"Thank you so much for your help, Macy," Lily said as she and a fifth-year Gryffindor entered the common room. "Ancient runes has been my most difficult subject this term."
"I think you're exaggerating," Macy laughed. "You seemed to catch on pretty quick once I showed you a few of the ropes. They really should have stuck to the old textbook instead of going with the new edition."
"Definitely," Lily agreed. "Is it all right if I contact you with any other questions I might have as I do my revisions?"
"Of course," Macy said, waving her hand casually as she wandered away toward some of her friends. "See you around."
Feeling rather satisfied with herself and deserving of a good night's rest, Lily made her way to the girl's staircase. She had every intention of collapsing directly onto her bed and falling immediately asleep. Before she could quite make it, she was intercepted by James Potter.
"Hey, Lily," James said, sounding a little too enthusiastic. "How are you?"
"I'm fine, James," Lily said, looking him directly in the eyes and willing him to go away and leave her alone.
"Good day?"
"Yes."
"Uh, great," James said. "Well, ah, we, I mean, I, had a favor to ask you."
Lily narrowed her eyes and looked past James to where his friends were sitting. Sirius, Remus, and Peter were huddled over a table. It appeared that they were all studying a ratty piece of parchment that was positioned in the middle of the table. "What do you hooligans want?"
"Would you ask Bellatrix to come down and see us? I can't really go up and tell her myself," James said.
"Thank heaven for small favors," Lily muttered.
"So, will you?" James inquired.
"She's probably in bed. I wouldn't want to wake her," Lily told James. Part of her reluctance stemmed from a lack of desire to do James Potter favors. The other part of her reluctance was connected to her total lack of desire to speak with the strong-willed Black girl. Ever since her father had become Minister for Magic, she had been acting like the queen of Hogwarts-not that the attitude was particularly new for her.
"I guarantee that she's awake," James said. "Please?"
"Fine, Potter," Lily acquiesced. "If you insist."
Lily turned and made her way up the staircase. In her dorm room, she found Bellatrix staring at herself in the mirror. The sixth-year Slytherin was toying with a black hair ornament and completely ignoring the fact that Lily had entered the room. Feeling awkward, Lily cleared her throat rather loudly. "Good evening, Bellatrix. How are you?"
"Perfect," Bellatrix said, leaning toward the mirror and studying her face.
Seeing that there was to be no return salutation, Lily decided to spit out her message. "James Potter and his friends told me to tell you that they need to see you and are hoping that you'll go down to the common room."
"Okay," Bellatrix said with a put-upon sigh. Deftly, she gathered up her long hair, rolled it up into a bun, and stuck the hairpin through it. As if it were magic, Bellatrix's hair maintained its position perfectly as she stood up and made her way out of the dorm and down the stairs.
Beginning to feel very unsecure about her own hair, Lily watched Bellatrix's retreating back with suspicion. What do they want with her? Lily wondered.
.....
Bellatrix strode down the stairs and into the common room. It took only a moment for Bellatrix to spot the table where her cousin Sirius and his idiot friends were sitting huddled over something they were studying intently. With purpose, she strode over. "What do you have for me?" she asked imperiously, trying to stare over their shoulders to see what commanded their attention.
Her arrival seemed to take them by surprise. With a muttered oath, James put out his hands over a piece of parchment while Sirius turned to look at her with an insincere grin.
"Cousin!" Sirius exclaimed. "You came!"
"You sent for me," Bellatrix reminded him, somewhat acidly. "What are you hiding?"
"Nothing," said Sirius. "Er, can you give us a moment?"
"If I must," Bellatrix growled, beginning to tap one of her feet on the ground.
Sirius returned to the huddle, and Bellatrix listened while the four friends had a semi-heated debate about something. Finally, they came to a conclusion. This time, both James and Sirius faced her.
James did the talking. "We've found some suspicious activity," he declared.
"You had to have a debate over whether you were going to tell me that?" Bellatrix said, sounding rather bemused. "Maybe you should have done that prior to sending for me."
"It wasn't about that," Sirius admitted. "It was about this." He grabbed the piece of parchment from the table and handed it to Bellatrix. "This is how we detected the suspicious activity."
Curiously, Bellatrix examined the parchment provided to her by Sirius. It appeared to be a map of the castle… with dots moving around on it. Bellatrix squinted and looked at the dots, surprised to see individual name tags. Quickly, she found the Gryffindor common room and dorms. The map accurately depicted her standing next to her cousin, his friend James, and his other two friends. Lily Evans was back in her dorm, and assorted Gryffindors were depicted as being in the common room.
Bellatrix looked up at James and Sirius. "I need one of these," she declared.
"Ah, yes. Well, it isn't quite perfected yet," James said.
"It looks good enough to me," Bellatrix said.
"Did you want us to help you spy on suspicious Slytherins or did you want us making maps of Hogwarts?" Sirius asked.
"Both."
"Well, all we got for you is suspicious Slytherins," James said. He moved to Bellatrix's side and pointed to the Forbidden Forest where there were two dots hovering near the edge of the forest. "Severus Snape and your sister Narcissa."
Bellatrix stared in consternation at the map. "What are they doing?"
....
Join my P@treon and get 60+ advanced chapters.
Link: p*atreon.com/0LordSilvere0 (Remove the *)
Free members get 5 chapters free.
Join Right Now