Invisible: the Prisoner of Azkaban

"I don't have many happy memories."

_______________

The rest of the school returns shortly after New Year, and the Slytherin common room becomes crowded and noisy again.

Draco is now much more relaxed since his father isn't breathing down his neck about the summer training, Crabbe and Goyle haven't changed at all, and Daphne is excited but also a bit tired because her little sister had been sick throughout all holidays.

Lily doesn't get a chance to speak with Blaise, but he raises his right wrist (which has her black and green bracelet on it) when he spots her across the room and she lifts her left wrist with a smile and a blush on her face.

Content, she retreats to her dormitory, only to stop midway as she remembers that Pansy and her friends, unfortunately, didn't die during the holidays like she'd hoped.

She grunts and continues forward, wanting to get started on her new books. Upon entering, however, she notices the absence of other trunks. Lily looks back in the direction of the common room. Pansy was there...right? So why aren't her things here?

She turns around and walks back to the corridor, spotting Pansy entering a room a few doors down.

"Pansy?" Lily asks, curiosity getting the better of her once again.

Pansy groans, rolling her eyes, then continues tugging her trunk inside the room. Lily grabs the other side and lifts, and they heave the trunk onto her bed. Pansy wipes her forehead and glares at Lily, but her eyes aren't as hateful. They even look apologetic.

"What do you want, Potter?"

"I noticed your stuff was gone. Got curious as to why."

Pansy shrugs, sitting down on her new bed. Her friends enter shortly after, all welcoming Lily with death glares.

"Snape told us he's switched us with someone else. I hope your new roommates are even worse to you than we were."

"But there's - never mind."

Lily goes back to her room, a wide grin spreading across her face. Professor Snape placed Pansy and her friends in a different room and told them someone would be moving in here. But Lily has a feeling nobody's going to move into her room ever again.

"Thank you, Professor Snape."

_______________

Lessons start again the next day. The last thing anyone feels like doing is spending two hours on the grounds on a raw January morning, but Hagrid has provided a bonfire full of salamanders for their enjoyment, and they spend an unusually good lesson collecting dry wood and leaves to keep the fire blazing, while the flame-loving lizards scamper up and down the crumbling, white-hot logs.

The first Divination lesson of the new term is much less fun; Professor Trelawney is now teaching them palmistry, and she loses no time in informing Lily that she has the shortest life-lines she has ever seen.

It's Defence Against the Dark Arts that Lily is keen to get to; after their conversation before the holidays, she and Harry want to get started on the Anti-Dementor lessons as soon as possible.

"Ah yes," Professor Lupin says, when they remind him of his promise at the end of class.

"Let me see... How about eight o'clock on Thursday evening? The History of Magic classroom should be large enough... I'll have to think carefully about how we're going to do this... We can't bring a real Dementor into the castle to practise on..."