Lily, Alex, and Cadrian headed up to their dormitory about an hour later, but as the majority of the Gryffindors were still partying, it was very late before any of them got any sleep. Consequentially, Lily slept in much earlier than usual the next day, and when she went down to breakfast, the Great Hall’s platters were piled with lunch.
“So, you finally decided to get up!” grinned Alex, stabbing a chicken breast and dropping it on her plate. “We almost thought you were going to sleep all day.”
Lily smiled. “I wish I could.”
“If you did, you’d be in detention all week,” remarked Cadrian. “Do you know how much homework we’ve got to do today?”
Lily groaned. “Don’t remind me.” Before, she’d sort of liked looking up all the magical facts-it was so much more interesting than Muggle school-but now it was beginning to be somewhat of a drag.
The three friends ate a quick lunch and then headed over to the library. For once, it wasn’t very crowded at all. “Where is everybody?” Lily asked out loud, to nobody in particular.
A second-year girl sitting alone at a table said, “Third-years and up are in Hogsmeade.”
“What’s Hogsmeade?” asked Lily.
“It’s this village,” Alex explained, “right outside of Hogwarts, that’s completely magical. Nothing Muggle at all. Allie says it’s really cool. There’s Honeydukes, this amazing sweetshop, and Zonko’s, this huge joke shop. And at the Three Broomsticks you can get butterbeer, I’ve had it before of course but it’s amazing, and everyone says Madam Rosmerta’s is the best.”
“Wow!” said Lily enthusiastically. “I wish we could go.”
“You can, Evans. If you want to.”
Lily turned around. James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus were standing in a group behind the three friends. James was grinning in a jaunty, winning way.
“What do you mean?” asked Cadrian, tossing her long hair over her shoulder.
“I mean just what I said,” replied James calmly. “We can go, if you want to.”
“How?” breathed Alex excitedly, her eyes gleaming.
“That fourth-year friend of yours, Chris,” said James, nodding to Lily, “showed us an easy way to get into Honeydukes’ cellar. So, you want to go?”
“Well, won’t we get in a lot of trouble?” asked Lily slowly.
James shrugged. “What’s the worst thing they can do to us? Give us detention?”
“Yeah, let’s go!” exclaimed Alex. “It’ll be so cool!”
Cadrian and Lily exchanged worried glances. “Well…” said Lily, trying to stall.
“Look,” cut in Peter. “If you want to come, meet us at the statue of the one-eyed witch near the portrait hole. You can’t miss it. We’re leaving at one-thirty.” With that James cocked his eyebrows arrogantly before the four boys left.
“Oh, guys, we’ve got to go!” said Alex. “It’s going to be so much fun. Please come with me?”
“But, Alex…we’re going to get in trouble…” Cadrian said.
Alex rolled her eyes. “Not really. So we might get a detention, but apart from that…I mean, it’s not like they’re going to kill us or anything.”
“I guess so…” said Lily, but she was still unsure. She hated breaking rules.
It looked like Cadrian was cracking. “Yeah!” she agreed with Alex. “We should go!”
“But what about all of our homework?” protested Lily.
“Oh, we still have tonight,” said Alex.
“One night?” asked Lily. She knew she was a boring goody two-shoes, but she couldn’t help it.
“Come on, Lils. We’re going and we want you to come, too,” declared Alex. She checked her watch. “It’s one-fifteen. The boys aren’t leaving for fifteen minutes. We could run up to the common room, put on some jeans, grab some money, and go…”
“All right, all right,” sighed Lily, agreeing against her better judgment, and knowing she’d regret it.
“Yay!” Alex squealed. “Now let’s go!”
The three girls slung their bags over their shoulders and scurried back to the common room. Again, it was mostly empty. They quickly changed into jeans and sweaters, grabbed some money (Lily’s parents had exchanged Muggle money for Galleons and given her some) and raced outside.
They spotted James and his friends standing next to a statue. He waved them over. “Come on, come on!” he said. Then, looking both ways down the corridor to make sure nobody was coming, he tapped the statue with his wand and muttered, “Dissendium.”
The witch opened up, revealing a dark passageway. The seven first-years simultaneously whispered, “Lumos,” and the tiny pinpricks of light guided them down the damp tunnel.
After what felt like ten long years, Lily glimpsed a light at the end of the tunnel. James apparently had noticed it as well, for he started sprinting forward. “Come on!” he yelled excitedly. “It’s the Honeydukes cellar! This is amazing!”
The remaining six broke into a run and entered the stuffy, dark room that was the cellar. Huge crates were stacked everywhere, labeled things like “Fizzing Whizbees,” “Sugar Quills,” and other things Lily had never heard of. James pried open a crate full of little pieces of what looked like some kind of fudge and greedily dug in.
“James!” said Lily reproachfully. “You can’t just steal all this stuff!”
James grabbed another slice of the fudge and closed up the crate. “Nobody’ll ever know,” he replied.
“That’s not the point,” Lily said.
“Then what is?”
“It’s wrong! You have to pay for that!”
Peter snatched the fudge out of James’s hands and said, “Look, he didn’t take much. Now let’s go and see the rest of Hogsmeade, all right?”
Lily shot James a nasty look as he grabbed back the fudge from Peter and stuffed the entire thing into his mouth.
They ascended up the stairs, pushed through a small trapdoor, and found themselves in a warm, sweet-smelling shop-Honeydukes, of course-crowded with Hogwarts students. Nobody had noticed a bunch of first-years crawl out from the cellar, so they dispersed, agreeing to meet back at the trapdoor at four o’ clock. It was about two. Lily, Alex, and Cadrian set out for the Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer.
Hogsmeade reminded Lily of Diagon Alley, the streets lined with wizarding shops, bustling with crowds of fussy witches and tall, balding wizards. Today, of course, there were students everywhere, as well.
It didn’t take the girls long to find the Three Broomsticks. Inside it was so crowded, they could hardly move. They managed to find an empty table, miraculously, and Alex and Cadrian sat down while Lily ordered three butterbeers.
She took them back to the table. They were piping hot, and a warm amber color, with ivory foam on top spilling over the sides of the mugs. Lily took a sip. It was like the thing that Chris had given her after the Quidditch match, but much, much warmer and richer. “That’s awesome,” she announced.
The Three Broomsticks was filling up more every second, so Lily, Alex, and Cadrian quickly drank their butterbeers and went back outside. It was slightly chilly, but bearable, and the sun beating down on them warmed them up.
They wandered around awhile, not really sure where to go, when they overheard a group of Slytherins saying something about a “Shrieking Shack.” “Ooh, that sounds cool!” exclaimed Alex, always the daring one of the group. “Let’s find this Shrieking Shack.”
“Um…I think it’s right there,” commented Cadrian, pointing.
On top of a tallish hill stood an old house. It was boarded up. Shutters were hanging off windows, the steps were bashed in, and it looked about to cave in if anybody stepped inside. Behind a fence well away from the house was a large crowd of people. The three friends ran over to it.
“What’s so special about this old shack?” asked Alex, clearly disappointed.
An old lady turned around. She had stringy white hair hanging down to her shoulders and one blue eye, and one green. “For years this house has been abandoned,” she croaked. “Decades. Nobody ever thought anything of it and we left it alone. But just a couple weeks ago, we all heard shrieks and terrible moans, groans, and numerous large crashes coming from inside. We were all terrified…nobody dared to even approach it. It hasn’t happened since, but…we all think it’s inhabited by evil spirits. Even Dumbledore says that…so it must be true.”
“Wow,” breathed Alex. She pushed to the front of the crowd and returned a few minutes later. “Nothing to see,” she declared. “It may have shrieked, but it isn’t now. Let’s go.”
As they made their way back to the main road, Cadrian warned them, “It’s three-thirty! We should probably get back to Honeydukes.”
Lily and Alex agreed, so they pushed through the crowd of people and soon returned to the sweetshop. Once again they were enveloped by warmth and sweet aromas. Lily tasted all of the different free samples around the shop, but didn’t buy anything.
“ALEX?”
Lily whipped around. Alex’s older sister Allie was striding angrily over. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked angrily.
“Allie, I…”
“How did you even get here?” Allie yelled.
“Shh! Allie, please-”
“I should send an owl to Mom and Dad!”
“No! Come on, Allie, I’ll never come back again…”
Lily spotted James and his friends gathering by the trapdoor. She grabbed Alex’s arm and pulled her away from Allie’s ranting and raving. “Come on,” she muttered, “we’re leaving now…will Allie tell McGonagall?”
“She better not,” said Alex furiously. They had reached the trapdoor. Alex wrenched it up violently and the first-years quickly slipped into it. James pulled the door closed and they hurried back down the corridor, not saying much.
When they reached the statue of the witch, they stepped out. Alex immediately bumped into somebody.
Snape.
Snape gazed at the seven of them in amazement. He wasn’t dumb. He figured it out. Lily knew he had figured it out, by the malicious look that came over his face. He sprinted away, presumably to tell McGonagall or another teacher.
“Back up to the common room!” Sirius hissed, so the seven sprinted the opposite way. They climbed back through the portrait hole breathlessly and sped back to their own dormitories.
Not five minutes later, the portrait hole creaked open and McGonagall’s voice roared, “JAMES POTTER! SIRIUS BLACK! REMUS LUPIN! PETER PETTIGREW! LILY EVANS! ALEX PARKER! CADRIAN MICHAELS! MAY I SEE YOU ALL DOWN HERE, NOW!”
Lily cast a fearful look back at her friends and then they descended down to the common room. The boys shuffled down shamefully as well. They stood in a group before McGonagall, everybody trying to get to the back, out of sight.
“Severus Snape tells me you’ve been in Hogsmeade,” she said, her nostrils flaring.
They nodded, all staring at the ground. What was the point of lying? It would only make things worse.
“Well,” said McGonagall angrily. “Well. For one thing, I have no idea how you even got in, but I assure you that if you go again, you will be expelled for sure. For now, I will only give you each a detention. All of your parents will be contacted. We shall arrange your detentions later.” She turned to leave, but just before she slipped through the portrait hole, she turned and said, “I expected better of you, Miss Evans.”
And those words were the worst punishment she received.
Lily, Blossoming by halfbloodprincess22
Chapter Notes: Sorry this chapter took a while...it got rejected the first time, so I totally changed direction and this is the result. It's on the short side-again, sorry-but I liked it, anyway, and I hope you will too.