Chapter Text
Night had fallen, shrouding the castle in darkness as Lily Evans pressed herself behind a suit of armor in the far corner of the fifth floor. Her calves trembled. The edge of the metal dug into her shoulder blade, sharp enough that she had to bite down to keep from shifting.
Ten minutes.
She adjusted her grip on her wand, slick with sweat, and waited.
Another minute.
Footsteps.
Uneven. Shuffling.
Lily stilled, fingers locking around the wand as the sound crept closer. She eased her legs straight, inch by inch, careful not to let the armor scrape. The footsteps filled the corridor—then stopped.
Silence.
Lily froze, listening harder than she ever had in her life, suddenly aware of how loud her breathing felt inside her chest.
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There is a castle on a hill where staircases move, portraits drink too much, and magic answers to careless hands. For a while, laughter ran unchecked through its corridors—four boys learning too much too quickly, four girls playing a game no one else is meant to understand.
Tonight, the castle is very dark.
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Now standing behind that suit of armour, Lily realized how imperfectly positioned she was: the small window twenty feet up the wall was the only source of light that Lily had and as there was no moon, she could barely seen her own wand. But that was why they had chosen this night to play, wasn't it? The darkness made it more interesting.
Lily's wand -- gripped in her ever-more sweaty and cramped right hand -- threatened to succumb to the horrifying prospect of gravity as her hand lost more and more of its feeling, but none of that mattered as she once more focused on the now-missing footsteps. Where were they? As the silence stretched on and on, Lily weighed her options: stay hidden, nearly blind and vulnerable, or take a leap of faith.
Lily jumped out from behind the armour as quickly as her sore muscles would let her.
"Estulumos!"
The spell missed.
Lily swore under her breath and was already twisting to compensate when the counter curse caught her, locking her limbs in place.
"Lumos."
Light bloomed calmly in front of Lily, and into it stepped Samantha Caldwell, tall, poised, and impossibly put together. Her long black hair pulled back without a strand out of place. Sam dipped her head, pausing just long enough to be certain she'd landed her spell.
In her incapacitated state, Lily couldn't glare properly and settled for muttering sourly, "I hit you."
"And I wasn't hurt, did you notice?" Sam's lips almost lifted, a hint of her joy. How annoying. Stupid best friend. "You could try actually paying practicing more."
"Psh," was all Lily could say in response. Dropping her laughing eyes from Lily's face, Samantha Caldwell pointed her wand at the line of names and numbers on her left arm.
"Forty points. First place. Thank you," she said with a bow. And with that, Samantha, more commonly known as Sam, said, "Nox ," and was gone, slipping into shadow and silence.
When the feeling returned to Lily's legs, she turned and ran in the opposite direction, remembering Sam's ambush tactic from third year. Lighting her wand, Lily checked her own arm. Lily could not possibly be in last already. Except for that one time, she hadn't been hit all game. Mind you, she hadn't hit anyone either, but last place didn't seem fair.
And yet.
The letters on her arm were blue, and Lily was twenty points behind Christine.
Hearing a noise behind her, Lily said, "Nox," and poured on the speed. An odd spiral staircase caught her eye, and she took it two-stairs at a time, reaching a trapdoor she needed to push up in less than ten seconds. Crawling into the room at the top and slamming the door behind her, she looked around to find herself in the strangest Hogwarts room she had ever seen. Every wall had a square door in the middle of it. One with no latch. One eastern. One askew. She chose the fifth one, heading east and hopefully not a complete trap as it was the only that hinted at light beyond.
Her arm lit as numbers changed again.
Sam's total dropped.
Christine's went up.
Lily cast a Notice-Me-Not and Soundproofing charm on her shoes. She ducked into a narrow passage and pressed herself against the wall, counting silently.
Footsteps.
Not running. Not frantic.
Steady. Certain.
Lily exhaled through her teeth. Tracy.
The footsteps marched, and Lily stuck her wand barely into the corridor. "Estulumos!"
The spell hit, and Tracy froze mid-stride, fist clenched, wand still raised as if she might fight her way out of it. Lily sprinted the other way. Twenty seconds before the other girl unfroze.
Tracy hated losing more than she liked winning. Lily needed gone before she could move again.
Two more staircases and a secret passageway later, a flash of light behind her had Lily flinging herself sideways, Shield Charm up behind her. But then there was another spell shot at her and the Shield Charm didn't work as well that time.
Lily jumped at the first door she saw.
"Alohamora!"
The door sprang open, and Lily slammed it shut as another beam of light streaked past. The room was lit, thank goodness. She glanced at the numbers on her arm—twenty-six seconds until Tracy’s No Back elapsed. Sam had somehow fallen to fourth. Lily could still take second if she avoided Tracy and made it back to Gryffindor Tower in time.
Gulping down air, Lily turned, already scanning for another exit.
Four boys stared back at her.
One already had his wand out, glasses slightly askew from jumping to his feet, eyes fixed on the door behind her.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Sirius Black waved a hand from the floor. “She’s fine. Just dramatic.”
“You can’t be here,” Peter said, clutching his book tighter. “You shouldn’t be here.”
The fourth boy didn’t speak. He was watching the door, expression unreadable.
It rattled loudly.
“What was that?” James demanded again.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Lily said. His face scrunched in disbelief, which was fair. “A suit of armor fell over?”
“At two in the morning?”
“Apparently.”
Another bang shook the door. The torches guttered. Lily’s arm flashed green. No Backs was over.
James was already relighting the torches, but Lily barely noticed. She yanked the door open, fired blindly into the corridor, and slammed it shut again as a curse ricocheted off the stone. The numbers on her arm didn’t change. She’d missed.
“Nineteen minutes left!” Tracy shouted. “You’re down by fifteen to me and fifty to Christine! I will get you. I will not let her win!”
Lily ignored her.
She ignored the boys too, though she registered them anyway-- wand still raised, book clutched too tight, one grinning like this was the highlight of his week, one still watching the door.
There was only one way this ended.
Lily wrenched the door open and flattened herself against the stone.
A curse tore through the doorway, close enough that she felt the heat of it on her cheek.
She pivoted and fired.
Tracy froze mid-stride, wand still raised, mouth open in protest.
Lily was already running.
Her arm flared—twenty-seven seconds.
Not enough.
She bolted for the brightest corridor, lungs burning, feet skidding on the stone as she took the corner too fast.
Behind her, someone shouted. Another swore.
Lily didn’t look back.
Eventually she recognized a staircase and two portraits. Grinning, she sprinted down the staircase.
And was stunned from the side.
Instantly frozen, she only saw Christine when she skidded to a stop a few paces ahead, robes twisted, blonde hair coming loose, already pushing it back out of her face with one hand to glance over Lily, quick and automatic.
“I'm winning!” she said, cheerful and unbothered. “Even more now.”
Lily huffed.
Christine grinned brief and bright, and glanced at her arm. “I might win.”
She took off again without waiting for confirmation, footsteps light and fast, already absorbed back into the game.
Lily counted down the seconds, shook her legs free the moment she could, and ran.
She was stunned again half a second later. This time it was Sam who raced past, sprinting after Christine, quiet and intent. Lily would have surely been stunned a third time but as soon as she unfroze, she shot out a Shield Charm, deflecting two spells.
Lily cut left the instant the last curse faded and didn’t stop running.
She took corridors two at a time, skidding around corners she half-recognized, curses cracking past her shoulder close enough to sting. Someone laughed behind her. Someone swore.
Lily laughed too.
Her arm began to blink.
She spared it half a glance—too fast, too fast—and poured everything she had left into the run, lungs burning, legs shaking, the tower suddenly feeling impossibly far away.
She rounded the next corner at full speed, and plowed straight into Filch, the Caretaker.
She knocked him over.
Lily hit the ground hard. Stone knocked the breath clean out of her lungs.
Filch loomed over her, red-faced and shaking, scrambling back to his feet. His hand closed around her arm and hauled her upright, fingers digging in like iron.
“You’ll be expelled for this,” he spat. “Running around at this hour, trying to kill Mrs. Norris and me. You’ll be gone from here soon.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No talking!”
His grip tightened. Pain flared sharp and immediate, bright enough to make her gasp.
“I was chasing first years,” Lily said quickly, the words tumbling out between breaths. “I’m a Prefect. I saw them sneaking out. I thought you were one of them. I was trying to stop them.”
“Liar!” Filch snarled. “You ought to be beaten for such—”
A curse blasted past his shoulder.
For one awful second, Lily was sure he’d seen everything.
Then Filch yelped, dropped her arm, and spun around, shouting as he bolted down the corridor. “First years! Attacking me!”
Lily didn’t wait.
“Get them, Mr. Filch!” she called after him, already moving, already running.
She took no chances, wand up, Shield Charm flickering into place, and didn’t slow until the tower loomed ahead of her, her arm flashing its final warning.
She dove through the portrait hole with seconds to spare.
Inside, Lily folded over, hands braced on her knees, lungs burning. When she finally straightened, one hand pressed to her ribs, she saw Sam plaiting her own hair as she sat comfortably in an armchair by the fire.
“I hate you,” Lily said hoarsely.
Sam smiled, and might have said something, but then the portrait hole shook with a heavy thud.
"I do love Christine," Sam said.
Christine spilled through the opening a second later, momentum carrying her halfway across the room before she caught herself and lifted herself upright. One side of her face was flushed an impressive red; the rest of her was grinning.
"Made it," she said, and promptly dropped to the floor, limbs everywhere.
"And Tracy won't," said Lily, watching the last seconds drain away. The game ended. Their arms flashed, numbers gone, and each girl held a piece of parchment in her hand.
Lily and Sam scanned theirs. Christine ignored hers entirely, arms flung over her face.
Sam's eyes lifted off the page and narrowed at her friend. "What.”
"I hit Tracy in the chest from three floors away. One minute ago," Christine said, muffled.
Sam exhaled and folded the parchment once before sliding it into her pocket. Lily had learned not to care about the final results the way the others did. That's what happened when you always lost. Still, she smiled: she had come in third, not last.
"I love this game," she said, hopping up to sit on the edge of the couch with Sam.
"Clearly not enough to better your skills at it," Sam said, folding and placing her parchment in her pocket.
Lily swung her legs. "Winning isn't everything."
"No," Sam said, patting her leg, "but surviving helps."
"True," Christine agreed.
They were still there when the portrait hole opened. But not for Tracy. Instead, it was the four male Gryffindor fifth years, the four same boys Lily had seen earlier in the night, now bragging about besting Filch.
"I stopped him!" James Potter said. He was a short, black-haired boy who had fallen heavily for himself this past year. "Brilliant Stunning Charm."
Lily rolled her eyes. Sam didn't bother looking over.
"Let's wait for Tracy upstairs," Sam said.
"Let me!" James yelled, already waving his wand. The door flew open with a crack loud enough to wake the entire house.
"Impressive," Lily said, dryly. "Let's wake the entire house."
They were halfway up the stairs when Tracy finally appeared, stomping through the portrait hole, hair stuck up at all angles, eyes locked on Christine, who smiled and waved.
"I was in first! I was in first, and then you came along out of nowhere!" Tracy whispered-yelled. "I was shot one minute before the end of the game, in the middle of a staircase, and then I see Filch coming at me!"
"I know! I won!" Christine said.
Later, in their dorm, Tracy retold the story in dramatic detail while the others failed repeatedly not to laugh.
Two staircases and a corridor away, the boys collapsed into their beds, still buzzing with it.
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So this is where you would find them, those you came to learn about. Not in legend, not yet. Just after three in the morning, on a night that smelled like rain, when the castle was still settling and the world beyond it was already turning darker.
On April 17th, 1973, in the third year of Voldemort’s rising, they were not thinking about history or heroes. They wanted to win a game. They wanted to outrun each other. They wanted to learn impossible magic for no better reason than that they could.
Myth would come later.
This was how it began.