#transfer au

When she walked into the Great Hall for breakfast, she heard whispering around her. Why was everyone always whispering as she walked by? She didn’t think she was interesting enough to warrant it, especially after three weeks had passed. Well, she supposed it didn’t matter. They should talk to her if they wanted to know more. 

“Hi, Lily,” James greeted as she sat down next to Sirius. She smiled in return, then leaned closer to Sirius.

“What did we do last night?” she whispered, trying to make sure the others didn’t hear.

“From what I can recall, we each got a tattoo on a dare. I think we stole some brooms and went over to Hogsmeade to do it, but I’m not really sure.”

She nodded and sat up straight, putting some jam on toast. 

“What are you two whispering about?” asked Remus.

“How James could use a haircut.” Lily replied quickly.

James looked offended, and ran his hand through his hair. “You just wish you had locks as luscious as mine.”

Lily snorted and took a bite of her toast.

---

Lily found it strange how only the first years seemed comfortable around her. At Ilvermorny, at least, younger students tended to avoid the older students.

She supposed that it must have started the week before, when she heard a young student struggling to figure out what a spell did in the library. She turned the corner of the bookcase and asked if the student needed some help. The student and her friend next to her looked utterly petrified. She sat down and pointed to the written out version, and explained what the roots of the word meant. At that point, the two students became too intrigued as to what she was referring to to continue being scared. 

It was then that Lily realized that Hogwarts didn’t teach either Latin or Greek. She pulled out her translation guides and began explaining the roots of spells and where they originate from. More and more first years started gathering around. By the end of her lecture, there must have been at least twenty surrounding the small table. 

One particularly brave one asked her how they could learn Latin and Greek to figure the spells out. She smiled, stood up, and told them to follow her. 

They passed James, and she gave a small smile as a greeting. He gave her a confused look as a reply. She must have been quite the spectacle, a seventh year with dozens of first years following her through the library.

It was all worth it when she watched hoards of kids swarm the language section of the library. 

---

Lily found herself in Transfiguration, writing notes in her book as McGonagall lectured the class on the finer points of animal-to-animal transfiguration. It was a far cry from the animal-to-inanimate object  transfiguration that they taught the younger students. 

She had her Latin book open in her lap. She was trying to come up with a spell that would make her broom block the rain or snow from her without slowing it down. All her previous attempts had ended with the broom going at a fraction of the speed she was used to. 

“Miss Evans”

Her head jerked up.

“I was asking what the problem with amphibian to mammal transfiguration is. Perhaps you will be able to help, since you are so far ahead that you can afford to not pay attention.”

Lily smiled. “The main drawback is that the amphibian brain will take the first opportunity to drown the mammal. That’s why most animal-to-animal transfigurations fail when going between different main classifications of animals.”

McGonagall looked pleased with this. “Correct. Please pay more attention in the future.”  She continued with her lecture, and Lily continued flipping through her book. 

When class was over, everyone started gathering their things. Lily was rushing to try out her new version of the spell, when McGonagall called out to her. 

“Miss Evans. The headmaster has requested that you go to his office so that he might speak to you. Please do so directly after class.”

Whispers broke out across the room, and James looked over to her with a raised eyebrow, to which she shrugged. Remus chuckled beside him. She heard the girl next to her mumble something about being a player. Was she talking about James? She shook her head quickly, knowing she had bigger things to do than worry about rumors.

She made her way to the gargoyles, and realized that McGonagall had forgotten to give her the password. But, to her surprise, they jumped aside as soon as she stopped in front of them. Making her way up the stairs, she thought back to the past week, trying to figure out what she could have done wrong. 

“Ah, Miss Evans. Thank you for joining me today.” Lily sat down across from Dumbledore, and gave him a small smile. He didn’t seem particularly angry, but then again, he never did. “As you may have heard, yesterday we found a group of first years surrounding a destroyed painting. From what we understood of their explanation, they were trying to make a new spell to change the hairstyle of the resident of the painting.”

Lily cringed, thinking back to her first attempts at spells. “I’m guessing they tried to mix Greek and Latin. They should—” He put his hand up to stop her.

“I brought you here to talk to you not about what goes wrong in making spells, but to talk about the phenomenon of first years attempting to create spells in the first place. Would you happen to know where they got the idea of making new spells?”

Lily crinkled her eyebrows. “I showed them where to look to find out what spells do, but I didn’t try to put any ideas about making spells in their heads. I always found it important to find the roots of spells when learning them.”

Dumbledore nodded his head and reached out to pet his phoenix. “Yes, that is one approach to teaching students. Unfortunately, that is not the one we subscribe to here at Hogwarts. We prefer the one that does not result in smouldering paintings. So, I’m only asking you to not teach that to younger students anymore, and to gently lead them in the safer direction when they come to you with questions.”

Lily nodded, and stood to leave.

“Oh, and one more thing. If you plan to continue to make your own spells, I recommend looking for a room on the seventh floor to test them. I usually find the one across from Barnabas the Barmy quite helpful.”

Lily smiled, and nodded as a thank you. She quickly left his office to find her notebook of spells that she hadn’t been able to test yet. The last place she remembered putting it was in her wardrobe…

---

Several people looked up as she entered the common room. Sirius looked up from the guitar that he appeared to be trying to learn. 

“Evans! What did you get in trouble for, and should I be concerned?”

Lily smiled. “Just got told off for leading first years astray. Apparently I’m a bad influence and all that.” 

Sirius shook his head, and went back to strumming. 

After grabbing her notebook and replacing her robes with her leather jacket, she went back down determined to find Barnabus, and the room Dumbledore mentioned. 

Reaching the common room, she was relieved to see that James had joined Sirius. She walked up to him and grabbed his arm. 

“James! Doing anything? No? Perfect!” She started to drag him to the portrait hole before he could respond.

Once they were alone in the hall, she turned to him. 

“Would you happen to know where Barnabus the Barmy is?”

His look of confusion cleared, and he smiled mischievously. “I know exactly what you need.”

Not long after, they were staring Barnabus in the face. Lily turned around, and her face immediately fell. James noticed this, and took her by the arm, a mirror of what she did earlier. 

He began walking back and forth with her. She was starting to think that he might actually be crazy. 

“Think of what you need, and keep thinking about it.”

Confused but intrigued, she followed his instructions. Looking up, she found a door that she could have sworn wasn’t there before. Mystified, she barely registered James following her in. The high-ceiling room had dummies, mats, and even a fire extinguisher.

“I have got to ask, what is this room for?”  

Lily smiled and pulled out her wand. Opening her notebook to a random page, she began casting. 

---

Lying awake in her bed that night, she began thinking about all the things she heard. She weighed what she knew of James against what she heard of him. 

He couldn’t possibly have dated every girl in their year like she heard people saying, right? He seemed like such a nice boy. 

The James everyone talked about, suave, cool, and a heartbreaker, just didn’t line up with the one who watched her cast her spells, nice, sweet, and a bit of a dork. 

But is that just the persona he shows girls to get them to fall in love with him? Was she just another person for him to date and dump? She had no way of knowing which was the real James.