Of Modifiers and Mortification
Tuesday September 7th, 1976
Lily neatly penned “I must not be atrociously late because I got into a verbal brawl with a pureblooded bigot” at the top of her parchment, pausing to dip her quill in her brand new ink pot.
Well. There’s one. Only one hundred and ninety nine more to go.
She sat, bored, in a classroom, penning useless lines from unimportant reasons. Nope, it wasn't History of Magic.
She sucked the end of her quill into her mouth, her red hair shading her face and green eyes nearly glazed.
Wasn’t detention about scrubbing bedpans or something useful like that? Potter had never talked about something as horribly boring as lines. Then again, you couldn’t trust half the stuff that came out of that boy’s mouth. But still. Lines? Because she was late to Defense?
And she had been so proud that she had had five years of schooling and zero detentions. All ruined in the course of one month.
It was for a good cause, she told herself grimly. You can wash away your perfect, pristine, immaculate, spotless, flawless record for a good cause. Troll defense. The protection of muggle born sleeping rights. Good causes.
So she was all alone in the empty classroom, staring at her ink pot as Argus Filch leered at her. Ah, the joys of detention. She could absolutely, positively, definitely, certainly understand why Potter and Black spent half their lives in here.
“I must not be horrendously late because I defended my sleeping rights from a vicious Slytherin with a Jekyll-Hyde personality.”
Two.
Besides, detention was for people who deserved it. People who broke important rules regularly. People who disrupted class and other people’s private thinking time. Like Potter. Or Black. Or pretty much the whole Slytherin house. She was innocent. Well, at she should be excused. She was defending her rights! Preventing herself from becoming a doormat! Fighting back against muggle-born injustice and anti-sleep policies! Fighting a seventh year witch with a reputation for using horribly nasty curses! Surely that could sort of count as defense?
Lily sighed and rubbed at her writer’s bump.
“I must not protect muggle-born sleeping rights from people afflicted with multiple personality disorder during my Defense Against the Dark Arts period. Of course, I may do so at any other time.”
Three.
197 more to go and her quill tip already broke. At least she still had a well full of adjectives. There was some ink left, too.
Oh, and there wasn't anyone else here to witness her humiliation. That, at least, she was spared. Maybe no one would ever know about her detention and her reputation would remain clean, her prefect status untarnished. Maybe the only people who would ever have to know would be her and Filch. Oh, and the defense professor and class room full of students. But still. Better than nothing.
It would only take one second for her whole year to hate her. One misstep, one false word, one sign that she didn't fit in and Lily Evans would be despised.
Lily knew. It had happened before.
So she was glad that she would have to suffer through the next hour alone, in silence. If there was no one there there would be no one to tell.
The door slipped open and someone stepped through.
Great, now she had company.