Lily Evans and the Marauder's Secrets

Transfiguration Exam

"Why have I already spent so much of my time back at school convincing you to eat, Lily?" Alice asks the next morning at breakfast.

"If I eat, I might just throw it back up," I say, prodding an over-easy egg with my fork. The yolk quivers and I shiver and set my fork down.

"You're going to be fine," Marlene says. She's clearly very unaffected by the looming exam as she enthusiastically dunks her toast into the yellow of her eggs.

"That's all very easy for you to say," I tell her. "Easy when Transfiguration comes naturally to you and you rarely get below Es on all your assignments."

"Torn up about the exam, Evans?"

I turn toward the new voice, grateful for an excuse to look away from Marlene's feasting, but my stomach twists in a different kind of sickening way when it's to see Sirius, closely followed by Remus, Peter, and bringing up the rear, James.

"Something like that," I mutter, dropping my gaze to my lap. It seems there are no safe places to look this morning.

"Eh, you'll be fine," Sirius says, plunking down into the seat opposite me.

"Yeah," Peter says, sliding in next to him. "Prongs says it's been ages since you've given yourself antlers or dyed him green or anything like that."

I sneak a quick look at James, who's sitting on Sirius's other side, diagonal from me, and wonder what else he's said to them about me.

"I guess it has been a while," I answer Peter before the pause stretches too long. "Still, no time like the present for old habits to resurrect."

"I'm sure they won't," Remus says, buttering a slice of toast. "Just have confidence going in and you'll do alright."

His advice is so similar to what James has told me a number of times about how to be successful in Transfiguration that I steal another look at him. He's overly focused on cutting his bacon into precise, even bites.

"Right," I sigh. "Confidence and all that. Thanks guys."

"They haven't said anything Alice and I didn't," Marlene says indignantly.

"I know, but they didn't turn my stomach with their disgusting table manners while doing it," I tell her.

"You should eat something, Lily," James says quietly, still not looking at me. "Being hungry won't help you concentrate."

"Right," I say again. Stupidly. I lift a piece of dry toast to my mouth and take a bite. It scratches as I swallow.

"That's the spirit," Sirius says.

***

Potions feels like an absolute waste of time. If I wasn't still smarting from detention for skipping class last week, I might be tempted to skip again today for some last-minute cramming.

"That's the second time you've tried to add wormwood to our Mandrake Restorative Draught," Severus says, grabbing my wrist before I can drop it in. "And I know you know wormwood has no place here. You okay, Lily?"

"Not hardly," I say miserably. I prod my potion with my ladle. Even if Sev has stopped me from making several crucial errors today, my heart just isn't in it and my weak potion reflects that. "I have the Transfiguration exam next, and I just know I'm going to fail and Professor McGonagall's going to kick me out of her class for good and then I'll never be an Auror and I'll spend the rest of my life never amounting to anything." With every point I make, I prod my potion more and more aggressively and sludge spatters the sides of my cauldron. It hisses poisonously as it trickles back down.