The Shadow of a Flying Bird

"Lil! You coming or not?"

"Yeah!" I yelled out the window. "Give me a sec, though. I can't find my shoe."

I grinned as I turned back to my room. "See, this is why I don't ever clean my room," I said, half-aloud, half to myself. "I can never find anything. Trust Ravina..."

Ravina is my best friend in the world, but she can be an awful neat freak when she wants to be. Sydney says that's part of her charm, and he's right, but it does get kind of annoying sometimes.

Maybe I should stop and explain a few things. Like, for instance, who I am, and who Ravina and Sydney are.

My name is Lily. Most people call me that. The only exceptions are my close friends, who call me Lil, and my parents, who call me Elsie for my initials, L.C. My given name is Lily Caroline Potter. I was named after both my father's mother--whom I never met, she died years before I was born--and the main character from a book called Lily's Field. (Actually, there are a lot of books with characters called Lily...Lily's Field is just the first one that comes to mind.) My middle name comes from both my mother's mother, again deceased before I met her, and the main character's cousin in The Lives of Christopher Chant. (Again, there are a lot of Carolines in a lot of books, but The Lives of Christopher Chant is the first one I thought of. There's also A Charmed Life, which was published before Christopher Chant but takes place twenty-five years later, in which Caroline (the same Caroline, actually) was the main character's mother. Confused yet? Good.)

I have five best friends. I grew up--literally--with Ravina. She and I look a lot alike--we both have long, light-brown hair and green eyes (and I mean GREEN)--so we used to pretend we were twins. Even our parents can't always tell us apart. The only difference is our freckles--while Ravina has fourteen of them, I have thirteen. Her fourteenth is barely noticeable, though. Sometimes--like at school--I call her Raven, just because it's easier. Ravina and I are both absolute bookworms, even if I am pretty active, so we were the only ones to recognise our friends' names for what they were when we first met all together.

To tease them, since none of the others read much, Ravina and I sent them on a literature quest to find what they were named after. Sydney--actually, we call him Syd--who's another person I've grown up with and whom I'm rather close to, figured it out first, since he reads a little more than the others, although he'd still rather be out playing Quidditch. (One can't spend years with Ravina and me and not be somewhat of a bookworm.) He's named after Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities. Ravina and I knew about hers and mine--she's named after a character from The White Wolf.

Jean Louise took a little longer, but she still got it fairly rapidly, mainly because Ravina and I started calling her 'Scout'. Jean Louise, or 'Scout', Finch was the narrator in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Scout, which is what we all call her now, didn't find out fast because she's a horrid procrastinator.

We all felt sorry for Pug, though. At first he thought that he was named after that dog in the first book we read at Muggle school, a little dog with a pug nose. I finally took pity on him--he seemed so depressed--and introduced him to Raymond Feist's Riftwar saga. The main character's birth name was Pug, but his name once captured as a slave was Milamber, so we call our Pug Milamber now. When he's upset we call him Pug, which makes him feel better.

If I felt sorry for Milamber, Pippin made us all want to bang our heads against the wall. He looked right at the book his name is in--I mean, even Milamber, who had never cracked a book thicker than The Cat in the Hat before he started looking for his name, knew where it came from--and said, "Nope, can't be in there."

What an idiot! After scanning every other book in the library, he started flipping through The Fellowship of the Ring and said brightly, "Oh, here it is!"

I think it's a miracle he's lived to be fifteen.

But we're still best friends. Our parents all knew each other. In fact, Jean Louise is my second cousin or something like that. Her dad is my dad's cousin...hold on, so that makes her my first cousin once removed. Twice removed? No, hold on, her dad is once removed from me, so Scout is twice removed. Anyway, her dad didn't like magic and put off getting in touch with my dad until his wife, my Aunt Daphne, confessed that she was a witch too. Rather than divorce her, which Aunt Daphne begged him not to do, partly for Scout's sake and partly because she was afraid of getting another Voldemort, they reunited with my dad.

I was jerked out of the past and into the present by Syd's voice. "Lily! If you don't hurry up we're leaving without you!"

Oops. Syd called me Lily. He doesn't do that unless he's really annoyed with me. Time to get on the ball.

I threw open the window and stared down at my friends. The boys looked impatient. So did Scout. Ravina didn't, but she's always had infinite patience.

"Okay, Lupin, where'd you hide my shoe?" I yelled to her.

"Try the left corner of your bed," she yelled back. "And hurry--the movie starts in twenty minutes!"

Well, that got me moving, I can tell you. Within two, I was outside.

"Sorry," I panted. "Let's go."

~~~

We came out of the movie, a digital re-mastering of the top twelve DCI shows that year, talking excitedly and ravenously hungry. We don't eat popcorn during the movies, because it costs too much, so we decided to head for the food court. We were about halfway there when I had a brainwave.

"Hey, you guys want to see something funny?" I asked my friends.

Milamber looked at me apprehensively. "No."

"Do you solemnly swear it won't get you or anyone else hurt, killed, or kicked out of the mall?" Ravina demanded, inasmuch as Ravina actually demands. More of a quiet request than a royal command.

"Yeah, yeah," I said, holding up my hands to prove my fingers weren't crossed. "I promise."

Ravina sighed. "Go ahead, then."

I smiled dangerously, then scanned the crowd. "Victim selected," I said finally, my eyes resting on a young couple walking down the hall. The guy seemed a touch easier to scare than the girl did, so I told my friends to wait. Then I walked straight up to the girl and cried in a slightly hysterical voice, "Stop stalking me!" Then I turned and walked back to my friends. Syd and Pippin were laughing hard. Milamber and Scout were chuckling reluctantly. Ravina just shook her head.

"Did you see the look on that guy's face when you accused his girlfriend of stalking you?" Syd guffawed. "Absolutely perfect."

We walked on. We were right in front of DKNY when I spotted another girl to spring my trap on, this one with a friend. As we passed, before I had my mouth open, the girl cried, "Stop stalking me!"

This was too perfect an opportunity to miss. I gave her a pleading look. "I can't help it! I still love you--I just had to see if you still loved me too!"

"I meant what I said," the girl said stubbornly. "I need my space."

"You don't love me!" I cried, faking like I was crying. "You never loved me! You only love her!" I pointed to the girl's friend, who looked taken aback.

"Fine! You want the truth, you can have it!" the girl yelled at me, putting her arm around the other girl's shoulder. "We're in love and we always have been! We're going to be married soon!"

"Uh...right!" said the other girl. "So stop bothering my fiancée!"

"How could you do this to me?" I wailed. People were starting to stare. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Syd was absolutely rolling on the floor with laughter. "You weren't even going to tell me!"

I saw the girl's eyes flick to my shirt. My friends and I have shirts with the same basic message, just changed our names. Mine says, "Hi, my name is L. C. Potter. Get out of my way."

"It's over, Elle. It's over," she snapped. Some people do call me Elle, but only Uncle Dudley, who drinks a lot and didn't like my grandmother because she was a witch, and one or two Slytherins who know how much I hate it. So, of course, if we were pretending that we'd just broken up, that was the perfect thing for her to call me.

I rejoined my friends. Syd was howling with laughter. Pippin, Milamber, and Scout were laughing pretty hard. Even Ravina--my way-too-serious best friend Ravina--was fighting back a grin. "Who was that?" she asked, nodding after the girl.

"No clue," I shrugged. "Shall we?"

We continued on towards the food court. Syd was still laughing at the stunt that girl and I had pulled. Ravina gave me a funny look.

"So you were just accused of stalking a girl."

"Yes."

"Whom you were planning to accuse of the same thing."

"Yes."

"Whom you had never met before."

"Yes."

"And that little stunt you pulled was unplanned?"

"Completely spur-of-the-moment," I answered calmly.

Ravina shook her head. "Absolutely amazing."

~~~

We went to the Taco Bell in the food court for lunch, then stopped at the Starbucks so that Ravina and I could get our Frappuchino fix. We talked Syd and Scout into trying them too. Pippin was weakening but instead got hot chocolate. Milamber gave us an I-can't-believe-you're-paying-five-Euro-for-a-cup-of-coffee look and said he was content with his soda. We gave him an I-can't-believe-you're-turning-down-a-Frappuchino look and went looking for a seat. Only trouble was, the tables were all full.

"Great," grumbled Pippin. "Now we're gonna have to eat standing up."

I heard a somewhat familiar voice call over, "Hey! You all want to come sit with us?"

"Sure!" I said gratefully, looking over. It was the girl who had pulled me over and staged that scene with me.

Syd laughed as we sat down. "Some stunt you three pulled," he said to the other girl, his eyes dancing.

The girl grinned. "Yeah, I can't believe how well that worked. How'd you think of that so fast?"

I shrugged. "I'm a writer. I have a knack for coming up with on-the-spot lies, I guess. Plus, I was thinking of saying the same thing to you, so..."

The girl laughed. "By the way, I'm Candace. This is my friend Tammy."

I introduced my friends and myself. "We come here all the time," I added.

"We just moved here from America," piped up Tammy. "We're transferring from a boarding school in Massachusetts to one in the middle of nowhere."

"Is there actually anything in the middle of nowhere?" Ravina asked, studying her taco salad.

"The letter H," I pointed out.

Tammy laughed. "I have an uncle who's a great practical joker. He'll love that."

Syd grinned his shark-mouth grin at me. "Bet he never did totally random stuff like you girls did."

"Did you see the look on the DKNY clerk's face?" Pippin chimed in. "It was great!"

"Movie ticket: twelve Euro. Frappuchino: five Euro. Walking shoes: twenty-five Euro. Scaring the living crap out of total strangers: priceless," I said. "There are some things money can buy. For everything else, there's randomness. Available wherever there are gullible people around."

Tammy laughed again. "That's a good one! I'll have to remember that."

I chuckled too. "Thanks. I don't exactly know where it came from, but thanks."

Candace polished off her milkshake and stood up. "Well, see you around. Coming, Tammy?"

"I'm coming," Tammy answered, standing up. They started walking and soon were swallowed up by the crowd.

We finished our lunch and headed out the mall. Halfway there, I stopped and held up a hand, my eyes fixed on a sign. "Sale alert!"

Milamber looked around. "Where?"

"My favourite store in the world."

"Oh, no," Pippin and Milamber groaned in unison.

Scout shook her head and plopped down on a bench. "I'll wait here."

"You sure?" I said innocently.

"Positive."

"Only fools are positive."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

Scout laughed. "Seriously, though, I'll stay here and wait for you. Trailing after you while you browse through books is not my idea of a fun afternoon."

I shrugged. "Suit yourself." With that, I forged across the mall to Waldenbooks, which had opened in our local mall about five years before. I was a regular patron.

"Oh-oh!" one clerk called to another. "I told you that sale was a bad idea! Prepare to go bankrupt!"

See, I told you I was a regular patron.

Ravina and Sydney and I spent a good hour or two perusing the bookshelves. Syd had a twenty-pound gift certificate he'd never spent, Ravina still had a good chunk of the money she'd brought with her, and I'd received about a hundred pounds' worth of gift cards as an early birthday present from Milamber's mother, who's sort of my adopted aunt. By the time we left, none of us had anything left. (And when there's a fifty-percent-off sale, a hundred pounds goes pretty far.) Syd had loaded up on Manga books; Ravina had an armful of those Harlequin and Silhouette romances she likes so much. I had several heavy bags filled with pretty much every book that even slightly caught my fancy, ranging from Sophie's World, which is about philosophy, to the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, which is about owls.

When we came out, Scout's eyes widened, Milamber's jaw dropped, and Pippin fell off the bench he was sitting on. "Lily Caroline Potter, how effing much did you spend?"

I shrugged. "Only about a hundred pounds."

Pippin fell off his seat again, except he was already sitting on the floor, which is very hard to fall off of. Unless, apparently, you're Pippin MacMillian, because he actually did fall off his seat. "And where did you get a hundred pounds to blow at a bookstore? More importantly, why didn't you share it with the rest of us?"

"Get a grip, MacMillian, they were in gift cards," I told him.

Milamber made a face. "Mum's present?"

"Yup."

Scout sighed and stood, then hauled Pippin to his feet. "Come on, guys. Let's just get out of here."

~~~

I was checking my e-mail later that evening when I heard someone knock at the door. My dad walked past and opened it. "Oh, hello, Remus," I heard him say. I grinned to myself. Remus was Ravina's dad, Mr. Lupin, except nobody called him Mr. Lupin. He was just Remus. He couldn't be anything else.

"Hello, Harry," Remus said with a sigh in his voice. He was continually exhausted and I never could figure out why. "I came to get Ravina. It's starting to get late. Is she up in Lily's room?"

I felt my heart stop. Oh, no...was Ravina missing?

"I don't know," my dad said. "Elsie? Is Ravina in there? Her dad's here!"

I hurried out into the living room. "She's not here, Remus," I said nervously. "She hasn't been here all day. I haven't seen her since we left the mall."

Remus looked really scared, which should have alerted me that something was wrong. "She isn't at any of her other friends' houses, either. I'm getting worried about her."

"I'll help you look," I said, grabbing my coat, completely forgetting I'd left the computer and internet running in the den.

I ran outside after him, calling Ravina's name. I thought I knew just where to look, so I ran as fast as I could towards the park. Sure enough, there was Ravina by the little lake, staring at the just-past-full moon reflecting on the lake.

"Ravina!" I gasped, hurrying over. "Thank God! You scared us half to death!"

Ravina looked up. "Lil...I found a letter waiting for me when I got home. Dad had already opened it, but it was addressed to me. It's from the Ministry of Magic. Remember that Muggle that was killed a couple days ago?"

I was thrown by the question. "Yeah, what about him?"

Ravina's brown eyes filled with tears. "Carrie," she whispered, and I felt my heart stop. Ravina and Syd used to call me Carrie when we were little, but now that we're older they only call me Carrie when they're hurt or scared. Just like Ravina and I call Syd Sydney when we're upset. Syd and I call Ravina Rani, but only when we're trying to comfort her. "Carrie, they think I killed him. They found my necklace right there."

I gasped. "Oh, Ravina...I'm so sorry. You'll get off, though, won't you? Milamber can clear you...he was there...wasn't he?"

"He came over...and I told him something...he was on the sofa and he had a book...I went into the basement with my dad, and we took the Wolfsbane Potion...and then I can't remember what happened." Ravina looked miserable. "I don't know if I killed him or not."

I put my arm around her. "Rani," I said, using my nickname for her, "every other time you've killed anything, be it a squirrel or a tree, you've remembered. And you cried for a week both times. You'd know if you'd killed Paul."

"But my necklace..."

"It's a common necklace. Besides, you were wearing it the next morning. If they'd found it at the site, it couldn't have been yours, could it?"

Ravina smiled again. "Thanks, Lil. You're right, as usual." She stood and held out her hand. "Come on, it's time to go home."