The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

For the Greater Good

For the Greater Good

It seemed to Lily that James and Meg were everywhere about the castle. Everywhere. She found them snogging by the suits of armor on the third floor outside of Charms, and by the large hour glasses that counted the house points. They sat together at the table and it was suddenly Meg Johnson that was laughing at James's stupid deer puns and who Sirius was calling a ginger and it was Meg Johnson whose initials James was doodling on the edge of his parchment as he grinned stupidly at the front of the room while Sirius bewitched a paper bird to pick at his ear.

"Mr. Black, while I agree that gaining Mr. Potter's attention is worth your while, I must say that I question your approach," Minnie said, waving her wand to stop the paper bird from pecking James any longer. She brought her hand down on the table in front of him, snapping him back to reality, and cleared her throat, "Mr. Potter, do you care to indulge us on what it is you've been daydreaming about that's so enthralled you that you thought that perhaps your Transfiguration class wasn't nearly as important?"

James turned red.

"It's a girl, Professor," said Sirius with smirk. "Meg Johnson."

McGonagall's eyes flickered toward Lily for a moment, then back to James. She took her wand and tapped him on the head to get his attention. James looked up at her. "Uhhh," he said, trying to think of what it was that she'd been teaching them about. He squinted toward the board, saw something about the relationship of scale and the ability return to base form written there and he looked up at her. "Uuuuuh..."

"Uh-huh. Just what I've thought. Five points from Gryffindor."

James scowled as Sirius smirked at him.

"Are we trying to make it ten, Mr. Black?"

Sirius turned forward quickly.

But really there was no place for Lily to go or turn to avoid the phenomenon that was James Potter and Meg Johnson. She stood on the edge of her little friend group, trying to ignore Marlene McKinnon going on about how happy Meg and James looked and how unexpected their relationship was. "Never would've guessed that James and Meg would go out," she said, shaking her head, "Would you, Lil?"

"No," Lily said quietly, "I wouldn't."

"They're such a cute couple, though," said McKenna brightly, "Like it makes so much sense in retrospect."

Lily nodded because she was expected to and the other girls carried on... well, except for Alice Prewitt, who looked at Lily as though she were looking at a wounded animal and Lily tried very hard to keep her eyes averted from meeting Ali's because if she did, she knew she might cry for the look of pity that danced in her irises.

And at night, Lily would wake up in her bed, tears in her eyes as the nightmares ravished her mind, the image of James Potter broken and bloody still haunting her, even without the possibility of her ending up with him. And if anything, they seemed to be getting worse for now they were prefaced by a tremulous voice calling her name through the darkness.

"Lily.... Evaaaans...."

She would wake up and just lay in her bed gasping and hugging her pillow, staring at the moon through the trees.

Professor Gaunt flicked the slide in his projector and on the screen there came an image of a woman being burned at the stake. She was tied to the large wooden post in the midst of a huge fire, which climbed her skirts, and a look of absolute amusement on her face. "This... is Wendelin the Weird," he announced. "A witch who lived during some of the most horrific times of our past - the Middle Ages. The wizarding community under attack, the muggles would murder our kind if they suspected us, brutally, by setting us on fire. An unfortunate number of witches and wizards were actually killed by such attacks - being rendered wandless, there wasn't much defense to be made... The so called trials that the muggles held were pointless, biased, and utterly ridiculous. Many muggles were killed in the process of trying to prove they were not witches and wizards so that even being accused of witchcraft was essentially a death penalty itself..."