Lily in the Shadows

Chapter 17

Walking, arms locked together, down the hall Lily and Draco discuss their plans for Christmas. Having stayed the year before Lily enjoyed staying at Hogwarts but planned to return to the Dursleys this year. After the fiasco with Aunt Marge, she was no longer sure what to do anymore.

After explaining this to Draco he is struck with a wonderful idea. "You should come to stay with me this Christmas, my family will be hosting the annual Pureblood Christmas Party this year. It's going to be a lot of fun, almost everyone from Slytherin will be there and we have lots of traditions. The Adults stay mostly together having a lot of dances and wine and we kids go to our separate ballroom. There will be magical Christmas crackers, enchanted cakes, and decorations, pin the wings on the hippogriff, and find the theme-decorated yule log hidden in the manor. It is all great fun!" Draco lights up with excitement for the festivities.

Lily is unsure, that all sounds incredible but she just doesn't know. "I couldn't possibly intrude, I am not a pureblood Draco."

He lets out a scoff, "No one would dare say anything, please." He stops them, giving her his best puppy eyes. She looks at him trying not to give in when she notices that his eyes are not the same color. One is a brilliant grey, which the other appears to mimic, but looking closer she can see that it is nothing more than a pale blue. This distracts her long enough for Draco to link their arms and begin walking once more with a declaration that she can have a few days to think about it but he will be writing to his mother to let her know she is invited.

Letting it go they enter the common room, sitting and beginning their charms homework together, though they are learning different subjects they enjoy their discussions together.

They work through most of it when Blaise and Theodore walk through the room, noses pressed in a book whispering back and forth.

"What are you two whispering about," Draco asks them. The boys jump Theo hiding it behind his back.

"Potions homework," "History book," they simultaneously shout before exchanging looks.

"History book," "Potions homework," they then switch.

Draco gives them a suspicious look, he rolls his eyes and holds out his hand. "Well I happen to be very good at both, let us take a look then."

Blaise groans, grabbing the book he walks and sits between the two on the couch. "Fine! Do you want to know? This is what we were looking at." He shows them the cover of the book, Familiars, What's Familiar and What Isn't By: Newt Scamander, is a book on familiars. What they don't know is why they were hiding it. Theodore joins them, sitting on the floor in front of the couch and flips to the page they were looking at.

With a sigh he explains, "We took it from the restricted section when we saw Mandy Frostgrove go in there. We wanted to just take a look around but she didn't stay long so we just grabbed the first book we saw and ran. We picked a good one too. This page is about turning your Familiar human, even if just for a little while. We were thinking it would be cool to turn some of our pets human for a few hours, just to see if they like us or if they want to kill us. You know, the usual."

They all want to try it, but they aren't sure if it will work and they don't want to risk hurting any of their pets. Theodore says he has a plan but wants them to go ahead and start making the potion. Walking to the guy's dorm they set up Draco's cauldron while Lily gathers all the ingredients for the potion from her room as well as an empty notebook she got over the summer and Claude and Snuffles. Theodore leaves and they begin simmering this and cutting up that. Working all together Lily writes out what they do when and they make slight adjustments to the potion as they go in accordance to their previous potion knowledge.