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To Alice


Peter’s fear that the classwork might be harder in second year than it had been before was certainly sound. The lessons were much more complicated and the homework doubled. Peter fretted all over the place, shutting himself up in the boys’ dorms to study long before the other boys went to bed that first night. In Herbology, they were given a term-long assignment for caring for mandrakes, which were the strangest plants any of them had ever seen in all their lives. They were gnarly little things that screamed when pulled from the earth, whose cries could make the hearer go unconcious. Peter ended up knocked out for half the class when he dropped his mandrake and the earmuffs fell off as he bent to pick it up from the floor of the greenhouse. Then in Potions on Wednesday, he spilled his project all down the front of himself and the concoction hissed and sparked loudly as Professor Slughorn hastened to pull him off to Madam Pomfrey’s. Add to it his black eye from a swinging telescope in Astronomy, the fact he forgot his wand in the second Charms class of the term, and that he was bit by his mandrake in the second Herbology on Friday… It was a very, unusually horrible first week of term for Peter.

“I’m doomed,” he moaned from his bed on Friday night, after all the classes were mercifully over and he was safely in his pyjamas.

The others were working on an essay for Slughorn, huddled over Remus’s desk as he wrote, making notes for good things to say by what Remus had done. James, who was sitting on Remus’s desk beside the essay and had his own parchment on his knee, didn’t even look up, “You aren’t doomed.”

“I am,” Peter said heavily, “I am doomed, I’m going to fail every class this year and Dumbledore’s going to expel me for being such a terrible student.”

Sirius jotted down a note about Mertlap’s healing qualities and said, “I don’t think they can expel people for being bad at classes… You just might have to take the year over again.” He pointed at one of the sentences Remus was writing with his quill tip. “What’s that word there?”

“Sod off,” Remus replied.

“Sod off?” Sirius said, squinting, “But that doesn’t make sense… Mertlap’s most important quality is sod off?”

Remus looked up, “You do realize your textbook is an excellent place from which to get this information, yeah?” He asked, glancing between James and Sirius. “It’s got loads of details and facts about Mertlap.”

Sirius stared at Remus.

“You do know how to use it, right?” Remus continued sarcastically, “You lift the lid, see, and there’s words in there. You wouldn’t believe it, mate, but if you read them, they tell you things. And, if you go to the section on Mertlap - get this - it’ll tell you what the most important quality is.”

Sirius grinned, “But, Remus, what fun is that? A textbook definition of Mertlap and it’s qualities would hardly be as spiffing as you telling us. You tell it so good. Look at that sentence structure!” He waved his palm at the parchment.

“Yeah,” said James, chiming in, “The way you describe it is scintillating.”

Remus looked down at his paper, which was far from scintillating, and rolled his eyes, “If we get caught cheating because you copied off my paper I’m not defending either of you,” he warned.

“Knocker,” replied Sirius. “Now what’s that word?”

Remus sighed, “It’s plasma. The plasma is the liquid the Mertlap produces when you cut off one of it’s vines. When diluted, the plasma can be used to heal cuts, burns, and other skin-level wounds until they can be properly seen by a medical witch or wizard.”

“Plasma…” Sirius bit his tongue as he wrote it on his parchment, paused and asked, “How do you spell that?”

“Bloody hell,” muttered Remus.

James said, “Don’t get irritated with us, mate, we can’t help it if your handwriting’s awful. You should work on that if you don’t want us asking you questions.”

Remus was about to point out once again that they were copying off his work when the dorm room door burst open and a first year was there, breathless. “You lot have got to come downstairs. Quickly.” Then he turned and ran off.

The three of them exchanged worried looks. “What now,” moaned Peter, as they all jumped up and rushed down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room.

The radio crackled and popped from the table, which everyone in the common room surrounded. As they came down the stairs, Remus was suddenly nearly flattened by the force of Lily Evans slamming into him at full speed, wrapping her arms around him and pushing her face into his shoulder. She was shaking, and he was accosted by the full effect of the smell of her hair in his nose and the tightness of which she hugged him. James stared at them with surprise. “What’s going on?” Sirius asked, walking to where the others were all huddled.

Alex Tinnamin looked up, “There’s been another attack,” he said quietly. “The Death Eaters attacked the Bells’ funeral.”

Peter’s eyes widened, “They attached a funeral?” He gasped.

“They had a muggle funeral,” said Alex, “Because that’s what the Bells requested, so their muggle friends could attend, they had loads of muggle friends, see. Well the Death Eaters didn’t like that even if their death the Bells were defying the new order the Dark Lord’s trying to bring in and they attacked it.”

“Blimey,” whispered James. “Is everyone alright?”

“Dunno,” Alex answered. “We’ve only heard what the radio tells us. Somebody says they heard Derek when it first started, though, so we reckon he’s alive.”

Remus tentatively put his hands on Lily’s back. He could feel her spine and his skin prickled, the hairs on his forearm standing to attention. He could barely breathe, whether for how tight she was hugging him or for the twist of his stomach at the idea of her being so close, he wasn’t sure. “Are you alright?” He asked gently.

Lily shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” Remus offered, unsure what else to say.

“They don’t deserve this, they’re good people,” sobbed Lily.

“Yeah,” Remus agreed lamely.

Lily’s voice was thick and crackly, “You didn’t deserve it, either. Nobody deserves it. Why’s the Dark Lord got to be so evil?”

Remus swallowed nervously, “Well, that’s what Dark Lords do, isn’t it?” Out of the corner of his eyes, Remus spotted the look on James’s face as he watched the way Lily clung to his friend and Remus’s stomach turned for an entirely different reason.

The Gryffindors sat up half the night, surrounding the radio. Some of the younger students, the ones who didn’t know Alice and Derek as well as the others, fell asleep sprawled about the room, hung over various pieces of furniture. Bilius was sitting in the chair at the table, bleary eyed, all night without even so much as moving or speaking. Lily clutched Remus’s hand as they sat on the floor near the fire. James and Sirius had taken up a game of wizard chess while they waited, and Peter kept dozing off, waking up with little snorting sounds every so often.

Remus was staring at Lily’s fingers twined through his, at the shiny pink nails at the ends of her fingers. He swallowed back his nervousness. He could tell she was very nervous, too, and he wanted to make her feel better but he wasn’t sure how to, so he just held her hand and tried not to think about the sidelong glances that James kept aiming his direction.

It was morning before there was any news, the sun was coming in through the high windows and everyone had fallen asleep where they’d been, listening to the staticy silence of the radio, waiting to hear more. Bilius had even nodded off, his chin smooshed against his chest as he tipped ever so precariously forward… Suddenly, the radio cracked to life, and Bilius sat up, grabbing for the dial and turning it up. Lily stirred at the sound of the volume of the voice coming out the speakers , waking Remus up as well. Sirius kicked James beneath the chess table and they all turned to stare at the radio.

“An update’s just come ‘cross our desk here, from the Muggle Attack last night. We have confirmed that at least four muggles and one witch was killed in the attacks - the muggles are as of yet unidentified, though the minister for magic is working tirelessly to get positive identification. The witch, Alice Bell, the daughter of the late Leonard and Stella Bell, was killed on site. Witnesses of the attack say that several unidentified followers of the Dark Lord arrived at the funeral wearing dark masks that obscured their faces…”

Nothing else that was said seemed to matter or even to make sense.

Lily stared, dumbfounded, at the little brown radio, at the fabric-covered speakers as the words the news wizard was saying continued to come, though they blurred together and seemed not to be distinct noises in her ears anymore. In fact, there was a teensy little ringing that seemed to take over every possible sound that she could hear. Every cell in her body felt iced. Alice Bell, dead? They had to be wrong. The information was false or else they were just making it up altogether. There was no way that Alice - her best friend in Gryffindor, the smiling lovely girl who had befriended her before anyone else had - was dead. Lily refused to believe it.

Shaking, she stood up, wanting to run from the room and get as far away from that radio as she could, but the moment she took a step she fell, and with a shoosh of her brain she found herself laying across Remus’s lap, entirely unsure how she’d ended up there. She stared up at him and he was moving his mouth, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying - only that dratted ringing in her ears - and she felt a funny sort of numb all over. Bilius and James and Sirius and Peter and Frank were all staring down at her, though, and she realized that she must’ve fainted.

Bilius pulled her up to her feet and Remus squeezed her hand and she saw Ali Prewitt staring up at her, quite concerned. Then suddenly Bilius had lifted her up so that she laid across his arms and carried her up to her dorm room. It was all quite a blur, a mess of color and shapes she couldn’t quite make out and then she was mercifully in her bed, the blankets tucked up ‘round her.

She didn’t even realize she’d been crying until next morning, when she woke up and felt the dried tracks on her face where the tears had streaked across her cheeks. She lay in the early morning sunlight, staring at the way the dust motes danced in the rays, feeling a strange sort of numb disbelief. Lily could not wrap her head around the idea that Alice Bell was dead. Surely Alice would come bounding into the room at any moment, smiling and laughing and telling Lily that everything was alright and that she would be cheering her on at Quidditch come the start of the season. Lily felt the tears threaten her eyes again as she rolled onto her back, pushing away the thoughts of how sincerely Alice had sounded when she’d called Lily her best friend that last morning before Professor McGonagall had come to collect the Bells, before Voldemort had struck.

Lily lay in the pale light, running names through her mind. Hope Lupin. Leonardo Bell. Stella Bell. Four unidentified muggles. Alice Bell. They ran over and over, like a marquee. She hugged the blankets closer, loathing Lord Voldemort as completely as she ever could.




That night, in the Great Hall, Dumbledore stood up and waved his hands to silence the students of Hogwarts before they started to eat. There wasn’t a place you could go in the castle without hearing Alice’s name being whispered, low and reverently. Lily had felt sick all day and even thought of skipping dinner, but Alex Tinnamin had persisted in both of she and Bilius coming down to eat. Bilius looked just as pale as Lily and Frank Longbottom stared gloomily down at the wood grain of the table, his eyes red and unfocused. Now, they all looked up at Dumbledore as he waited for the last of the students to quiet.

“I am sure many, if not all, of you have heard the tragic news that we have lost one of our own today,” Dumbledore said, “A third year Gryffindor by the name of Alice Bell was killed by followers of the Dark Lord.” He leaned against the little podium, his eyes glistening behind the half moon glasses. “Alice Bell did nothing to offend any of these men and women, who call themselves Death Eaters. Alice Bell was a kindred spirit, with a beautiful heart, and a good word for every person she met.

“The reason the Death Eaters killed her was purely political and meaningless. It is this hatred of kindness, this cruelty against goodness that is why the Dark Lord must be stopped. His radical, dangerous beliefs and actions are causing his followers to act in irrational ways, killing little girls attending their parents funerals. It’s not right, it’s not fair, and it cannot be tolerated.

“I know that you are but children yourselves, but you are the generation that shall rise up from the current one’s ashes - you are the ones who will defeat Voldemort. You are the ones who can grow up with tolerance and decency. Blood, no matter how pure or impure it may be, is too precious to spill!” He slammed his fist onto the podium, making several students jump. “We cannot let Voldemort win. We just cannot.”

Dumbledore took a deep breath and clutched the sides of the podium and Lily spotted a silver tear streak across his face, from those brilliant blue eyes and into the whiskers that framed his face and he stared up at the candles floating above them, at the enchanted ceiling where the stars above Hogwarts reflected brilliantly bright. He paused a moment, and then turned and took the goblet from his place at the dinner table, turning back to the students… Dumbledore waved his arm in a sweeping arch and all across the hall, goblets appeared at the tables before them. He raised his goblet to the air and students all over lifted theirs as well.

Sirius stood on his bench, and James followed suit. Soon most of the Gryffindors were standing, Frank Longbottom’s hand shook has he lifted his high above his head. Peter nearly spilled his, but caught it at just the last moment. Remus felt Lily grab hold on his hand and he glanced at the pale white of her knuckles as she squeezed tight and then back to Dumbledore.

The only students not in tears by now was the Slytherins, who were only half heartedly raising their goblets, and some - like Narcissa Black - hadn’t touched theirs at all. A lump rose up in Severus Snape’s throat, unsure whose example to follow. He looked over and saw Lily’s face through the crowd as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut in sincere emotional agony. He started to reach for his goblet, but a glare from Narcissa stopped him.

“She was muggle loving filth,” whispered Narcissa, “Have some self respect, Severus.”

He withdrew his hand from the silver goblet.

Dumbledore looked out over the hall, at the raised glasses and he said, “To Alice Bell, the first of this generation whose life has been lost to the cause of defiance against the Dark Lord.”

“To Alice!” Shouted Bilius, his voice echoing off the walls of the Great Hall.

“To Alice,” murmured the majority of the Hogwarts student body.

“To Alice,” said Dumbledore, and he drained the goblet.