Halloween
October 30th, 1976
The rest of the month passed without much of note, except the three painfully awkward detentions supervised by Madam Pince, who was having them reorganize the dark dusty parts of the library that hadn’t been touched in years. Without using magic. Lily was grateful they had at least been in the library, and that James had seemed distracted enough not to bother her.
Professor Slughorn had intervened for their fourth detention, apparently thinking he was doing them a great favour.
James and Lily–along with a collection of other rule breakers–were tasked with decorating the hall for the Halloween feast that would be taking place the next day. Apart from Hagrid wheeling his pumpkins in from the cold, there was no real supervision.
This meant, for reasons she didn’t really understand, Lily had become the de facto director of the endeavor.
“Where do you want these, Lily?” Edgar Bones, a seventh-year Hufflepuff asked. He had gotten detention for smoking behind the Greenhouses and only seemed mildly perturbed by the situation.
*** Edgar Bones is murdered by Death Eaters in 1981.
His wife and children are murdered with him.
He has twin girls. ***
“Anywhere is grand, Eddie,” Lily said, gesturing to the sea of pumpkins in front of them. “Just make sure they’re floating high enough that none of the wains bump into them.”
“What about this one, Evans?” James Potter said, in an obnoxiously sycophantic voice. “Where would you like me to put this pumpkin?”
“Up your arse, Potter,” she said, blithely. She had not forgiven him for the boggart. Nor had she forgiven herself for falling apart so completely when faced with a moderately juvenile magical creature. The fact that he, of all people, had been the one to see it was just the icing on a spectacularly shitty cake.
“Evans!” James gasped. “Is my prefect using such language? What an example you’ll set for the rest of the group!”
The rest of the group had wisely decided to give the two of them space and were helping Hagrid unload a fresh wheelbarrow of pumpkins.
She sagely decided to ignore him, instead charming a rag to polish the pumpkins they’d finished levitating. A few moments of blissful silence passed before James spoke again.
“You going to the Halloween do, then?” He asked, charming a few candles to circle one of the pumpkins.
“What, you’re going to try to set something else on me, are you, now?” She asked, checking her watch. They still had forty-five minutes.
“What do you mean?” James asked, and he had the nerve to look incredulous. “For the last time, I wasn’t trying to do anything to you. It was just bad luck! And it’s been a month! When are you going to forgive me?”
“Forgive you?” Lily asked, and it was her turn to be incredulous. “We’re not friends, Potter. Forgiving you isn’t exactly on my to-do list.”
“Well, what do I have to do for you to put it on your list, then?” He asked. There was an earnestness to him that would have been obvious to anyone else, but Lily Evans did not always see what should be obvious to her.
“Why do you care?” She asked, sitting down on top of the Slytherin table. “You’re the one who wasn’t wanting to be civil with each other if you remember?”
James had regretted his words to her in the Courtyard almost as soon as he’d said them. But if he brought out the worst in Lily Evans, the opposite was also often true.
“I…” He began, then sat beside her, keeping a careful distance between them. They both stared into the fire crackling away in the fireplace opposite them. “Adelaide wants me to be nice. You’re dormmates, after all.”
*** Adelaide had made no such demands.
And James was a bad liar, at least where
Lily was concerned. ***
Lily eyed him suspiciously, then sagged a little, running her fingers through her hair, glimmering in the low light.
“So, what do you want?” Lily asked. “Or, what does she want?”
James shrugged. “Ceasefire?”
“That’s all?”
He hesitated before speaking, then cracked a grin. “And for you to come to the Marauders Halloween Party tomorrow. All the other girls are going.”
Lily rolled her eyes and fiddled with her wand, her fingers running up and down the carved grooves. “This matters to you, doesn’t it?” She finally asked.
He shrugged again.
“No more boggarts?”
James shook his head gravely. “Marauder’s honour.”
She scoffed and pushed herself off the table, surveying the rest of the room. “You can have your truce, Potter.”
*** Neither of them knew that they would be back
in the Great Hall twenty-four hours from that moment.
And James would be covered in blood. ***
Remus Lupin always felt uneasy on Halloween. Maybe it was the idea of monsters feeling free to roam around unhindered. His monster is always accessible.
Sirius Black–whom most would consider definitively emotionally unintelligent–was the only one to notice this as midnight came and went, and Remus’s mood grew darker. He’d liked Halloween once. Now every holiday felt tainted as his brother drifted further away. Sirius wondered if dark magic was leeching his soul away like it had done their parents. Maybe their parents had been born evil. Maybe none of it mattered.
“Fancy a walk, Moony?”
Remus looked up, eyeing the new moon out of the window, then checked his watch. “We’d get caught.”
“We’ll take the cloak,” Sirius argued. James was out with Adelaide, he’d never even notice it was gone. Remus, while slightly more inclined to follow rules, felt his restlessness keenly. And it wasn’t long until they were both draped under the silvery fabric, their breath visible in the cool air of Hogwarts grounds.
“This used to be more comfortable,” Remus remarked. They’d been small, once.
“No one’ll notice our feet,” Sirius said, with the casual indifference natural to him. “We can take it off when we’re somewhere a bit more hidden.”
They trudged towards the boathouse, slipping the coat off when they reached the far wall, hiding them from the view of the path. Sirius pulled out a pack of cigarettes, which Remus refused, and lit his own, the smoke disappearing almost instantly into the night.
“What do you think of Prongs and Penny?” He asked, after a long drag. Penny was the Marauders’ nickname for Adelaide, or at least it had been before James and Adelaide had started dating. They would probably have to start calling by her name. It wasn’t as mean as it could have been. She certainly was a pretty penny.
“S’long as he’s happy, I suppose it doesn’t matter what I think,” Remus said, graciously.
Sirius burst out laughing. “You hate her, don’t you?”
“I don’t hate her! I just… I find her profoundly uninteresting if I’m being honest. Not really sure what he sees in her.” Remus’s nature, while kind, was also built on strong principles. Adelaide’s nature delighted in subverting people’s expectations of her, often in regard to her ever-evolving set of ethics. It was no great surprise that the two of them might grate.
“She’s bloody fit, is what he sees in her,” Sirius pointed out.
Remus shrugged. “Not my type.”
Sirius, surprisingly, didn’t question Remus further. The two sat in comfortable silence for a long time, the cold seeping further and further into their bones. Neither of them seemed to mind.
“I love Hogwarts,” Sirius said, finally. “I don’t think there’s anywhere better.”
Remus murmured his agreement. “Wish I could become a teacher. Then I’d never have to leave.”
“That’d be a sight. Professor Lupin.” Sirius nudged him with his shoulder. “Shame there’s a war on, and all that.”
“Tactfully put, as ever, Padfoot.”
Sirius scoffed. “Since when did I have to be tactful with you?”
Remus smiled into the darkness but said nothing.
*** Remus Lupin dies in the Battle of Hogwarts
in 1998. He will not get to raise his son. ***
October 31st, 1976
Peter Pettigrew hated full moons. He knew he should have found them fun, like the others did. Or, maybe not Remus, but James and Sirius liked them. Frolicking in the forest. Peter just felt vulnerable. He was lucky he hadn’t been trodden on by any of them yet.
He did like being a rat, though. Especially alone. The others, even Remus, couldn’t seem to understand that sometimes Peter just needed to be alone. He didn’t always want to be glued to the three of them, bound as one entity to the rest of the world.
So, to get that time alone, he’d just sort of… disappear. Turn into a rat and wander the halls, see what he might be able to find. He would see secret rendezvous, he’d see professors bicker about their workload, he’d see Peeves setting careful traps for students to fall into the next day.
It was a special feeling, to be knowledgeable. Especially around his genius friends, who were always so surprised when Peter knew something they didn’t. It was a nice feeling, to be needed.
If he’d asked them, they would have given a litany of reasons they wanted Peter around, emphatically announcing their devotion. But he didn’t ask them. And he never would.
*** Peter Pettigrew didn’t truly trust his friends.
It’s no surprise, then, that he betrays them.
Not if you’re paying attention. ***
Dorcas Meadowes needed to wait until Lily was alone.
She knew how that would sound, but her intent was not of the threatening variety. She couldn’t get the conversation between Mulciber and Snape out of her head. And she couldn’t pretend like she felt even remotely safe at Hogwarts anymore. She needed an ally.
There were many reasons to pick Lily Evans. She was smart, and competent, and had always been relatively friendly to Dorcas. She was also muggleborn, which meant she was highly unlikely to rat Dorcas out to the rest of her housemates. But, if she was being honest, the reason she really targeted Lily was simple.
Lily volunteered to hold study sessions for younger students that often went well into the night. Lily waited in the Great Hall during the first week of classes to guide first-years to their destinations in this maze of a castle. Lily helped Filch clean up after Marauders-based catastrophes without expecting even a thanks in return.
Lily Evans was nice. And Dorcas Meadowes was desperate.
Her opportunity arose when she found Lily reading in a dim corner of the library, almost completely out of sight. It was as much privacy as she was likely to get.
“Lily Evans?” She began and immediately felt strange about the formality of it. Lily looked up, her green eyes shrewd.
“What can I do for you?” She asked, folding down the corner of her page and closing her book.
Dorcas looked up towards the rest of the room, then lowered her voice. “Someone is going to get hurt today.”
Lily’s expression grew cold. “Is that a threat, now, Meadowes?”
“No!” She said, then sat, uninvited, next to Lily at the small table. “No, it’s not. I heard Mulciber talking in the Common Room, they were talking about curses and making someone fall off their broom, and I think they meant James Potter, and I–”
“Mulciber hexed James Potter?” Lily asked, alert and not sounding as surprised as she should have.
“Yes.” She confirmed, nodding.
“And he was saying this to you?”
Dorcas sighed. “Not exactly. I overheard him and Snape talking, they didn’t really notice I was there until the end.”
Lily’s body stiffened at the mention of Snape, but she didn’t comment on it. Instead, she looked around, uneasily.
“This isn’t a good place to talk about this.”
“It couldn’t wait. They said something else would happen on Halloween night. That’s tonight.” She couldn’t help but feel Lily wasn’t quite grasping the urgency of the situation.
“I know, but…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked around. Then, decisively, Lily said, “Come on,” and led Dorcas out of the library.
*** Dorcas was right to be concerned. Mulciber’s
plan would go into action in eight hours. ***
“I’m sorry, we can just invite Slytherins into our dormitories now?” Connie griped, eyeing Dorcas Meadowes as she sat, cross-legged, on the end of Lily’s bed.
Lily, rightfully so, glared at Connie. “No one is forcing you to stay, Constance. It’s a right nice day. Go outside.” She gestured to the window, where the sun was making a valiant attempt to warm the late October day.
“I’m finishing my costume,” Connie said, as Adelaide mouthed ‘Sorry’ to Lily. Lily didn’t want anyone to apologize to her. She wanted them to apologize to Dorcas.
Marlene sat next to Lily, looking skeptical. Mary was nowhere to be found.
“Well, you can be doing that in the Common Room, can’t you?” Lily said, with, perhaps, more irritation than was earned. Connie shot her a dark look, but both she and Adelaide left without further complaints, taking a pile of clothes and sparkling sequins with them.
The silence that followed was awkward.
“So Mulciber made James fall off his broom?” Marlene asked. Dorcas nodded. “It wasn’t just, I don’t know, bad luck?”
Lily shook her head. “I noticed something on the day, right before it happened. There were shapes up there, but I couldn’t really make it out. I told McGonagall but… I don’t know what she did after that. I was going to help Potter figure it out, but then…”
“Then he set a boggart on you,” Marlene finished. Dorcas’s eyes widened, but she said nothing.
“I’d sort of been looking into it anyway,” Lily continued. “I mean, just the theory. I reckon they’d disillusioned themselves and their brooms, then did… Then, I think they might have imperiused him.”
Marlene looked ill. Dorcas looked unsurprised.
“They do things like that a lot,” Dorcas said, quietly. “Mulciber’s good at it, too.”
“So now you think they’re going to attack someone else? Tonight?” Marlene asked, after a few seconds of silence let Dorcas’s words fully sink in.
“That’s what they said. Snape, he said he could do something even worse than what they did to Potter.”
Marlene eyed Lily meaningfully, but Lily looked away. “They noticed me before I could hear anything else.”
“You’re a muggleborn, right?” Marlene asked, with her usual lack of subtlety. “Is that why you’re telling us this?”
Dorcas shrugged. “If I know someone is going to get hurt and I do nothing to stop it, I may as well have done it myself, don’t you think?”
“Fair play,” Lily said, thoughtfully. “Not sure there are many Gryffindors with that mentality, even.”
“It’s dangerous, isn’t it?” Marlene said. “Ratting out your housemates like that.”
Dorcas flinched at her wording, but couldn’t deny it. “It’s already dangerous for me there. There’s not much more I can do.”
The three grew silent, each following the trail of their own grim thoughts. It was Lily who broke it.
“So we know something will happen tonight. But we don’t know where, or who.”
“Could be James again,” Marlene said.
Lily nodded, adding, “He and Severus hate each other. It would make sense.”
“So we just need to make sure we’re around James all night,” Marlene said, “and nothing can happen to him.”
“He’s throwing a bloody party,” Lily said, “it could get hard to keep an eye on him through that.”
“Sounds like you actually have to attend this one, Lily.” Marlene teased, then looked at Dorcas, awkwardly. “You could come too, Meadowes, if you want.”
“Not sure if I’d be welcome, after McAllister,” Dorcas said, not sounding in the least bit sad. “Besides, maybe I can watch Mulciber and Snape on my end.”
Lily frowned. “That’s a right risky job.”
“I can handle myself,” Dorcas said, straightening her back a little. She’d beaten James Potter in a duel, after all.
“And what if they do something suspicious?” Marlene asked. “Or if they corner you?”
“I could do a patronus,” Dorcas offered.
“You can do a patronus?” Lily asked, mildly amazed. She, herself, had managed a shield of sorts, but a corporeal patronus was beyond her abilities. For now.
Dorcas shrugged. “It’s a Hippogriff.”
Marlene was impressed, but Lily frowned. “That’s impressive magic, you’ve got, but not subtle. Be hard to hide from people.”
“She’ll only use it if it’s an emergency, then.” Marlene countered, and Dorcas nodded her agreement.
Lily sighed, her mouth twisting. “What if nothing happens? What if they’ve changed their plans?” An unspoken third question weighed down her tongue. What if they were too late?
*** They now had only four hours before Mulciber’s attack. ***
All five Gryffindor girls were in their dorm and the room looked as if a tornado had struck it. Whatever mild irritation had existed between Connie McAllister and Lily Evans was seemingly forgotten, as all the girls pooled their belongings together, throwing clothes over each others’ beds, ensuring that each of them had an outfit worthy of the Marauders’ Halloween party.
Connie, who had been working on her costume for days, was going to wear a tailored jumpsuit with flared legs, every inch of it painstakingly covered with shimmering sequins. She was, nominally, a disco ball, but had confessed multiple times to simply want to wear something eye-catching.
Adelaide needed no help to catch anyone’s attention. Her long, dark hair was straight and slick, reaching to her waist. She wore a red velvet dress, a slit stretching up to her thigh. She’d transfigured her canine teeth to a pointed edge and was currently applying blood-red lipstick to her full lips. Marlene was watching her, chatting casually, hoping she was concealing the way her pulse spiked whenever Adelaide chuckled at one of her jokes.
Mary had convinced Marlene to dress as characters from her favorite muggle show, which meant they were both shaping up to be Daphne and Velma from Scooby Doo. Lily, who had not watched much American television, couldn’t quite say she understood the costume but did enjoy how thrilled Mary seemed about it. Marlene, who seemed distracted, was at the very least excited by the strawberry blonde tint Lily had applied to her hair.
Lily did not have a costume. She hadn’t been planning on attending the Marauders’ party at all. She was mostly only doing so to ensure James Potter wasn’t cursed again, which felt counter-intuitive to her usual emotions. But this was why the other girls had come together, and were now throwing options at her so rapidly she could hardly keep up.
“We could transfigure your legs into a tail!” Connie said, excitedly. “You could look like a mermaid. A muggle one, not the ugly ones we have in the lake.”
Lily wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “I think I’d like to be walking around. Plus, I’m not sure I’d know how to transfigure my legs like that.”
“James could probably do it,” Adelaide said, thoughtfully, and luckily missed Lily’s eye roll.
“You could be a vampire like Addy,” Mary offered. “Wouldn’t be hard to find a black dress.”
Adelaide and Lily made eye contact, then Lily shook her head again. “I think we should leave that to Adelaide.” The other girl shot Lily a smile, and she knew it had been the right choice.
“You could be a quidditch player,” Marlene said. “You could just wear my kit. Easy peasy.”
“That’s an idea,” Lily said, graciously, while Connie shook her head.
“She wants to look fit, Marlene, not like she’s going to practice.”
“You don’t think I look fit in my quidditch kit?” She asked, a teasing lilt in her voice.
“You look well fit,” Mary laughed, as Adelaide nodded along. Marlene blushed, then sighed. “You’d think, given that we’re witches who can do actual magic, it would be easier to find a costume for you, Lils.”
Lily thought for a moment, then grinned. “Marlene, you are a genius. I’ll be a witch.”
It took a while for them to settle on the elements of her costume, which involved explaining to the purebloods in the room why anyone would dress up as a witch, and what that would look like, but eventually, she had an outfit she liked.
They’d transfigured one of Marlene’s woolen hats into a classic pointed witch’s hat and Lily had paired it with a layered black shirt and lacy top. They’d pooled their jewelry together and she’d covered herself in gold and silver chains with large hooped earrings. Her hair was curled loosely and she let it hang over her back, as she painted her lips a matching dark red.
Lily Evans looked, for perhaps the first time in her life, like a witch. She wondered what Petunia would think of this.
*** Petunia was spending her Halloween alone.
She would be thinking of Lily, even if she’d never admit it. ***
James Potter’s jaw dropped when he saw his girlfriend’s long red dress, her pointed teeth. He whistled appropriately as she did a spin, then pulled her into his arms, kissing her softly. She giggled, then looked at his costume with a baffled expression.
“So, you’re a deer?” She asked.
“A stag,” he corrected, adjusting the cheap antlers on his head. Other than them, he was dressed normally, in a brown t-shirt and jeans.
“And…why?” Adelaide tucked her hair behind her ears.
James shrugged. “Inside joke. With the others.”
James didn’t notice the slight frown on Adelaide’s face at his words, too excited to bring her to join the rest of the party. If he had, he might have asked about it. And they might then have had a discussion that they would have to have at some point, but that he would put off for as long as possible.
James Potter’s dedication to his friends was unmatched. And, unfortunately, there was a gulf when it came to everyone else. Not that he would admit it.
*** He would also not admit that his heart skipped a beat
when he saw Lily Evans descend on the staircase, her
witch’s hat crooked. He would tell himself he was just surprised
to see her dressed up. It would be a lie. ***
The party had been going on for at least an hour before Lily checked in with Marlene. She was sitting on the arm of a sofa, chatting with Sirius Black, who was dressed like a shaggy-looking dog. Strangely, Mary was nowhere to be seen.
Marlene looked up as Lily approached, concern in her eyes.
“Any word?”
Lily shook her head, then gestured towards James, who was dancing dramatically by the fireplace. “No. All seems grand.”
Sirius looked at two of them curiously, then at James.
“God, what a mess,” he said, with a great deal of affection. Lily snorted, then stepped closer to Marlene, fixing her headband.
“Where’s Mary?” She asked, looking around the room. It was too crowded to see much of anything.
Marlene shrugged. “Dunno. We were having a grand old time and then she just vanished. Said she needed to get something.”
Lily eyed the stairs to the girl’s dorm. “Strange.” But Lily had often felt overwhelmed by parties, herself, so she certainly couldn’t hold that against Mary. She looked back at James, who had already been looking her way. He grinned as they made eye contact, and she shook her head, allowing herself a small smile. Truce. There were worse things.
A little while later Lily meandered to the window, looking out over the grounds. It was quiet out there. Maybe Dorcas had been wrong. When she turned, James was beside her, looking at her inquisitively.
“Having a nice time?” He asked, following her gaze out the window.
“S’alright,” she admitted, raising her cup to him in a small cheers. “You make a good stag.”
He smirked like she’d said something especially funny, but didn’t comment on it.
*** James made an exceptionally good stag, several times a week.
One day, not so far away, Lily would learn that. ***
“You make a good witch,” he said. “But you already knew that, I imagine.”
Lily felt the strangest urge to blush. She could only hope that her cheeks wouldn’t betray her, as she eyed the rest of the party. As luck would have it, she was looking at the portrait hole at the exact time a bright light shone around the edges of the portrait.
She moved without thinking. In a heartbeat, she’d made it to the door, opened it, and was nearly blinded by the light behind it. A hippogriff stood opposite her, shimmering with blue light, and spoke two words in Dorcas’s voice.
“Great Hall. Now.”
Then, it evaporated, and Lily began to run.
**
Lily Evans was not the only person running through Hogwarts Castle.
There was James Potter, a few strides behind her, who had not let her out of his sight since she’d left the Common Room.
There was Professor McGonagall, who had received a strange patronus charm in the middle of the night and was racing to its source.
Severus Snape and Roman Mulciber were both running and were almost as far as the dungeons.
Dorcas Meadowes, for the first time that night, was entirely stationary–slumped unconscious on the floor of the Great Hall.
But when Lily raced into the Great Hall, Dorcas wasn’t the first thing she saw. Instead, she saw the missing Mary Macdonald, using her wand to cut into her own wrists.
Lily screamed and disarmed Mary, her wand clattering to the floor. James, who was still right behind Lily, shouted in shock, then flew to Mary’s side, holding her as she slumped, blood pouring from her, making the floor slippery beneath them.
Lily was crying as she reached them, trying to heal the cut with magic–but she couldn’t remember the spell, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t think. It was James, in the end, who flicked his wand with some muttered spell, and the wounds closed up. But they were both still sticky with blood, and, as James’s eyes met Lily’s, they were wide with horror.
That was when Lily saw Dorcas.
“No!” She shouted and rushed to her side, placing her fingers on the side of the other girl’s neck to check her pulse. It was steady and even. She was still shaking too hard to cast the counterspell and wake Dorcas up, still stunned into a strange silence.
It was the arrival of Professor McGonagall that broke it.
“Miss Evans!” She shouted in surprise, seeing Lily crouched on the floor. “Is that Miss Meadowes? I…” It was then that she spotted James and Mary and all of the blood. She paled, then flicked her wand, a bright light erupting from it. Three small cats fled the room, each heading in different directions.
“Is she alive?” Professor McGonagall asked Lily. Lily nodded, swallowing hard. McGonagall swept past them and took Mary from James, cradling the girl as if she wore nothing. Mary was blinking slowly, looking around the room as if it was the first time she’d ever seen it.
Madam Pomfrey entered the room, stopping by Lily first to revive Dorcas, before joining Professor McGonagall. She did a quick diagnostic spell, then relaxed.
“She will be alright,” Madame Pomfrey announced to the room. James, who was still covered in blood, sagged visibly, sinking onto one of the benches.
“I will need all of you to provide me a full report of what happened here,” Professor McGonagall said, her voice not quite as strong as it normally was. “I will be accompanying Poppy to the Hospital Wing with Miss Macdonald and Miss Meadowes.” McGonagall flicked her wand, and both girls hovered slightly above the ground. Dorcas was now blinking awake, looking confused. “But I will be back momentarily. Professor Dumbledore is on his way.”
Lily nodded, getting shakily to her feet. She saw Dorcas’s wand on the floor and grabbed it, then looked back for Mary’s. She made her way back to the center of the hall, grabbed the other wand, and then slumped down next to James.
She could see his hands trembling, the blood on them becoming sticky. She swallowed, then leaned her shoulder into him, the heat of his body the only thing that felt real.
She’d just seen Mary try to kill herself. Dorcas had been attacked. Both of them nearly died.
Blood seeped into the stone floor, and she watched it, transfixed. A few moments passed in absolute quiet.
It was Lily who broke the silence–bizarrely, with a laugh.
James looked at her as if she’d gone insane.
“I’m sorry,” Lily said, covering her mouth with her hand. “I just…” She shook her head, the shock settling into her bones. “Happy Halloween.”
James stared at her, the plains of her face the only solace he could find. Then, surprising even himself, he laughed, too. “Happy Halloween, Evans. Worst one ever?”
She snorted, as Professor Dumbledore swept in, looking at the two of them gravely.
“It better be.”
*** James and Lily Potter, of course, die
on Halloween in 1981. They will celebrate
five more Halloweens together. ***