The Years We Were Alive: Year 1

Immensely Ashamed

May 20, 1972

"We have to do another prank before the end of the year," James spoke with his mouth full.

"Oh yeah, definitely," Lizzie agreed, she too, had her mouth full. The food in the Great Hall was extra delicious that day.

"Will you two chew before you speak, please?" Sirius complained.

"Sorry I don't come from a posh family," Lizzie joked, and Sirius glared at her. He was not having a very good day. When he woke up, he saw that Lizzie's cat had thrown up in his shoes. She cleaned them out for him, but he kept mumbling about how they would never be the same again.

"I was thinking we should do something where Liz here doesn't have to do the heavy lifting," James pointed out, "I mean, you always do the heavy lifting."

"Yeah," she nodded. She thought back to James' birthday with the banner. It must have had some of her charms. Just, why didn't the boys ask her for help? Remus once told Lizzie that it was because they had to prove to Peter that they needed her; Lizzie wasn't sure that was any better. It worked though, they were a disaster until they got Lizzie to help with charms, the hard part was making sure she didn't find out what it was, "I guess so, but I don't mind," she said.

"I think we should do something with transfiguration, like changing their shoes into loaves of bread or something. The Slytherins of course," James smirked. At times Lizzie thought their animosity for the Slytherins was a little bit unprovoked. They weren't all nasty. Snape was just one of them, and his goons were just a few more. There were good Slytherins. Not that Lizzie could name them, but logically there had to be some that weren't obsessed with blood purity.

"Yeah, then I can't help."

"Don't say that! You did well on our group project!"

"Yeah, I turned the tail of a rat into a cup handle, y'all did the rest."

"I will not listen to my best friend Liz talk about herself like that Sonus Silentium," Sirius cast, now he was lost to the world. It was a joke he used from time to time. Now, none of the marauders could hear each other. He cast the charm a little too wide though, Lizzie could see some of the neighboring students confused about why they couldn't hear a thing. She saw James chuckle and mouth 'oops' even though she could hear him.

"Finite Incantatem," Lizzie canceled the charm, "You need to work on your range Black," she rolled her eyes at him.

"Oh, ouch, not even my first name?"

"Nope," Lizzie smiled. That was one of the few spells that she had been able to create that had an incantation. Her charms were usually pretty good, they always had a few quirks, but creating new spells was fun for her, no matter how difficult, "it's not meant to make it so that nobody can hear anything. It's to silence a conversation."

She had made it for when she was having her conversations with the boys. They would open up more to their designated therapist friend if they knew that nobody was listening to their conversation. Lizzie had always tried to assure them as such. She knew that she didn't quite like eavesdroppers either.

"I'll help with the transfiguration prank, but we are not turning their shoes into bread, that's a terrible idea," Lizzie laughed, "absurd."