She had won twenty points for Gryffindor in the Anatomy essay they had been assigned on the subject of pentacorn endangerment, which had several thousand facts about them that could not be found in the books. Professor Maar was very pleased.
The Transfiguration exam was by far the hardest for most. Transfiguring a painting of a miracle (the picture was of three men fitting into a boat that would hardly have held a dog before capsizing) into a hand-painted lampshade was something they hadn't had much practice with (points were added according to how pretty the lampshade was and extra bonus points were given if it had a stand, but taken away if the lampshade was disfigured; Sirius tried that. He had Transfigured his miracle very nicely, into a hand-painted lampshade, but it was slashed and disfigured and dusty. It did him no good to complain that it was a lampshade.), and, accordingly, it was difficult. However, the hardest exam for Lily was the Divination one, where she had to pretend to be seeing the future in a pack of cards. It was hard enough, breathing in that room, but when one has to think up convincing stories, the mind shuts down because of the strain. Lily had had to find a way around that.
She did, too. Professor Trelawney never noticed that Lily was seeing odd patterns in the hanging beads that covered the doorway to her office, like birds, three sun-things, and an ax. She was also ignorant of the fact that Lily had no yellow canary with blue feathers (a bit of a contradiction). So when Lily told her teacher that someone would chop off her canary's head with an ax in three days, Professor Trelawney was surprised and pleased. Lily was rather amused.
That exam over, they only had two others left: History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts. History of Magic was held in a different classroom; James and Sirius having tried to cancel the exams by dropping a large crate of Dungbombs next to Professor Binns' chair before he entered. It failed, though; as Professor McGonagall pointed out, there were several hundreds of empty classrooms in Hogwarts and the existence of detentions. And Professor Binns liked to go to sleep early after making his notes for the next day's lesson, so he had no intention of giving the whole class detention (no one told him who did it), or, indeed, of thinking up different detentions for each person in the class. James looked as if he wanted to strangle Professor McGonagall when she pointed that out. However, Sirius mentioned that she would probably fight back and probably win, so James dropped that.
They had to sit through hour after hour of writing down names and dates and sites of famous battles and Lily was wondering, when she was through, what kind of drugs the mothers of goblins must have been on to name their children 'Urg the Unclean' and other interesting names of that sort. It was a great relief when lunch came around and they could leave the classroom that hadn't been dusted in years, it seemed. Professor Binns appeared to be used to dust, and he was wondering at the sneezing fits people got frequently. He evidently thought that the remedy for that was rapping his knuckles on his desk asking for silence, but he also evidently thought wrong.
Lunch had never tasted so good. And the Great Hall had never seemed so dust-free. Everyone that had just come out of that classroom was either, a), ticked at Sirius and James, b), dusting themselves viciously all over while yawning violently, or c), all of the above. Lily was a tiny bit of a) and quite a bit of b), though she was the only one that wasn't quite a bit of a).
Defense Against the Dark Arts was fun, for a change. Professor Vouladka had rounded up a boggart and three Red Caps; also a few grindylows and two creatures no one had ever seen before. They seemed to be a cross between a scaly sort of water creature and a baby dragon, but they had the most annoying spell-repelling shells anyone had ever seen. Lily managed to hit Abigail in the eye with a Shrinking Spell when she ducked out of the way of the bluish-green blast issuing back at her. Abigail wasn't too happy when she found that she had a pea-sized eyeball rolling around in a rather large socket, and she continued to be miffed all through lunch. Finally, after the hundred thirty-second "I'm sorry" from Lily (James had counted), Lily gave up and left Abigail by herself to sulk while she went outside with Eva to lie on the grass, counting stars. Eva got one thousand two hundred thirty-three; Lily got one thousand fifteen hundred eighty-six and a half. Which, as Eva pointed out, was a bit unrealistic, but Lily didn't care. Half of a star was just as good a unit as a whole star, and that thing that was white but didn't twinkle up there near the North Tower didn't deserve to be counted as a whole star. Stars twinkled, Lily said, firmly, and if you didn't twinkle you had no right to call yourself a star.
The next week was Heaven. Or Hell, if you counted the blazing heat the sun seemed to have fun giving off. But there were no lessons, no homework, no detentions (if you were lucky, which Peter wasn't; he had the odd gift of ticking off Professor McGonagall by doing absolutely nothing at all), and the only thing you had to worry about was how to avoid three vicious fourth years with all the time in the world on their hands. Though Lily didn't have to worry about that. She had already started on her summer work, and she lashed out viciously at anyone who dared to disturb her. The scars on Peter's arm were evidence of that.
By the time that there was only a day of time spent at Hogwarts left (you couldn't really call it school, since the only thing one learned was how to evacuate quickly if Dungbombs were dropped), Lily had finished all of her summer work and had turned it in to her teachers. She had to assure her friends and acquaintances frequently that she was not going for an extended stay at St. Mungo's, but she had the odd feeling they didn't believe her.
It was a blazing day outside; blazing hot rays of sunshine, that is. Every single student was outside on the lawns, preferably under a tree and close to the lake. Serena was a bit envied by several of the girls; about five boys had jumped up, giving her their seats. But Lily and Amanda, who were the ones left sitting on the grass with no sort of protection over them, got a bit fed up with the heat, threw off the annoying black robes, rolled up their pants legs and shirt sleeves, removed their socks and shoes, and jumped right into the lake, ignoring the threat of a month's detention for everyone if one student jumped in the lake.
It was refreshingly cool; and within a few minutes of splashing each other and tripping over rocks in the lake floor, they were completely soaked. The grounds, which a minute before had been filled with groans and noises of parchment being made into fans, were within instants teeming with splashing noises and small yelps and giggles and laughter. Also sparks and other things of the sort. Severus and his friends were cursing and jinxing everything in sight; in fact, Lily wasn't sure that he didn't use the Imperious Curse on Peter, making him jump in and out of the water, squealing like a pig before the slaughter, besides turning odd-looking somersaults in the air. It was rather amusing to look at, and, since everyone had been laughing at him, Peter didn't have the nerve to go and tell a teacher.
Serena, Sheila, and Co. were the only ones left sitting on the grounds. They had no intention of getting their hair wet with that lake water, which no doubt held all of the refuse from all the toilets in Hogwarts. Besides, they might get wet. But, after a few minutes, of sitting down and avoiding droplets of water sprinkling the air, Diana threw up her hands and joined the crowd. Serena gasped affectedly when Miranda tripped her and she went flying, face-first, into a sort of hole in the lake bottom, but she sniffed and turned away when Diana came up spluttering with choked giggles. Lily was quite happy to see Diana break out of Serena's group; she really was a bit too shallow for comfort while she was in that clique. But when the real Diana surfaced, she was a quite agreeable person that laughed easily.
They had to get out of the lake before a teacher saw them, but even so, they came close to being caught when Professor Zimmermann saw them rushing for the showers, dripping wet. They didn't know if she was taken in by Lily's "Potter and Sirius have discovered giant water balloons," but, then again, she was a rather clueless person, even though she was a teacher. When they finally got back into their respective common rooms, the carpets were soaked with residue of shampoo and cold water, and the bathrooms were completely empty of towels; every girl had one around her head.
They were all rather exhausted from laughing and swimming and dunking each other, so the only energy they had left was spent in wondering if Dumbledore had heard of such a thing as air conditioning, trying to see if a powdery instant coffee creamer was flammable (it was) and whether or not the Exploding Snap cards would still explode if they were wet (they didn't). It had been the nicest day anyone had ever had in a long time.
All too soon, it was time for them to go to bed, and all too soon it was time for them to leave the school so as to catch the Hogwarts Express back home. Eva, Lily, Vanessa, Amanda, and Diana got a compartment together, near the back of the train. They amused themselves for the last few hours of their legal magic use by adding multicolored, curly, boingy, furry tails to whoever poked his or her head inside the compartment; all except the witch with the cart. When they got off of the train, Peter had one with sprouty little leaf things on it (it was Amanda's first try), Remus three, Sirius six and a half (Vanessa had messed up her spell), James seven, Serena one, Severus and Lucius four each, and Bertha Jorkins fourteen. Ever since she had gotten the idea into her head that James dumped Serena because of a certain red-head, she had taken to following Lily wherever she went, and they had caught her listening outside their compartment door numerous times. It was a great load of fun to see the odd stares she got when she stepped through the barrier to the Muggle world.
Mr. Evans and Petunia met Lily when she stepped through the barrier, pushing the usual heavy trolley in front of her. She was welcomed back with breath-murdering hugs, and, when they got outside King's Cross, blinking in the sunlight, Lily discerned the outlines of a new car that her father was loading the trunk into. A sort of a champagne color, it gleamed brightly. Petunia was swelling with pride as she saw the look on Lily's face.
"I picked it out. Don't you like it?"
"I do. I do." Lily was making a violent 'yes' with her head, almost blinding herself with the whip-like strands of hair that were lashing the air.
It was rather quiet to drive in; not as loud and squeaky as their other car had been, and it didn't break down quite so much whenever they had to stop suddenly. All in all, it was a rather nice car, and Lily had to admit that Petunia had nice taste, in cars, at least.
