Setting the Forbidden Forest Ablaze
Sirius immediately took Lupin, with Peter close behind. As Lily raced along, she kept firing Incendio and Diffindo behind them to clear a path. She silently prayed that the professors would never find out they had set the Forbidden Forest on fire. Otherwise, each of them was bound to lose a hundred points and get a semester of detention.
With adrenaline surging through her, Lily had an exceptionally clear sense of direction. She kept casting flames and attack spells to clear the way, finally leading the four boys across the edge of the Forbidden Forest. A great expanse of fire was already blazing among the trees behind them.
"Come on, the professors must have noticed something's happening in the Forbidden Forest." Lily raised her hand and cast the Disillusionment Charm on all five of them at once. Without stopping to worry about James having an Invisibility Cloak, she hurried away first. The five split up and took different routes back to Gryffindor Tower.
Less than five minutes after they left, Dumbledore arrived at the burning area with Professor McGonagall in tow.
"Heavens, who set fire to the Forbidden Forest? Could the Death Eaters be attacking?" The Death Eaters had been causing trouble frequently of late, and McGonagall immediately thought of dark wizards making trouble.
"I don't think so, Minerva. Look at the footprints on the ground." Dumbledore bent down to examine the shallow, jumbled footprints. He could tell at a glance that they had been left by underage students.
"Which house's students would dare sneak into the Forbidden Forest and set it on fire in the middle of the night?" A bad feeling rose in McGonagall's heart. Such impulsive behavior looked like Gryffindor's style however she considered it.
"Finite Incantatem." Dumbledore raised his hand and cast Finite Incantatem, extinguishing every flame raging through the forest.
"I'll ask Rubeus tomorrow and see if he's found any clues. Let's head back for now." Dumbledore gazed into the dark depths of the Forbidden Forest, with no intention of pursuing the investigation further that night.
Lily had been on edge all night, terrified that their trip into the Forbidden Forest and the fire they had started would be discovered. If Gryffindor lost five hundred points, even winning the Quidditch Cup would never make up such a huge difference. Early the next morning, she sat listlessly at a table in the Great Hall, with dark circles under her eyes.
"Didn't you sleep well last night?" Petunia sat down opposite Lily with Hestia and Emmeline. Lily held her Pumpkin Juice listlessly and made up an excuse on the spot. "I probably stayed up too late chatting with Mary and the others. I was too excited to sleep."
"Don't stay up so late again. If you need to catch up on sleep, you can sneak in a little rest during History of Magic this afternoon. Professor Binns never pays any attention to students dozing off." Petunia spoke as though it were perfectly natural, not thinking for a moment that sleeping in class was out of line.
Meanwhile, the four Marauders entered the Great Hall at eight thirty, an unprecedented occurrence. After escaping back to their dormitory the night before, they had initially been shaken by their brush with death. Before long, though, James had drawn the other three into reliving the thrill of entering the Forbidden Forest and facing the Acromantulas over and over.
"That was so cool. It was definitely our most successful adventure yet." James sprawled on a sofa in the common room, clutching a glass of orange juice and clinking it against Sirius's. "To us, the Marauders who went from being spiders' dinner to escaping the jaws of death."
Lupin and Peter were still badly shaken. They really had nearly died. "Evans's spells were incredible. Did you notice? She cast more than a dozen Incendios in a row." Sensing something was off, Lupin quietly raised the question. "I think she did, and she used several Diffindos in a row too." Peter took a deep breath, trying to settle his lingering fear. With extraordinary casualness, Sirius put his own question to James. "What do you think, James? Don't tell me love's already gone to your head so badly that you can't see there's something unusual about her. You're a Pure-blood. You should know how much magic an eleven-year-old wizard normally has."
James's eyes lit up, and he grew even more excited. "That means she's an unparalleled genius! By Merlin, I have to win her over!"
He was beyond help, utterly beyond help. Ever since Halloween, his brother's head hadn't been right. He often imagined marrying Lily Evans and having a son with her. "All right, good luck with that."
"If that Snivellus weren't pestering Lily and sticking to her every day, I'd have won her over long ago." James clenched his fist and punched the air, thoroughly irritated. "It's all Snape's fault!" He thought James was talking complete nonsense. After all, anyone could see that Evans clearly favored that Slytherin Snivellus.
The four strode into the Great Hall with great swagger, and James spotted that brilliant head of red hair at once. For once, he hadn't deliberately tousled his hair to look cool today. He hurried over. "Hi, Lily. Good morning."
"Thanks to you, I slept very well." Lily gave him a cool glare, grabbed her textbooks, and pulled Dorcas toward the Transfiguration classroom, not bothering to talk to him. "Hey, mate, did Evans turn you down again?" A Hufflepuff student passing by saw what had happened and gave James an encouraging gesture, then turned to whisper to a companion, "Potter really doesn't give up. With that kind of persistence, he could succeed at anything."
After Transfiguration, James hurried over to block Lily's path and invite her along. "Want to explore the castle with us? The four of us can take you along."
"Thank you, but I still need to work on a new Potions formula." Lily politely declined. She went around the four Marauders and headed for the dungeons. She had arranged to study advanced Potions with Snape. "She's obviously going to study Potions with Snivellus. Aren't you going to stop her? Or just intercept her?"
Sirius looked disgustedly in the direction of the dungeons. He had fought with his family hundreds of times over the holidays, and next time he definitely wouldn't go home for the holidays again. "Lily doesn't like me doing that, but we can wait until he's alone and teach him a lesson." There was no way he would give up making trouble for Snivellus. The sight of his face made him feel physically sick.
In her gold-and-red Gryffindor robes, Lily stood out in the sea of green Slytherin uniforms in the dungeons. She knew such conspicuous clothes would bring Snape more criticism, so she simply went ahead alone to the abandoned, empty classroom where they had agreed to meet. On the way, several Slytherin students stared hard at her with hostile expressions, but Lily ignored them all.
"We're just going to let her go? A Mudblood actually dares look down on us Pure-bloods." Avery rubbed his wand with his fingertips. Ever since Gryffindor defeated Slytherin in the first Quidditch match, everything about Lily had rubbed him the wrong way. She usually spent her time either in the library or in the Gryffindor Common Room, and he had never found a chance to make his move.
Mulciber gave Wilkes a look, and the three quietly followed Lily, intending to strike once no one else was around. "Heh, the famous Gryffindor genius Seeker. After today, she can forget about ever flying onto the pitch on a broom again." Wilkes stared menacingly at Lily's retreating figure as she turned into the abandoned classroom and gave a low, cold laugh. "She's asking for death."
When they saw Lily walk into the deserted classroom of her own accord, the three immediately pushed through the door and, without another word, fired curses straight at her. "Furnunculus!" "Serpensortia!" "Locomotor Mortis!"