The Potioneers of Damocles ✓ | JILY

Chapter Ten

"Remember not to overthink it," Sirius reminded Lily as she lurked at the entrance of the Great Hall, James and Sirius behind her like cloying bodyguards. Rather than spring her new personality on the entire group, they'd suggested that to make it easier for her, she should ease into it one at a time. Although part of her wanted to rush into it as time was running out and the stress was rising, they insisted that taking on too much was a rookie mistake for any schemer.

"Just be yourself ... oh, wait," James gave a laugh, "See what I did there?"

"Funny," She murmured, examining herself in one of the windows, "Oh Merlin, I have dark circles under my eyes."

"It's fine, Benjy Fenwick won't care about that," Sirius replied, "I mean, Caradoc might but I get the feeling he's into perfection."

"Not helpful, Sirius," She murmured, glancing around him to speak directly to James, "Why did you bring him?"

James shrugged, "He said he wanted to help!"

"Well, he's not," She huffed.

At this, Sirius pouted indignantly, "Hey! I told you to not overthink it, that was helpful!"

"Just don't think about your dark circles," James told her, giving her an awkward pat on the back, "And they're not even that bad, I mean I only see them now that you pointed them out, if you hadn't, I would never have known."

"Great," She murmured, taking a deep breath before confidently strutting into the Great Hall before remembering that her new persona was light and floaty and quickly swapping the strut for something more ethereal. Benjy didn't look up as she sat down, continuing to move his cereal around the bowl with his spoon.

"Hi, Benjy," She said, after overcoming the initial wave of nerves. Glancing to the side, she noticed James and Sirius eagerly giving her up a thumbs up and hastily gave them a smile, all of that occurring in the time it took Benjy to look up from his bowl, "Hi Benjy - "

"I heard you, I heard you," Benjy repeated, "What ... hey, aren't you the girl who talked to me whilst she was looking for Slughorn?"

"Yes," She replied, "That was me and I thought I'd come back to say ... hello."

Benjy looked down at his plate and then back up again, "Hello?"

"Yep, hello," She replied, trying to figure out a way to save the dying conversation. This had to go right, everything was failing so far and the more panicked she got, the worse it seemed to go ... annoyingly, just as the boys had said.

"So ... um I was thinking about our conversation about how the Potioneers of Damocles is about balance, everyone bringing something new to the table ... " She started confidently but slowly her face dropped as Benjy looked more and more confused, "That was with you, right?"

"No ..."

She suddenly realised with a start that she'd had that conversation with Caradoc and desperately began to think back to what she and Benjy talked about. All she remembered was sitting on a desk whilst he organised stuff and a lot of bitching about Caradoc. Sadly, if Benjy had been bitching, then that meant the group already had that which meant she had to be a picture of chill virtue.

"It must have been with Caradoc - "

"Urgh, Caradoc," Benjy cut in, glancing around for the others at the mention of his name.

This was perfect and Lily quickly interrupted with, "You're wrong."

She quickly realised her mistake as Benjy's eyes narrowed, "You seemed annoyed by him too before..."