Harry hugged Lillian, making hushing noises as he did so. He pulled away. Lillian was making sniffing noises and tears were still streaming down her cheeks. She felt uttermost shame rise from the pit of her stomach, colouring her face. She was a Potter! She wasn’t meant to be even considered for Slytherin! Harry was still watching her with sympathetic eyes. He'd had a suspicion that this would happen. Lillian had always been quite sly and cunning and very boastful, a trait she'd picked up from the Weasley side of the family.
“The hat wanted to put me in Slytherin too, Lily. But I told it not to and that is what makes me different from a Slytherin; I wanted to be a Gryffindor. I felt disgusted by the thought of being a Slytherin. But I’ve learned that being a Slytherin doesn’t mean you’re evil or malicious. It just means you’re good at using people to your advantage and avoiding getting killed, something that Gryffindors aren’t so good at. It just means that you’re cunning.”
“Y-you were gonna be a Slytherin?” Lily stuttered, disbelieving. Harry nodded.
“I was “ and don’t say “gonna” it’s going to. I was going to be in Slytherin because of the powers Voldemort gave me and, I suppose, some of those powers passed to you. That means, Lily, that we get the best of both worlds,” he ended in a whisper. Lily grinned, then, as quickly as her face had lit up, fell.
“What’ll the other Gryffindors say?”
“Why do you have to tell them? I never told anyone except Dumbledore. Not even your mother knows. Well… she’s never asked really, and I saw no reason to tell her.” Lily smiled slightly and wiped her right eye with her hand.
“What do you mean by powers dad?”
“Well, for one thing I’m a Parselmouth, it just comes naturally to me; I never had to learn. That talent got me into a lot of trouble in my second year “ everybody thought that I’d opened the Chamber of Secrets and that I was trying to kill muggleborns. But, in my seventh year, it helped me greatly to find Nagini. Scared the hell out of me to speak in Parseltongue when Voldemort was less than a hundred meters away, but I did it and he didn’t hear…until I killed her. I’m not saying you’re a Parselmouth, but you may have a power of his that skipped me.”
“Wow,” said Lillian softly. She had been told the rough outline of how her father had killed Voldemort, but not in detail. Harry looked at her sternly.
“You won’t brag about this to all your classmates will you? I know what you’re like.” Lillian frowned, annoyed that her father could suspect her of such a thing.
“Of course not. What made you think I’d do a thing like that? I’d never do that.”
***
“My father, right, he learned how to speak Parseltongue. Took him years to do it! One day he had to kill this snake, right, he had to kill it so that-” Why did he have to kill it? Oh yeah, it was a Horcrux. That’s boring. “-he could get the deadly venom to poison this Death Eater. He had to call in Parseltongue without Voldemort hearing, ‘cos if he heard, he’d kill my Dad. Voldemort was only a few meters away but my Dad wasn’t scared and-”
“Shut-up, Lily. You’re making Dad into a saint or something.” Jamie scowled at his sister, who was surrounded by a gang of first, second and third years, all eagerly listening to her exciting story in the courtyard.
“Get lost four eyes, just ‘cos I’ve made friends!”
“No you haven’t, these people will go away when you run out of stories to tell, dung breath.”
“I won’t run out of stories, you miserable excuse for a wizard. I’ll make my own.” Lillian threw back, starting to see red.
“Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try. I’ll make friends by being like Uncle Fred and George “ by doing more pranks in this year than you could ever do.”
“I’ll take you up on that you stupid prat. First one to get to ten large pranks without getting caught wins. The loser gets humiliated very publicly. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Deal,” came a new, sneering, voice. Jamie spun around and there, standing right behind him, was Sabriel Lestrange. He glared at her. He could tell straight away that this was not somebody he would get along with.
“So it’s true then?” she asked, a sneer on her face. “Jamie and Lillian Potter have both come to Hogwarts, as, of course, has their father “ for protection maybe? I’ll go against you both in your little bet. My mother has taught me some tricks.”
“Oh, yes. How is your mother? She escaped from Azkaban didn’t she? I suppose that she’s still hiding in Ecuador. Tell me, how did you get into Hogwarts without your mother getting caught? I thought she was the most wanted person on earth.” Jamie was almost shaking with fury.
Sabriel went slightly pink and muttered quietly, “I was sent to a muggle children’s home for safety. But my mother visited every three months under a disguise. And I don’t know where you got Ecuador from “ it looks like your father and all the other Aurors don’t know what they’re doing.” Lillian was about to leap on top of Lestrange and throttle her when she heard a cackle above them.
“Aaaah! Ickle firsties having a bet! I tell you what “ I’ll be the judge of all your tricksies! At the end of the year I’LL decide who the best is!” Peeves was floating just above them, an evil grin plastered across his smug face. Lillian blinked in surprise. From everything she had heard of Peeves, this was very odd indeed.
“I thought you hated first years? Why are you helping us?” Peeves cackled again.
“Peevsie loves to make double trouble!”
“Fine, we’ll take you up on that “ make as many pranks as possible, report to Peeves when you’ve done one, and at the end of the year Peeves will tell us who the winner is. Me and Jamie on one side and you on the other, unless you want to pick someone else to make the sides fair?” Sabriel scoffed.
“No way. I can handle it on my own.”
“Is everything okay?” Tonks had appeared. Sabriel ran of, an evil glint in her black eyes.
“Yeah, everything’s okay thanks.” Jamie said glaring after Sabriel.
“It’s nice to see you’ve all made friends but you’re going to be late for your first lesson. What have you got?” Jamie took his timetable out of his bag and glanced at it.
“Potions with…Slughorn. Shouldn’t he be retired by now? From what dad says he wasn’t exactly young when he took the job from Snape,” said Jamie, frowning.
“Yes, but he likes the security of Hogwarts “ he’s still convinced that Death Eaters are out to get him. Paranoid, you see. Poor bloke. I think Dumbledore’s death hit him hard and…well, he never recovered from it. Anyway you’re going to be late, hurry up.” Tonks walked off and Lillian, Jamie, Matt and Lottie made their way to the dungeons.
***
Far away, in the Ministry of Magic, a black veil fluttered slightly, though there was no wind in the darkness of the large, circular hall. The whispers were growing louder… time was running out…
The Third War by dumbledorefluertwins
Chapter Notes: Not mine, yadda yadder yadder... Please leave a review; It's my first fic and I need to know wether you all like it! And If you don't like it - tell me why!!