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Where We’re Going


“Evans.”

She was concentrating on her Charms book across the aisle from him, her eyes trained on the page. James chewed his lower lip.

“Pssst. Evans.”

Up front of the classroom, Flitwick was going on about the properties of making something go invisible with a charm and how the density of a thing effected just how invisible it could get. James was feeling pretty invisible at the moment. He turned to his parchment and folded it up quickly into a bird. Sirius watched from beside him, eyebrow raised, as James tapped the little paper bird with his wand and set it to flying across the aisle into the side of Lily’s head so that it’s tiny paper beak bounced off her temple.

She looked up.

“Eleven days,” James whispered. He held all ten of his fingers up, then turned his hands and held up one finger… Ten… one… Ten… one… a grin spreading over his face. He winked.

Lily smiled and flushed, looking down at her parchment.

“One cannot make anything truly invisible with this spell… true invisibility is very near to impossible… without the use of invisibility cloaks, many of which are also markedly poor at their purpose… there is very few wizards who have achieved total invisibility…” Flitwick was saying, “Particularly on a human being… Notable exceptions include Sheena the Sheer, and Clay the Clear…”

“Evans.”

She looked up again.

James motioned for her to unravel the bird.

She picked it up and unfolded it carefully. In the center of the parchment, in James’s messy quill, read the words, Where shall I take you on our date?

Lily looked over at him and he raised his eyebrows and mimed for her to write him an answer. She glanced at Flitwick, who was busy telling them about poor Clay the Clear and how he’d once made himself so invisible he was never seen again and why the spell he was teaching them was not intended for human use… Lily turned to the parchment, sliding it over her own notes, and dipped her quill, hesitating, wrote her answer and folded the parchment carefully into a frog, which she charmed to hop and dropped to the floor.

James smirked in amusement as the note jumped it’s way over to him and caught it as easily as he could catch a snitch, his fingers closing ‘round it as he drew it back up to his desktop. Sirius looked over in amusement as James struggled to keep the frog-note from jumping away long enough to tear it open and break the spell. Lily stifled a giggle from across the aisle and covered her mouth. On the other side of her, Peter leaned back to see what was happening as James finally caught the frog once and for all and opened him up, laying the parchment flat across his desk, smoothing it out with his hands.

The Three Broomsticks is fine.

James took up his quill and wrote another note. This time, he folded it into a paper aeroplane and let it glide across the aisle to her.

Alright. Three Broomsticks it is. I’ll buy you lunch there. They have fantastic fish and chips. Maybe Honeydukes after for a soda and some raspberry cauldrons? My treat.

Lily wrote him back - her note a ball which bounced once in the aisle before landing in his hand and falling open. He grinned at the playful nature of the conversation, and looked to see what she’d written.

Sounds fun.

James grinned, wrote something down, charmed the paper to fly over like a bee and let it go… only to have Flitwick’s fist close ‘round it midair.

James looked down at Flitwick’s angry expression. “Hullo professor.”

Flitwick eyed him. “And are we paying attention or just sending notes back and forth?” he asked.

“Oh definitely paying attention, sir, for sure,” James nodded solemnly.

“I should hope so, with your O.W.L.s so close!” Flitwick murmured, and he carried the struggling bee away, shredding it up and putting it in the rubbish bin.




The first years had a free period before lunch on Wednesday, and so it was that Dexter, Liam, and Wally were gathered about in the back of the library, sitting on the floor in one of the aisles, a large book open on Dexter’s lap. A book of the history of the pureblood families. Liam knelt before Dexter, looking at the book upside down. “I found this the other day,” he said, “When we were writing that paper on the founders for Binns’s class…” He flipped through the pages ‘til he got to the M’s and lay the book open, waving his palm at the page.

“Whoaaaa,” whispered Dexter, staring at the page.

The Noble House of Malfoy, read the header of the page and below was a long winded bit about the Malfoy family, followed by a tree that showed how the branches of Malfoys connected to other wizarding families, like the Blacks and the Notts and the Lestranges… and on the facing page…

“That’s it. That’s Malfoy Manor,” said Liam, jabbing his finger at the old wizarding photo in the book, which showed the great wrought iron gates and the sprawling lawn leading up to the mansion’s front door. It was huge, so huge in fact that it wasn’t even entirely able to fit in the picture, but sprawled away on each side of the frame. A stiff looking family of a wizard with long blonde hair and a witch with dark brown hair stood before the house, their hands over the shoulders of a young boy with pale hair. “This book hasn’t been updated in awhile, but that’s the current Malfoys. Abraxas Malfoy, and his son, Lucius, when he was young. Now I asked about and I found out that Lucius graduated here four years ago. Anyway, that is the house, that’s where they have Minchum at.” He rapped his finger against the picture.

“Doesn’t look that formidable,” Wally said, tilting the book. “I mean, these gates. They’re lame. I’ve climbed loads of gates like that. There’s this one old house back home - everyone says it’s haunted - and I used to take dares all the time to go over the gate and have a look. This old groundskeeper guy used to come hobbling ‘cross the yard from his old hut, screamin’ at us to get out of the place. But blimey the big kids would pay you like five quid to go bang on the door and run back before the ghosts could stir. There wasn’t even any ghosts there!”

Liam looked at Wally. “Well it’ll be even easier than all that now that you know how the alohamora charm works!”

Wally grinned. “Imagine all the quid I’ll get this summer from those kids back home!”

“Whoa you’ll be rich,” murmured Dexter, nodding, “You ain’t even afraid of no ghosts no more ‘cos Nearly Headless Nick is a ghost and he’s alright!”

“S’long as it ain’t the Bloody Baron what comes out of that house!” laughed Wally.

“Yeah that would be bad, he’s scary, all those chains.” Dexter shuddered.

Liam said, “But look. We know where we are trying to go now, all we need is a way to get out of the castle and down to Hogsmeade and find an available Floo… it’s a wizarding town, there’s probably loads of houses there that have Floo Network...”

“Floo Network? What’s that?” Dexter asked, confusion on his face.

“A way to get about for travelling wizards. Are you mad? How do you not know the Floo Network?” Liam asked.

“I just dunno it is all,” Dexter answered sheepishly. “Muggle born, remember.”

“Be nice to him, for pity sake, Lee,” said Wally, rolling his eyes.

“My only concern is how we get to Hogsmeade from here without being caught,” Liam continued without even a pause to acknowledge that he’d been nasty to poor Dexter.

Dexter looked about at Wally and Liam, “Well, the Hogsmeade Weekend’s on 24 April,” he said, “Loads of students will be going to Hogsmeade then.”

“Yeah and Filch will be checking every bloody one of them to make sure they’re Third Year and above,” said Liam, shaking his head, “No good. We need another way. Maybe broomsticks? We fly over the Forbidden Forest?”

Dexter looked terrified, “I’m bad at flying…”

Wally was shaking his head, holding up his palm, “Hang on…. Hang on… I feel an idea… yes, an idea is coming…”

Liam and Dexter stared at Wally. “Well? Get on with it then,” said Liam, anxious.

Wally looked about at them. “You lot ever seen Potter’s invisible robes?”

“What?” Dexter asked, “Like the Emperor’s New Clothes?” he shuddered, “Nobody wants to see Potter naked.

“Aside from Vivian and every other girl in the castle,” Liam muttered.

“No, no not like that,” Wally said, “It’s a robe he’s got that makes him and the other Marauders invisible. I’ve seen them use it before when they’ve thought I wasn’t looking. Remus is too tall really so his ankles show all the time!”

Liam raised an eyebrow, “Well good on them for having an invisibility cloak.”

Dexter’s eyes were wide, “They really go invisible?”

“Yeah,” Wally nodded, “And hang on Lee, don’t go getting all snarky. Think about this a moment. The reason we can’t just go along with the other students to Hogsmeade next week is on account of us not being third years, yeah?”

“Right…”

“And if Filch sees us, he’ll stop us going because we’re firsties.”

“Yeah…”

Wally grinned triumphantly. “If. Filch. Sees. Us.”