Lily Black and the Twin Souls (Book Two)

Chapter Fourteen: When in Doubt, Go to the Library

Over the Easter holidays, Lily and Teddy were given something to think about. They had to choose new subjects for their third year. A lot of their classmates had no idea what they wanted to do, Dean Thomas ended up just closing his eyes and jabbing his wand at random wands and choosing them. Lily and Teddy decided to at least put in a bit more effort than that, so they were in Ash's oasis, as they had taken to calling it, poring over the list of new subjects. They had already ruled out Muggle Studies. 

"I am definitely doing Care of Magical Creatures." Lily announced and Teddy nodded, not taking his eyes off the list.

"Yep, me too. I may not be able to tame dragons, but I still love animals. Like Buckbeak." Lily grinned, they both loved that Hippogriff. 

"What other one should we do. I'm not sure about you, but I really don't want to have a schedule as full as Hermione's next year. She picked everything." Teddy snorted,

"I wholeheartedly agree. What about Divination? Seems like an easy pass." Lily nodded and they both marked down the classes for the next year. She wasn't at all excited for Divination, but if it was easy and allowed more time for pranking, she would gladly sit through an hour of the fraud 'predicting'. She had heard that she predicted the death of one student a year, and wondered who it would be to receive such a warm greeting the next year. She smiled contentedly as her thoughts drifted back to pranking.

She loved pranking.

*-*-*

Lily was walking with Teddy back up to the castle, she had just finished Quidditch practice, and he came to every one of them. They were nearly to the portrait hole, when Neville came practically flying over Harry and Ron who were walking just in front of them. Lily exchanged a curious glance with Teddy, and listened as Neville exclaimed,

"Harry-I don't know who did it-I just found-" He broke off, and led them up to the dorm Teddy shared with him, Harry, and a couple other boys in their year. He pushed open the door fearfully to reveal what looked like an explosion had gone off. Harry's belongings were strewn everywhere. It was obvious someone was looking for something. Harry began picking up his books, that lay littered across the floor and picking up a couple other things. He had just finished with the last of Lockgit's books when he obviously realized something. Despite feeling bad, she had to know what happened, and looked into his mind using Legillimancy. Harry had no protective shields whatsoever. 

A moment later, she pulled back and blinked, making Teddy glance at her in question, obviously knowing exactly what she did. 

Someone came in here and tore his stuff apart looking for Tommy's diary. And they found it. She said grimly in his mind. Teddy's blinked and his piercing green eyes swept across the mess once more. Lily pulled out her wand, (Because there were people other than Teddy around,) and flicked it, causing Harry's belongings to return to their normal states. She found it rather unnecessary to use her wand, and rarely did unless around people other than Teddy. She had found that she often didn't even use real spells. She would simply concentrate on what she wanted to happen, and it would. Not for dueling though, although she had made up a couple spells that would work for it. 

The other boys looked at her in surprise and Harry said,

"Oh, hello Lily. Thank for that." She smiled brightly at him in return. They had obviously not noticed her presence until just then.

*-*-*

The next morning was the match against Hufflepuff, and Lily excitedly scarfed down her breakfast, while Teddy laughed at her. For some reason, she ate just as much as usual, if not more on quidditch days. Harry, on the other hand, always barely ate at all. 

She was walking with Harry, Teddy, Ron, and Hermione out of the great hall when she heard the same disembodied voice she had been hearing. She assumed it was the same one Hermione had told her about Harry hearing all those months ago, the one that always came before the attacks. Lily had just been doing her best to ignore the voice, but when she heard it then, she froze at the exact same time as Harry who turned to her wide-eyed.

"Can you hear it?" He asked, staring at her curiously. She nodded,

"Yep. I missed it the first time, because I wasn't here, but I've been hearing it for a while now. Have been doing my best to ignore it." They all stared at her, except for Teddy who already knew, but then again, she told Teddy everything so it wasn't that surprising that he did.

Lily wondered why only she and Harry could hear the voices. What did they have in common that was incredibly rare. Suddenly it hit her. They were both parselmouthes, meaning that the Slytherin monster had to be a snake! It appeared Hermione had figured it out as well, despite not knowing Lily was a parselmouth, based on her facial expression. They exchanged a glace.

"You've realized it too, haven't you?" Hermione asked, staring at her. Lily nodded,

"I have. I would come to the library with you, but I have to get to the match." Her expression softened, "Please be careful." Hermione nodded, and they practically tackled each other in a hug. They hugged for a moment, before Lily stepped away, leaving Hermione to go racing down the corridor to the library. She really hoped she would be alright. 

Lily stared worriedly after the girl's retreating back for a moment, before turning on her heel, and hurrying down to the quidditch pitch with Teddy at her side.

"What did you figure out?" Teddy asked a couple minutes later. Lily looked up at him, not a hint of her usual smirk on her face. She was deadly serious.

"It's a snake. Hermione's going to figure out exactly what kind. It's a snake that's been petrifying the muggle-borns. It's a snake that lives in the Chamber of Secrets." Teddy's jaw dropped,

"How exactly did you figure that out?" He asked weakly. Lily smiled at him,

"Harry and I can both hear the voice. Harry and I are both parselmouthes. Put two and two together. I know you can get it, though I'll bet Ron would get nine." Teddy nodded slowly, obviously lost in thought. After a moment, he smiled at her,

"Wow, you really are smart." Lily flipped her hair,

"Goddess, remember?" She said, referring to something she had said the year before. He laughed and threw his arm around her shoulder.

They reached the pitch, and the game was about to begin, when Minnie came running out onto the pitch, looking frantic. Lily's heart sunk. It got Hermione, she must have found out what it was. Lily immediately flew over to where Teddy was, pulled him onto the back of her broom, ignoring his squeak of terror, and joined Minnie, Harry, and Ron, in walking back up to the castle hurriedly.

Lily was the first one to the hospital wing, and burst through to find her second best friend laying in one of the beds. Lily claimed the chair next to her bed, and reminded herself of her promise to herself never to cry again, holding back her tears.

She waited until everyone other than herself and Teddy were gone, before feeling around Hermione's hands. She found a scrunched up piece of paper held in one of her hands, and after a moment, she had it free. Lily smoothed out the paper and read it through, with Teddy reading over her shoulder. She resisted the urge to smack her head against the bed frame, Why hadn't she thought of this before? It was a basilisk that was petrifying students. Lily pulled out her quill and ink pot, before scrawling, Pipes at the bottom of the page. She re-crumpled it and stuffed it back into Hermione's stiff hand. 

There was nothing she could do at the moment, as she had absolutely no idea how to find the Chamber of Secrets, let alone kill a very old basilisk. So, she and Teddy returned to the common room with Minnie, who then proceeded to inform everyone about the new rules. Lily and Teddy exchanged a gloomy look, knowing they would have to take their pranking and rule-breaking down a notch. Lily also made sure to add a hand mirror to her school bag, just in case.