Of All the Stupid Things to Do...

"Mister Potter!"

James winced as he slid into his desk. He looked up at Professor McGonagall through his spectacles, and gulped. She looked like a mother dragon whose eggs had just been trampled. (James tried not to shudder at the memory of one of his worse ideas.) He attempted to look as guilty as possible. "I'm so sorry, Professor. I had to grab something from my dorm, but just as I got there I remembered that I'd given it to Steve, and then I had to run and catch him as he was going into class, and that made me late for your class... I tried to make it, I really did."

There were some times when James was eternally grateful for the big brown eyes and messy hair.

"Very well, Mister Potter. This time I will not be taking house points, but you are advised to remember that as a Prefect it is your duty to uphold the rules, not to break them." McGonagall turned away, saying, "Please take you homework out of you bags, class, and then open your books to Chapter Seven: 'Of Repetitive Transformations.'"

Lily Evans leaned towards James, who had had the bad luck to sit directly in front of her first year and been stuck there for the rest of his Hogwarts career. "How many times will you lie to her, James?" she whispered.

James jumped, and was immediately on alert. Of course, it had all been made up, from beginning to end, but there was no way for Lily to know that, was there? "What are you talking about, Evans?" he said coolly.

"I know you weren't trying to find a paper," she said, quiet fury in her voice. "How many times will you deceive our teachers into thinking you're a decent person? How many times will you lie to our Head of House?"

"It's none of your business, Evans," said James. "I'm not in the mood to argue with you."

"You never are, Potter." He could practically hear the smirk in her voice, damn her! "You never are!"

"Mister Potter!"

"Yes, Professor?" James thanked every power he could think of off the top of his head that he had been following along, and was naturally good at Transfiguration.

"The answer to number 19, James. Did you do it, or was the paper you were fetching for another class?"

"Through the Arcanic-Kinetic plane, Professor, using the Ventral force as modified by the Cerebral force, as always. When continuing the Transfiguration-did you want me to continue, Professor?"

"That is sufficient, Mister Potter."

James scrawled a note on a scrap of parchment and passed it back. He had to struggle not to laugh at the sound of fury from behind him.

"Evans:

     You may think I'm scum,

     but I, at least, can keep a secret.

     Can you? Meet me outside the

     Hospital Wing after dinner."

James knew exactly what he was going to show her. It wasn't a hideout that he and his friends used anymore, because it was too well-known; a goody-goody like Lily, though, wouldn't have a clue it was there. It was stocked with enough candy to blow her tiny little mind, but not enough that they would get in trouble for it, and best of all, it was just a hop, skip, and jump from the Astronomy Tower.

He wondered if she would be suspicious at all.

*******

"Eclypsia, you have got to hear this!" James burbled as he bounded into her rooms. It had been a month since she first asked him to stay and talk with her, and in that time she had become a steady confidant. She had given him an open- door policy on her rooms, as long as he didn't get caught, and assured him that if he ever had any "woman troubles," he was to ask her.

She turned out to be one of the best people possible for that role. James' first impression was actually the most accurate, it turned out-she really was a Torch Fairy, or half, at any rate. The breed was distinctive, because they could do anything for love or lovers, provided they were asked. Her mother was "an oddity," according to Eclypsia herself, and had desired to live longer than fairies normally do. It was a long story, but she had gotten her chance, and Eclypsia was therefore half Torch fairy.

That was also the reason she had this job; although not a squib in the usual sense of the word, her magic was very different from everybody else's. Most places just didn't have work for her.

Eclypsia looked up from her papers, and smiled broadly at him. "You followed my advice," she said, "I can tell."

James nodded excitedly. "Absolutely. It was great! You should have heard her when she got the note; she practically screamed, except that we were in class so she wasn't allowed to. Then I got this note back: "YOU'RE ON!" it said, and I could just tell she was hoping I would take her some place private so that she could beat my brains out." James paused to let his audience stop laughing. "And then, I took her to this one room right next to the Astronomy Tower... We used to do all our homework up there, but it got to be too long a hike with a bag full of books, so we stopped using it. I was watching her face the whole way there, and I had to work not to burst out laughing... she looked like she thought we were going to the Astronomy Tower to snog or something, and it was half like she wanted to and half like she was going to throw up at the thought!"

James leaned back in his chair and brought out two Jaw Spawns, offering one to Eclypsia and pocketing the other again. "Finally I ducked into this little door," he continued, "and then as she entered, I offered her some chocolate from the shelf. The look she had on her face! She tapped her hands on her arms, and looked around the room like she was appraising its value on the market or some such thing. Then she finally, finally looked at me, and she said, 'All right, Potter, I'll keep your secret.' She looked at me like she wanted me to leave, immediately, and I was about to die laughing so I did leave. I came right down here immediately."

Eclypsia giggled for a bit. "Oh," she said. "Oh, oh, I had not realized she would react so dramatically!"

"Well," said James, "I may have exaggerated a little... but not much, really. I wonder if she feels more than she admits? It would explain a lot about her."

Eclypsia nodded, slowly. "I think so. From what you have said... very much so. I think she may have a great deal of passion, and not wish to admit it. She would have to work very hard not to show that she feels, I think," she added thoughtfully.

"Well," said James, "she's not the only one, is she? I mean, in times like these, everyone's afraid to show they care for someone. If dark wizards know where your loyalties lie, then they surely can know what you will respond to... It's become a standard security procedure to never show that you care."

Eclypsia looked at him, long and hard. "Is that how you think, James Potter?"

He looked at her. "Well, yes; I suppose. I..." He broke off and looked down for a moment, then back up at her. "I don't want to see anyone I care about hurt," he said finally.

Eclypsia's eyes glowed. It was an eerie effect, and it only happened when she was enacting some power she had. "Are you sure?" she asked, tilting her head. "I can make that happen, you know. I can make it so that you never have to see that. I don't have much, but this I can do."

James thought about Sirius crying. He had seen that, once, when he was very much younger. Sirius had just broken a bone, although neither of them knew it at the time, and gotten a nasty shock, too, when the stairs bucked under him. He had been sitting on floor crying, and James had walked up to him. He had looked up at James, and for one moment, his eyes had flashed from hurt to hate to pain again.

James was certain that Sirius didn't remember it, but he himself did. It was this memory that prompted him to look Eclypsia straight in the eye and say, "Yes. I am certain that I never again want to see my friends truly hurt." Because a creature hurt cannot help but hate...

James would never be able to describe what happened next. It was something like being sucked into something while at the same time being blown up, but there was also some sort of noise that he felt but didn't hear, and other things... it was a very odd feeling, and James knew he wouldn't forget it in a hurry.

And then Eclypsia passed out.

*******

It took James nearly an hour to get her to come around. When she did, she gasped, "Honey!" and passed back out again. James, for lack of anything else constructive to do, sent down to the kitchens for a jar of honey.

It turned out to be the right thing to do. When Eclypsia woke again, she immediately drank the whole pint of it down, a feat which made James shudder every time he thought of it.

"It is because of my mother's origins," she said. "When I use magic, I must replenish my energy with as pure a form as my body can handle, even as you must. However, I can handle a much purer form of energy in concentration than a pure human like you. My body deals well with honey, pure sugar, cane, and juice, far better than the meat that you eat every day."

She was still, however, very weak when she convinced James that he needed to leave. ("You must get down to your dinner," she insisted. "If you are missed, you will be searched for.") It was all she could do to sit up in bed to grade papers. James left only with great reluctance on his part. "Alright," he finally gave in. "I'll go down to dinner. I'll be back up tomorrow morning, though."

"No," she said. "You will not. I will be turning in the papers to Mr. Binns, and you will get us caught. I will be healthy, James; I am simply tired."

He looked at her face carefully, searching for signs of that same bone-deep weariness that frequently accompanied Remus' transformations. He found nearly all of the signs he knew to look for, and reluctantly concluded that she was in fact merely tired. He nodded acquiescence, and got up to leave.

"I'll be back at my normal time, then," he said, kissing her quietly on the forehead.

Her smile was blinding. "That I would love," she said. "That I would love."

*******