Arrival Unexpected

The three adolescent wizards sat sprawled amongst the clutter while Lily was perched atop her desk. She and James had done a very short version of rounds that night; in the hour that they had been gone, they hadn't seen anyone but the other Prefects out of dorms. The news of the attack on Peter had set the student body into a quiet mood once more--and that was fine by James and Lily, who wanted nothing more than to get back to the Tower to continue working with Remus and Sirius. The worried friends shouted ideas out as they popped into their heads, the merits of which were discussed, debated and inevitably set aside.

Sirius flipped over onto his back, stretching his arms out above him. He tried to stifle a yawn, but the noise echoed throughout the room.

Lily set the book she was reading down in her lap. "Sirius, go and get some sleep." He opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a hand: "If you're tired, you're not thinking well, anyway." She looked over at Remus, taking note of the deep black circles under his eyes. "You too, Lupin."

"Go kip in my room," James offered. "We'll wake you up if we find anything or in a few hours otherwise. Then Lily and I will catch a bit of sleep."

Remus nodded drowsily and headed towards the door. Sirius stopped about halfway. "Maybe we should just call it a night?" He gave a small shrug, his eyes darting suspiciously to James for a second. "Start fresh in the morning."

"No," replied Lily and James at the same time. James gave a small smirk and nodded for Lily to continue.

"James and I would be up this late normally because of rounds... It's midnight now," she seemed to be calculating something in her head. "We should be able to work until six a.m. or so; we'll wake you up then, and nap till noon ourselves."

After the door shut, Lily hopped off the desk and lay out on the floor next to James. She kept rubbing her eyes as if something was in them. James gave her a quizzical look. "It's my contacts... I'm not used to having them in this long," she replied. She crawled over to her trunk at the end of her bed, dug around for a few moments and then drew out a battered looking glasses case. "Time for the old stand-by," she whispered as she walked over to the mirror.

"Do you want me to leave while you do that?" offered James, looking slightly uncomfortable.

Lily gave a small snort. "I'm taking out my contacts, James, not taking off my knickers."

James blushed slightly and gave her a small frown. "Well... I don't know what's involved in it."

"Watch and learn," Lily tilted her head towards the ceiling, pulling back the lid of her right eye with her thumb and forefinger. With her other hand, she reached up and touched the edge of her iris. A second later, she held the contact out to him. "That's it. And my knickers are still exactly where they were when I started," she added with a smirk.

"Nothing to it, it would seem." He adjusted his own glasses as they slid off his nose. "Maybe I should get a pair."

"No; you look much better with glasses," Lily replied without thinking. She blushed instantly.

A tense moment of silence followed as she put the contacts into a cleaning solution and then sat back down on the floor.

Lily opened the case, and pulled out her glasses. She brushed the loose strands of her hair back behind her ears and set the glasses into place, blinking a few times as the world came back into focus.

James smiled. "Those aren't the glasses that you used to wear."

Lily shook her head, returning his smile. "When I got the contacts, I had to get my prescription updated." Her new spectacles were of a thin wire frame, oval in shape and silver in color, complimenting the soft angles of her face. "We donated the old ones to a Muggle charity that takes old glasses to Third World countries." Lily gave a small snort. "Somewhere in the jungles of Borneo there is a poor girl wearing those awful thick-framed square glasses. I wish Mum would have just let me smash them..." Her eyes grew sad for a moment, and then she went back to reading.

They continued their study in silence for another hour, until it grated on James' nerves. He set his book down, and held his chin up on stacked fists. "Lily?"

"Hmm?" She didn't take her eyes off the page she was reading.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for yesterday." He held his breath, waiting to hear her response.

Lily turned to the next page, still reading. "Yes, I heard you the first time."

"First time?" he asked. "I just said it now."

She set her book down and looked him right in the eye. "Actually, you said it after you kissed me last night, right before you went back into the Tower." She was simply stating the facts; there was no other reaction on her face.

"Right..." James breathed through gritted teeth. He picked his book back up.

Lily continued to look at him, though.

His face was growing pink under her stare. Finally, he glanced back up at her.

"Why?" she asked in a small childlike voice.

He studied her for a moment; there was a touch of fear in her eyes. "Why what?"

Her nose twitched slightly. "Why did you kiss me?" Why are you asking this, she scolded herself. There are more important things to think about.

James swallowed hard. There was a strong temptation to say 'Because it was the best way to shut you up.' But he rejected the idea of flippancy. "I told you that night... it was something that I'd been wanting to do for a long time."

Lily blinked slowly, accepting what his words meant. The only reply she could muster was "Oh." She picked her book back up and started reading again.

After several painfully silent minutes, James forced himself to speak again. "Lily, let's talk about this. Please don't be mad..."

"I'm not mad, James." She stood up to retrieve a scroll from her desk. "But I'm not going to talk about it."

James could feel tears welling up in his eyes. "Let me guess," he said rather sourly. "'Its just not worth it', right?"

Lily put her hand over his, patting it gently as she lay back down. "James, it's not like that at all. It's just that there is only room in my mind for one troublesome young wizard at a time."

James scoffed. "Sirius Black."

Lily shook her head, pointing to all the scroll and books on the floor.

"Peter Pettigrew," she corrected and went back to reading.

* * *

When classes started again on Monday, they trudged through as best as they could. By Tuesday, it was rather like trying to get a dragon to take something for a nasty case of heartburn. Homework seemed redundant; the four of them got some of the best marks in their year, and there were a lot more important things they could be doing instead of studying. Not surprisingly, it was Sirius that found the solution to the problem of how to deal with their daily studies.

"Look, aside from Lily's advanced Charms and Remus' Muggle Studies coursework, we all have basically the same classes." He grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill, scribbling furiously as he spoke. "Here's what we do, we each take a course and do the work for it. The others can copy it; as long as the homework is rote, no one will notice that we all get top marks." He pointed the end of the quill at James. "You take Herbology, Remus can take Potions, I'll do Transfiguration and Lily can do Arithmancy."

"Er..." James gave Sirius a have-you-forgotten-something sort of look. Sirius raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"I still haven't found my Herbology book," James uttered to the floor.

"Oh, yeah... Well, we could just get Peter's out of his trunk for you," offered Sirius. In a quieter voice he added, "He won't be needing it for a while anyway."

Silence was unconsciously observed for a moment. Remus looked over at Sirius, "Does Peter still keep all letters from home in his trunk? I'd like to take a look at that last one he got from his mum... he seemed a bit off after he read it."

"Yeah, the letters should be in his mum's old jewelry box." Sirius snorted. "Ridiculous thing for a bloke to carry about, but it does keep other people away from it."

"Oh!" exclaimed Lily. She jumped up and sprinted over to her own trunk, digging inside until she found what she was looking for. "I'd completely forgotten about this." She held up Remus' bracelet, twirling it about her fingers with a slight smirk. "I had just gotten it back from Snape when we got the news about Peter."

Remus held his hand out, and Lily tossed it to him. Light glinted off of it as the interlocking chains flew through the air. It landed on the edge of Remus' fingers for the briefest second before the bracelet and Remus fell to the ground, letting out an agonizing scream.

He clutched his hand to his chest, tears blurring his vision. James, Sirius and Lily were at his side in an instant. In a pain-scorched voice, Remus muttered "Silver..."

Sirius snatched up the bracelet and glared at it. "I'm going to kill Snape for this." He stood up and headed for the door, intent on doing the deed as soon as possible.

James grabbed his arm, stopping him. "Think for a second... Remember that talk we had at lunch today about how Snape kept smirking at us--we thought it was because of Peter being attacked." James shook his head. "He's been waiting for this; it will prove that he's been right about Remus."

"Listen to James," Lily was on the floor next to Remus, arms around her friend. "The best thing you can do, Sirius, is to figure out a way to get that bracelet back to white gold." She took out her wand and glanced up at James. "We'll have to heal him ourselves; I'd bet a thousand galleons that Snape is watching the Infirmary for Remus to show up. Can you transfigure some parchment into bandages for me?"

James nodded and went over to her desk, pulling some blank pieces of paper out of a drawer. Sirius laid the bracelet out on her bed, studying it. Lily turned her attention back to the quivering Remus.

"I can suppress the pain, but I need to see your hand," she murmured gently. Remus gave a sharp nod and let her pull his hand away from his chest. The links of his bracelet were burned across his fingertips and palm, like a brand. The welts were already blistering. He cried out when she brushed her wand over them, whispering the incantation to dull his suffering. His face relaxed as her words wound around his injury, soothing them with her soft voice.

When it was done, Lily grabbed a few pillows off her bed and made Remus lie down. Once he was settled, she turned to Sirius and James: "I can't heal that like a normal burn, the magic that repels a werewolf from silver is something more complex than that." She looked thoughtful. "Last year, I had a book out of the restricted section for Defense Against the Dark Arts that should have the answer. Can one of you get it for me? I need to stay here to recast the anesthetic charm, it only lasts for a few minutes."

Both black haired boys offered instantly, then smiled at each other.

"I should go, a Prefect out after hours won't get into trouble." James said. "I'll take the cloak for getting into the library itself."

Sirius nodded. "I need to get a book from my room to fix this," he pointed at the bracelet. "Alchemy is a tricky bit of business, I'm surprised that Snape was able to manage it by himself."

"He might have had help," Lily shrugged "which is an even better reason not to take Remus to the Infirmary." She looked at the stricken boy lying very still on the floor with his eyes closed and shook her head in disbelief.

"I can't believe Snape took things this far, I never would have thought him capable of hurting Remus or anyone like this." She paled slightly. "If it had been another day or two, closer to the full moon, Remus could have lost his hand from the burn."

James' eyes went ice cold. "Snape is capable of much more than this, Lily. Don't ever think otherwise. If he had found out about how well his little trick worked, he would have done all he could to get Remus expelled."

Sirius nodded in agreement. "Don't worry though, he'll get what's coming to him in the end. That's a promise."

"What's the name of the book, Lily?" James had his hand on the doorknob, ready to leave.

"It's called 'The Maladies of Magical Creatures'. The author is Wimperton Wissel, and the book has a blue leather binding." Lily saw Remus twitch out of the corner of her eye, and she readied her wand to cast the charm again. "Go now," she instructed. "The more I have to cast this charm, the less effective it becomes."

Sirius and James left post haste, parting ways at James' door.

"Be careful," Sirius said looking slightly worried.

"Book from the restricted section? Piece of cake." James gave him a reassuring smile. "Need anything else while I'm out?"

"Yes," Sirius said with a nasty grin. "But I don't know where you'd get a goat, a ball of yarn, a bottle of Mrs. Claggy's Super-Adhesive Goo and Snape's favorite issue of PlayWizard magazine at this time of night."

* * *

Lily had placed Remus into a charmed sleep so that she could work on removing the burns from his hand. It took her several hours; but in the end, she had mended his skin so well that no trace of bruise or blister could be found.

Sirius let out a low, admiring whistle when she pronounced the work finished. "That would make a few mediwizards I know proud."

The silver that Snape had covered Remus' bracelet in was nothing more than a thin coating of silver leaf; no knowledge of alchemy was needed to alter the bracelet back to its original state, just a fine chisel and a steady arm. After Sirius had removed all of the leaf, he dipped the bracelet into a concoction he and James had whipped up to test for silver content. There was no reaction as the bracelet dropped into the cauldron; it was safe for Remus to wear it again.

Sirius bent down and fastened it around the wrist of his sleeping friend. "We'll have to make sure that Snape sees him wearing it tomorrow." Remus stirred slightly as Sirius snapped the lock on the bracelet.

Lily gestured for James and Sirius to follow her outside. As she shut the door behind them, she whispered: "We might as well let him sleep in there tonight. The Somnus spell will wear off once he's had enough rest."

James nodded his head in the direction of his room down the hall. "Should we go work a bit more on Nimue's Embrace then? Or just call it a night?"

"I'm not anywhere near tired," replied Sirius.

Lily's eyelids were starting to droop. "I can stay up for a bit longer, I guess." She shrugged her shoulders sleepily as they walked down to James' room.

James pointed to the book in his hands. "I should get this back to the restricted section before morning," he said. "Why don't you rest on the bed till I get back?"

Lily nodded as he opened the door. Sirius followed her in, saying "I'll start working on compiling our notes from last night."

Lily crawled up into James' bed, slumping into the pile of pillows. She grabbed one and put it over her face, to block out the light in the room. James waved at Sirius and shut the door quietly, leaving them alone in the room.

Sirius unrolled a parchment, laying it on the floor in front of him. He drew out his wand, whispering a few choice words to it; the tip of the wand turned a bright yellow. Sirius began to read, running the tip of the wand over words he wanted highlighted as he came across them. When he was done with the first scroll, he grabbed a blank piece of parchment, laying it on the floor next to the highlighted scroll.

He tapped twice on a section of highlighted material, and then tapped his wand once on the blank piece of paper. Translucent copies of the letters floated up into the air and over to the empty paper, where they settled back on to the sheet as if they had just been written there. Sirius worked diligently at his copying and pasting, until the sound of snores broke his concentration.

Lily's foot was twitching in her sleep. She'd thrown the pillow off her face, and her mouth hung open. Another snore echoed through the empty room. Sirius chuckled to himself, amazed that tiny little Lily could sound so much like a sleeping giant. She yawned as she slept, causing Sirius to yawn as well.

He stood up and walked over to the bed. Before he had time to think about what he was doing, he stretched out on the bed next to her, curling up next to her like two spoons in a kitchen drawer. He put his arm around her petite waist, and felt her unconsciously lean back into his embrace. He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling the soft scent of lavender that emanated from the red locks.

Sirius had barely slept since Peter's attack and aside from occasional bursts of energy, he was starting to wear thin. He felt so relaxed with her in his arms--it was as if he was a child again, and she was his teddy bear. He closed his eyes, hoping to catch a few minutes of peaceful rest.

* * *

The gate to the restricted section was wide open. James had been sure that he'd closed it behind him when he left; you could never be sure when the Filch would decide on a surprise inspection, it was best to cover your tracks. James shut the gate behind him and walked into the dark stacks of ancient books.

He reached out from under the safety of his invisibility cloak and slipped 'The Maladies of Magical Creatures' back into its slot on the bottom shelf of the third stack. As he stood back up, he notice that there was another figure in the restricted section, heavily shadowed about two stacks over from where he was.

James held his breath, peeking at the person through the gaps in the bookshelves. It wasn't Filch; this was not the spindly figure of the Hogwarts' caretaker before him. Whoever it was, they carried a little extra weight around the middle. James edged toward the end of the bookcase, hoping to get a better look. His shoe squeaked against the wooden floor as he moved.

The figure spun around, looking for the source of the noise. Seeing nothing, but obviously not wanting to take the risk of being seen, the unknown person shoved a book back onto the shelf and darted through the gate to the restricted section and out the library door.

It had been too dark to ever see who it was. After waiting a moment to make sure that they weren't coming back, James slipped over into the stack the person had been browsing. Books on Herbology and the uses of particular plants filled the shelves.

James grabbed a book that was sitting at an angle, askew from its brethren on the shelf. The dust that should have been surrounding the book was missing; this was the book that the mysterious person had been browsing through: The book was bound in black leather; there was no title on the binding or on the cover of the thin codex.

James hesitated for a minute.

Books in the restricted section were well known to have wards on them; one might shout at you if you opened it without permission, another could snap shut around your fingers, as if it were trying to bite you. James looked down at his watch, noting that the gloved hands of Mickey Mouse were indicating that it was half-past three in the morning. If he took the book back with him now, he would still have time to put it back before Madam Pince opened the library at eight a.m.

It took him almost forty-five minutes to get back to Gryffindor Tower--Filch was still patrolling the halls. That old git really needs to get a hobby, James thought ruefully.

As he climbed the stairs to his room, he heard muffled shouting. He sprinted forward.

"--don't know what you were thinking! Move your hand right now! Let me go!" came Lily's sour sounding shout from behind his door.

There was a loud thud followed by a whimper that sounded suspiciously like Sirius as James opened the door. Lily was frowning down from her vantage point on the bed at Sirius, who was sprawled out on the floor.

"Lily, just calm down." Sirius snapped back. "I just wanted to get some rest, I didn't think you'd mind if--" He shut his mouth mid-sentence, looking over his shoulder at James, who was staring at them both.

Lily jumped off of the bed and walked over to James, standing just in front of him but still facing Sirius. "Well I do mind," she said in a fiery voice. "What reason have I given you to presume that your place would ever be next to me in a bed?"

Sirius flinched. "You've given me plenty of reasons, just none lately. We need to talk about that..." He turned to James. "Would you mind leaving us alone for a while?"

Before James could answer, Lily was cursing again. "I mind. The last thing I want is to be alone in a room with you right now." She turned to James and pointed a finger back towards Sirius accusingly. "He had his hand on my--"

James held up a hand for silence. His heart was racing for several reasons, the least of which was that he needed to get them to calm down enough to look at the black leather book with him. "If you two don't stop yelling, you'll wake up the whole Tower," he grumbled in a low voice. "Either forget about it, or take the fight somewhere else," he held the book out to them. "I need to work on this fast and get it back to the restricted section before Madam Pince opens the library up."

Lily looked curiously at the book and then at James. Sirius would not be so easily swayed however. He all but crawled over to Lily's feet.

"Despite all that has happened," he spared a second to glare at James, remembering how he had found them sleeping together on the armchair just the week before. "I still think of you as my girlfriend. I've done a lot of stupid things lately and I'm very sorry." He took Lily's hand in his, holding it tenderly as if it might break. "Let's go talk about this, please."

Lily stared down at him for a moment; her face had turned to a mask. She grabbed the book out of James' hand and sat down at his desk, turning her back to them both as she studied the outside of the book.

James put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Maybe you should go get some sleep," he whispered as kindly as he could. "She's in no mood to listen to you, obviously."

Sirius snapped his shoulder out of James' grasp. "Is that how it is now?" He glared between the two of them. "Just been waiting for her to give me the final brush off, eh James?"

Lily snapped her head around at that, glaring at both of them. "Regardless of popular opinion, I'm not here to satisfy either of your raging hormones right now." She stood up, gesturing to the school robe that she was wearing. "Does this look like lacy lingerie and fishnet stockings to either of you? Do I look like a witch that hangs out in the Hog's Head pub, trading a grope for a galleon? Honestly," she rolled her eyes. "Between Potter's lips and Black's roving hands, I don't know how I get anything done--"

"Potter's lips?" Sirius looked incredulous as he snapped his head back to look at James. "You kissed her? You snogged my girlfriend?"

James heard Lily cursing herself under her breath. James met Sirius' shocked stare, but said nothing.

"It wasn't like that," Lily said finally. "We just kissed once, after he punched Snape--"

Sirius gaped at her. "So what was it then, a reward for a punch well thrown?"

James wished that Lily would stop while she was ahead, otherwise he felt sure that his face would be connecting with Sirius' fist very soon.

Lily marched to the door, black book still in hand. "I'm going back to my room, I'd rather sleep with Remus." She stopped briefly when she realized what she'd said, cursing herself again as she slammed the door behind her.

Sirius continued to glare at James. "How could you kiss her? How could you do this to me?"

When he thought about it later, James had no idea why he did it. Maybe it was the thought of the impending Quidditch match and how he had treated his rivalry with Snape in the last game. Maybe he was just sick of listening to Sirius and wanted to do something to make sure the screaming git went away. Maybe he wanted to make Sirius mad enough to do something, to answer any guilt that was lurking in the pit of James' stomach.

James grabbed Sirius' face between his hands and gave him an exaggerated kiss right on the lips. "There, now we're even. Though I have to say, Lily's skin is a lot less scratchy than yours is..."

He was lucky, he mused later. He'd been able to get the whole of his sarcastic comment out before Sirius punched him in the nose.

* * *

If he'd been in a boxing match with an acromantula, Sirius's ego couldn't have been more bruised and battered. James was the only one sitting in their regular section at breakfast that morning; and instead of subjecting himself to Potter's company, Sirius had taken a seat a few feet away. He was sitting among a few of the fifth year girls, including his Chaser, Meg Surrey. Every witch present was very friendly to him, but Surrey kept glancing down to James and giving Sirius an odd look.

He saw Remus enter the Great Hall alone a few minutes later. Remus did not see him and sat down next to James. They were talking; Sirius strained to listen.

"No," Remus said with surprise, "she wasn't there when I woke up. That was almost two hours ago too. I checked back after I showered and she wasn't in her room then either; I assumed she'd been with you and Sirius all night. Where is he anyway?"

James pointed down the Gryffindor table, and from the corner of his eye he saw Remus give him a small wave. Sirius returned it and refilled his glass of pumpkin juice, trying to look as if he wasn't eavesdropping. One of Meg's friends told what must have been a funny joke because the rest of the girls giggled. After half a beat, Sirius forced a laugh as well.

James and Remus talked in whispers for the rest of the meal. During his first class, Sirius sat away from Remus and James, choosing the company of a few young ladies from his own year instead. They had a double course of Care of Magical Creatures on Wednesday mornings, and a few dark haired Ravenclaws were more than happy to show him the finer points of the jarvey--a large ferret like creature that eats gnomes. Sirius was surprised to find that the animal could talk. It was spitting out misaligned insults faster than Severus Snape. The ladies all thought this very funny and he found himself escorting two of them (one on each arm) back to the castle after class.

Behind him, he heard James say to Remus: "If she's not in Transfiguration when we get there, I'm going to skive off and go looking for her."

Sirius reviewed his last class in his mind; Lily wasn't there and he'd never known her to miss a single class. Either she was really upset or--Well, he didn't want to think about the 'or'. He realized that he didn't really want to think about Lily at all, but that she was just there in his mind. Why had she been so cold last night? What exactly was going on with her and James? Did she even care about Sirius at all anymore?

None of these questions had ready answers and the asking only served to darken his mood further. He excused himself from his Ravenclaw companions and headed towards McGonagall's classroom. He could hear Remus and James chatting behind him still.

"If Pince notices that that book is gone, whoever I spotted in the restricted section last night will know that someone saw them. I have to get it back..." James said in a hoarse whisper.

Sirius walked into the classroom. It was already filled with his fellow Gryffindors, but there was no sign of a short redhead anywhere. Sirius took his seat. Remus popped his head in, looked around and disappeared again for a minute. When he reentered the classroom, he was alone.

When Professor McGonagall called James and Lily's names, she was surprised to find that both of her sixth year Prefects were missing. Her normally impassive face registered the reaction for a brief moment. Perhaps she's wondering if something is wrong, Sirius thought. He was starting to wonder himself.

What was this book that James kept talking about? He dimly remembered James showing it to them last night, but couldn't recall what was so important about it.

Remus was sitting next to him now; when the chance arose, Sirius asked him about the book. Remus never took his eyes off the front of the classroom, where McGonagall was showing her students how to change an old pillbox into a peacock. When the stern woman turned her back, Remus replied "There was someone else in the restricted section last night. James didn't see who it was, but he scared them off. He grabbed the book they were looking at to see what it was about, but Lily ran off with it last night... after the... uh... fight."

And no one had seen Lily since, Sirius thought. He was tempted to bolt out of the classroom to look for her himself. McGonagall probably wouldn't have been too pleased with that though. Sirius stayed seated but let his mind wander.

Lily was an enigma to him; unlike any of the previous girls he'd dated, she didn't demand that he leave his friends behind--her friends were his friends. She never fished for compliments or asked for gifts. During the more private moments that they'd shared, she hadn't held anything back... it was he that had always stopped things before they went too far. But now... now she didn't seem to care one whit about him. If he had gone looking for her, it probably would have angered her.

James would find her though, and she would be happy to see James. Sirius tightened his fist under the table. He saw them together in his mind's eye, holding each other and laughing at him. Laughing because he was alone.

No, he corrected suddenly. She's not with James. Not yet.

Sirius remembered Peter mocking him the night that the Chastity Charm had rebounded. It would be so much easier, he told himself, if she was just a girl. Just a girl like any other, that Sirius could set aside when things got too complicated. Lily Evans was like a compulsion though, and he couldn't give her up willingly.

After Transfigurations, it was time for lunch. Sirius followed Remus down to the Great Hall; James had planned on coming by here to tell Remus if he'd caught sight of Lily. The gangly bespeckled boy ran in just before the end of the meal.

"I can't find her anywhere," James said to Remus. "The only places I haven't checked are the girls' washrooms and Albus' office."

"Grab Annalise after lunch," Remus suggested. "She can check the girls' bathrooms and the private washroom for the female Prefects for us."

Sirius nodded. "Don't tell her anymore than you have to, though. Just say Lily was sick last night, and we're worried." He gave a small shrug. "If she's avoiding us because of... last night... that's probably what she'd tell 'Lise herself."

"And if she's not there, we'll go to Dumbledore," James decided. "Maybe that book was more important that I thought--maybe whoever--"

Sirius shook his head, feeling bad for James for the first time in a long while. "This isn't your fault," he said, following James' train of thought. "And until we know otherwise, we have to assume that she's fine."

The three boys dragged Annalise from washroom to washroom. There was no sign of Lily anywhere. Finally, there was only the Prefect's bathroom left.

She went inside. Remus fidgeted with the bracelet on his wrist. James stood stock still, staring at the door, willing Lily to be right behind it. Sirius paced up and down the halls.

A high-pitched scream echoed off of the porcelain walls of the bathroom and out to their ears. They threw the door open, running inside. Remus caught Annalise by the shoulders as she was running out. The fifth year Prefect was crying and pointing behind her.

Lying on the floor next to the roman style bath was the body of Lily Evans. Her eyes were glassy, they stared up into the ceiling motionlessly. Her red hair was strewn about her like a pool of blood; Lily's mouth was agape. Sirius stared at her for a long moment; her chest did not rise or fall, she wasn't breathing.

In slow motion, he and James rushed to her side. He saw James lean down, putting his ear to her mouth to try and listen for a breath. Sirius took her wrist, hoping against hope to find a pulse. After a minute, he laid her hand across the black book that was on her stomach.

James looked at him, tears in his eyes. The black haired boys rose together and headed for the door. They told Remus and Annalise to stand guard outside of the Prefect's bathroom; they were going to go get Dumbledore.

Lily was gone.

* * *

It was like bursting through a wave after being under water. Her first breath filled her whole body; she could feel it invigorating her down to her toes. There was no stream of consciousness in her mind yet though, just the command to breath and live.

Slowly she became aware of the sounds of muffled cries. She looked around the bathroom; it was empty. Putting the black book into her pocket, she stood up and walked over to the door. Yes, there was someone on the other side of it... no two people, both crying.

Panic set in; what if they had seen her? She'd waited until after breakfast to try the spell up in the Prefect's bathroom just for that reason. If it worked, well... it could give someone quite a scare. She bit her lip and then opened the door.

Remus was standing a few feet away, holding the sobbing Annalise. Oh dear, Lily thought as she watched Remus' eyes go wide with shock, this is not good. Annalise turned towards her; the fifth year girl went ghost white as she screamed and pointed at Lily. Lily threw her hands out in front of her, about to tell the girl that everything was fine when Annalise fainted into Remus' arms without decorum.

Well, thought Lily wryly, at least she's not screaming like a banshee anymore.

Remus was still staring at her dumbly. "We saw you... we thought you were dead."

"I'm not," she replied simply. "Did anyone else see?"

Remus eased Annalise up against a wall, nodding slowly at Lily. "Yes--James and Sirius went to get Dumbledore."

Lily drew in a sharp breath and took off running. Remus grabbed her arm, pulling her in for a tight hug. "Remus, I'm fine--but I have to stop them before--"

"I know, and I expect a long explanation later." Remus released her, tears rolling down his face. They made his eyes shine like a polished copper kettle. "Whatever it was though, never do it again." He pushed her off, and she started running once more. "Lily, don't ever die again."

Lily found James and Sirius just as they entered the corridor with the gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office. They were walking slowly, numbed by what they had seen in the Prefect's bathroom. She didn't stop running until she crashed into them, sending all three of them sprawling on to the floor.

Lily had twisted her ankle during her graceless landing. She rubbed it gently as the two young wizards stared at her. She blushed guiltily under their shocked gaze. "So," she said flippantly. "Come here often?"

Sirius scooped her up in his arms, squeezing her so tightly she thought she might be sick. "Merlin's beard, what happened?" he said breathlessly. "We thought--"

"Shush," Lily hissed. "Not out here." She turned to James. "Did you tell anyone else on your way down here."

His face was immobile. He just stared at her. Lily wrenched herself free from Sirius and crawled over to him. Taking his hand into hers, she whispered, "It's alright James, I'm fine." James looked down at their interlocked fingers, then back up at Lily's face.

Lily glanced around the hall nervously; someone was bound to walk by and notice how odd this scene was. She pulled herself up, wincing as she put her weight on the injured ankle. James stared at the ankle for a moment, then stood up. He was still mute as he picked her up off the floor, carrying her away from Dumbledore's office.

"James, put me down..." she pleaded. "I can walk, please... it's just a turned ankle." She looked back over her shoulder to Sirius, her eyes pleading with him for help. Seeing none forthcoming, she turned back to James. "We have to get back up to Remus and Annalise, I have to think of something to tell her about all of this... no one can know about what happened in there today."

James ignored her, speaking to Sirius instead. "I'm taking her back to her room, go and fetch Remus and Annalise, will you?"

Sirius nodded solemnly, turning away from them at the next corner. James continued to carry her like a rag doll all the way back to the Tower; Lily gave up pleading with him after a few staircases, resigning herself to the indignity of being conveyed home in such a manner. She gave a self-depreciating wave to the staring people in the Common Room as James took her up the stairs.

James gave her door a small kick, forcing it open. He laid her down gently on her bed, taking a seat next to her. Finally, he looked at her. Lily felt horrible; his eyes were filled with pain. She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a finger to her lips.

"I never saw my parents, after they'd been killed by 'Avada Kedavra'... I saw them at the funeral, but they'd been fixed up by then." His voice was barely audible, and it shook as he spoke. He didn't blink, just stared at her, piercing her soul with his sorrowful eyes. "I read everything I could about the spell after that; I spent hours on end imagining how they must have looked afterwards. No blood, no signs of a struggle--just dead." He swallowed. "Dead because I wasn't there, because I was off watching a stupid Quidditch match with Sirius that day. Dumbledore knew that I blamed myself, but nothing he could say could change that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had let them down." He closed his eyes. "When I saw you lying there--it was just how I had always imagined it would look like. You were gone; it was just your body left. I thought," he was struggling to choke back his tears. "I thought I had failed you too."

Lily was crying now, her guilt coming full circle. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in the crook of his neck. She apologized over and over--agonized by the pain she had caused him. By the pain she had caused all of them, she chided. Remus, Sirius and even Annalise had been affected by her experimentation with the charm she'd found in the black book.

Remus and Sirius entered the room. Lily released James, running over to apologize to them. She was sandwiched between the two of them, both boys holding onto her for dear life. When things calmed down, Remus explained that Annalise was resting in her own room. The girl had accepted that Lily was alive, and would wait for the explanation of her apparent demise there.

The boys allowed Lily to excuse herself to go talk to the girl; she returned a few minutes later looking like a great weight had been lifted off her shoulder.

"What did you tell her?" Remus asked.

"The truth mostly," Lily replied. "I said I'd been working on a charm for my Ministry studies and it worked a little too well." She sat down on the floor next to the three boys. "The part about it being school work is a lie, but the rest is factual enough." She gave them a half-hearted smirk.

James shook his head at her; he looked like he was still in a state of shock. "What possessed you to work a charm that would make it look like you were dead? What kind of charm is it?"

"It's called the Possum Charm," she pulled the black book out from her robe. "It's very old... it's not even a native European charm. The Native American wizards created the spell based on way the opossum would play dead to avoid becoming some predators next meal." She flipped through the book until she found the spell, and then passed it to Remus. "A few of them used it to escape from their conquerors. When the first European witches and wizards immigrated to America, they translated the spell for their own purposes. It turns out it has some interesting side effects."

"Like scaring the bloody hell out of your friends?" inquired Sirius.

Lily flushed scarlet. "Well yes, there is that... and the fact that the charm has no time limit made it unreliable. The magical medical community stopped using it in the late 1700's because it was thought that they'd accidentally buried a few people alive."

James was reading the book now. "'Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati' - 'When all else fails, play dead'?" He wrinkled his nose at her. "So aside from premature burial, what good is this spell?"

Lily allowed herself a small smile. "It's supposed to reverse the effects of any spell that has been cast on the person 'playing possum'. The act of feigning death with this spell is so complete, that it tricks any other spell cast on the person into completing its cycle." She nodded towards the book. "There isn't a lot of documentation there, and since it hasn't been used in several hundred years its possible that it wouldn't work but..."

Remus smiled back at her. "You think that this Possum Charm could release the victims of the cursed vine?"

Lily nodded, then held out her left hand. "I hexed myself before I tried the charm. This arm was covered in slimy green scales." She twirled it in front of the faces of the three boys. "Not a sign of them now though." She looked over at James, who had finally started to relax. "How did you find it anyway?"

James briefly explained his encounter with the unknown person in the Library the night before. Lily nodded gravely, snatching the book out of Sirius' hands.

"Well," she said solemnly. "That explains this." She turned the book a few pages and showed them where a page had been torn out. "It's the last page about the Possum Charm. Whoever you interrupted last night must have been trying to remove all evidence of the spell, James."

"I guess we know for sure now that Voldemort has someone working for him at Hogwarts," Sirius added. They'd suspected as much since the attack on Justice and Honora Munroe, presuming that such a powerful curse couldn't be cast from a distance.

"Why didn't you wait for us to try the charm out?" There was a touch of angry accusation in James' voice. "You said yourself that there is no time limit on the spell--you could have been buried alive."

Lily gave a sheepish shrug. "I left a note in my pocket..."

Remus snorted. "What did it say? 'Please don't bury me; I'm not dead. PS - I'm sorry for skipping classes?'"

Lily stood up, and took the note from her pocket. "'I solemnly swear that I, Lily Evans, am not dead. I'm just playing possum. Please dust me once a week until I wake up.'" She waited for them to laugh, but they just gawked at her.

She stuffed the note back into her pocket and muttered, "Well, I thought it was funny at the time."

Sirius stood up, motioning for James to follow him. "Quidditch practice." He said, answering a question that Lily was about to ask. "Don't do anything stupid until we get back." To Remus he said: "And don't you let her out of your sight."

James lingered after Sirius had darted out of the room. None of this was sitting well with him. He stared at Lily for a minute, furious that she had done something so stupid, taken such a risk without anyone there with her. And yet, he was relieved--she was safe and healthy and she may have just found the key to saving Peter. He looked over at Remus, who took the hint and excused himself from the room to get his books.

James stood up and held Lily tightly when she crossed over to him. It took all of his strength to keep from crying again. Never let her go, he thought to himself, then she can't get hurt. Just hold on to her.

That wasn't who Lily Evans was though; she wasn't the kind of bird that could sing in a gilded cage. She broke free of his embrace sooner than he would have liked and looked up at him with tear-filled eyes.

"I am so sorry... If I had thought for a second that anyone would have found me, I never would have done it." She wiped a tear off of her cheek, sniffling slightly. "It was just a test."

"You should have waited for us," he replied softly. "If not Sirius or I, then Remus. You shouldn't have done it alone. I can't even explain how much it hurt to think you were--I care about you too much, Lily."

Lily gave a small sob. "I know, I'm so sorry..."

James tilted his head down towards hers. He kissed her forehead as he had so often done before, then her tiny nose that turned up ever so slightly at the end. He kissed her gently on each cheek, tasting the salt of her tears. His hand reached out, tilting her chin up towards his lips. She stiffened in his hands, waiting for it to happen. She closed her eyes.

His lips were just millimeters from hers now. She could feel it as he drew in a deep breath. When he spoke, she could feel the vibrations of the words hitting her skin.

"Don't ever do it again." He loitered there for another moment, ever so close to her but still much to far away. When he shut the door behind him, Lily all but fell onto the floor.

Don't ever do it again. An odd thought occurred to her as she tried to catch her breath: Maybe he hadn't been speaking to her; maybe he'd been chiding himself.

* * *

Quidditch practice had been an exercise in how to vent frustration for James and Sirius. Both seemed possessed of a fever as they executed their practice moves high above the Quidditch pitch. Their teammates were happy to see them so in tune with the game again; since Peter's attack neither boy had had their hearts in the practices and most of them were worried as to how it would affect their performance against Ravenclaw on Saturday. Making things more difficult was the obvious fact that the two boys were fighting. Everyone relaxed as the two wizards worked in a sort of tandem that the team hadn't seen in weeks; for the moment at least, peace was at hand.

After their showers, both boys packed up their equipment slowly. They seemed to be waiting to have a chance to be alone. Once everyone was gone, Sirius turned to James.

"I don't want to fight about this anymore," Sirius said, sounding very worn out.

James nodded his head. "Me neither. We've been friends too long to let something like this come between us." He gave a weak shrug. "When Lily is ready, she'll make her choice and--"

"Hold on a second," interrupted Sirius. "I know that you have feelings for her... but Lily is still mine. There's no choice for her to make. She's upset right now... Once I can talk to her though, it will be just like it was."

James gave his head a soft shake. "You still don't get it, do you? She's not a prize or a possession. She's a person." Sirius rolled his eyes, but James ignored him. "She does not belong to you. And in case you haven't noticed, she doesn't want much to do with you lately." James smirked broadly. "Or did you push yourself off the bed in a vain attempt to keep her from sullying your virtue?"

Sirius clenched his jaw tightly. "I won't ask you to stay away from her; Lily wouldn't accept that anyway. But I thought that you were man enough to step back and let things take their course."

James threw his hands up in the air. "Where have you been? Haven't you been paying attention? Things are taking their course--but it's not you that is steering the ship."

"And I suppose," Sirius said sarcastically. "That you are the captain?"

"No, you stupid git--Lily is." James took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm himself. "It has always been a question of what Lily wanted for herself, and she's only now starting to figure it out. For years, she hid behind her image of being the perfect student, the perfect Prefect." James stuffed his Quidditch trousers into his bag. "Now she's facing herself for the first time, and learning that nothing is as easy as it seems. When her mum died, she was forced to grow up in ways you can't imagine." With a spark of inspiration, he added, "It would be like trying to play Quidditch after playing Quodpot for years."

"Regardless of the game, James, there should only be two teams on the pitch, not three." Sirius said pointedly.

James kicked a locker. "There is only one person on the field--Lily, and she's the one making the rules for the bloody game." He never should have started a sports analogy, he realized. Sirius already thought of this as a competition. "If you can't accept that this isn't about you and me, that its about what Lily needs to make Lily happy, then I don't know what to say to you."

Sirius sat down on the bench, shoving his Quidditch bag onto the floor. He'd never seen James so impassioned about a girl before. Sirius knew he still had a trump card to play though. He didn't want to say it--he'd never said it before, but it looked like the only way. He knew James was too honorable to push past the limits of such a declaration. He took a deep breath, staring down at the floor. "James, I think that I love her."

"Well," said James, tossing his bag over his shoulder. "That's the difference between you and me then, isn't it?" He started towards the door. "I know that I do. Beyond hope. The problem is that until I get a sign that she loves me back, I don't dare do anything about it." He stared at Sirius for a minute. "I never want to be in your position, having to second guess her feelings for me. She'll come to it on her own, or she won't come to it at all. She can't be forced into it."

"Didn't you hear me?" Sirius was shocked. "I said I love Lily."

"Oh, I heard you alright." James had his game face on. "But the real question is do you have any idea what the words you just said mean? What will you do in a month or three when you get tired of playing on the same field day in and day out? What will you do to Lily if you force her hand in this, and try to decide the course of her life for her?" James opened the door. "Don't you ever say those words to her, unless you mean them, Sirius. Love is a sleeping dragon--don't tickle it."

* * *

The frown on Remus' face was sliding further down his face. He was still reading a book that he and Lily had managed to find in the Library on Native American Animalistic Charms. He looked much older than seventeen with the deep creases of his frown, Lily mused.

"You know, my Mum used to say if you keep making faces like that, it will stay that way." She smiled mischievously at him.

Remus snorted. "It's true you know, at least in the wizarding world." Lily rolled her eyes. "No, really. When we're young, we can't control our magic... and sometimes things like that happen." He shrugged. "It's called the 'Face Freezing' jinx. Easy enough for any mediwizard to fix, but right embarrassing for the kid that has to walk into a hospital with his tongue stuck to his nose."

Lily laughed. "I suppose that something horrid happens to one's mum if you step on a crack in the sidewalk too?"

Remus shivered. "Don't even joke about that... it's not funny."

Lily blinked a few times, trying to decide if she should laugh or not. "Anyway, what's in that book that's making you look so upset? We should be celebrating; Peter will probably be awake by tomorrow morning."

"I don't think so," said Remus, shaking his head. "This book doesn't even tell you how to do the charm, it only references it as 'a failed spell' of 'no practical use'."

Lily pursed her lips. "But we know how to do the spell. We even know that it works, thanks to my little experiment this morning."

"Yes, yes..." Remus muttered. "But do you realize that the Possum Charm is an Unrepeatable? A spell that can only be cast once on a person?"

Lily blanched slightly. "It didn't say that in the black book."

"It was probably on the page that got ripped out," Remus gave her a stern look. "What's with you lately? It's not like you to jump into something like this without thinking it through."

"I thought I had thought it through." She wrinkled her nose. Remus was right; she wasn't thinking the way she should be. The fight the night before with James and Sirius had kept her off-kilter for almost a whole day. She'd been so sure of her course when she entered the Prefect's Bathroom this morning, but everything seemed muddled now. "Even if we can't cast the spell again, why does that mean we can't use it on Peter and the others?"

"It doesn't mean that we can't, it just means that we can't yet." Remus said, looking at her a bit like an impatient professor.

"If we cast it..." Lily spoke slowly, as the realization hit her. "And they wake up, there's nothing to keep Voldemort from attacking them with the vine again."

Remus nodded. "There are a lot of other risks to this spell too--for one, we don't know how it will interact with the vine. That's not some jinx from third year; the vine is powerful Dark Magic." Remus set the book down. "But basically, until we are sure that they won't be attacked again, we can't do anything."

"Oh, is that all?" Lily said wryly. "No problem, I'd planned on ridding the world of the Dark Lord next month, but I think I can squeak it into my schedule this week."

Remus chuckled. "It comes down to two things: We need to ensure that Voldemort will never reassemble the Staff of Merlin, and we have to discover who is working for him in Hogwarts."

Lily crossed her arms over her chest, pouting unabashedly. "It would be easier to fix Snape up to win Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile award."