When they arrived back at the Parker mansion, the girls set about getting Lily’s skin back to normal. They ran a hot bath in a bathtub the size of Lily’s own bed and Lily soaked in it for hours, scrubbing viciously at her skin with every type of soap, body wash, even shampoo that Alex owned. But nothing daunted the pigment covering Lily’s body.
Next, they asked Alex’s parents for help. Mr. Parker was at work, but Mrs. Parker tried a number of different spells on Lily, and none of them worked. In fact, she only made the situation worse; one of them made purple polka dots spread over Lily’s body. “This is very strange,” Mrs. Parker mused. “They’re only first-years, after all…how did they produce a spell so strong?”
Though none of them knew it, James and Sirius had stumbled upon a book of Dark magic at Sirius’s house (his parents were not exactly the nicest people.) It wasn’t as Dark as some other things they could have found, luckily, but Dark nonetheless. (Obviously beginners’ Dark magic, as James and Sirius were first-years, and not capable of too advanced magic.) The spell they had cast on the ring turned the wearer green and the only way it would come off was if the wizard who cast the spell performed the countercurse. It was an ingenious way to make sure that Lily would still be green at the concert.
And purple polka-dotted, of course.
By then Lily was absolutely fuming. “If I was James,” Alex remarked, “I’d be pretty scared right now.” At that Lily cracked a smile. But grudgingly.
It was two-thirty when Mrs. Parker announced that she couldn’t remove the green from Lily’s skin. Lily groaned as her friends giggled, not helping the situation at all.
“Come on, Lily,” said Alex, grabbing her wrist and hauling her up the stairs, “it doesn’t matter. You can pulverize James tonight. Let’s get ready. Maybe practice some boxing.”
This time Lily wouldn’t grin. “I hate that boy,” she muttered under her breath. “Hate him, hate him, hate him. He’s the foulest, stupidest, ugliest, meanest little-ugh!”
Alex and Cadrian had, of course, seen Lily mad before. As her best friends they calmed her down when her fiery temper flared up. But they’d never seen her this angry. “Whoa, calm down, Lils,” said Cadrian. “Beat up Alex’s pillow, not James.”
“Actually-” cut in Alex, but she stopped at a threatening glance from Cadrian. “Cady’s right. Of course. Completely.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “I think that if I punched your pillow right now, your room would be covered in feathers.”
Alex shrugged. “Try it anyway. Get your anger out.”
They entered Alex’s room. Alex bounded over to her bed, grabbed a pillow, and handed it to Lily. Lily threw it against the wall, narrowly avoiding a shelf stocked with books. Though it didn’t hit the shelf, the impact of it hitting the wall sent the books tumbling into each other. They landed in a heap on the ground.
“Oops, sorry!” Lily exclaimed, scurrying to pick them up as Alex and Cadrian collapsed in peals of laughter. It was infectious, and Lily found herself giggling too.
At three o’ clock they decided to start preparing for the concert. Lily did, indeed, practice punching Alex’s pillows and thought she did a fair job. Maybe good enough to give James a black eye, which definitely worked for her. Or perhaps a nice bloody nose.
While Lily planned ways to get revenge on James, Alex and Cadrian primped and curled and sprayed and spritzed and dabbed. Lily ignored their girly giggles and rituals as she contemplated the possibility of kicking James right in the place where it hurts the most.
At four o’ clock her friends forced her into the bathroom, which smelled strongly of hairspray and…strawberry? Lily sniffed inquisitively and Alex explained. “It’s lemon-strawberry spritz! You like?”
“Er, it’s alright.” She took another sniff and choked. “Doesn’t go well with hairspray.”
Cadrian laughed. “Well, what should we do with your hair, Lily?” she inquired. Cadrian’s own hair was curled loosely, bouncing whenever she took a step, and Alex’s was in a long French braid that had taken a lot of starting over, pulled hairs, and untangling horrendous knots.
“Um…I don’t know…isn’t it fine?”
Cadrian scrutinized Lily. “Hmm. Could be worse, I suppose.” She cracked a smile. “Of course, you know nobody’s going to be really paying attention to your hair.”
Lily put a hand to her hair defensively. “Why not?”
“Your skin’s going to get all the attention.”
“Shut up,” Lily growled. “I can’t help it!”
“Sorry, Lils. So you don’t want to do anything to your hair?”
“Well. Not really. But what do you suggest?”
“We could curl Lily’s hair,” said Alex.
“I don’t know…” protested Lily, but Cadrian had jumped on the idea. “Ooh, yes! You’ll look great, Lils. Just sit down here and stay still and close your eyes. And don’t open them until I tell you,” she added sternly.
Lily obediently closed her eyes. When she cracked open an eyelid, Alex’s hand immediately clamped over her eyes. “Aw, get off, Alex!” she said, prying her friend’s hand away. “I won’t look, I promise.”
So she kept her eyes closed for about twenty minutes, willing herself not to fall asleep, until Cadrian tapped her shoulder lightly. “’Kay, Lils, it’s done. You can look!”
Tentatively Lily opened her eyes and stared at her reflection. Looking past the polka-dotted skin…she sort of liked the curly hair. Her curls were tighter than Alex’s, but she liked that. They framed the skin on her face nicely.
“Well?” asked Cadrian. “You like it?”
“Um…yeah, do you?”
“It’s beautiful, Lils!” Alex squealed and clapped her hands together joyfully. “Oh, I’m so excited. What time is it?”
“Four-thirty,” replied Cadrian. “We’re leaving in one hour!”
Lily couldn’t help feeling apprehensive at the thought of going out into public looking the way she did. Especially where she’d see James. She didn’t join with her friends’ excitement. Instead she grumpily stomped out of the bathroom and collapsed onto Alex’s bed.
“Oh, come on, Lils. There will be so many people there, nobody will even notice you. Besides, James will change you back. We’ll make him.”
Lily sighed. “I guess so.”
At five they dressed in their extravagant robes. They were so much different from Lily’s black, scratchy school robes; these were silky and light and breezy, and Lily loved the feel of them.
The three girls admired themselves in the mirror, then Alex snapped a few pictures, promising to bring them to school so the girls could have copies. By then it was five-twenty, so the girls went downstairs.
“Ready to go, Mom!” Alex announced cheerfully, patting her ticket, carefully placed inside her pocket. Lily slipped a hand into her pocket to make sure her ticket was still there. It was.
“Everybody got their tickets?” asked Mrs. Parker. They nodded.
Then they proceeded out the door.
“Er…Mrs. Parker, how exactly are we getting to the concert?” asked Lily.
“There’s a Portkey waiting for us…it’s leaving at six,” Mrs. Parker replied.
“What’s a Portkey?”
“Oh, it’s an object that has been enchanted to take wizards to a set place somewhere in the world. It’s also leaving at six on the dot, so we need to move a bit faster.”
The girls increased their pace, practically running to keep up with Mrs. Parker’s long strides. “Where’s the Portkey, Mom?” asked Alex.
“Not too far away, but we have to walk, so we should probably hurry.”
Still running, they rounded a corner and abruptly the rows of mansions ended. They were facing a steep hill lined with trees, and in the gathering dusk it didn’t look very inviting.
But they kept on going, right up the hill, decreasing in speed as they went. It was a tough climb, scrambling over boulders and jumping over little creeks that wound around the trees. Somehow, Mrs. Parker hadn’t slowed at all, but the three girls had. Quite noticeably, in fact, until Mrs. Parker had to stop at the top of the hill, look back down, and yell, “Hurry up, girls!”
Exchanging resigned glances, they pressed on and finally they had reached the top, panting and quite out of breath.
They were standing, with a group of other people, none of whom they recognized, around an empty, dirt-caked butterbeer bottle. Lily stared down at it blankly. “That can’t be the Portkey.”
“But it is, dear,” said Mrs. Parker, bending over to pick it up. “Now, crowd around, everybody. Lily, come on! Everybody needs to be touching it…just a finger will do.”
So Lily uncertainly reached out and placed her green, polka-dotted finger on the bottle. They looked quite odd, she especially, huddling around this bottle expectantly, and suddenly…
They were gone.
They landed in a big heap on short, soft grass. Lily immediately disentangled herself from the group, got to her feet, and looked around. She had never seen such a big crowd as this. Witches and wizards were milling around everywhere; Lily could hardly see a gap in between anybody. She was almost knocked to the ground as the crowd jostled her forward. Alex grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the group.
“Lily, that line’s for people buying tickets,” said Cadrian, eyeing them critically. “So silly to stand in that line…hardly any of them will get lucky.”
“Come on girls, over here!” called Mrs. Parker. They darted in between groups of chatting people and got into a line with Mrs. Parker, tickets in hand. Mrs. Parker had agreed to stay right outside, as she didn’t have a ticket, and if anything should happen they were to leave and come get her immediately.
The line was long, tedious, and extremely slow going. After a half hour they had hardly moved at all, or so it seemed, anyway. But finally, finally, finally, they reached the ticket booth.
“Ticket?” grunted the tall security guard. The three girls simultaneously held out their tickets.
The guard took them and examined them closely. “More fakes,” he announced to the man standing next to him. “Sorry girls. No entry.”
“What do you mean, no entry?” demanded Mrs. Parker. “Aurora Beam gave the girls these tickets personally!”
“Yeah, we saved her life!” ejaculated Alex loudly. “You’ve gotta let us in!”
“I did hear about Aurora nearly dying…but she was saved by a bunch of kids?” asked the guard skeptically.
“Yes, she was,” said Alex defiantly. “So let us in, you big pig.”
“Alex, let me handle this,” said Mrs. Parker quietly. Alex rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything.
Mrs. Parker drew herself up to her full height, which was considerably imposing, as she was six and a half feet tall. The guard stood taller, but Mrs. Parker didn’t seem to care. “What they’re saying is true. These girls really did save Aurora’s life! She mailed them the tickets. How can they be fakes?”
The guard shrugged. “I don’t know, but I assure you, they’re frauds.”
Lily peered around the guards into the crowd talking excitedly. A lot of people were staring at her; she could feel herself blushing, but kept searching. She was looking for James and Sirius…had their tickets turned out to be fake as well?
“Evans, I see you got my Christmas present!”
That was James’s voice. Lily looked around wildly but didn’t see him anywhere.
“Evans, over here!”
Lily turned around. James. He smirked. “That green color really brings out your eyes, but it would probably be better on clothing than skin.”
Lily narrowed her eyes. “Shut up, James. How did you get inside?”
James looked puzzled. “Um, with my ticket.”
“Yours weren’t fakes?” called Cadrian.
“Fakes? What do you mean?” that was Sirius; he’d appeared at Jame’s side. Was Lily imagining it, or did they both look sort of…smug?
“Yeah, what do you mean?” this time, Lily was sure she’d seen it; the two boys had exchanged grins.
“What did you do, James?” she screeched.
He winked at her and strolled away with Sirius.
“Come back here, James! You have to come back and turn me back to normal! JAMES POTTER!!!”
They didn’t even look back. Enraged, Lily tried to follow them but couldn’t get past the guards.
“You have to let me in!” she yelled, kicking and flailing against one of the man’s strong grip. “You don’t understand! I HAVE to get in there! It’s important! Let me go!”
The guard dropped Lily on the ground and the painful thud of her landing on the ground brought back her senses. Cheeks warm, she got to her feet and angrily strode away. Her friends followed.
“I’m getting in there,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t care what happens. I’m going to pound James so bad that he will never be able to play Quidditch again. I’m going to rip all his hair out of his head, glue it back on, and then rip it out again. I’m going to break his glasses, not to mention his nose, and-”
Alex cut her off. “Lily! Calm down. It isn’t James’s fault we can’t get into the concert.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, I were you,” called the cocky voice that Lily hated.
James and Sirius were standing on one side of a chain-link fence, grinning like two idiots who had just won the lottery. Lily rattled the fence hard. “What are you talking about, you slimy cockroach?” she snarled.
Alex covered Lily’s mouth with her hand before she could spout out any more insults. “Yeah, what’s going on?”
James smirked. “We stole your tickets, replaced them with the fakes, and then sold yours. We made quite a lot.”
“That’s our money,” Cadrian said. “Hand it over!”
“Can’t,” said Sirius. “We already spent it. On a ring.” He eyed Lily’s skin, barely concealing a wide grin. “The spell wasn’t supposed to do polka dots, was it, James?”
“No, I guess it’s just an added bonus.”
This was just too much for Lily. James had stolen her concert ticket, given her a fake, spent the money on a ring so they could turn her skin green, and he expected Lily to just take it? Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Not a chance.
Shaking off Alex’s hand, Lily stepped away from the fence. “See you at school,” she said to the boys before running the other way.
Sure. She would get her revenge. Of course she would. But for now, she was just going to cry.
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A/N: Don't forget to review!!!! ;) Thanks
Lily, Blossoming by halfbloodprincess22
Chapter Notes: Here it is, the concert!!! And please, please leave me a review--it only takes about 30 seconds, and it makes me want to write faster... :D