Lily Potter and the Shadows' Misfortune

Chapter Thirteen

Two weeks had passed since the night of the dreadfully awful Gryffindor Quidditch Bonfire, and Lily still couldn't get the image of the two orange flashes flying through the forested night out of her head.

Evidently, Eli couldn't get the suspicious, uncalled for race through the forest out of his head because he continued to question Lily for days after the bonfire; this annoyed her to no end. Not wanting to answer and reveal that she was still attached to her farfetched theory, she refused to talk about the subject. Call it immature and childlike, but anytime Eli brought up that night, Lily changed the subject within seconds or pretended not to hear his questions. Despite the immaturity of it all, after five or six days, he stopped asking questions, much to Lily's pleasure.

Lily didn't want to share because she didn't feel up to being ridiculed by her friends about the suspicions she had of the Sanger twins. The movement of the orange flashes in the night were unlike any spell or light source Lily knew; the bouncing and waving motions looked like they belonged to long, flowing hair, not fire or light. Once she convinced herself that it was indeed hair and not the work of a spell, her previously repressed suspicions rose to the forefront and immediately, she believed the hair belonged to the enigmatic Sanger twins. Since that night, she could not silence her suspicions although it was difficult from asking her roommates or making comments to her friends who claimed her early suspicions about the twins were nothing but a giant conspiracy theory.

As the two weeks passed, Lily watched the twins closely but didn't notice much out of the ordinary with them, which both eased her and grew her suspicions. The only thing about them that she remained truly drawn to was the pendants that hung around both of their necks anytime she glanced their way.

Something about them didn't seem like a necklace you could find at your average jeweler's, and Lily was certain they were of some extreme value to the twins because no matter how many times they changed their clothes, the pendants were still a staple. As much as Lily would have loved to waltz up to the twins and ask them about the necklaces, she couldn't. Though Romy seemed friendly, Lily hadn't spoken more than a few courteous words to her, and Lily didn't even want to think about striking up a conversation with Addie Sanger as Lily hadn't heard her say anything that wasn't angry and in German.

"I can't believe this history paper," Nora said two weeks after the bonfire as she, Lily, and Cassie made their way to the Great Hall.

Despite Lily's suspiciousness of the Sanger twins, her life at Hogwarts still marched on, and much to the annoyance of every second year at Hogwarts, Professor Binns had assigned a one thousand word essay about the formation of The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards. Lily loved to learn, but history was not her favorite subject by any means.

"At least yours is due Monday," Cassie said with an irritated shake of her curls. "Gryffindors and Ravenclaws have to turn them in in two days, and you get the weekend to work on it."

"I think we should go back after dinner, so Cass and I can finish for Friday," Lily said, concurring with Cassie's annoyance about the paper's due date. While the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs got to turn theirs in on Monday of the next week, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had to turn theirs in on the approaching Friday, which was just two days away.

"And that'll be how many hours spent in the library for this paper?" Nora said with a sigh.

"I don't know if my brain can count that high right now," Cassie said with a yawn. "I think I'll need to keep my eyes open with clothespins soon."

"At least we started," Lily said as they descended from the third to the first floor. "Hugo, Eli, and Rudy haven't even cracked open their books yet."