negative energy.”
There was an annoyed snort from one of the teachers. “Congratulations, Raven,” snapped Professor Buracheck, “that surely is a feat of the Inner Eye. Why, I wish I were blessed with the extrasensory ability to tell that things will get bad during a war!”
“Drop it, both of you,” said McGonagall, with such finality that neither Buracheck nor Martinkovitch decided to question it. “Agatha and Marmaduke aren’t the only ones. Ministry officials are vanishing, in Stratford three weeks ago an entire family was murdered, and only last weekend there was that murder in Hogsmeade-”
“Wait, what murder?”
“An Auror couple and their child; the Ministry has been good about keeping it hush-hush.”
“Of course,” said Buracheck with a note of bitterness, “They wouldn’t want the public doing something crazy like being cautious.”
“The public is already cautious, Emma. They’re trying to prevent paranoia.”
“Who are they targeting next?” came Binns’ voice, sounding vaguely interested, for once.
“The murder of Agatha and Maramduke Prewett is more than likely the start of a trend,” replied Dumbledore with a sigh. “Voldemort’s trying to convey the message that anyone who doesn’t side with him will pay the ultimate price. I must say, most unfortunately, that it is likely he will continue to target …perhaps eradicate… that sort of family.”
There was a slight sort of murmur amongst the teachers. When McGonagall’s voice was distinguishable, it was unusually weary.
“Families like the Potters and…”
There were more names after that, but Lily had temporarily zoned out. The Potters? As in James Potter? As in the prat who was standing behind her with his hand around her waist?
Wait, no, scratch that; he wasn’t touching her anymore.
She wasn’t sure why hearing Professor McGonagall list the name Potter as a potential target elicited the feeling in the pit of her stomach that it did. She wasn’t even entirely sure what the feeling was – it just felt as though something had curled up in her torso and was twisting around.
Lily glanced over her shoulder at him but found that he was staring into the darkness of the hallway, an unusual expression on his face that Lily couldn’t quite place. She’d seen him look serious quite a few times tonight, and yet each time it managed to be surprising and each time it seemed to be slightly different.
She wondered momentarily how she would have felt had Professor McGonagall said 'Evans', instead, and the creature in her stomach writhed once more.
James still hadn’t looked at her, but now he gestured her to follow him as he started down the hall. Lily, distracted from the original task at hand, followed him without much thought. They walked in silence. James stared straight ahead the entire time, looking lost in thought, and Lily couldn’t help stealing glances at him every so often. She hadn’t seen him wear an expression this closed before. It was …weird.
And, she realized, a little scary.
They were well on their way to the Gryffindor common room when she decided to break the silence.
“Are you okay?”
It startled him – and her, for that matter. A second after she said it she blinked, almost as if wondering if it was really her voice that had said that just now. In all the years they’d known each other, she couldn’t recall that she’d ever asked him that question before. It was a typical question, and some people asked it with a great frequency, and yet she had never directed it at James before.
He stopped walking and stared at her for a minute, brow furrowing. She wondered if he even realized what she meant …and then she wondered if he was just that surprised she had asked the question.
“I’m fine,” he said after a moment, sounding slightly undecided, even on edge, as he sped up to meet her side again.
“Well,” said Lily, hasty to make an explanation for her sudden query, “I just thought… since… well, I just thought…”
“If you’re going to worry about someone based on what we just overheard, Evans, worry about yourself. You’re the muggleborn.”
Lily raked a hand through her hair and looked at him. She realized he didn’t mean that as the insult he could have and shook her head. Her heritage was a constant source of annoyance in the school. It didn’t bother her that she was a muggleborn, but it seemed to bother a lot of other people, namely the Slytherins. “I don’t understand the prejudice. I don’t understand what supposedly makes someone like me worse than any of those people just because my parents weren’t magical.”
James shrugged. “Most prejudices are essentially groundless, Evans, but it’s human nature to have them. They usually appear in wake of needing someone to blame.”
Lily merely nodded; he was right. Her next question rolled around in her mouth for a moment or so as she mustered up the daring to ask it.
“Is it really that bad out there?” Like it or loathe it, Lily was a muggleborn. She was nowhere near as exposed to things as James would be, coming from a Wizarding family.
He looked at her, perhaps wondering if he should sugarcoat the answer or not. After a moment’s consideration, he replied.
“It’s getting there. The fact that they’ve attacked a pureblooded family… that’s bad, Evans, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a pureblood. Professor Buracheck is right; it’s …” he paused, rethinking. “Does the name Prewett mean anything to you?”
Lily shook her head. “No. Not particularly.”
““They’re… well, I suppose they’re sort of like the Malfoys – only the exact opposite. Kindhearted, selfless, loyal, probably among the least prejudiced people you’re likely to meet, nowadays. Anyway, point is, the Prewetts are popular. Their deaths will mean something to the public, once the public finds out. People are going to start to worry. Voldemort’s targeting people the public will miss – people the public looks up to. The heroes, if you will, of the community, big names that everyone will recognize when they’re in the headlines. Publicity is his goal, right now.”
Lily nodded, absorbing. He seemed to be letting out a long-withheld rant, and Lily didn’t have the heart to stop him.
Besides that, she was dreadfully interested.
“Apart from the public aspect, there’s the more personal level. Apart form being big names and brilliant at magic, the Prewetts were people. They have children. Our first year here – do you remember? – there was a Head Boy by the name of—“
“Fabian Prewett,” supplied Lily, suddenly realizing.
“—yes. Youngest of three. His sister Molly had a third child not too long ago. Apart from family, even, the Prewetts had friends. My mum and Agatha were good friends, actually…” James fell silent for a moment, considering something, before shaking his head. “It’s the second half of the plan. There’s the public level, and then there’s the personal level. Their deaths are intended to leave people who had been close to them shaken, hopefully into submission. People start to worry that next time it won’t be a name in the paper, it’ll be a friend. It won’t be a friend, it’ll be a best friend. It won’t be a best friend, it’ll be a parent; it’ll be a husband, a wife, a son, a daughter…”
“If you really want to control someone, don’t threaten his life; threaten the lives of his loved ones,” said Lily quietly, giving her head a shake. “It’s propaganda.”
“It’s working.” His tone was remarkably bitter.
“Propaganda usually does,” replied Lily with a bit of a shrug.
“We’re going to be crucial, you know,” he said after a second, glancing at her. “Not us personally - I mean our whole year, this generation. We’re the critical turning point. If enough of us side with the Ministry, the war will be over sooner. If too many of us defect… more children are orphaned and more families are torn apart and more good, strong-willed people like the Prewetts are murdered.”
Lily nodded, deciding to leave the topic there. The thought that had occurred to her unnerved her:
People like your parents.
For a while, neither spoke. They walked along in silence with a mutual destination, Lily just now noticing the fatigue sweeping over her and the worn-out look James was wearing. The latter seemed like more of a change. James was infamous for energy; he was the ringleader of the marauders, a constant force in Hogwarts politics, Gryffindor’s Quidditch star, and all in all he never seemed to slow down. Looking beside her, watching the boy drag the back of his hand across his forehead and give a little sigh, she wondered momentarily if it were really the same person. Perhaps, by some twist of fate, she’d spent the entire night not with James Potter, but with someone else – a carbon copy in everything but personality.
If it weren’t so completely farfetched, it almost seemed plausible. The way he’d acted tonight contradicted the way she’d seen him act every other day of the year. Usually his head was in the clouds, he was obnoxious, self-centered and self-serving. Tonight he’d proved to be authoritative, quick-thinking under pressure and, most impressively, he’d put himself in the line of fire for someone else.
Never thought I’d see the day Potter did something for someone else, she admitted to herself.
Just before the portrait of the Fat Lady, James froze in his tracks and reached out to touch Lily’s arm, stopping her as well. “Wait,” he instructed, pausing to look up and down the corridor. They were alone – this seemed to satisfy him, and so he continued. “We need to settle something first.”
Exhaling tiredly, Lily crossed her arms. “Oh?” she said simply, “And what might that be?”
“Everything that just happened,” said James.
Lily stayed silent. A lot had just happened; she wasn’t sure what James was referring to.
“I need you to swear to me, Evans, that you won’t tell a soul about what happened in the forest.”
Lily’s brow furrowed. “The werewolf, you mean?”
James nodded.
“Why not?”
James inhaled. Lily got the impression his response would be a long one. “It won’t do any good, Evans. It’ll make people paranoid. Everyone will want to know where the werewolf came from, if it’s safe to go outside on full moons, if the school is safe, if Dumbledore’s sane… and then stupid naïve kids will get the idea in their heads that they’re going to play hero and they’ll storm into the Forest one full moon armed with wands and sticks and stolen silverware, failing to comprehend the fact that most of the month a werewolf is a person. Rumors will start to circulate. Parents will start freaking out because they won’t want their child exposed to that sort of threat, and soon enough the entire Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures out here, joining the naïve children and armed with silver bullets.”
The outcome as James painted it did seem a bit skewed out of proportion, but as she thought about it, she realized he was probably right. That was what would happen, she supposed, and it would toss the school into turmoil. Hogwarts had plenty of drama on its own. It was full of teenagers, hormones raging, it was becoming a rare safe-haven in a world turning war-torn, and the last thing it needed was a media circus around it regarding werewolves.
“I suppose you’re right,” she sighed, admitting defeat, “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Not telling anyone isn’t good enough. You cannot tell a soul, Evans.”
“Okay,” she said, eyebrows rising, “I understand. I can keep a secret, Potter, I’m not three years old.”
“Not Anna. Not Melanie. Not anyone. Do you understand?”
Lily shot him a scrutinizing stare. “Oh, come on, Potter. It isn’t as if I can expect you to keep anything from your friends, an— ”
Rather suddenly, James had her by the shoulders, faces inches from hers. In split-second ignorance she expected him to kiss her, but he did no such thing. He was staring her in the eye, and the seriousness in his expression scared her. His eyes lacked their usual mischievous look, and furthermore, there was not a trace of grin on his lips.
“Not a soul, Evans. Promise me.”
Talk about using fear as a propaganda technique, she thought before wrinkling her nose in an indignant sort of way. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” she remarked, breaking eye contact, eager to get away from James Potter and collect her thoughts.
He didn’t let go, and so she looked at him once again. She squirmed in his grasp, but his hold on her only tightened. “Promise me,” he repeated, firmer this time.
She was intimidated. Meeting his eyes, she held the gaze and paused only a moment before speaking slowly and sincerely. “I promise.”
He held her gaze for only a couple seconds, scanning her face for hints of a lie, before he released her shoulders and took a step back to a more appropriate distance. “Thank you.”
With that he turned and woke the Fat Lady, muttering something Lily was not paying enough attention to understand. She looked rather disgruntled, but said nothing. It only went to further solidify Lily’s belief that James and his gang had some form of arrangement with the portrait.
What, though, she could not possibly imagine. How does one go about bribing a picture?
Stepping into the common room, the pair found it to be deserted. The warm glow of the fireplace was a much welcome sight to Lily. She migrated to the warmth instantly. It had not been cold outside, but the orange, welcoming glow was inviting.
“I’m going to bed,” said James after standing there for a second. “It’s been a long day.”
Lily nodded. She’d be doing the same in not too long, anyway. “Alright, then. ‘Night.”
Had she been looking at him instead of at her hands, she would have noticed the surprised look that crossed his face the second she spoke and vanished again a second later. “Yeah. ‘Night, Evans,” came James’ voice.
Lily did look up in time to see something else out of the ordinary, though. As James made his way to the bottom of the stairs, he slipped off his cloak and let it fall over one arm. With a yawn he lifted his arms forward, and Lily could see beneath the white uniform shirt that he was stretching.
Her gaze was attracted elsewhere, however; on his shoulder, quite visible against the white of his shirt, there was a large patch of something crimson that Lily could only identify as blood.
Her brow furrowed. James hadn’t been bleeding – at least not to her knowledge. How could he be bleeding? The werewolf hadn’t actually injured him (thank Merlin), at least not that she’d seen, and if it had, he wouldn’t rightly be a human at the moment, would he?
…Would he? She couldn’t seem to recall if lycanthropy took affect instantaneously after the bite or if the results could only be seen a month later.
Deep in thought, she glanced down once again at the hands she was holding out to the fire. On the tip of her fingers on one hand, she could just make out the rusty brown residue of dried blood.
I am working on the hypothesis that whatever sort of injury James/Sirius/Peter happen to sustain as an animal, there will be remnants of that once they change back into a human, even if they don’t end up turning into werewolves. For example, a bite, say, would turn into a bruise?
In defense of Lily's argument, it is an example of how blinding prejudices can be. Oftentimes they are programmed into us when we're young and we don't even realize they have them. Lily does not intend to be prejudiced or close-minded, she just does not grasp the fact that werewolves are people too, just as back in the day upperclasses did not grasp the fact that their slaves were people too. That's the way society is.
As for James, he would want to keep Lily well away from telling the staff for two reasons: One, he does not want to explain why he was out there nor how he knew there was a werewolf, and secondly, as Hogwarts is a school, word is likely to spread, something he adresses. If word spreads, people will be curious, and if people are curious about werewolves, it is a lot more likely someone will figure out Remus' secret, and that, naturally, is the last thing that James wants.
And besides, the ordeal with Snape was enough.
I had them eavesdrop on the staff meeting because I finally wanted to work in a bit of the outside world. The fact is in '76 it is probably just the begining of the worst in the war, and it doesn't seem right to not touch on that subject at all. I am not sure if the war will play a huge part in the overall fic -- it may not, but at the same time, it just may.
The names Agatha and Marmaduke I got by looking up the names of martyrs. (=
=)
If any of you want to drop me a line sometime, go for it -- my AIM name is KKKa1i (with a one, not an L) and my email is thirty2flavors@myway.com. I've just had my wisdom teeth out and I am terribly bored, so I'd love to talk to any of you.
<3
Kali
On the bright side, I guess, that means since I can't write anything new I'm just going to post old stuff. Yay.
So here's the next installment.
Chapter Twelve – Little Red Riding Hood
What a big heart I have
The better to love you with
Little red riding hood, even bad wolves can be good
I’ll try to keep satisfied just to walk close by your side
Maybe you’ll see things my way
Before we get to Grandma’s place
-Little Red Riding Hood, Sam the Sham
--
Lily’s gaze stayed fixed on James for a moment, eyes widened. James held her gaze, mouth opening and closing helplessly as he tried to continue the argument and failed to find something to say.
“It’s a he?” Lily said after a second, finally finding her voice.
“No?” answered James. His tone rose at the end, making it more of a question than a statement, and he sounded uncharacteristically unsure.
She hardly heard him. Her eyes were wide and her gaze was still straight at him, but somehow James was pretty sure she wasn’t looking at anything in particular anymore. “How do you know?” Her voice grew excited with the potential of knowledge.
“I don’t!” he answered instantly. “Look, it’s just—“
“You said he,” Lily continued, voice sounding far off, “you kept saying he! Why would you say that unless it’s a he?”
“Because I ... just … did! That’s all! Look, it’s just… boats! You know, boats? They’re always called she, right? It’s just a thing. Like in French, you’ve got masculin and féminin…”
Had Lily not been focusing more on the recent revelation, she would’ve laughed. It was almost hilarious to listen to James Potter try so frantically to explain something to her while using the weakest arguments possible. She had a hard time believing it; why would he suddenly assign a gender to the word werewolf? Most people didn’t. It was, after all, a Dark Creature. They didn’t call boggarts male or female, did they?
“Who is it?”
James, who had up until that point been trying to string together an argument using French articles, shut his mouth for a second before sighing. “I don’t know – why would I know, Evans?”
Lily, it seemed, was in no mood to answer any questions. Now that the tap was turned slightly, the fountain of questions could pour out. There was no time to interrupt the flow in order to answer his questions.
“Why were you out there?”
“It… look, Evans—“
“What were you doing?”
“Evans-“
“How did you know there was a werewolf out there?”
“Evans!”
“How did you know that other thing wasn’t a werewolf, anyway?”
“It didn’t look like one. Evans-“
For all her eagerness, it didn’t seem as though she’d even paid attention to his answers. With a bit of a far-off look in her eyes she took off down the hall. “We have to tell the staff, Potter.”
Once again he sprinted to catch up to her.
“They’ve got to know! The Ministry has got to know! They can’t allow a werewolf to run around school property! Someone has got to take care of it—“
“Take care of it?” James repeated again, indignant. “Does it even occur to you that by ‘taking care of it’ they’re going to kill it?” There was the slightest bit of a pause between ‘kill’ and ‘it’, during which James seemed to consider what pronoun to use. “Or how about the fact those twenty-seven days out of twenty-eight it,” his voice was dripping with sarcasm, “is human?”
Lily frowned at him, shaking her head. “A werewolf is a werewolf, Potter.”
His eyes narrowed. “A werewolf is a person, Evans.”
Still walking briskly down the hall, glancing from side to side as she tried to find where the staff meeting might be being held, Lily brushed some of her hair back. “The fact remains that a werewolf is a very dangerous creature and the staff has to know! …Why are you so defensive, anyway?” She glanced over her shoulder at him, brow furrowing.
“Someone’s got to be!” he snapped back, matching her pace. “Honestly, with the whole bleeding-heart thing you do so often you’d think you’d be able to realize how absurd your idea is! What’s the difference between me publicly ostracizing a Slytherin and you shooting a werewolf?”
Lily arched an eyebrow. “Well for one, Potter, the Slytherin is not trying to eat you.”
“A werewolf isn’t trying to eat you!”
Their voices were rising, oblivious to the fact it was nighttime and they were in the hallways after-hours. It was turning into the typical Evans-Potter spat with a bit of role reversal; his voice was the one rising with righteousness.
“Oh no?” she asked sarcastically, staring over at him. “That’s funny, coming from someone who saw the werewolf try to eat me!” She let out a high-pitched laugh. “Honestly, Potter, what was it doing, then? Having a playful romp?”
“Do you think it was the werewolf’s choice?”
She turned to continue on her way, but James caught her arm again, tugging her back. When she couldn’t rip her arm out of his grasp, she exhaled an exasperated sigh and continued.
“Do you think it matters? If you or I or one of the kids had been bitten or worse, would it matter that the werewolf meant to? My lord, Potter, say I stabbed you in the back accidentally and you died, would it matter that I didn’t mean to?”
James frowned at her, eyes still narrowed. “There’s a difference, Evans. You have control over stabbing me in the face. R—a werewolf has no control over—“
“Control or no control, intentional or accidental, what’s the difference? The end result is what’s important, not the path to get there!”
“How can you say that?” he asked, incredulous. “The end result is important, yes, but you can’t disregard how you got there. That’s… Merlin, Lily, that’s just stupid.”
She arched an eyebrow and stared at him over her shoulder for a moment. “Is it? Say a parent gets drunk and drowns their child – technically, it wasn’t intentional, because they were drunk, but does that matter? Or does it matter more that they drowned their child?”
Gritting his teeth, James rolled his eyes. “That’s not the same,” he snapped, and Lily noticed that he was using that defensive tone again, the tone he’d used at the dance. “It’s the parent’s fault for getting drunk in the first place, for being irresponsible...”
“It’s the werewolf’s fault for being bitten, by that logic,” she countered.
“No it isn’t! My God, do you think anyone wanders into a forest hoping to be bitten by a werewolf so they have an excuse to run around monthly and eat people?”
“People don’t usually get drunk just so they can drown their children.”
“No, but …” he gave a hiss of frustration. “You’re a bright girl, Evans, think about what you’re saying!”
The hand on her arm had tugged her a little closer and Lily had to notice what a close vicinity of each other they were in. He looked exhausted, up close and in better lighting. The worn-down look of someone who’s been working just a bit harder than usual surprised her, although she wasn’t sure why. Giving her head a little shake, she ripped her arm from his grip. “Unlike you, Potter, I usually do.”
The staff room was just down the hall, as she recalled. Thinking about it now, it only made sense that they have the staff meeting in the staff room. Exhaling softly, she glanced over at him. “Whether they shoot it or not, the staff needs to know. Whether they react using my thinking or yours doesn’t matter.”
With a quiet sigh of something like defeat, James kept at her heels. “Evans, please, let’s just go back to the common room.”
Lily shook her head. A few more steps and they neared the door to the staff room, ajar and casting a little sprinkle of light into the otherwise dark hallway. She opened her mouth to speak, to knock on the door and say ‘excuse me, Professors’, but in a second before she could James placed a hand over her mouth and tugged her out of reach of the door.
She wanted to protest. With a muffled noise she reached up to pry his hands off of her, only to discover that James was stronger than he looked. An irrational sense of panic struck her when she couldn’t get herself out of his arms and she found herself pulling harder, although James only held tighter. How dare he? She knew James was known for his determination, but this wasn’t right. He couldn’t just stand there restraining her while—
“—but why would they kill Agatha and Marmaduke?”
As Professor Skentelbury’s voice came from within the staffroom, the words which she spoke grabbed Lily and James’ immediate attention. James’ grip on Lily slackened greatly, but the Head Girl was already ensnared in the trap of eavesdropping. Curiosity was an overwhelming force, and her attention was drawn away from worming out of James’ arms and towards the discussion in the staff room.
“The Prewetts are a powerful family, Carina,” came Dumbledore’s voice.
“A powerful pureblooded family,” added Professor McGonagall.
“Exactly!” exclaimed Skentelbury. “Purebloods – isn’t that whom he’s trying to appeal to, whom he’s trying to exalt?”
“The Prewetts have been advocates for equality for years. They’ve been decidedly against Dark Magic for decades now and You-Know-Who is not going to be able to change that,” another added.
“But Agatha and Marmaduke aren’t even involved with the Ministry! They-”
“It’s a way of enforcing what they’re trying to enforce,” came the voice of their Defense Against Dark Arts teacher, “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us. It’s a warning to all the respectable pureblooded families.”
Lily felt James’ arms slacken around her, although she was no longer paying him much attention. His hand slid from her mouth and fell around her waist, the arm around her waist loosened, and she could have pulled herself away, had she tried.
She could have spoken up, but she didn’t. Not now. She was too interested in what the teachers were talking about.
“That’s exactly it, Emma,” said Dumbledore with another sigh. “They’re trying to scare families like the Prewetts into siding with them, and they’re going to do it whatever way they can.”
Narcissa Black’s words floated to mind.
The only thing worse than a mudblood is an idiotic mudblood lover.
Was that some kind of creed among the rich and prejudiced?
“Things are going to get bad,” said the airy voice of Professor Martinkovitch. “I can See it. There’s a lot of negative energy.”
There was an annoyed snort from one of the teachers. “Congratulations, Raven,” snapped Professor Buracheck, “that surely is a feat of the Inner Eye. Why, I wish I were blessed with the extrasensory ability to tell that things will get bad during a war!”
“Drop it, both of you,” said McGonagall, with such finality that neither Buracheck nor Martinkovitch decided to question it. “Agatha and Marmaduke aren’t the only ones. Ministry officials are vanishing, in Stratford three weeks ago an entire family was murdered, and only last weekend there was that murder in Hogsmeade-”
“Wait, what murder?”
“An Auror couple and their child; the Ministry has been good about keeping it hush-hush.”
“Of course,” said Buracheck with a note of bitterness, “They wouldn’t want the public doing something crazy like being cautious.”
“The public is already cautious, Emma. They’re trying to prevent paranoia.”
“Who are they targeting next?” came Binns’ voice, sounding vaguely interested, for once.
“The murder of Agatha and Maramduke Prewett is more than likely the start of a trend,” replied Dumbledore with a sigh. “Voldemort’s trying to convey the message that anyone who doesn’t side with him will pay the ultimate price. I must say, most unfortunately, that it is likely he will continue to target …perhaps eradicate… that sort of family.”
There was a slight sort of murmur amongst the teachers. When McGonagall’s voice was distinguishable, it was unusually weary.
“Families like the Potters and…”
There were more names after that, but Lily had temporarily zoned out. The Potters? As in James Potter? As in the prat who was standing behind her with his hand around her waist?
Wait, no, scratch that; he wasn’t touching her anymore.
She wasn’t sure why hearing Professor McGonagall list the name Potter as a potential target elicited the feeling in the pit of her stomach that it did. She wasn’t even entirely sure what the feeling was – it just felt as though something had curled up in her torso and was twisting around.
Lily glanced over her shoulder at him but found that he was staring into the darkness of the hallway, an unusual expression on his face that Lily couldn’t quite place. She’d seen him look serious quite a few times tonight, and yet each time it managed to be surprising and each time it seemed to be slightly different.
She wondered momentarily how she would have felt had Professor McGonagall said 'Evans', instead, and the creature in her stomach writhed once more.
James still hadn’t looked at her, but now he gestured her to follow him as he started down the hall. Lily, distracted from the original task at hand, followed him without much thought. They walked in silence. James stared straight ahead the entire time, looking lost in thought, and Lily couldn’t help stealing glances at him every so often. She hadn’t seen him wear an expression this closed before. It was …weird.
And, she realized, a little scary.
They were well on their way to the Gryffindor common room when she decided to break the silence.
“Are you okay?”
It startled him – and her, for that matter. A second after she said it she blinked, almost as if wondering if it was really her voice that had said that just now. In all the years they’d known each other, she couldn’t recall that she’d ever asked him that question before. It was a typical question, and some people asked it with a great frequency, and yet she had never directed it at James before.
He stopped walking and stared at her for a minute, brow furrowing. She wondered if he even realized what she meant …and then she wondered if he was just that surprised she had asked the question.
“I’m fine,” he said after a moment, sounding slightly undecided, even on edge, as he sped up to meet her side again.
“Well,” said Lily, hasty to make an explanation for her sudden query, “I just thought… since… well, I just thought…”
“If you’re going to worry about someone based on what we just overheard, Evans, worry about yourself. You’re the muggleborn.”
Lily raked a hand through her hair and looked at him. She realized he didn’t mean that as the insult he could have and shook her head. Her heritage was a constant source of annoyance in the school. It didn’t bother her that she was a muggleborn, but it seemed to bother a lot of other people, namely the Slytherins. “I don’t understand the prejudice. I don’t understand what supposedly makes someone like me worse than any of those people just because my parents weren’t magical.”
James shrugged. “Most prejudices are essentially groundless, Evans, but it’s human nature to have them. They usually appear in wake of needing someone to blame.”
Lily merely nodded; he was right. Her next question rolled around in her mouth for a moment or so as she mustered up the daring to ask it.
“Is it really that bad out there?” Like it or loathe it, Lily was a muggleborn. She was nowhere near as exposed to things as James would be, coming from a Wizarding family.
He looked at her, perhaps wondering if he should sugarcoat the answer or not. After a moment’s consideration, he replied.
“It’s getting there. The fact that they’ve attacked a pureblooded family… that’s bad, Evans, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a pureblood. Professor Buracheck is right; it’s …” he paused, rethinking. “Does the name Prewett mean anything to you?”
Lily shook her head. “No. Not particularly.”
““They’re… well, I suppose they’re sort of like the Malfoys – only the exact opposite. Kindhearted, selfless, loyal, probably among the least prejudiced people you’re likely to meet, nowadays. Anyway, point is, the Prewetts are popular. Their deaths will mean something to the public, once the public finds out. People are going to start to worry. Voldemort’s targeting people the public will miss – people the public looks up to. The heroes, if you will, of the community, big names that everyone will recognize when they’re in the headlines. Publicity is his goal, right now.”
Lily nodded, absorbing. He seemed to be letting out a long-withheld rant, and Lily didn’t have the heart to stop him.
Besides that, she was dreadfully interested.
“Apart from the public aspect, there’s the more personal level. Apart form being big names and brilliant at magic, the Prewetts were people. They have children. Our first year here – do you remember? – there was a Head Boy by the name of—“
“Fabian Prewett,” supplied Lily, suddenly realizing.
“—yes. Youngest of three. His sister Molly had a third child not too long ago. Apart from family, even, the Prewetts had friends. My mum and Agatha were good friends, actually…” James fell silent for a moment, considering something, before shaking his head. “It’s the second half of the plan. There’s the public level, and then there’s the personal level. Their deaths are intended to leave people who had been close to them shaken, hopefully into submission. People start to worry that next time it won’t be a name in the paper, it’ll be a friend. It won’t be a friend, it’ll be a best friend. It won’t be a best friend, it’ll be a parent; it’ll be a husband, a wife, a son, a daughter…”
“If you really want to control someone, don’t threaten his life; threaten the lives of his loved ones,” said Lily quietly, giving her head a shake. “It’s propaganda.”
“It’s working.” His tone was remarkably bitter.
“Propaganda usually does,” replied Lily with a bit of a shrug.
“We’re going to be crucial, you know,” he said after a second, glancing at her. “Not us personally - I mean our whole year, this generation. We’re the critical turning point. If enough of us side with the Ministry, the war will be over sooner. If too many of us defect… more children are orphaned and more families are torn apart and more good, strong-willed people like the Prewetts are murdered.”
Lily nodded, deciding to leave the topic there. The thought that had occurred to her unnerved her:
People like your parents.
For a while, neither spoke. They walked along in silence with a mutual destination, Lily just now noticing the fatigue sweeping over her and the worn-out look James was wearing. The latter seemed like more of a change. James was infamous for energy; he was the ringleader of the marauders, a constant force in Hogwarts politics, Gryffindor’s Quidditch star, and all in all he never seemed to slow down. Looking beside her, watching the boy drag the back of his hand across his forehead and give a little sigh, she wondered momentarily if it were really the same person. Perhaps, by some twist of fate, she’d spent the entire night not with James Potter, but with someone else – a carbon copy in everything but personality.
If it weren’t so completely farfetched, it almost seemed plausible. The way he’d acted tonight contradicted the way she’d seen him act every other day of the year. Usually his head was in the clouds, he was obnoxious, self-centered and self-serving. Tonight he’d proved to be authoritative, quick-thinking under pressure and, most impressively, he’d put himself in the line of fire for someone else.
Never thought I’d see the day Potter did something for someone else, she admitted to herself.
Just before the portrait of the Fat Lady, James froze in his tracks and reached out to touch Lily’s arm, stopping her as well. “Wait,” he instructed, pausing to look up and down the corridor. They were alone – this seemed to satisfy him, and so he continued. “We need to settle something first.”
Exhaling tiredly, Lily crossed her arms. “Oh?” she said simply, “And what might that be?”
“Everything that just happened,” said James.
Lily stayed silent. A lot had just happened; she wasn’t sure what James was referring to.
“I need you to swear to me, Evans, that you won’t tell a soul about what happened in the forest.”
Lily’s brow furrowed. “The werewolf, you mean?”
James nodded.
“Why not?”
James inhaled. Lily got the impression his response would be a long one. “It won’t do any good, Evans. It’ll make people paranoid. Everyone will want to know where the werewolf came from, if it’s safe to go outside on full moons, if the school is safe, if Dumbledore’s sane… and then stupid naïve kids will get the idea in their heads that they’re going to play hero and they’ll storm into the Forest one full moon armed with wands and sticks and stolen silverware, failing to comprehend the fact that most of the month a werewolf is a person. Rumors will start to circulate. Parents will start freaking out because they won’t want their child exposed to that sort of threat, and soon enough the entire Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures out here, joining the naïve children and armed with silver bullets.”
The outcome as James painted it did seem a bit skewed out of proportion, but as she thought about it, she realized he was probably right. That was what would happen, she supposed, and it would toss the school into turmoil. Hogwarts had plenty of drama on its own. It was full of teenagers, hormones raging, it was becoming a rare safe-haven in a world turning war-torn, and the last thing it needed was a media circus around it regarding werewolves.
“I suppose you’re right,” she sighed, admitting defeat, “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Not telling anyone isn’t good enough. You cannot tell a soul, Evans.”
“Okay,” she said, eyebrows rising, “I understand. I can keep a secret, Potter, I’m not three years old.”
“Not Anna. Not Melanie. Not anyone. Do you understand?”
Lily shot him a scrutinizing stare. “Oh, come on, Potter. It isn’t as if I can expect you to keep anything from your friends, an— ”
Rather suddenly, James had her by the shoulders, faces inches from hers. In split-second ignorance she expected him to kiss her, but he did no such thing. He was staring her in the eye, and the seriousness in his expression scared her. His eyes lacked their usual mischievous look, and furthermore, there was not a trace of grin on his lips.
“Not a soul, Evans. Promise me.”
Talk about using fear as a propaganda technique, she thought before wrinkling her nose in an indignant sort of way. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” she remarked, breaking eye contact, eager to get away from James Potter and collect her thoughts.
He didn’t let go, and so she looked at him once again. She squirmed in his grasp, but his hold on her only tightened. “Promise me,” he repeated, firmer this time.
She was intimidated. Meeting his eyes, she held the gaze and paused only a moment before speaking slowly and sincerely. “I promise.”
He held her gaze for only a couple seconds, scanning her face for hints of a lie, before he released her shoulders and took a step back to a more appropriate distance. “Thank you.”
With that he turned and woke the Fat Lady, muttering something Lily was not paying enough attention to understand. She looked rather disgruntled, but said nothing. It only went to further solidify Lily’s belief that James and his gang had some form of arrangement with the portrait.
What, though, she could not possibly imagine. How does one go about bribing a picture?
Stepping into the common room, the pair found it to be deserted. The warm glow of the fireplace was a much welcome sight to Lily. She migrated to the warmth instantly. It had not been cold outside, but the orange, welcoming glow was inviting.
“I’m going to bed,” said James after standing there for a second. “It’s been a long day.”
Lily nodded. She’d be doing the same in not too long, anyway. “Alright, then. ‘Night.”
Had she been looking at him instead of at her hands, she would have noticed the surprised look that crossed his face the second she spoke and vanished again a second later. “Yeah. ‘Night, Evans,” came James’ voice.
Lily did look up in time to see something else out of the ordinary, though. As James made his way to the bottom of the stairs, he slipped off his cloak and let it fall over one arm. With a yawn he lifted his arms forward, and Lily could see beneath the white uniform shirt that he was stretching.
Her gaze was attracted elsewhere, however; on his shoulder, quite visible against the white of his shirt, there was a large patch of something crimson that Lily could only identify as blood.
Her brow furrowed. James hadn’t been bleeding – at least not to her knowledge. How could he be bleeding? The werewolf hadn’t actually injured him (thank Merlin), at least not that she’d seen, and if it had, he wouldn’t rightly be a human at the moment, would he?
…Would he? She couldn’t seem to recall if lycanthropy took affect instantaneously after the bite or if the results could only be seen a month later.
Deep in thought, she glanced down once again at the hands she was holding out to the fire. On the tip of her fingers on one hand, she could just make out the rusty brown residue of dried blood.
I am working on the hypothesis that whatever sort of injury James/Sirius/Peter happen to sustain as an animal, there will be remnants of that once they change back into a human, even if they don’t end up turning into werewolves. For example, a bite, say, would turn into a bruise?
In defense of Lily's argument, it is an example of how blinding prejudices can be. Oftentimes they are programmed into us when we're young and we don't even realize they have them. Lily does not intend to be prejudiced or close-minded, she just does not grasp the fact that werewolves are people too, just as back in the day upperclasses did not grasp the fact that their slaves were people too. That's the way society is.
As for James, he would want to keep Lily well away from telling the staff for two reasons: One, he does not want to explain why he was out there nor how he knew there was a werewolf, and secondly, as Hogwarts is a school, word is likely to spread, something he adresses. If word spreads, people will be curious, and if people are curious about werewolves, it is a lot more likely someone will figure out Remus' secret, and that, naturally, is the last thing that James wants.
And besides, the ordeal with Snape was enough.
I had them eavesdrop on the staff meeting because I finally wanted to work in a bit of the outside world. The fact is in '76 it is probably just the begining of the worst in the war, and it doesn't seem right to not touch on that subject at all. I am not sure if the war will play a huge part in the overall fic -- it may not, but at the same time, it just may.
The names Agatha and Marmaduke I got by looking up the names of martyrs. (=
=)
If any of you want to drop me a line sometime, go for it -- my AIM name is KKKa1i (with a one, not an L) and my email is thirty2flavors@myway.com. I've just had my wisdom teeth out and I am terribly bored, so I'd love to talk to any of you.
<3
Kali
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Date: 2005-07-09 12:40 pm (UTC)Excellent chapter. You address issues like prejudices with clarity. This chapter really explains whats wrong with the world.
James and Lily were excellent both neither paragorns nor black sheep but i have said this before. I love how realistic your fic is compared to every other fic on the net. You actually address issues like prejudice and fear and propaganda and the way a world works during a war.
I really, really love your fic.
Can't wait for the next chapter and i hope you get over your writer's block soon. They are real pains aren't they?
no subject
Date: 2005-07-09 01:41 pm (UTC)I'm obsessed with this story. I look for updates every single day. And so I really appreciate how often you post while still producing quality work.
I'm sorry about your writer's block. It truly bites :(.
<3 Mari (maria_192)
no subject
Date: 2005-07-09 07:47 pm (UTC)And I must say, the chemistry in this chapter was BLINDING!
And that's good.
Soooo anxious for more.
Hope the swelling isn't too bad. Enjoy all the soup, crackers, and assorted frozen treats while you can!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-09 08:55 pm (UTC)<3
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Date: 2005-07-09 09:20 pm (UTC)Something i'd like to point out, though, is why the professors didn't put a spell on the room so no one could listen in on their meeting .... but i guess they just expect everyone to be in bed, seeing as it is after curfew ... still, wouldn't they expect someone to sneak out ... i dunno ...
all in all, this chapter points out a lot on the views of someone who is prejudice against werewolves ... and you've given a lot to think about ...
awaiting your next chapter
no subject
Date: 2005-07-10 02:23 am (UTC)What I always enjoyed about JKR's writing (not that I don't enjoy everything) is that she creates all these little details such as wizarding prejudices that are only touched upon in the books. I suppose that's where fanfiction comes in, eh?
I was actually surprised with how many werewolf mentions there were in the HP books as I was rereading it... characters kept bringing it up in regards to the Forbidden Forest. Hmm.
It's nice to see that you're one of the writers who don't try and make Lily perfect... it *would* make sense for her to have the prejudices wizarding kind has.
I think this is the last chapter I remember reading over at ff.net... meh. I do hope you grace us with an update soon??? Before HBP, preferably...
Lovely chapter, lovely, lovely, lovely.
Update soon!
Love from,
Lynn
no subject
Date: 2005-07-10 03:56 am (UTC)And the topics you cover! I find myself reading not just for the romance in the story, or the clever bits, but for the side notes, the interesting points. Also, the more I think about Lily's attitude with the werewolf, the more I understand it. There are lots of examples of it throughout history - where we are told one side/view, and there was never any discussion of the other sides. It's really a very clever little idea! My, but you are brilliant.
Finally, I hope your mouth feels better. I had my wisdom teeth out a while ago, and I know it hurts, but I just laid around and whined a great deal, which led to lots of movie and TV watching, and tons of fun reading! So keep up the good work and feel better!
~courtney83
no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 03:45 am (UTC)another oneshot i'd like to see is of a breakup or a big fight, and then a makeup. not a silly fight where one overacts to cause it nor a huuuge one (like infedility). but things that normal couples fight about i guess?
all of these are Lily and James centric one shots, of course :) that's what i'd like to see.
or incorporate these into your fic later, when they get together ;)
no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-12 04:39 am (UTC)Update soon!
woah.....!
Date: 2005-07-13 06:39 am (UTC)amazedreader
no subject
Date: 2005-07-13 04:23 pm (UTC)So without even looking if there was other chapters posted up I clicked and I read it.
I loved it, I really like how you have Lily hate werewolves. Because everyone makes it as if she is kind to them because she is muggle born. Too perfect sometimes.
So then It actually hit me that you might have other chapters posted up and without hesitation I found out that you did. Now, sorry that I didn't comment for every chapter, I find that annoying when a reader goes 'GREAT CHAPTER! ONTO CHAPTER TWO!' And it goes on for about 20 or so chapters.
You have great writing skills, I will be checking often. And now I've checked the palm reading site you gave out! It looks like fun! And i like what you said about the french when James was talking, I love that.
Sophie