Eyes as Green as a Fresh Pickled Toad

Chapter Ten

The Gamekeeper's Hut

It wasn't Lily's fault. It really wasn't. She hadn't meant to get into a fight with James, but if he insisted on acting immature, then Lily insisted on yelling at him for it. And it didn't help that the Flaming Tulips they'd been taking care of in greenhouse four had caught her hair on fire, and she was now looking rather...singed. No, that certainly hadn't helped. But James had been looking altogether too perky, and Lily had been altogether too disgruntled, and sneaking up behind Lily with a Filibuster's Wet-Start, No-Heat Firework and setting it off had NOT been a wise decision on James's part.

So it wasn't Lily's fault that half the students in sixth year had witnessed her yelling at him on the front steps, and telling him that she had absolutely no patience for useless fireworks or useless boys who insisted on setting them off right above her head, and that she would be very happy to turn him into Mr. Filch for detention. Lily had chosen to close this wonderful conversation with the sentiment that she would very much like to see James go off into the Forbidden Forest, get lost, and never come back again.

Lily really wasn't having a very good start to the term.

* * *

"What are Lily and James arguing about NOW?" Sirius Black asked, elbowing through the large crowd in the Front Hall in an effort to catch up with Melody Cauldwell.

"Who knows?" Melody said over her shoulder, shrugging. She was easily five steps ahead of Sirius, gliding through the crowd as though it were made of water.

"Well, YOU'RE Lily's best friend. I thought you'd have at least SOME ide--" Sirius cut off as he was sideswiped by a group of first years, most of whom only came up to his waist.

"Sirius, stop playing with the children," Melody said, exasperated, looking up from her bag, in which she had been looking for a mirror. Sirius stumbled over to her, looking winded. "That was dignified," Melody said amusedly, taking a quick glance around before Summoning a mirror from the depths of her bag.

"You know, technically I should take points from our house for that," Sirius said, frowning.

"Technically I should be taking points from myself," Melody replied, fluffing her hair and perfecting her make-up. "But oh well." She shrugged and clicked the compact closed, dropping it into her bag.

"Since when did you become so concerned with make-up?" Sirius demanded as they began their ascent to Gryffindor Tower.

"Are you suggesting that there was a time when I WASN'T obsessed with my appearance?"

"Yes," Sirius said, immediately. Melody looked up at him, surprised, and he shook his head at the generous amounts of eye make-up she'd layered on. "Last year," he said. "Last year you never wore make-up. You even ate those magical suckers that turned your hair blue. You haven't had one of those for months."

Melody tore her gaze away from Sirius and stared at the floor as they reached the top of the stairs. She could feel him staring at her, and felt that if she were to meet his eyes, he would find all the flaws in her carefully woven web of lies, insincere smiles, caked-on beauty, and feigned weakness, that connected to the truth in very few places and had taken her six months of laboring to create. In six months, Melody had painstakingly transformed herself into the kind of twittering idiot she'd always hated, looked down upon, and feared becoming. And now that she'd become one, she...in a weird, twisted, sick sort of way...she liked it.

She didn't have to WORRY anymore, she didn't have to TRY so hard...hell, she didn't even really have to THINK.....Well, okay, she did have to THINK, but...it was a different KIND of thinking. It was shallow and flirty, sly and cunning in a greedy sort of way.

It was a race, sort of, between all the girls there, to land the richest husband, the smartest, the most formidable, the handsomest, the most powerful (both magically and in the Ministry). Unfortunately for most of the twittering idiots at the parties, however, the Minister of Magic's son was nowhere to be found. Melody had occasionally wondered why James never came to "high society" functions, but then figured the Minister was probably too busy to come with his family, and that Mrs. Potter didn't want to go without him. It wasn't as though they weren't INVITED...

But back to the matter at hand...how was it Sirius always managed to see right through her? It wasn't FAIR! She'd managed to fool everyone else...except Luc. But she didn't want to think about Luc--she still felt humiliated. She was just glad her uncle had managed to cover up the scandal, and had offered to take her to America for the summer.

"Look, Sirius...people change. They grow up. It happens. Just...get over it." Melody picked up her pace and Sirius hurried after her. She could feel him staring at her. It was rather unnerving, actually. She stopped and whirled to face him, opening her mouth to demand that he stop staring at her, but instead shrank under his gaze, closed her mouth, and leaned rather meekly against the wall.

Sirius glared at her, hard, and evaluated her for a moment. "Bull. Shit," he said, angrily. "This isn't just you 'growing up'. This is you completely changing who you are just so you'll fit in better at those ridiculous 'society functions', and it's disgusting."

Melody stared at the ground as huge pink spots blossomed in her cheeks.

"Melody, don't do this to yourself," Sirius said, softly. "There's enough confusion inside you as it is, with your drive for revenge pulling you one way and your drive to seem perfectly normal pulling you the other....you don't need to create a fake you to escape from all of it."

Melody narrowed her eyes. Was he right? Was that what she was doing? Oh, what did it matter! What did Sirius know about her life, anyway? What right did HE have to tell her what to do or not do? He didn't have to live her life...his was practically handed to him on a silver platter, damn it, and she wasn't, for one second, going to let him make her feel guilty for trying to get a little bit ahead in the world using the only thing she really had---beauty. She glared up at him, and straightened her shoulders.

"What do you know about it, Sirius?" she asked nastily. "It's my business what I do, not yours, and you just need to keep your nose out of it!"

Melody shoved him aside angrily and stalked down the hallway alone, unsuccessfully trying to suppress the lump rising in her throat and the tears burning behind her eyes. "Oh, damn it all to hell!" she cursed herself, and ducked into the nearest bathroom to dry her eyes.

* * *

"Stupid!" Lily cried, tossing the pillow she'd been holding to the floor, angrily. She was pacing around the girls' dormitory, feeling quite angry and humiliated and stupid and rather unnecessarily upset about what had happened between her and James. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! James is STUPID!"

Amelia Atkins, who had just been about to step into the dormitory to grab a book, froze, looked at Lily, thought for a moment, and then turned around and left the room, shutting the door securely behind her.

"ARGH!" Lily yelled in frustration. She stormed over to the window seat and sat down in a huff, crossing her arms and staring out the window moodily. Oh, damn those teenage hormones! Honestly, she was sixteen, she didn't have to overreact like this all the time!

She focused on a person walking across the Hogwarts grounds, not so much because she was interested in who they were or what they were doing, but because she was angry and needed something to focus on. The person walked around in a large circle, and then toward the greenhouses, and then doubled back, and then walked in a circle again, and then picked up several snowballs and threw them in the general direction of the school, and then walked in a large circle for several minutes, kicking up snow quite furiously, and then he turned and began walking, decisively, toward the edge of school grounds. It took Lily a moment to realize that she'd identified the person as a "he", or, who, in fact, that he was. It was James, Lily realized, suddenly, and he...

Oh, God damn that stupid, idiotic prat--he was headed right for the Forbidden Forest!

At first Lily was just angrier. Oh, just let him go in there and die, what did she care if...if he died? She froze for a moment, thinking. The Forbidden Forest...it was dangerous, and full of...deadly creatures, and all kinds of horrible things, and James...James was heading straight toward it! Straight toward impending death and danger!

Oh, hell, now Lily sounded like a ditzy heroine in a romance novel. Seriously, it was the hormones talking.

But ridiculous hormones or not, it would be Lily's fault if James got hurt...if he went into the Forbidden Forest and never came back...if he...he...

"James, you idiot!" she yelled. Those thoughts alone were enough to propel her out of the window seat, through the entrance to the Ravenclaw Common Room, and all the way downstairs, out the front doors, and halfway across the front lawn. Lily's heart beat faster and faster as she propelled herself across the grounds, kicking up snow and ignoring both the bitter cold and the fact that she'd stupidly forgotten her cloak. She could see James up ahead, still stalking angrily toward the Forbidden Forest.

"JAMES!" Lily cried, once she was within hearing distance. James glanced over his shoulder, glared at her, and then continued stubbornly toward the forest. "JAMES, YOU IDIOT!" she yelled, gaining on him. He didn't acknowledge the insult. "JAMES, STOP!" Lily cried, finally catching up to him. She slowed down, panting, and caught his arm, trying to tug him to a halt, but it didn't work. He pulled his arm out of her grasp and continued walking.

"Oh, come on, James, I wasn't serious!" Lily insisted, trying to get him to look her in the eye. She skipped in front of him and turned around, walking backwards so she could face him. "Please stop, James," she begged. "I don't want you to go off and get hurt or--or--or worse, just because we had some stupid fight, and...will you please look at me?" Lily asked, pained.

James refused to look at her, and Lily felt her heart sinking as they got closer and closer to the Forbidden Forest. "James," Lily began, but she didn't finish her sentence, because just then she tripped over a tree root buried in the snow and shrieked as she began falling over backwards.

James caught her, instinctively, and kept both arms wrapped securely around Lily's waist as she steadied herself. Lily looked up at him and he finally met her gaze, lowering his arms to his sides again.

"James, I--" Lily began again.

"Shut up, Lily," James said, shaking his head and smiling at her. Lily narrowed her eyes.

"Why are you so happy?"

"Because. My girlfriend is an idiot."

"I am NOT your girlfriend."

"Oh. I thought you were going to say you weren't an idiot. But as least as long as you're not denying the obvious, it's okay then."

"I'm not an idiot, either!"

"Sure you are," James said, still smiling. "You're not wearing a cloak."

"I--" Lily considered this for a moment. "Yeah...well...so?" she retorted. James laughed. "At least I didn't decide to go into the Forbidden Forest!"

"Hey, you told me to go there!"

"I did not! I said I'd like to see you go there and never come back again, but that is NOT the same thing."

James snorted derisively. "Sure it isn't, Lily."

"No, it's not! I'm glad you agree."

"You know what, Lily, I think you LIKE arguing."

"I do n--" Lily paused for a moment. "Well..." she shrugged, and then shivered. "I'm sorry," she said, after a moment. "I didn't mean it. You know that, right?"

James looked down at her for a minute, and then gave her a lopsided grin. "Yeah, I know. Just wanted to see if you'd notice if I tried to go."

"James!" Lily punched him lightly on the shoulder and frowned at him for a second. "Give me a hug," Lily said softly, wrapping her arms around his neck. James complied easily, wrapping his arms around her waist again and giving her a good tight squeeze. Lily leaned back and looked at James for a minute, stroking his cheek with her thumb almost absently. And then she did something very uncharacteristic.

She kissed him.

* * *

Lily really was a very good kisser. James often overlooked this in light of the fact that she rarely kissed him; he was always the one kissing her, and...well, that wasn't really important, was it? Because Lily really was very warm and her lips were very soft and nice, and kissing her kept him a bit warmer than usual. He slipped his arms around her waist, and pulled her closer to him, and--realized she was shivering.

"Lily," he said, pulling away.

"Oh, don't do that, James, it's so cold!" Lily cried, wrapping her arms around his torso and pressing herself against him, still shivering.

"You really are very stupid sometimes, you know that?" James said, shaking his head. "Here, take my cloak."

Lily shook her head. "Uh-uh. That means I'd have to move. I'm too cold to move."

James tipped her chin up with his finger and kissed her fiercely, just enough so that it shocked her for a second and she loosened her grip around his waist. He whipped off his cloak before she could object and placed it around her shoulders. Lily didn't argue, but instead wrapped the cloak tightly around her and gave him a kiss on the cheek. James responded with another, full-on kiss, which actually rendered him rather senseless for a few moments, and as a result he didn't hear the voice yelling at him until Lily had broken the kiss.

"James," she whispered, looking over his shoulder, her eyes very wide. James turned around to see the large form of Hagrid, the gamekeeper, standing in the snow in front of his hut, looking rather annoyed.

"OY! What're you two doin' out here? Are you out of yer bloomin' minds?"

"Um...perhaps?" replied James, smiling devilishly. Hagrid, to Lily's surprise, rolled his eyes.

"I shoulda' known it'd be you, James.... You must be Lily," he said, nodding to the girl in James's arms. She blinked and nodded, looking rather startled. "James talks about yeh all the time!" Hagrid said, smiling. James sincerely hoped his ears were already too red from the wind for Lily to notice how warm (and presumably, in normal circumstances, pink) they were becoming.

"Well, you lot look like yeh're gonna freeze ter death! Here, come in, have a spot o' tea before yeh get back up to school," Hagrid offered, motioning them toward his cabin.

"Er...come on then," James said, releasing his hold on Lily but tugging on her hand, and Lily, looking rather unsure, nodded. They delved through the snow together toward the hut, hands entwined, and welcomed the pleasant warmth of its interior as they stepped inside.

"Back, Fang!" Hagrid said, and James could see him trying to restrain his pet, a rather young (but still extremely large) boarhound, who looked rather excited at the prospect of visitors.

"Ooh, puppy!" Lily said, letting go James's hand and dropping to her knees to pet Fang. James blinked and looked at her as though she were rather insane. Hagrid beamed intensely.

"Yeh--yeh like Fang, then? I was afraid some of the students wouldn' take ter me havin' such a large pet--"

"Oh, no, he's wonderful," Lily assured him, scratching behind Fang's ears. James shook his head, incredulous, and plopped down in Hagrid's large chair, situated near the fireplace, where a cheery fire was crackling in the grate. That girl never ceased to be bipolar.

"Well, I'll just make that tea then--" Hagrid said, humming as he fixed up a pot. Lily was now attempting to teach Fang to sit, shake, and roll over. James shook his head at her again, still looking amazed.

"Sometimes I just don't understand you," he muttered.

Lily looked over her shoulder at him and frowned. "What? I like dogs! What? Would you not look at me like that please?"

"All righ' you two, that's enough," Hagrid intervened, setting down several cups of tea and a plate of what looked like treacle fudge on the small table placed in between the chair in which James sat and the sofa situated on the other side of the room. After patting Fang's head enthusiastically, Lily bounded over to the couch and sat down, seizing a cup of tea, and looking more enthusiastic than James could ever remember seeing her. Fang followed her, wagging his tail eagerly and sitting down next to her, setting his head in her lap and drooling emphatically all over her robes.

"So how come yeh never brought Lily ter see me before, James?" Hagrid asked, sitting down next to Lily on the couch and having his own cup of tea. James felt rather panicked, but Lily shrugged and set down her cup of tea.

"Well, he wasn't really in a position to introduce me before, now was he? I mean, he didn't really get to know me until some time last year," she informed Hagrid, seizing a bit of fudge, "so he didn't really have the chance."

"Well, I certainly remember when he started talkin' about you," Hagrid said, chuckling, as Lily picked up her teacup again, "an' after you poured the pumpkin juice on 'is 'ead he couldn' stop talkin' about you fer a week, an' then--" Hagrid cut off, noticing James's horrified expression.

Lily was staring at James, eyes very wide over her cup of tea, which was frozen in mid-sip. "Is that right?" she asked, setting down the tea and looking extremely interested in hearing the rest of Hagrid's anecdote. "Please continue."

"Er--care for a bit of fudge, James?" Hagrid asked abruptly, looking rather flustered. James accepted happily, shoving a rather large bit of the fudge in his mouth, an action which he immediately regretted, as now his jaws were firmly clamped together and he was having a bit of trouble chewing.

"Oh, no, don't change the subject, the one we were on was fascinating," Lily said, looking at Hagrid expectantly.

"Um...yeh care for a bit more tea there, Lily?"

Lily sighed and rolled her eyes, taking another sip of her tea. "No, I'm fine, thank you," she said, sounding rather disappointed. James, through his mouthful of fudge, managed to heave a sigh of relief. Lily glared at him as she drained the rest of her teacup. James glanced nervously at his watch.

"Er--I ffink we shoufff goff back to shkool, Wiwy," he said, talking through the fudge and managing to swallow a bit of it. Lily, glancing at her own watch, nodded.

"Well, thank you for the tea," she said, standing and nodding at Hagrid.

"Oh, it's nothin'," Hagrid assured her. "An' yeh can come by an' see me an' Fang anytime, if yeh'd like."

Lily smiled. "Yes, I would," she said, as James rose and finished eating his fudge. They said good-bye and left the cabin. As they began the walk back up to the school, Lily turned to James with a raised eyebrow.

"Been talking about me, James?"

James's face colored a bit, and he shrugged, running a hand through his hair, purposely making it stick up so it looked rather windswept. "Well, there's only so much to say about Quidditch, you know."

Lily laughed. "I find that hard to believe, coming from you. And quit doing that to your hair, it looks stupid."

James frowned, flattening his hair again. That girl...honestly...

* * *

Lily sat in the library, hunched over a foot-long roll of parchment, scribbling away madly at her Potions essay ("The Uses of Gillyweed in Potion-making"), surrounded by several large piles of books, three already-finished essays (one of them still glistening with wet ink), several quills, two inkwells, and a small pile of bite-sized Honeydukes chocolate, hidden under several crumpled rolls of parchment, in case Madam Pince swooped by to make sure Lily wasn't defacing any of her precious books.

Quite honestly, Lily was rather enjoying herself--for some reason, she had an odd desire to study. She supposed it had something to do with last year's O.W.L.S. (and the corresponding homework), which had been so brutal that now she was extremely used to studying and essay-writing, and actually felt rather incomplete if she didn't spend several hours a night on homework. The result (taking into consideration the fact that Lily really didn't have several hours' worth of homework every night) was that her essays and research for the essays was more thorough than ever, and her writing was getting tinier, too, so that she was able to fit more information in a smaller space. Her notes were more extensive and complex than ever, and her study habits as finely tuned as Lily expected they'd ever be, and after scoring a hundred and five percent on one of her Charms tests, Lily began to feel that Melody might rather have a point when she said that Lily was going to be Head Girl.

Humming softly, Lily popped a chocolate in her mouth and flipped through several pages in her Potions book to check some facts she'd put in her essay. After assuring herself the facts were right, she scribbled down several things she remembered reading in Properties of Perfect Potions about mandrake root's reaction with gillyweed, and then sat back to survey her essay. It was already an inch over the required length--all she really needed was a closing paragraph, but she was itching to add several paragraphs about the full moon's effect on most plant life and why it didn't affect gillyweed in the slightest.

Lily glanced at her watch. Wendy and Lin wouldn't be there for another twenty minutes, but Lily still wanted to go back over her Arithmancy essay and add some things to it...maybe if she hurried....

Lily bent over her parchment, scribbling madly, stopping only to dip her quill in ink, and ignoring the slight cramp beginning to form in her hand. She finished the essay and shoved it aside hurriedly, seizing her Arithmancy essay and adding feverishly to that.

"Good gad, woman, it's the middle of January! Exams aren't for another six months! Snap out of it!"

Lily frowned and looked up from her essay, annoyed, to see Sirius Black standing over her. She rolled her eyes and returned to the paper, ignoring him.

"No, I'm serious!" Sirius said, and Lily rolled her eyes again, not lifting her quill from the parchment. "You need to get out more--experience some fresh air--drop a Dungbomb or two--"

"Sirius," Lily said, but he ignored her.

"--knock over a suit of armor, terrorize some first years--"

"Sirius."

"--fall asleep in class--"

"Sirius."

"--get a detention or two--"

"Sirius!"

"--randomly lock doors as you walk down the corridors--"

"Sirius!"

"--sneak to Hogsmeade and buy a few butterbeers--"

"SIRIUS!"

"--what?"

Lily sighed and looked up at him, exasperated. "I am trying to do my homework. Will you please leave me alone?"

"Oh. Homework. That," Sirius said, surveying the books and papers strewn around her. Instead of leaving, however, he pulled out the chair across from Lily's and sat in it, moving several piles of books aside so he could see her properly. "This is what I'm talking about, Lily," he said, surveying all of Lily's study materials again. "You need to let the homework go. Relax. Enjoy yourself. Watch a little Quidditch!"

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Quidditch? Sirius, the next game isn't for another week and a half."

"So? You can get Wizarding Wireless Network inside Hogwarts! You could listen to a game!"

Lily rolled her eyes again and shook her head, leaning over her parchment. "Sirius, I don't really care about Quidditch," she informed him, scribbling down a few words. "I do, however, care about homework...a fact which I believe I've mentioned before."

Sirius did not speak for several moments, which suited Lily just fine, as she had time to scribble out a final sentence to her essay during the silence. She stacked all her essays into a neat pile and then glanced up at Sirius, who was staring at her, eyes wide, mouth opening and closing like a fish.

"Not....not...not like Quidditch?" He spluttered. "How--how--why--how is that possible?"

Lily sighed. "Sirius, you know perfectly well how it's possible. I don't have time for this."

"Why not? Got a hot date? You can't have more homework....can you?" he asked, looking rather horrified at the thought.

Lily smiled in spite of herself. "No, Sirius, I don't have more homework, but I am going to help some third years with theirs, so like I said, you need to leave me alone."

"Humph," Sirius said. "I see how it is..." He glared at her for a moment, and then shrugged. "Well, I guess I'll be getting out of here then, if there's going to be more work done," he said, shuddering.

"'Bye, Sirius," Lily said as Sirius stood, clearing some of her books off the table and tucking her finished essays neatly into a deep blue folder, which she dropped into her bottomless bag.

"'Bye," Sirius said, pushing his chair in. "Don't work yourself too hard, Lily-bean!" he called over his shoulder as he left.

Lily stomped her foot indignantly but didn't yell after him not to call her "Lily-bean", because she really didn't feel like getting kicked out of the library today. Sirius shot a devilish grin at her before ducking out of the library. She glared after him for a moment, and then sighed and finished clearing off the library table--she rather doubted Wendy and Lin would need Advanced Transfiguration or A Scholar's Guide to Arithmancy, Level Four.

The aforementioned third years rushed into the library several moments later, Wendy looking rather flushed and Lin looking rather exasperated.

"I saw Sirius in the hallway!" Wendy announced, bubbling over with excitement. Lin looked ready to throttle her. Lily raised her eyebrows.

"I thought...weren't you going to get over him?" she asked.

Wendy blushed furiously, staring down at the table as she took her seat across from Lily. "Well...I'm trying..."

"No, she's not," Lin snapped. "She keeps doodling his initials all over her Transfiguration notes."

"I do not!" Wendy lied, going very red. Lin snorted.

"Yeah, right, and I saw you in History of Magic, too--'Mrs. Wendy Black'--honestly--"

Wendy let out a shriek of indignation. "Well--well--so what?" she spluttered. "I'm not as bad as you, you tipped your cauldron over when Anthony Hall asked you if you had any extra beetle eyes!"

This time it was Lin's cheeks that flushed a brilliant shade of scarlet. "Well at least he's in my year--at least I don't write him love letters--"

"Hey! Hey!" Lily intervened. "Girls, calm down! We're here to study, not argue about boys!"

Wendy and Lin looked at Lily rather sheepishly, mumbling apologies, and got out their homework. Lily smiled and shook her head. Lord, sometimes they reminded her so much of herself and Melody it was scary...

"So, what do you have for homework?"

"Transfiguration," Wendy said, sighing and heaving a large book onto the table.

"History of Magic," Lin added, looking equally put-out at the thought of homework.

"And Potions," they added together, both wearing equal expressions of disgust. Lily frowned.

"I like Potions, thank you very much...but since you both seem to hate it so much, let's start with that essay and get it out of the way. What are you all studying now?"

"Shrinking Solutions," Lin replied, pulling a quill and some parchment out of her bag. "Can I borrow some of your ink, Lily? Thanks--I lost mine--"

"Okay," Wendy said, "so...'Discuss the Properties and Uses of Shrinking Solutions in Everyday Life'," she read. Both third years looked up at Lily expectantly. Lily raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, no," she said. "I am not walking you through this...this is about what you know, remember?"

Wendy frowned. "You did say you were going to help, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, but I'm not going to do your work for you...what do you both know about Shrinking Solutions?"

"Um...they shrink stuff?" Lin suggested lamely. Lily sighed.

"Well, that's a start...and that is one of the properties of the potion...why don't you both start with that and list some examples?"

Lin sighed and started writing out a sentence, but Wendy stared at her blankly. "Examples...?"

"Oh, come on, Wendy," Lily said, frowning. "Like...a Shrinking Solution will turn a toad into a tadpole, that sort of thing."

"Who's turning toads into tadpoles?" came a voice, and Lily looked up to see Mimi Ramirez walking toward her, clutching a library book and looking around with a rather distant look on her face.

"Professor Thorne, apparently," Lily replied. "Want to join us?"

"I--no--" she replied, still sounding distant, but she stopped at their library table and frowned down at them for a moment. "You haven't--you won't have--you don't happen to have--"

"What, Mimi?" Lily asked, cutting her off. "Just spit it out."

"You haven't seen Remus Lupin anywhere, have you?" she asked, frowning and scanning the library again. Lily shook her head.

"No...I saw Sirius in here a while ago, though...not that that helps..."

Mimi sighed. "No, not really...well, thanks anyway, Lily...I'll see you later," she said distantly, and then left, still frowning.

Lily watched her retreat with an amused expression on her face. "Well, then," she said. "She's certainly preoccupied with something..."

"Who was that?" Wendy asked curiously.

"That was my friend Mimi...she's in Ravenclaw as well," Lily replied. "But I wonder what's up with her...she's normally much more...I don't know, energetic."

"I guess she's worried about Remus Lupin," Lin said, shrugging. "He sure does disappear a lot..."

"Does he?" Lily asked, blinking. She really hadn't noticed.

"Sure," Lin said, shrugging. "He goes away sometimes...no one really knows where. There are rumors, though...loads of people think he's a vampire...we think he goes off to Romania every month to meet the rest of his family and feed off people, and--"

But Lily clucked her tongue impatiently and frowned at both girls. "That's ridiculous! He hasn't got fangs or anything...and anyway he's not from Romania. You shouldn't go around spreading rumors about people," she admonished.

Lin shrugged and both girls looked rather sheepish. "It was just a rumor," she mumbled.

"Well...never mind that," Lily said decisively. "Let's just concentrate on homework, shall we?"

The third year girls sighed but began scribbling dutifully away at their essays.

* * *

"I agree with Sirius," Melody declared several days later, joining Lily in the courtyard during break.

"Agree with Sirius about what?" Lily asked, digging through her Bottomless Bag for the flagon of hot chocolate she knew she had stored in there somewhere...it was the middle of January and freezing cold, after all.

"Quidditch!" Melody said emphatically. "You don't get nearly excited enough about Quidditch."

Lily rolled her eyes. "It is only a game, you know," she informed her friend.

"Only a game? Only a game?" Melody demanded. "That--that--that's like saying Wronski was only a Seeker! That's awful!"

Lily shook her head at Melody pityingly. "Dear," she said, patting her friend on the shoulder, "Wronski was only a Seeker. Now, if you'll excuse me--" she began, turning back to her Bottomless Bag, but Melody shrieked loudly, causing Lily to drop her bag and several people to turn and stare that them.

"WHAT?" Lily demanded, annoyed, stooping to pick up her bag.

"I can't believe you just said that!" Melody shrieked, looking horrified.

"Well, I did," Lily informed her calmly, "and I'll say it again. Wronski--was--only--a--Seeker."

Melody clamped both hands over her mouth, looking deeply shocked and offended. "James!" she shrieked, spotting him across the courtyard. "Sirius! Come--here!"

Lily sighed, preparing herself for a lecture about Quidditch. James and Sirius ambled over, James fiddling with his hair again.

"What can I do you for, Melody?" Sirius asked, sticking his hands in his pockets casually.

"This girl is crazy," Melody informed them, pointing an accusing finger at Lily. "Do you know what she said?"

"Nooo," James said slowly, "but we could guess."

"Yeah, we could do that," Sirius agreed. "So...did she turn you into a pig?"

Melody glared at him. "Do I look like I've been turned into a pig, Sirius?"

Sirius shrugged, grinning. "Just thought I'd ask..."

"Did she insult Quidditch again?" James asked, grinning at Lily.

"Yes!" Melody said. "Exactly. But you'll never believe this--she said--and I quote--'Wronski was only a Seeker.'"

Sirius looked rather offended ("How can you say that!" he exclaimed), but James looked rather unsurprised.

"Well, what'd you expect?" he asked. "She's about as anti-Quidditch as we are pro-Quidditch--and besides, I wouldn't expect her to understand the rules, anyway--they're probably way over your head, right, Lily-bean?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Lily snapped. "This is ridiculous--it's only a stupid game--and since when have I been to stupid to understand anything, James?"

James shrugged, looking slightly uneasy. "It was just--just a joke, Lily--just a tease--"

Lily rolled her eyes. "It doesn't matter," she assured him, waving her hand dismissively, "but I don't have time to stand here and argue about a silly game--I'm going to class."

* * *

Over the weekend, signs were posted in all the common rooms announcing the date of the next Auror Training Meeting, which caused a great buzz of excitement among all the Sixth Year Prefects. The meeting was set for the first Wednesday after the Quidditch Match (which all the Quidditch players were extremely grateful for) at nine o'clock in the Great Hall.

"Well, that's something to look forward to," Mimi commented glumly to Lily in the Ravenclaw Common Room as they read the notice together.

"You don't sound very excited about it. What is with you lately?"

Mimi just shrugged. "It's nothing," she assured Lily. "Look, I'm going to...go...got some things to do. See you later," she said vaguely. Lily watched her as she left, feeling rather bewildered.

"Where's she going?" Susie asked, coming up behind Lily with Matt, whose socks were playing the March of Carmen.

"Not a clue," Lily said, shaking her head. "She sure has been acting weird lately, though...don't you think?"

"I guess so," Susie said, shrugging. "She hasn't been around a whole lot, if that's what you mean..."

"Listen, Lily, we just wanted to know if you'd like to help us charm this banner we're making for the Ravenclaw team for the Quidditch game next week--" Matt began, but he didn't get to finish his sentence.

"Oooh! NO! Not more Quidditch! What IS it with everyone and stupid QUIDDITCH?" Lily yelled, frustrated. Matt blinked.

"Um...well...er...that is...I mean to say...if...er...if you really don't want to, I guess that's okay, I mean...we can always just ask someone else..." Matt said, backing away slightly, and looking rather shocked.

"Lily, are you okay?" Susie asked, looking genuinely concerned.

"Yes...no...yes...I mean, I'm fine. I'm just really sick of hearing about Quidditch. Yesterday Melody yelled at me because I said Wronski was just a Seeker, and...oh, please, not you, too!" Lily cried, groaning at Matt's incredulous look.

"Well...you can hardly blame her..." he said.

"Oh, for heaven's sake! It's just a GAME!"

"But it's a really good game," Matt assured her. "You should get into it, it's really fun."

"Yeah, and it's really exciting!" Susie chipped in. "Especially when it's your House team, because then you know all the players--"

"--and plus it's live, you don't get that a lot with professional Quidditch," Matt added.

"Look, I'm just not interested!" Lily insisted. "It's fun and all when it's your House team, I guess...and I know I had some fun cheering for Ravenclaw last year...but, really...it's not as important as everyone's making it out to be." She paused a moment, looking rather uncomfortable, and then said, "And besides...if I were interested in Quidditch it would make James far too happy. And anything that makes James happy isn't good at all."

Susie and Matt exchanged significant looks.

"What?" Lily demanded. "Would you stop looking at me like that? Come on--WHAT? Look--if I help you charm your stupid banner will you stop looking at me like that?"

* * *

"You know, Lily-bean, we all think this aversion to Quidditch is quite unhealthy," James commented on Tuesday, sinking into a seat next to Lily in Potions class.

"Yes," Sirius agreed, sitting down next to James, "we think this represents some kind of psychological condition involving repression in your childhood...did your parents refuse to give you dolls as a child?"

Lily seriously considered banging her head against the table in front of her. "Sirius. James. Dr. Freud--whoever it is I'm talking to here," she said, sounding thoroughly worn out. "I--do--not--care--about--Quidditch. PLEASE stop bothering me about it!"

"But...why don't you like Quidditch?" James asked.

"Because it's just a stupid game," Lily whimpered, sincerely wishing that they would all just leave her alone.

"Have you given it a chance? Do you really even understand the rules?"

"I don't see how this is really any of your concern. I don't have to like Quidditch if I don't want to, so will you all please just get OFF it?"

"Suit yourself, Lily-bean, but I really think you should give it a chance," James said, shrugging and slinging his bag back over his shoulder, getting up and joining Remus (who had apparently returned from Romania or wherever) and Peter across the dungeon.

"Sit with us at the Quidditch game," Sirius offered, standing as well. "We'll explain all the rules to you."

"NO," Lily said coldly, setting up her cauldron.

"Come on, Lily-bean, it'll be fun!" he assured her. "See you on Saturday!"

Lily clenched her teeth together and glared at him as he walked away. If they weren't going to leave her alone about Quidditch, this was going to be one very LONG week....

* * *

Lily, for the life of her, could not understand why she had agreed to sit with James and Sirius during the Quidditch match. And not just Sirius and James, but Remus and Peter and Melody and Mimi and Matt and Susie and half of the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Houses in turn.

Okay, well, she hadn't promised all those people specifically, but she knew which section of the stands Sirius and James usually sat in (top and center, where all the boisterous, die-hard fans liked to sit), and she wasn't looking forward to it at all. She dreaded the coming Saturday more than she'd dreaded Christmas holidays with Petunia...and that was saying something.

Why, why, WHY had she listened to any of them? It didn't have anything to do with James. It really didn't. Not at all. It was just to get James to shut UP about her and Quidditch that she'd agreed to the whole arrangement.

Really.

* * *

Saturday dawned cloudy and bleak, with light flurries of snow in the early morning hours, the sun peeking in every so often to melt away what little snow had fallen. Lily bundled up before heading down to breakfast, carrying her cloak with her to the Great Hall. The response to her choice of clothing was much more dramatic than she'd expected.

"Lily!" James cried, sounding scandalized, as he and Sirius (who were, oddly, dressed in bright blue robes) bumped into Lily just outside the Hall.

"What?" Lily asked, feeling slightly alarmed.

"Your CLOTHES!"

Lily looked down quickly, examining her black school robes. "What? What about my clothes? Do I have a stain or something? A rip?" she asked, frowning, unable to find a problem with her robes.

"Lily!" came another voice. "What's with the robes? Where's the spirit?"

Lily turned to see Matt and Susie approaching, Matt carrying the banner they'd decorated last weekend folded up under his right arm.

"What IS it with you people?" she demanded. "My robes are FINE, and now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and eat breakfast."

"But Lily!" James called after her. "Where's your spirit?"

"You must have spirit!" Sirius chipped in.

"No, I must have food," Lily corrected them, veering off toward the Ravenclaw table, but James and Sirius followed her.

"You can have spirit and food at the same time," James reasoned. "You need to be more...colorful."

"Oh, no," Lily said, taking a seat at the Ravenclaw table and sincerely hoping James and Sirius would leave her alone now, "I assure you, all I need is eggs."

James and Sirius, who didn't seem to be able to take the hint, sat down on either side of her, and Lily groaned as the Ravenclaw students already at the table gave Sirius and James funny looks and began whispering about them. Sirius ignored this splendidly and began shoveling food onto his plate and then into his mouth with such rapidity that Lily wasn't entirely sure he wasn't eating directly from the bowl, and just pretending to slap the food on his plate first so he could eat with the serving spoon.

"You must show support for your House team!" James insisted, snatching a piece of bacon on the plate nearest to him and shoving it in his mouth. "Unless of course you plan on cheering for Slytherin?"

Several of Lily's fellow Ravenclaws gave her dirty looks, and Lily scowled. "Of course I'm not cheering for Slytherin," she muttered sourly, scooping scrambled eggs onto her plate, "but I don't have to be colorful, either."

James sighed and shook his head. "Lily, Lily, Lily," he reprimanded. "You have so much to learn."

Lily sighed, feeling that, at this point, it was rather useless to try and remind him that she didn't care if she learned.

"You should definitely be blue," Sirius interjected, amidst all his food-shoveling. "You should be wearing something blue."

"Yes! Blue!" James agreed brightly, taking out his wand and fingering it thoughtfully. "Now, what was that wonderful spell that Melody used...?"

"NO," Lily said firmly, shaking her head. "We are NOT using that spell, it took a whole day for Madam Pomfrey to get me back to my normal color."

James sighed disappointedly. "Fine, suit yourself," he said, snatching another piece of bacon. "We'll see you in the stands. Come on, Sirius," he directed at his friend, who took a last bite of potatoes before standing and following James over to the Gryffindor table, where he promptly sat down and began shoveling food in his mouth again with such rapidity that one might assume he hadn't eaten for ten days rather than ten seconds.

The Ravenclaw Quidditch Team entered then, silently, and sat down to eat together, as usual.

"Why do they do that?" Lily asked of Susie and Matt, who had come to join her.

"They're keeping focused," Matt replied, biting into a biscuit. "They usually talk team strategy in the Common Room on game days so they don't waste time on it right before the game and can get really focused in the locker room."

"Oh," Lily said, rather surprised with herself that she'd cared. James and Sirius were really starting to rub off on her...this was bad....

"Hi, Lily!" chirped Mimi, who sat down on Lily's right. "Ew...who was eating here?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Feeriuff," Lily replied between a mouthful of potatoes as the plate magically wiped itself clean. Mimi, still looking doubtful, swapped the now-clean plate in front of her with the one next to it before she began serving herself food.

"You seem perky," Lily observed. "What's been going on? You've been so distracted lately...I've been worried about you."

"Oh, it was nothing," Mimi said dismissively, buttering a biscuit. "Don't worry about it."

Lily raised her eyebrow skeptically but didn't press the subject.

"Will the Quidditch teams please proceed to their locker rooms at this time," came the voice of Madam Hooch across the Hall. "And the lot of you need to tuck in before the game starts," she added, surveying all the students still eating before turning and swooping out of the hall.

The Ravenclaw team rose mutely from their seats and filed silently out of the hall, ignoring the hollers and cheers directed at them from the Ravenclaw fans as they left. (Lily didn't feel particularly inclined to holler at them, but after a nudge from Matt banged her fork halfheartedly against the tabletop before resuming eating.)

And then it was time for Quidditch. With a great sense of dread, Lily got up from the table and donned her cloak, following her friends out of the hall and to the front doors of the school, where she took a deep breath before stepping out into the crisp, cold weather, and what was almost certainly to be a morning of recreational torture.

* * *

"OW!"

"Sorry--pardon me--coming through--ow, sorry--excuse me--sorry--pardon me--" Melody Cauldwell shuffled along the long row of the stands in which Lily, James, Sirius, Peter, Remus, and Mimi were seated (although not in that order; Lily was sandwiched between Sirius and James and she'd kind of lost track of where everyone else was). She plopped down quite a few seats away from Lily and waved at her friend rather awkwardly with a hand she was also using to clutch several sausages she'd swiped from the Great Hall before settling back to watch the game.

Lily sighed and sat back herself, trying to enjoy being squashed between James and Sirius in the freezing cold with, as of yet, no entertainment to account for, but failed miserably. It really was too cramped and crowded here for Lily to enjoy anything.

"You excited, Lily-bean?" Sirius asked. Lily glared at him and was just about to tell him not to call her Lily-bean when the entire crowd suddenly rose to its feet around her and began cheering madly. Lily, confused, struggled to her feet and tried to peer over the mass of cheering people in front of her to see what all the fuss was about. She didn't get a good look, however; the second she gained her balance, the crowd sat just as abruptly as it had stood and she was yanked rather unceremoniously back into her seat.

"Okay, Lily-bean, now get ready, this should be a really good match!" James said from her right. Lily sighed and stared blankly at the pitch, where the game was about to start.

"Now, you see the person in blue who's flying around those goalpoasts over there?" Sirius asked, pointing, and Lily nodded. "That's the Keeper. He tries to--"

"Oh, for heaven's SAKE, Sirius, I know the general RULES!"

"Oh. Well, then. That's good, now I can actually watch the--WHAT WAS THAT? YOU CALL THAT A PASS? OH, COME ON! I COULD SEE THAT INTERCEPTION COMING A MILLION MILES AWAY!" Lily jumped at Sirius' yelling and turned to James, bewildered, but he was shouting just as indignantly.

"What in the WORLD is going on?" Lily demanded.

"Your Chasers are falling apart, that's what," James informed her.

"But--the game just started!" Lily cried.

"Exactly," Sirius agreed. "It's pathetic! All this hype about the Ravenclaw team this year, but I don't know, it doesn't look like much to me..."

"Hey!" Lily cried indignantly. "Are you insulting my team?"

Sirius shrugged. "If you'd pay attention you'd see that--WHAT ARE YOU DOING? CAN'T YOU SEE A FEINT WHEN IT'S COMING?"

Lily clamped her hands over her ears to protect them from Sirius's shouts, and the enormous booing of the crowd around her, as Slytherin registered their first ten points on the board.

"That's because you're not looking at Archer," James reasoned. "She's really the only good Chaser they've got; Gorbes and Fulley are only there for show."

"There's a point," Sirius conceded. "At least they have some good Beaters, though, Johnson's pretty tough, let me tell you, and you know without the Beaters--"

"The whole team's lying on the grass with bloody noses. Don't I know it," James agreed. "And besides that--FOUL!"

Lily jumped as a stream of profanities launched from James's mouth and streaked out toward the Quidditch pitch, where something very bad had apparently just happened.

"Wait--what--who--?" Lily asked, thoroughly lost and confused now.

"Slytherin nearly just decapitated your Keeper, that's what," Sirius informed her.

"Eyes ON the game, Lily," James advised from her other side. "If you don't pay attention it's not going to--YES! FINALLY!"

Lily clamped her hands over her ears again and huddled in her seat as the crowd erupted into wild cheering and hollering. Evidently Ravenclaw had scored.

Lily sighed and focused her eyes on the pitch as the crowd around her calmed itself, and tried to make some sense of the blue and green blurs on it. After a few minutes, the blurs began to make sense, and Lily kind of understood what James and Sirius were hollering madly about...but only kind of. She even attempted some indignant hollering herself. "FOUL!" she shrieked as a Slytherin Beater deliberately launched a Bludger toward Alina Archer's head.

Sirius and James both looked at her curiously.

"Foul?" James asked. "Where?"

"The--the Bludger," Lily said, pointing at the field and looking at James rather confusedly. "The--it went right at Alina's head--she--doesn't that--?"

James looked at her for a moment, amusedly, at the befuddled expression on her face, at the slight swinging of her flaming red hair as she looked back and forth desperately between James and the pitch, and then he burst into laughter.

"Oh, Lily!" he cried.

"What?" Lily asked, lowering her hand finally and looking at him uncertainly. "What did I say? What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing, it's nothing," James assured her, recovering. "That wasn't a foul, Archer was in possession of the ball, it was just the look on your face...oh, Lily, you amuse me sometimes."

Lily had just opened her mouth to make some kind of response, feeling rather abused and unloved, when James leaned over and kissed her cheek, sliding an arm around her waist as he did so. Lily blinked and blushed involuntarily, and allowed James to babble senselessly to her for most of the rest of the game, until, at about mid-afternoon, she saw it--a glint of gold, hovering just over the goalposts at the Ravenclaw end.

"THE SNITCH!" she cried, pointing, and Sirius and James looked at her with equal expressions of surprise.

"The Snitch? Where?" Sirius demanded.

"Right--there!" Lily cried, waving her finger madly, and watching in awe as she followed the Snitch's movement from above the goalposts to just above the Ravenclaw Keeper's head, and then down by the front of his broomstick.

"Are you sure, Lily?" James asked, squinting at the field. "Where, exactly, is it?"

"It's right there!" Lily cried, still pointing. "By the middle goal post..." Lily's eyes stayed glued to the pitch as the Snitch flitted in and out of the goalposts on the Ravenclaw end.

"I don't see it," said Sirius doubtfully.

"Me, either. I think you're imagining things, Lily," said James Potter, Gryffindor Seeker.

And then both boys watched in awe, fascination, and horror, as the Ravenclaw Seeker made a sharp dive from far above the pitch and flew all the way through the goalpost to grab the glittering golden ball, securing both the Snitch and Ravenclaw's win in his outstretched hand. Lily crossed her arms and looked back and forth between Sirius and James with a smug, amused expression on her face.

"Ha!" she said triumphantly. "Told you so."

* * *

BANG!

"Aaaack!"

"What WAS that?"

"Who's setting off fireworks?"

"My hair! You burned my hair!"

BANG! SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

"Make it stop! Make it STOP!"

"What the bloody hell? Sirius, what in the world are you DOING?" James demanded.

"It's not me, it's this dang-blasted wand, I dropped it on the floor in the hallway and this third year picked it up for me, and it hasn't been the same since! You know how my stupid wand gets!"

"Oh, my LORD, Sirius, what's that NOISE?"

Sirius sighed and looked up at Lily, who had just entered the near-full Transfiguration classroom, where they were meeting for the Auror Training Session, and now had her hands clamped over her ears.

"My wand!" he shouted over the din of his whistling wand, which was now emitting bright blue sparks and scarlet clouds of smoke in addition to banging and screeching noises. "It's very temperamental. Doesn't like when other people touch it. 'S been veeeeeery touchy lately....must've been that third year..." he muttered, trailing off and examining his wand, trying to figure out a way to make it calm down.

"Third year?" Lily repeated, feeling rather alarmed. "Who?" She KNEW third years--third years who liked Sirius--third years who--

"Dunno," Sirius replied, shrugging, cutting off Lily's train of thought. "Just this girl who picked up my wand in the hallway for me. Nice thing to do, really, but I'm rather beginning to wish she hadn't."

"Me, too!" cried Melody, who was looking very upset and waving her own wand frantically at her hair, which, Lily noted, was looking rather singed.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS COMMOTION?" bellowed another voice, and all excess noise in the classroom quickly vanished as Professor McGonagall stalked down the aisle between the middle two rows of desks in which Sirius, Lily, and James were standing. Sirius desperately fiddled with his wand, attempting to stifle the noise, but to no avail.

"Mr. Black, there appears to be something wrong with your wand," she informed him, rather calmly considering all the ruckus it was making, and she plucked the wand from Sirius's fingers, rather unceremoniously whapped it hard against the nearest desktop several times, after which action the whistling, banging, and issuing of fireworks and smoke from its tip ceased, and handed the wand back to Sirius.

"Now then," she said, looking very composed, turning her attention to the class. "Today's session will be a practical one, so everybody get your wands out, and stand still, while I remove these desks...good, there we go...and now will everyone please welcome Mr. Alastor Moody, an Auror, who will be hand-picking the group of students that go on this mission...no, Miss Bankett, it won't be decided today, that will come later, you can put your hand down. Now, Alastor...I'll hand this over to you."

"Right," said Alastor Moody, and he made his way to the center of the room. He had a rather frightening look about him; he was tall, with long black robes, and his right cheek had a rather large chunk taken out of it. "So you want to be Aurors, do you?" he growled. "Or do some of you just want this on your job transcripts?"

Nobody really wanted to answer.

"Well, this"--he pointed, indicating his cheek--"is one of my battle scars. One of the first, actually, and I can tell you without hesitation that it won't be the last. So if any of you are feeling a bit squeamish about losing an eye or an arm or a leg--I suggest you get out now."

Nobody moved, although several students were now looking as though they'd like to.

"Right then," Moody continued. "You'll step forward, one by one, and we'll see how you respond to the unexpected. You there," he said, pointing straight at Lily, who suddenly felt extremely conspicuous and unprepared, "come forward."

Lily glanced back at James for a moment, her bright green eyes wide with astonishment and apprehension, before stepping into the center of the room to join Moody. She fiddled with her wand nervously, her hands quickly becoming damp and then slick with sweat. She looked at Moody uncertainly, and barely had time to think before he roared,

"Impedimenta!" and a curse flew out of his wand toward her.

"Aaah!" Lily shrieked and ducked reflexively, letting the spell sail over her head and harmlessly into the wall.

Moody looked at her evenly for a moment, then--

"Rictusempra!"

which Lily managed to block, while at the same time summoning up her own spell.

"Expelliarmus!" she yelled, and a jet of light shot across the room at Moody, who blocked the spell nicely.

He smiled crookedly at her, and Lily, feeling rather giddy and successful, smiled back, feeling a brief moment of triumph, before--

"Petrificus Totalus!"

"Aaah!" This time there was no brilliant block, only the spell, and Lily's shock, and her petrified body suddenly on the floor. Damn it! she thought to herself, with feeling.

"Finite Incantatum," came Moody's voice from above her head, and her body suddenly relaxed, and Lily felt, for the first time, the impact with which it had hit the floor.

"Ow," she moaned, accepting Moody's hand to help her to her feet.

"Don't let your guard down," he growled at her. "You, there!" he barked, pointing at Peter Pettigrew, who by this point was shaking like a leaf. "You're next."

Lily hastily removed herself from inside the circle and hid herself behind James and Sirius, feeling rather as though she'd like to avoid looking anyone in the eye for several hours.

"You did good, Lily-bean," Sirius whispered to her over his shoulder as Moody promptly flattened Peter onto the floor.

Lily mumbled something incomprehensible as Peter trudged back to the group, a defeated look on his face, and Melody charged forward to take on Moody.

"I'm out for sure this time," he said glumly, as Melody nearly fell over trying to dodge one of Moody's spells.

"Nah, you did fine," Remus assured him. "I bet most of the people in this room couldn't have blocked that curse."

"Melody's doing all right," Peter mumbled, as Melody, brow screwed up in concentration, fired two spells at Moody in succession, one of which was blocked and the other of which rebounded on her, Petrifying her on the spot.

"See?"

As it turned out, Remus was right. Most of the people Moody called forward didn't make it past the first spell, and even then it wasn't long before he took most of them out. There were a few who lasted a bit longer than Lily had, but Lily, in all honesty, by about midway through the group, was really rather feeling a bit cheerful about how she had "responded to the unexpected". She and Melody had done about the same; they both managed to successfully avoid two curses and fire at least one of their own back at Moody. As Moody continued through the group, the students were shocked to see him fire the Imperious Curse several times. No one so far had been able to fend it off.

James, Sirius, and Remus, because of the direction Moody had decided to go in around the circle of students, ended up being last. Remus avoided only one curse before going down and didn't manage to get off any of his own, James furiously blocked four successive curses before attempting to land two of his own and having his wand disarmed by Moody, and Sirius...well, Sirius's brush with Moody was the longest of all.

He dodged two of the curses before Moody landed a whopper on him--the Imperious Curse.

"Jump," Moody growled. "Jump."

At these words the class looked expectantly at Sirius, whose eyes were glazed over, and waited for him to jump.

Sirius did not jump. Instead, he sat, rather unexpectedly, on the floor.

Moody looked more surprised than any of the students, and looked at Sirius rather as though he had lima beans shooting out of his ears.

"Stand," Moody commanded.

Sirius promptly stretched out on the floor.

Moody looked more startled than ever. "Roll over," he said, to which Sirius promptly vaulted to his feet and stood, looking blankly at the wall.

Now Moody looked rather alarmed and fascinated at the same time. "Say 'blue'," he said, with a tone in his voice that suggested he really rather Sirius didn't say 'blue' at all.

"Yellow," Sirius said immediately.

"Finite Incantatum," Moody muttered, and Sirius wandered back over to James and Lily without being told. Moody looked rather perplexed. "Well," he said. "The list will be posted tonight. You may...leave," he informed them, sounding extremely distracted and staring with his eyes unfocused at the wall as the students filed out of the classroom, whispering excitedly about the session--and especially about Sirius.

* * *

Peter, as it turned out, did not make the list. However, neither did Remus, which seemed to cheer Peter up considerably. James and Lily both did, though, as well as Melody and Sirius; also on the list were Mimi, Matt, and Adam Johnson from Ravenclaw, Arabella Figg from Gryffindor, Frank Longbottom, Gertrude Nessom, Michael Watts, and Naomi Collins from Hufflepuff, and such unpleasant names as Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy, Sally Parkinson, and Vivian Horvath from Slytherin.

In the end, only about half that list would be able to go, but even to have made it this far was something of a fantastic accomplishment for the sixth years.

* * *

On the last Sunday of January, Lily was to be found curled up in a large cozy chair in the back of the library, reading an edition of Quidditch Weekly (which she'd stolen from James's bag that morning in Potions) tucked inside her copy of the Daily Prophet so as to avoid ridicule from James, Sirius, or any other Quidditch-playing persons who seemed to enjoying taunting Lily madly about her newfound interest in the sport. Of course, the whole point of sitting in a large chair in the back of the library was to avoid being found, but this hardly seemed to matter, as her friends always managed to find her no matter where she hid. It was no different this Sunday; the moment Lily lost herself in an extremely interesting article about the Tutshill Tornadoes (a team which Lily was growing increasingly fond of for no apparent reason and despite their rather lame overall record), Melody plopped into a chair beside Lily and sighed pointedly, forcing Lily to look up from her magazine.

"Yes?" she asked, rather impatiently.

"Lily," Melody began, in a tone of voice that suggested she was ready to have a rather long-winded conversation centered mostly around herself and her insecurities, "do you think I'm shallow?"

Lily blinked. "What?" she asked, thoroughly confused. "Shallow? Who called you shallow?"

"No one called me shallow," Melody said defensively, although it was very obvious someone had, otherwise she wouldn't have been worrying about it.

"Uh-huh," Lily said, in an extremely skeptical tone of voice.

"You haven't answered my question," Melody pointed out, resting her head on the arm of her chair and looking up at Lily rather glumly, as though she knew the worst was coming.

"Melody," she said, in the same exasperated tone of voice she used when Mimi began complaining that she was 'fat' and needed to lose weight, "you are not shallow. You hang out with me, for heaven's sake, and I'm a complete dork."

"You're not a dork!" Melody exclaimed, sounding rather surprised.

"Shh! Don't try to take my dorkiness away from me. I am proud to be a dork."

Melody rolled her eyes. "If you say so, Lily."

"And I do."

Melody smiled and then sighed, looking miserable again. "Lily, are you sure I'm not--"

"Melody! You're not shallow. What is all this? Where did this come from?"

Melody sighed. "It's nothing, really, it's just Sirius--" She cut herself off suddenly, little pink spots appearing in her cheeks. "It's nothing."

Lily threw back her head and groaned. "Melo-dy! You do not have to take everything Sirius says to heart!"

"But what if he's right?" Melody cried. "What if he's right about me? You know how Sirius is! He may act like a total idiot, but he sees through people. At least...at least he sees through me," she said softly, staring at the floor.

"What did he say, exactly?"

"Nothing," Melody mumbled, staring pointedly at the floor.

"Melody," Lily said matter-of-factly, "I know you're going to tell me what he said, you know you're going to tell me what he said, we both know why you came down here in the first place, so just spit it out already!"

Melody sighed resignedly. "He said...he said I'd changed. He said I worried about my appearance more than I used to. He said it was all those parties I went to with my uncle, that I'd been changing just to fit in, and that I wasn't being me, I was only confusing myself, and--oh, Lily, what if he's right?" she cried desperately.

"Well," Lily said slowly, considering. "Let's think about this logically. Melody...you're a teenage girl. You have a right to develop a healthy interest in make-up. I realize this isn't the entire point, but I wouldn't stop wearing make-up just to make Sirius happy."

"But it wasn't really about the make-up, Lily...that was only part of it. That was just the starting point. He--"

"Let me finish!" Lily said, holding up her hands. "Look, I know...I know you came back from Venezuela spouting Spanish, and I know at Mrs. Potter's party you were, to put it bluntly, more dignified and elegant than I've ever seen you, but all that means is you have enough grace to compose yourself in front of adults."

Melody looked at Lily helplessly. She didn't understand. She couldn't see that Sirius was right. She couldn't see through all of Melody's lies and petty scheming.

"Melody," Lily said, now sounding irritated. Apparently she knew Melody enough to tell when she wasn't listening. "Putting on a dress and some make-up and going to a few parties is not enough to change who you are."

Melody blinked and shook her head at her best friend. "Yes," she said softly. "It is."

Lily raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Melody, no one can change you unless you want to be changed. Now, what is it you think you're going to accomplish by going to these ridiculous 'society functions' with your uncle all the time?"

Oh. So Lily did get it. Kind of. Melody shrugged. "Money, I guess. For my family. And...connections to Voldemort. For my father. And...the attention, I guess. For me."

Lily smiled suddenly. "Melody. Listen to yourself. You're the exact same person you were last year. The only thing that's changed is how you're playing the game. You have more resources now, can't you see that? I know you want to avenge your father, but now you've got something more than midnight dueling practices backing you. And if you want to hold onto that...no one can blame you for it. Not even Sirius."

Melody considered this for a moment. "Oh," she said softly. "Well, that sounds a lot better than it did when Sirius said it."

"Of course it does," Lily agreed. "Sirius was probably just insanely jealous."

Melody considered. Oh. That. Well...that made sense, too.

* * *

The beginning of February was met with a bout of the flu, and half the school was walking around with the aftereffects of Pepperup Potions steaming out their ears. Lily, to her intense relief, managed to avoid the illness--she had no desire to walk around for a day looking for all the world like her head was on fire. James and Peter, however, were not so lucky. James walked around for an entire week with his head steaming, and during one Charms class managed to use up an entire box of tissues. Sirius (and the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, for that matter) chose to give James a rather wide berth when he walked to class that week, as none of them had any desire to be sick for the match against Slytherin that was to take place the following week.

As it turned out, James was not the only Quidditch player to be struck ill. All of the Slytherin Chasers came down with the flu, and even Eric Chang, the commentator, was struck with the sickness. Chang, in fact, was so ill that he had to spend several days in the hospital wing, and when he came out three days prior to the Quidditch match had lost his voice spectacularly and was in no condition to commentate anything--and, in fact, was under strict orders from Madam Pomfrey not to.

Gossip rippled through the school about who would replace Chang as commentator. Dozens of volunteers crowded Madam Hooch in the hallways, begging for the position. Hooch finally chose a commentator, privately, and refused to disclose the new commentator's identity until the day of the Quidditch match.

And no one was more shocked than the Gryffindor Quidditch Team's Captain when, on game day, the players took the field and it was Lily Evans who sat in the commentator's box, with an emerald green beret perched jauntily on her head and a magical silver megaphone glinting in her hand.

"What in the hell is she doing up there?" James demanded of Sirius as Madam Hooch instructed the players to mount their brooms. "And what the HELL is she doing wearing a GREEN beret?" he fumed.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Sirius replied, shrugging, as Madam Hooch put her whistle in her mouth. "But this should be fun and interesting."

* * *

"And the Quidditch players take the field!" Lily announced, feeling extremely excited and nervous and altogether thoroughly amused by the shocked expression on James Potter's face.

"Playing for Gryffindor today are Black, Cauldwell, Figg, Fletcher, Brown, Appleton, and Potter! And for Slytherin, we have Parkinson, Horvath, Jones, Fallmouth, Lestrange, Strasser and Malfoy! And Gryffindor in possession--Fletcher to Figg, Figg to Appleton, back to Figg, she shoots--and a save by Strasser! Now Fallmouth taking the Quaffle up the pitch--dodges a Bludger--a pass to J--no, it's a feint, and he scores, ten points to Slytherin!"

Lily wasn't really cheering for Slytherin. She just wanted to annoy James.

"Gryffindor in possession--and it's Appleton, Fletcher, Appleton, reverse pass to Figg--she shoots--and we're tied at ten!"

Meanwhile, James was fuming silently on the pitch. He was circling high above the playing field like a vulture, pretending to look around for the Snitch but really just shooting evil glares at Lily. "Cheers for Tornadoes--commentates game--wears green beret--" he muttered angrily.

"HEADS UP, JAMES!" Sirius yelled, and James jerked his broom out of the way as a Bludger went whistling past his leg. It was at this point that James decided he had better get his head in the game. He quickly focused his attention on the action below, successfully dodging a second Bludger as he flew down closer to his teammates. His Chasers were doing all right; they were two goals up on Slytherin now; his Keeper was really in fine form today, despite that first goal, and Melody and Sirius...well, they were being Melody and Sirius, doing the work of about ten Beaters and giving Gryffindor the definite edge as usual.

Lily seemed to sense this.

"...and while the Gryffindor Beaters are doing a fantastic job of bombarding their opponents, both Seekers continue to be completely useless as we begin our second hour of play..."

Both Seekers turned to glare at Lily as she continued to commentate, but she ignored them fantastically. Sirius laughed heartily as he whizzed by James to whack away a Bludger, and James glared at him as well. The game continued in the usual fashion for a while, except that the Slytherin players were growing more and more frustrated by the Gryffindor team's success, evidenced by their Beaters' decision to ignore the Bludgers and simply start swinging their clubs near people's heads.

"...and it appears the Slytherin Beaters have given up on strategy and decided to swing their clubs at anything that moves, including their own players--WHAT? Professor McGonagall, it's the truth!" Lily cried as the Transfiguration teacher turned to scold her.

"Anyway, Gryffindor scores yet again, no shock there--Strasser, are you even paying attention anymore?--and both Seekers continue to be completely useless, despite the fact that the Snitch has been hovering in the scoring zone for the last five minutes, although I'm not going to tell you wh--hey, Professor! I'm trying to commentate here! Give me that!" Lily cried, and her commentating was briefly interrupted as she played tug-of-war with Professor McGonagall over the megaphone.

James's eyes rapidly scanned both scoring zones, and he saw a tiny glint of gold at the Slytherin end. DAMN! How did that girl do it? He glanced quickly over at Horvath, the Slytherin Seeker, who was hovering near the middle of the field and much closer to the Snitch than he, and, after a second of thought, dove purposefully into his own scoring zone. Horvath streaked after him, and he pulled out about halfway there, giving Horvath just enough time to realize he was faking and pull out herself. She whirled around on her broomstick and shot him a sharp glare, and he just shrugged and glanced over at the Slytherin end, where, thankfully, the Snitch was no longer to be seen.

"So, nice feint by Potter," Lily continued, dancing just out of reach of McGonagall, having retrieved her megaphone, "and the game drags on, Gryffindor scoring AGAIN--nice one, Arabella--and the Slytherin team gives up all hope and forefeits."

There was a great roar of disapproval from both the Slytherin players and fans at this comment.

"MISS EVANS!" Professor McGonagall shouted, so loudly her voice was picked up by the megaphone and distributed across the stands. "UNBIASED COMMENTARY! DO YOU HEAR ME? UNBIASED!"

"Oh, come on, Professor, they don't have an ice cube's chance in a dragon's den, it's utterly hopeless! At this point forefeit would be less humiliating!"

"UNBIASED!"

"There was nothing biased about that, it was the truth! And--HEY! WHO LAUNCHED THAT BLUDGER? THAT SHOULD BE A PENALTY!"

The Slytherin Keeper was glaring at her fiercely, holding one of the Beater's clubs and fuming. Lily glared stonily back at him as the Bludger he had hit into the stands reversed direction and flew back toward the pitch.

"All right, Strasser, I see how it is, but don't forget we have class together on Monday and then we'll see who--hey! Professor!"

McGonagall was jumping up and down, trying to snatch the megaphone from Lily's hands and failing miserably, and then she got out her wand and attempted the Summoning Spell on it, at which point Lily felt she'd have a better chance of keeping her megaphone by running than just by standing there allowing McGonagall to grab at it.

"So, the game continues, and Slytherin has possession of the ball--I think--" she said uncertainly, scurrying down a row of Hufflepuff students. "Yes, they do, it's Jones with the Quaffle--not that it'll make a difference, there'll be an interception any second now--" she declared, as Arabella expertly swiped the ball from midair. "And Gryffindor'll be scoring again in a minute--" DING! "Another ten points to Gryffindor! What's the score now, a hundred and ten to twenty? Something like that," she continued, jumping down to the bottom row of the stands and streaking through the Slytherin section as fast as her legs can carry her. "Don't kill the messenger, guys! Come on, it's just the truth! HEY! HANDS OFF THE SCARF! SORE LOSERS!" Safe in the Gryffindor section, for the moment, Lily paused for breath and continued her commentary.

"And--wow, that was miraculous, Slytherin scores--that's okay, Anthony, you can just take a breather now, Potter's bound to start looking for the Snitch SOME time soon..." At this point, Lily decided she really wasn't so safe in the Gryffindor section after all (half because the fans were glaring at her and half because McGonagall had finally caught up with her). She scurried over to the Ravenclaw section.

"And Gryffindor's in possession, again...wow, a block by Strasser, that's amazing, and it's Slytherin in possession, no, Gryffindor, no, Slytherin, no...okay, it's tug-of-war between Fletcher and Fallmouth, come on, boys, let's get a move on before there's a--no, too late, there's a penalty. As they take their penalty shots, I would like to point out the location of the Snitch yet again, it's right by the stands on the--Professor! How lovely to see you!" Lily cried, then turned and dashed in the opposite direction of Professor McGonagall, who had managed to catch up with her again. "Well--I can't really see the pitch right now--in a bit of a hurry--but I can bet you Gryffindor made their shot--and Slytherin didn't--" (a quick glance at the scoreboard confirmed her suspicions) "--and--now--we sit around and wait--while Gryffindor scores some more--and the Beaters get really tired--and Slytherin gets--rather violent--" she huffed, beginning to feel out of breath, "--and then--we wait--and--wait--and wait--for the Seekers to realize--the Snitch--is right by--Mundungus Fletcher's head--" (at this point both Seekers dove for Mundungus, who yelled loudly and dove out of sight) "--nope--gone now--too late--ha--"

Lily reached her original seat and stood for a moment, breathing heavily, trying to make sense of the game in front of her. "So...Gryffindor leads Slytherin, a hundred and thirty to thirty--and the game had better end--pretty soon--because I just don't think--I'm cut out--for this kind of exercise--today," she panted.

And then received a humongous shock as James turned abruptly in midair and dove right for her. It took Lily a moment to register the fact that the Snitch was hovering right in front of her face before James snatched it out of the air, stopping his broom abruptly. He smirked at her and gave her a kiss on the nose before turning around to fly back to his teammates.

"I don't believe it," Lily breathed into the microphone, her green beret slipping sideways off her head. "James Potter caught the Snitch. It's over."

It was at this point that Professor McGonagall caught up to her again and snatched the megaphone away for the last time.

"MISS EVANS!" she bellowed, for the entire school to hear. "DETENTION!"

* * *

There was no Quidditch in March. At least, not in school. Most of Lily's free time was occupied by the Wizarding Wireless Network and its many wonderful broadcasts of Tornadoes games. James, a Wimbourne Wasps fan, did not entirely approve of this behavior. Other than a few scuffles over Quidditch and a few grueling Potions tests, however, March passed without much event.

The February snows melted away into drizzly, cold, rainy, near-springtime weather, and the sun peeked in more and more frequently above the castle, chasing away some of the lingering chill in the dungeons and warming the walls of the greenhouses. Altogether, the castle was becoming much more pleasant to inhabit. There were still a few freak flurries of snow, but none of them stayed on the ground longer than an hour or two before they were melted away by sunshine.

And so winter melted away into spring and March faded away into April, which, as it turned out, was a much more interesting month.

* * *

Lily had not been expecting owl post on the morning of April second. She now subscribed to Quidditch Weekly, but that had come a few days ago, so she was rather surprised (although not unpleasantly so) when her owl dropped a letter right on top of her bowl of cereal. Lily frowned as she retrieved the letter from her bowl of soggy corn flakes (not at her owl's aim, which was usually bad, mind you, but at her mother's handwriting on the front and the unusual thickness of the package), and opened it carefully. Inside were a small note from her mother and another envelope, this one with several postage stamps and Lily's address scribbled on the front, and a postmark from America on it. Intensely curious, Lily scanned the note from her mother before ripping open the second envelope. It was a letter from her cousin Willow in America!

Mimi sat down next to Lily as she began reading the letter from her cousin--a rather lengthy article; she'd written four pages, front and back.

"Letter from my cousin," Lily mumbled, immersed. "Lives in America. Haven't seen her since I was six. Same age as me. Muggle, though, no idea I'm a witch."

"Oooh," Mimi said, with interest. "What's she have to say?"

"Lots of stuff. Tell you in a minute."

Mimi nodded and occupied herself with her toast until Lily finished the letter.

"Mostly just normal teenage stuff," Lily announced, folding up the letter. "Stuff about Aunt Maple and Uncle Cooper, stuff about...high school, I think she called it, and her Muggle friends and things like that."

"Where does she live?"

"New Jersey," Lily replied, then sighed rather wistfully. "I haven't seen her for ages...I wish she still lived in England, but then her mother did marry an American businessman...I don't have that many relatives, you know; my dad was an only child, and Aunt Maple is my mother's only sister, and I think Uncle Cooper had a brother but...I think he died a couple years ago in this Muggle war they're having in Vietnam...really horrible...and all my grandparents have been dead for ages...so Willow's really the only cousin I have, and I never get to see her, she ought to be more interesting than dumb old Petunia and anyway, she obviously doesn't hate me..."

"Wow," Mimi said softly, eyebrows raised. "You never told me all that before."

Lily shrugged. "I guess it just never came up."

"That's, like...really sad," Mimi said. Lily blinked and gave her a look.

"And why is that?" Lily asked, surprised.

"Well...I don't know...it's just...I have such a big family, and I see them all the time...well, when I'm at home, anyway, and...I couldn't imagine only having one cousin, I have a ton of them, thirty or something ridiculous like that...and I have two brothers and two sisters, and a whole bunch of grandparents and great-grandparents and uncles and aunts and great-uncles and great-aunts, and...sorry. Am I making you sad?"

Lily laughed. "No! I just...I couldn't imagine being related to all those people...how in the world would you keep track of them, first of all, and secondly, how could you stand being around them all the time, my family drives me crazy!"

Mimi shrugged. "Couldn't tell you that. I guess I'm just...used to it, or something."

Their conversation was brought to a rather rude halt as the first bell rang, signaling it was almost time for class. "Damn," Lily said. "I have to go...Arithmancy's pretty far...see you in Charms!" she called, slinging her Bottomless Bag over her shoulder. "Damn, this thing is getting heavy," she muttered as she left the Great Hall. "Better put a Weightlessness Charm on it one of these days."

(A/N: Famous last words...kind of.)

* * *

The next day at breakfast everyone was gossiping about the new edition of the Daily Prophet. On the front cover was a large, ominous photograph of a skull with a serpent coming out of its mouth hovering in the night sky over England. Last night, apparently, there had been a huge attack by Voldemort on a small Muggle village just outside of London. So far, the Ministry of Magic had found no survivors, only bodies. The bodies of parents, children, and grandparents, all stiff as boards, dead as doornails, and Avada Kedavra-d to death.

"Wizards at the scene of the crime," stated the Prophet, "have become rather reluctant to speak Voldemort's name, a name which only a few years ago was held in lower regard than even Jack the Ripper's. Now, however, the 'Voldemort' threat appears more menacing than ever, and many Ministry of Magic employees have began referring to the infamous wizard as "You-Know-Who", rather than speak the name of England's most dangerous criminal. After last night's attack on Duncrop, however, it appears their superstitions are not entirely unfounded. Velma Vestion, reporting from London.."

"Wow," James whispered over his copy of the Prophet. "A whole village. Can you imagine?"

"Yeah," Sirius said, quietly. "Pretty horrible. But...if they didn't leave any survivors, I guess there aren't many people left to mourn them...small villages like that, usually it's only a couple families, you know? So...so it could have been...worse," he finished lamely.

Suddenly there was a shriek from halfway down the Gryffindor table, and Sirius and James looked over to see a young girl, a third year at most, with a long tumble of black hair, staring down at the table with her hands clamped over her mouth. Great shining tears spilled onto her cheeks suddenly, and she shook her head, still staring insistently at the tabletop (on which there must have been a Daily Prophet), before vaulting out of her seat and running out of the Great Hall. She was quickly followed by a blonde girl, who looked to be about the same age and was clutching a rolled-up edition of the Daily Prophet in her hand.

Sirius and James looked at each other, rather dumbfounded.

"Unless, of course," Sirius said, "one of the people in the village happened to go to Hogwarts."

"Of course," James replied, still rather shocked.

And he was even more shocked when he saw Lily gather up her things and run out of the Hall as well.

* * *

Lily followed Wendy's blonde ponytail as it bobbed down the hallway. The third year was in a feverish pursuit of her best friend, who seemed to have disappeared. Both girls rounded a corner and Lily spotted Lin way up ahead, running madly toward what appeared to the dead end of a hallway, but she blew through a tapestry hanging on the wall and into a secret passageway, which Lily and Wendy both followed her through. Lin led them up and up and up, until they were in an area of the school Lily didn't recognize, and Lin collapsed beneath a large, highly inaccurate portrait of a glade of fairies, who all flitted to the edge of the portrait to look down at Lin.

Wendy ran over to Lin and fell to her knees beside her. Lily hung back a bit, feeling awkward, not entirely sure why she'd come. "Lin, I..." Wendy began, but Lin shook her head, sobbing.

"Don't," she said. "Just--don't--say--a--a--anything!" And with that, she fell spectacularly to pieces. Wendy put an arm around her, looking rather as though she didn't know what else to do. Lily bit her lip and shifted her weight uneasily. Wendy glanced up at her, finally, looking very said, and shook her head, looking as clueless as Lily felt. Lily set down her bag gently and walked over to Wendy and Lin, sitting down across from them.

For the longest time, Lin just cried. Words didn't seem to have any more meaning, so no one spoke. Lily felt as though Lin had crossed a great void, and she and Wendy were standing on the other side, trying to reach across and finding their arms were much too short for it.

Lin looked, a few times, as though she would have liked to speak, but couldn't manage it, and just ended up shaking her head and then burying it into her hands, crying again.

The bell rang, but no one moved. After a while, Lin's tears dissipated a bit, enough so she didn't keep her head buried in her hands. Lily supplied several Kleenex for her to blow her nose on, and Lin leaned back against the wall, staring out in front of her, eyes unfocused and teary, still silent.

"Lin," Wendy attempted again, but Lin shook her head and Wendy fell silent. Lin sniffed and leaned her head on her friend's shoulder.

"I can't believe they're gone," she whispered. "Just...like that. All...gone!" she cried, and succumbed to another bout of crying. Lily bit her lip and stared at the girl, feeling very concerned and useless.

The bell rang again, but none of them got up. After about fifteen minutes, Lily heard footsteps, and looked up to see Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall walking down the hallway.

"Miss Waters," Dumbledore said softly, crouching down to meet Lin's eye level. He reached out and touched her shoulder gently. Lin looked up at him with teary eyes and tried to control her crying.

"D--d--don't m--make me g--go to cl--class," Lin choked. "P--p--p--please."

Dumbledore shook his head. "No, of course not. But we can't have you hiding up here. Come with me."

Lin nodded and wiped at her eyes, rather pathetically, and Wendy helped her to her rather unsteady feet. Lily rose to her feet beside them, feeling even more out of place than before.

Then Professor Dumbledore, in a gesture that surprised everyone including Lin, scooped the young girl in his arms and carried her decidedly down the hallway.

"Poor dear," sighed Professor McGonagall, watching as the headmaster carried her off. "We need to get you two back to class," she said sadly, turning to Wendy and Lily. "Come on."

Wendy shook her head stubbornly. "I want to stay with Lin."

Professor McGonagall shook her head firmly. "Professor Dumbledore is going to have a few words with her, and you two are to go back to class immediately. You will be able to speak with your friend later."

"But--" Wendy protested yet again, and Professor McGonagall sent her a sharp look that shut her up. Wendy sighed. "Fine," she mumbled, and both girls followed their professor down the hallway.

* * *

Everyone looked at Lily with intense curiosity when she entered Potions thirty minutes late, but she shook her head at all the questions and refused to speak about anything unrelated to Potions. After class, James caught up with her and pestered her all the way to Ravenclaw Tower, where she was headed to drop off her bag before going to lunch--it really was getting too heavy for her to carry everywhere.

"I don't want to talk about it," Lily said for the hundredth time as they neared the Tower.

James sighed. "Fine. But I want to talk to you. Do you want to take a walk?"

Lily shrugged. "Sure. Why not? Tiddlywinks," she said, and the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower opened before her.

"Aha! Now I know your password!" James said, smiling. Lily shrugged.

"Doesn't matter. We're changing it tomorrow."

"Damn!"

Lily smiled. "Hold on. I'll be right back."

James waited for her as she dropped her back off in her room, and then they walked out to the grounds in silence.

"So," Lily said, as she and James meandered toward the lake, "what did you want to talk to me about?"

James took her hand, and Lily looked up at him, rather surprised. "Lily," he said, looking rather serious.

"Yes?" Lily asked, feeling rather alarmed.

"I...I just...well, you saw the Prophet this morning, obviously."

"Right," Lily agreed, nodding, and staring at their intertwined hands. Funny how lovely that felt.

"Seems like the attacks are getting worse."

"They are."

"Feels like the world is changing, a little."

"I guess."

"I just...if anything happened to me, or...to you, I'd...I'd want you to know..." he gulped, looking rather uncomfortable and embarrassed. Lily put a hand on his cheek and met his gaze.

"I know, James," she whispered, then hesitated for a moment before speaking. "And don't...don't think I don't want you to know that about me, either."

James nodded, then looked at her solemnly for a moment before closing the small space between them and kissing her.

Funny how lovely that felt, too.

* * *

April crept by slowly. Classes became long and arduous, and Lily was grateful for the small reprieves Saturday mornings gave. She'd become so thorough in her work that it all took longer than usual, and as a result she was usually cooped up in the library during Saturday evenings and through all of Sunday. Saturday morning was a time for her to relax.

On one particular Saturday--the Saturday before the Hufflepuff/Slytherin Quidditch match that would decide who advanced to the Quidditch Cup (if Slytherin managed to scrape together a win, they would advance; if not, Ravenclaw would face top-seeded Gryffindor for the Cup)--Lily was curled up in a chair in the Ravenclaw Common Room, reading a book about Potions (just for fun, which Mimi found insane) and listening to the soothing patter of rain against the windows. Mimi, apparently, was not so satisfied.

"I'm bored," she whined. "I hate rain. Rain is so boring. It's Saturday and I can't do anything!"

"Why don't you paint your nails again?" Lily suggested, not looking up from her new Potions book.

"No," Mimi groaned. "I'm tired of paining my nails."

"Do you have any homework?" Lily asked, although she knew this would lead nowhere; Lily wasn't even prepared to start her own homework yet.

"How can you say that? I feel like I'm still sitting in Thorne's Potions class!" Mimi shuddered. "It was awful..."

Mimi did have a point. Professor Thorne had been pretty brutal yesterday.

"Sorry I brought it up," Lily said. "Well...do you have anyone you need to owl?"

"I don't feel like writing a letter," Mimi sighed, leaning backwards over the side of her chair and staring at the floor.

Lily groaned and set her book in her lap, agitated. "You sound like my little brother! What do you really want to do?"

Mimi sighed again. "Watch a movie," she admitted glumly.

"Hmm," Lily said. She knew the feeling. It was hard to shake Muggle habits sometimes. "Well...you could read a novel. I know it's not the same, but.." she shrugged. "It's something."

"Well, I would, but...the library doesn't really carry any sappy romance novels."

"That's true," Lily agreed, racking her brain for a solution. "Oh! I know! I have a little romance book in my bag upstairs. It's under my bed. You can read it if you want>"

"Cool," Mimi said, leaning back up and jumping out of the chair, running up the stairs to the girls' dormitory. "Lily!" came her distressed cry a moment later.

Lily groaned again and set down her Potions book. She trudged up the stairs to the girls' dormitory. "What?" she demanded of Mimi, who was tugging hopelessly at something stuck under Lily's bed.

"I--can't--get--it--out," panted Mimi, plopping onto the floor. Lily frowned.

"There's no way it's stuck," she informed Mimi, looking at her Bottomless Bag. "It's enchanted with an Anti-Expansion Spell so it doesn't get all huge and bulky."

"Yeah, well, I think whoever enchanted it forgot to put on a weightlessness spell," Mimi said. "That thing is heavy!"

Lily cursed under her breath. "Damn," she said, more loudly. "I've been meaning to do that...well, I can't enchant it if I can't see it. Help me get it out from under the bed, would you?" she asked, and she and Mimi tugged at Lily's beloved bag. It slid out rather easily, and Lily pulled out her wand, setting the charm on it as quickly as she could, and then, to avoid Mimi's whining at her further, Summoned the novel from the depths of her bag and handed it to her (currently annoying) friend.

"Thank you, Lily!" Mimi said happily, plopping down onto her bed with the book.

"Oh, no!" she cried as Lily reached the door to the dormitory. "I've already read this one!"

Lily groaned. This was going to be a very long afternoon...

* * *

On Sunday the weather cleared up spectacularly, and nearly the entire school was sprawled out on the lawn enjoying the sunshine. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were lounging by the lake with their feet in the water, and Lily, Mimi and Melody walked around together, discussing nothing and everything and procrastinating their homework.

Sirius and James hailed them over, and they joined the boys by the lake, where James was taking a great deal of enjoyment lazily playing with the Golden Snitch, which he had somehow nabbed, and Peter was watching him in awe as he let the Snitch float a foot or so away before snatching it from the air. Mimi and Remus got into a conversation about Astronomy, Lily and Melody were discussing plans for the summer (Melody's uncle had recently owled her to invite her to America and Melody wasn't entirely sure she still wanted to go), and Sirius was watching James and Peter's reaction to James with detached amusement.

Lily, after about fifteen minutes of Peter's insane gasping and applause at James's reflexes, gave a rather annoyed sigh and shot a look at James.

"What?" James asked, grinning cheekily and grabbing the Snitch out of the air without even looking at it.

"You know what," Lily snapped. "That thing with the Snitch is getting annoying. Just put it away."

James grinned widely. "Maybe I will," he said, releasing it again. "And maybe I won't." He moved to grab the Snitch again, but his fist closed on thin air, and he blinked and looked in extreme surprise and shock at Lily, who was holding the struggling golden orb in her hand and staring at him smugly.

James gaped at her. "You--how did you--"

"You're not the only one with good reflexes around here, James," Lily informed him, smirking.

"But--but that's--you--that's fantastic!" James cried. Sirius and Melody looked equally impressed. Peter was practically beside himself with astonishment. Remus and Mimi were still deeply in conversation and completely oblivious to the whole affair.

"You should play Quidditch, Lily," Sirius suggested.

"Not should--you have to!" James insisted.

Lily looked back and forth between Sirius and James in alarm. They both had glints in their eyes that Lily did not at all like.

"Whoa," she said, holding up her hands. "Don't you two go getting any ideas. I just watch Quidditch, I don't play it."

"But you should," Sirius insisted.

"I agree," Melody chimed in. "That was fantastic, Lily. And all those times you've spotted the Snitch--I'd say you're better at it than James!"

"Hey, now!" James protested, pink spots appearing in his cheeks. "I wouldn't say that."

"I would," Melody countered. "She took the Snitch right out from under your nose. You can't get much better than that."

All three turned their eyes on Lily hungrily.

"No," Lily protested. "No! Absolutely not!"

"I thought you liked Quidditch, Lily-bean," Sirius reminded her.

"I do!" Lily insisted. "I love Quidditch! But I just love watching it!"

"You'll change your mind," James assured her.

"Hey! I can't fly, remember?"

"That can be fixed," Sirius said quickly.

"Guys--no--the answer is no--don't look at me like that, I am not going to play Quidditch! Guys! Stop!"

* * *

Friday was not turning out to be a very good day for Lily. After spending a long night studying for a Charms test, she overslept and ended up late for Charms (oh, the irony!), where she nearly didn't finish the exam within the class time. By lunch, she was feverishly hungry, and didn't perform very well near the end of Herbology class as a result--she nearly got her arm bitten off by the Venomous Tentactula and managed to get Gertrude's hair caught on fire.

By the time Lily stormed into the dormitories to drop her bag off before lunch, she was in a very foul mood. She tossed the Bottomless Bag on the bed and tossed her wand carelessly on top of it (it was getting rather dirty and she needed to polish it; she wouldn't remember if she just kept it in her pocket) before leaving the dormitory for lunch (an occasion which, thankfully, passed without much event). Upon her return to the dormitory, Lily discovered that her wand was no longer on top of her Bottomless Bag.

"DAMN IT!" Lily yelled, figuring the stupid thing had fallen into the bag rather than landing on top of it. Well, she was certainly in no mood to look for it now--it took long enough for her to find large books in that bag, why bother looking for a small, think stick of wood? She'd never find it without someone else's help.

"I hate today," Lily said dispassionately, and then crawled into bed and pulled the covers over her head, and eventually fell asleep.

She woke, abruptly, at 11:13 PM, for no apparent reason, and suddenly remembered that she needed to find her wand. Feeling groggy and vaguely in need of brushing her teeth, Lily leaned over the side of her bed and groped for her bag. She located it and dragged it toward her, pulling it far open and peering inside. There was a little light in the dormitory, but not much, so she couldn't see very well, but that hardly seemed to matter, as her eyes refused to focus, so she just groped blindly for her wand, yawning.

Lily's hand hit several books, a few rolls of parchment, and even her quill, which tickled her hand, but she was having no luck finding the wand. Sighing, she forced her eyes to focus, and peered into the back again. Her eyes were sharp, and she picked out the figures in her bag rather more clearly than she'd expected. Quill, book, book, book, ink bottle, parchment, book, book...book, book, book, another quill...wait, no...that wasn't a quill, that was her...wand! Success!

Lily reached her hand in eagerly for the wand, but instead of grabbing it she simply buried it beneath a large pile of books. Apparently her fingers weren't as awake as her eyes.

"No!" Lily moaned. "This is not happening!" She stretched her arm out and grabbed for it, but to no avail. "Damn," she whispered, and poked her head into the bag again, searching for the lost wand. She spotted it...it was way down in the bag, but if she leaned over a little more, maybe she could get it. No, not yet...a little more...just a little farther...no, she still wasn't getting it.... Lily wriggled over the side of her bed a little more, stretching her hand as far as it would go, but her arm simply wasn't long enough. She leaned over as far as she possibly could, so she almost lost her balance, and the tips of her fingers made contact with the wand. Lily leaned over just a little bit more so her fingers could close around the wand, and...

And lost her balance, finally, toppling over the side of her bed and falling headfirst into her Bottomless Bag, fingers closed firmly around her beloved wand.

* * *

"Where's Lily?" Mimi asked of Matt and Susie the next morning at breakfast.

Matt shrugged. "Like I know. Don't you sleep in the same dormitory?"

"Well...yeah, but when I woke up this morning she was already gone."

"I haven't seen her, either," Susie said.

"Huh," Mimi said, frowning at her oatmeal. "Well...I don't imagine she'd miss the game. I know she's not commentating again, McGonagall would kill her, so she can't be there already..."

"Knowing her she's just finishing up some homework or something," Matt said.

"There's a thought," Mimi said. "I suppose you're right. Oh, well...I s'pose we'll see her on the pitch..."

* * *

The game ended quickly, with a Hufflepuff triumph, 160-30, and Lily did not come.

Mimi was rather concerned.

* * *

It was rather dark in a Bottomless Bag, Lily noted, holding onto the velvet wall of her bag, mostly for comfort, and staring rather forlornly into the dark. She would have lit her wand up, but she didn't think it would do her much good. What would she see...a way out? Not likely. Probably she'd just see the black abyss that formed the theoretical "bottom" to her bag and begin feeling utterly depressed.

Of course, she could light her wand up to read a book...there was no shortage of them in here...

"Hello?" Lily called into the darkness. "Is anyone there? I'm stuck...HELLO?"

Her voice echoed into the abyss. There was no reply.

* * *

"Lily!" Mimi called, striding into the girls' dormitory immediately after the game. "Are you in here? LILY!"

A muffled shriek came from somewhere near Lily's bed.

"Lily?" Mimi asked, whirling around, but all she saw was Lily's Bottomless Bag, laying rather haphazardly at the foot of Lily's bed. "Huh," Mimi said, frowning, and walked over to Lily's bed, picking up the bag. "Maybe James'll know what's become of her...maybe this has a tracking charm on it or something..." Without thinking, Mimi slung the bag over shoulder and left the girls' dormitory.

* * *

James, as it turned out, had absolutely no idea what had become of Lily, and was about as clueless as Mimi. They sat discussing this for some time in the library before, quite suddenly, a loud voice met their ears.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Mimi and James both jumped, and James stared with horror and fascination at the Bottomless Bag Mimi had carelessly tossed on the floor.

"LILY?" James said incredulously, pulling open the bag and peering inside.

"JAMES! GET ME OUT OF THIS THING!" Lily cried, looking up at him desperately.

Mimi couldn't help herself. She burst into hysterical laughter and was extremely unhelpful as James tried to figure out how to get Lily out of the bag.

"Lily, I can't reach you," James called down to her.

"You're not just going to LEAVE me here, are you?"

"Of course not!"

"Well, GET ME OUT!"

"Lily...how?"

"I DON'T CARE! Summon me if you have to!"

"That's not a bad idea, actually..."

Mimi recovered from her bout of laughter. "You can't be serious," she said, sounding rather alarmed.

"You bet I am," James replied seriously, pushing up his sleeves, and, before Mimi could protest further, shouted "Accio!" and, with a great, painful-sounding SMACK! Lily flew right into him and pushed him backwards onto the floor.

Mimi blinked at them, and they both lay there for a moment, motionless.

"Ow," James moaned, after several minutes of contemplation.

Lily grunted in agreement. Then, after a second, she pushed herself off of James's chest and rolled onto her back on the floor next to him. After a moment of consideration, she spoke as well.

"I missed the Quidditch game, didn't I?"

"Yeah."

"Damn."

* * *

End Sixth Year.

* * *