Eyes as Green as a Fresh Pickled Toad

Chapter Twenty-Two

Splice and Stone

Lily was trying to recover, but she wasn't very successful. Every time she closed her eyes to go to sleep she was overwhelmed with an inexplicable feeling of dread, until she started shaking and sweating and couldn't begin to think about sleeping anymore. Then she would get out of bed and pace the room, fingering her dull, dead necklace, trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with her.

They'd talked it over. Lily, James, Mrs. Potter, the whole group. They'd sat around the Potters' dining room table for hours trying to piece together exactly what had happened and how everybody had ended up at Potter's Cottage. So far, the only conclusive things they had come up with were that Sirius was an idiot for sending out those distressed owls, someone definitely had it in for Lily, Lin was probably some sort of Seer (but not a kind of Seer anybody had ever heard of), Dumbledore--who had come to collect Lin and Bridget midway through the conversation--knew far too much for his own good, and none of them had gotten quite enough sleep.

Hence, Mrs. Potter sent them all to bed and declared that they would talk things over in the morning.

The problem with this, of course, was that it practically was morning. Lily could already see the haze of sunrise creeping over the trees. Maybe it would be a beautiful sunrise, but Lily didn't intend to watch it. She intended to sleep.

Lily lay down on the mattress once more, pulling her sheets far over her head and burrowing one side of her face into the pillow, nice and comfy, just as she liked it. She waited impatiently for sleep to come, but her brain wouldn't shut up. Lily hated that. She hated when her body was tired but her brain kept ticking. This was how she always got during exam week--and particularly how she'd gotten during the weeks leading up to her O.W.L.'s. She hadn't gotten more than three hours of sleep a night, she'd studied so much. It had been dreadful. And now the N.E.W.T.'s were coming up, and Lily couldn't imagine what--oh God. Why was Lily thinking about N.E.W.T.'s? She was supposed to be asleep.

Lily rolled over and buried the other side of her face into the pillow. Maybe this would help. Maybe her brain would calm down. Maybe she would finally sleep.

She really needed to sleep. Not just to curb her exhaustion, but to allow her brain to process things. Her thoughts were far too jumbled for her to work through the events of the last few days in any conscious manner. Lily needed everything to settle down inside her head so her subconscious could fiddle around with her thoughts and sort them out a bit better before she woke up to wrestle with them again. That was what she needed. That was what she wanted.

That was not what she was getting.

She suspected the overwhelming feeling of dread came from the knowledge that, if she did go to sleep, her sleep would be restless and full of dreams. Nightmares, rather. But for once, Lily welcomed the idea of dreams. Maybe in between the nightmares she'd have another necklace dream. Maybe she'd figure out what had happened to her necklace. Or why she was still alive.

But would she have the necklace dreams, now that the necklace was in this state? Every time Lily looked at her necklace she got a pang in her chest--like she'd lost something very, very dear to her. If she looked at it long enough, it made her want to cry. If she looked at it even longer, she did cry, and clutched it to her chest and thought of James, and cried harder.

Could the necklace really be so strongly connected to James? It almost made sense. Schmundertoe had told them it was connected to James in some way, hadn't he? James had given Lily the necklace, after all. More importantly, while Lily was being attacked James had woken up in a panic and known exactly where to find her, and James certainly wasn't any sort of Seer.

Lily suddenly had the extreme urge to talk to James. Her eyes flew open and she rolled over, staring at the wall by her bed. James wasn't on the other side of it (Mrs. Potter had more sense than to put love-struck teenagers in adjacent rooms), but his room was certainly in that direction. Maybe if she stared at the wall and stared at her necklace and sort of...thought to him hard enough, he'd wake up and come to Lily's room to see what all the fuss was about.

Lily tried this for about five seconds before giving up, feeling ridiculous. Wizards don't have ESP. James is probably sleeping, for heaven's sake.

She rolled back over and sighed, holding up her hand to stare at the dull, silver, tarnished-looking pendant dangling between her fingers. She rubbed her thumb over the "L" shape, hoping that would at least make it shinier. It didn't. If anything, in the pale early-morning sunlight, the pendant looked more tarnished. Lily stupidly tried again, thinking that maybe this time her thumb would have a different effect, but this time her rubbing didn't appear to do anything. Lily did it again anyway, just to see what would happen, and nothing really did, but she kept doing it, because somehow the action was soothing, and the pendant did start to feel slightly smoother under her fingers, even if it didn't look any prettier.

With this repetitive, soporific action, Lily drifted to sleep.

Moaning. Fingers. Gray foggy swirls bending around her, swirling, billowing, consuming. Hands, reaching out. Faint cries, agony. Dark shadows, gray blotches...movement. Grabbing, touching. Shadows stretching out, groping...the sidewalk bending downwards, buildings stretching inwards, towering, tall, blocking out the light...bright light...creating big shadows, stretching, gray hands, pulling, grabbing...and the moaning...moaning....

Lily didn't know where she was. The shapes didn't make sense, her movement didn't make sense. Was she dreaming or was she...somewhere else?

Suddenly, in between the moaning, a--gasping, crying. Off to Lily's right. Lily turned slowly, sluggishly. A woman, crying. Lily squinted. It was all gray shadows, long and dark and...

A woman's face began to materialize. Familiar, like Lily's own. Lily brought long shadowy hands to her own face--slowly, bendily--and frowned. No. It wasn't Lily's face. But familiar, like it had once been.

Laurelle. She materialized out of nothing--out of grayness--and suddenly stood before Lily, a wispy gray ghost of a girl, her hands clasped together, hair falling down around her face desperately--she was crying. Gray blurry tears bubbled out of her eyes, free-flowed down the gray balloons of her cheeks--how--Lily wondered--could you cry after death?

Laurelle opened her mouth, reached out her hands, but--the closer they got to Lily, the more insubstantial they appeared. They weren't hands, just shadow and thought and spirit remains; they couldn't touch her. Laurelle cried out--something, something--but she had no voice, she was dead, just--spirit--gray, ghostly--Lily couldn't hear. But Laurelle, with her hands--gray, ghostly, nothingness--pointed at Lily. Something on Lily.

Lily looked down, frowned, didn't notice as Laurelle started to fade. There was the necklace, still gray, still dull, but in this place of shadows--of nothingness--it looked real. Solid. The necklace was substantial still. Lily looked back up. The Spirit-Laurelle was clutching her throat, gasping--hadn't she been strangled to death?--and she reached out her hands one last time (they faded into wisps as they got near) and she opened her mouth, slowly, silently, and then--

Then came the moan. It bubbled from deep inside Laurelle's spirit, like a low rumbling burp of eternal agony that churned Laurelle to pieces. It floated almost palpably on the air, a great bubble of warm, agonizing filth, the heat tarnishing Lily's face; the noise of it ate away at her body, scraping across the tips of her toes, of her gray shadowy ears, and it all swirled inside her, billowing--the moan, the burp--the sickening heat--pressing against her, from the inside out, at her millions of little gray-cloud molecules, threatening to pull Lily in every direction at once, burst her apart.... She would become insubstantial, like Laurelle. The necklace would be left behind, sinking like a lead weight into this cloudy ground. Lily would be failed by the necklace, just as Laurelle had been. Her molecules would band together just enough to create that shadow spirit, a restless, helpless, insubstantial Lily, and she would reach out for the necklace, too, with that same moan--for she would be nothing--nothing without it--she was nothing without it--

Laurelle's moan faded, and Lily shuddered. She'd felt for one moment that she really would burst apart, and--

Other moans came. As Laurelle's drifted away, others came. Stronger. More despairing. From farther away, but louder somehow. More demanding. They wanted it. They wanted it.

They were spirits, shadows of people, wisps of emotion, and they were all one emotion. They were the want. The desire. Absolute greed. Lily could hear it in the moans, they were desperate, terrible--they made her ears vibrate until they were bleeding--her heart was about to burst--her arms and knees and shoulders shook, threatening to snap--shatter into a million pieces--the moans were pulling her apart, destroying her, grabbing at her, ripping her to shreds--she was--diminishing. Being gnawed at, pulled away at, her molecules stretched out--stretching--blowing--expanding--she was like a balloon--going everywhere at once--and--straining--eventually--she would pop and--she had nothing to hold on to, her hands were wispy, insubstantial, she couldn't clutch at the necklace--it was lead--it was a weight--she was too wispy now, she couldn't hold it up any longer--the necklace was too real--too heavy--it started dropping--no, falling--through her--her body--her insubstantial body, and--

It sank. It tore through her, ripping, piercing, grinding her pulled-apart bones, thin blood bubbling from the cuts--

Blood? How was there blood, there was no body--she was just a--a ghost--ghost-Lily--right? She--

The pain came all at once. From everywhere. Every inch of her body ached. Every inch of her body was being torn, massacred, sliced, broken, expanded, pulled, destroyed, everything, all at once, and she--

"AAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! AAAAHHH!"

The screaming seemed to come from everywhere. It bit into Lily's ears with palpable pain. She had never been aware before that simple screaming could damage you. But this did. This was pain like she had never known. It made her head feel like it was going to fly apart, her ears like they would burst and bleed, and--

Her head. Her ears. Dear God, her head. Was she a real human again? Lily's hands flew to her head, her hair, her neck, her arms--oh Lord, she had a body again. She wasn't dying. Wasn't. Wasn't being ripped apart by the souls of people who--

"AAAA--"

The screaming stopped, suddenly, and Lily's eyes flew open. She was panting, sobbing, frightened, shaking, and suddenly she realized she was the one who had been screaming. James had her by the shoulders. He was looking at her, terrified, and when Lily's brain began to piece together what was going on, its only solution was to burst into loud, painful, and uncontrollable sobs. Lily didn't shake--she jerked. She spasmed. James tried to put her arms around her and she kept slamming into him, but he didn't stop. He clasped his arms around and held her tight and even when she slammed them both into the wall he didn't let her go.

Lily didn't notice Sirius and Melody and Mimi and Remus and Peter all standing over her bed looking horrified until much, much later.

Lily and James were alone together. Lily was shaking, but just slightly. More like shivering. Much better than before, but still alarming.

She hadn't been able to put the dream in words. The others still had no idea what was wrong with her. She'd just clutched at the necklace and gasped out the words "bad dream" earlier, and James had made everybody else go away so he could try to calm her down.

She was calm now, but still terrified. James had her wrapped up in blankets, as though somehow the warmth could stop this shivering, shivering that came from her thoughts trying to turn her inside out. But the blankets didn't really help; now she was sweaty and shivery instead of chilly and shivery. But at least she was wrapped up in something. At least her body wasn't threatening to suddenly burst in every direction at once.

The thought of the dream sent a huge shudder through her quaking system, and Lily turned to smother her face into James's shoulder. She didn't even realize James was crying until his tears started dripping onto her neck.

This calmed Lily down considerably. She jerked back and stared at James, whom she had rarely seen lose composure.

"James?" Lily put her shaky hands to his face and tried to wipe his tears away, but they kept coming, free-flowing.

"What can I do, Lily?" James asked, his voice low and rough and choking. "What more can I do for you? I've done everything I can think of, and I--it's--not enough."

That almost undid Lily again. That almost sent her spasming completely apart. Almost.

Instead, Lily put her shaking hands to James's head and brought it to rest on her unstable shoulder. She wrapped her quivering arms around his neck, burying one hand lovingly into his atrociously messy hair, and held him.

They had to go to Schmundertoe's. That was the only halfway decent solution any of them could come up with, and so with only a mildly decent explanation to Mrs. Potter, they set off for London. At first, everyone wanted to go, but James did not like this idea and somehow bullied everyone else out of going except for Sirius, who ended up being very useful.

Lily's shakiness still hadn't gone away, and she had a tendency to stumble at odd times into odd objects, or, occasionally, just fall to the ground completely and stare dizzily into space until she could collect herself. The only explanation anyone had gleaned from Lily was something about her necklace, and this worried James immensely. Ever since he'd found out the necklace had any kind of power, and that it refused to leave Lily's neck, he'd felt immeasurably guilty for giving it to Lily without having any clue what it was. Of course, he still had no clue what it was, but now at least he had a better idea what it was capable of.

But if that--that--thing--was causing this, then it could burn in hell for all James cared. If Lily hadn't been so possessive of it, James would have snatched the thing out of her hand and destroyed it days ago. But it almost felt like...without it, Lily would have been in even worse shape. Without it, Lily would cease to exist at all.

That thought scared James more than Voldemort.

And so they were going to the only person who might be able to give them some answers about whatever this magical...thing was. James could no longer think of it as just a necklace. It was so much greater and more terrible than a simple piece of jewelry.

And in some inexplicable way, it was tearing Lily apart.

They half-walked, half-hobbled down the street, more like one big glob of human than three separate people, James and Sirius on either side, supporting Lily, with Lily staggering drunkenly between them. James hoped that was what people thought when they saw them--that Lily was just very, very drunk, and there was no cause for alarm.

Schmundertoe's shop was open today, so there were no bricks to hop and no tin cans to tap--they just had to find the right street, and open the door, and hope to God there weren't any other customers, because if so...who knew what would become of Lily?

As they reached Schmundertoe's shop and Sirius threw open the door, James wondered vaguely why they weren't taking Lily to St. Mungo's. But it was a fleeting wonder, as Lily staggered into the shop and very nearly knocked over a display of rather expensive-looking watches.

Schmundertoe was assisting some customer at the ring counter in the back of the store, and looked pleasantly over at the three newcomers to give them a warm greeting. He wasn't even halfway through saying hello before he recognized them, and recognized that there was something very, very wrong with Lily, and then everything happened very quickly.

Schmundertoe politely but firmly excused everyone else from his shop and promptly closed things up. James had never seen an old man move so fast. Schmundertoe hurried over to Lily and stared at her, noted the chain of the necklace dangling down between her fingers, and then after a moment nodded, with complete understanding, as though simply looking at Lily provided him a complete explanation of why she was here instead of at a proper hospital.

"Come on, come on," he muttered, distracted now, thinking, and James and Sirius helped Lily to the back room, where Schmundertoe had taken them to inspect the necklace the first time they visited his shop. Schmundertoe conjured three large, comfortable chairs for each of the teenagers to sit in, and James and Sirius scooted them all very close together before helping Lily into the middle one. Schmundertoe hurriedly summoned several objects from across the room and arranged them on his desk, flicking his wand this way and that in agitation, trying to get things in the right position as quickly as possible.

"Now then," Schmundertoe said, donning his large, extremely complicated spectacles, the ones that allowed him to see magic. "Please allow me to examine the necklace."

Lily looked halfway delirious now. James wasn't sure she even knew what was going on. He scrambled for the necklace, locked tight inside her fist.

"No," Lily gasped, her eyes flying wide open. "Don't take it."

"I'm not going to take it, I'm just going to look at it," Schmundertoe said kindly, and far more calmly than James could have managed. He felt like yelling at her. It's killing you, you idiot, just let it go!

But he couldn't say that, because he wasn't entirely sure it was true.

"Then hold out your hand, my dear," Schmundertoe said softly, "and you won't have to let it go."

Lily looked unsure, and then closed her eyes and shuddered again, as though some terrible memory was overtaking her. Her fist balled around the necklace tightly.

Schmundertoe looked at James and Sirius urgently. "Please. I have to see it."

"I think it's her dream," Sirius said quickly. "She woke up in the middle of a nightmare and she's been like this ever since. We don't even...she couldn't even tell us what the dream was, she--"

Before Sirius finished speaking, Schmundertoe turned around and unlocked a small cabinet, from which he took a large white bowl shimmering with a sort of silvery-looking liquid.

"A Pensieve," Sirius murmured, and Schmundertoe nodded.

"Lily, my dear, please look at me," the jeweler said, and Lily peeled open her eyes and blinked several times to get them to focus. "I want you to extract your memory and put it in this Pensieve."

"I--I don't know--" Lily gasped, still shuddering terribly. Her face was now an awful sort of gray, and sweat dripped down her cheeks like tears.

"Put your wand to your forehead. Help her," he snapped at James and Sirius. "And bring the memory to the front of your mind. I know it will be difficult. But--think about forcing it to the front of your head, and then just...pull it out with your wand."

Lily looked like she might cry, but she got her wand out, and James helped guide her shaking hand to her forehead. Lily closed her eyes and the shaking increased until she was practically vibrating, and the three men could do nothing but stare while Lily's face twisted around in agony, until finally, in one swift movement, she jerked her wand away from her head, a long silvery string of memory dangling from it, and threw it in the general direction of the Pensieve. Both the wand and the memory landed in the bowl, and Schmundertoe quickly extracted the wand and shook excess memories from it before handing it back to Lily.

Lily looked suddenly calmer, and most of her shaking subsided, but her face was still that awful, pale gray, and the flow of sweat around her brow didn't seem to have ebbed. She still looked as though she might collapse, and though the extraction of the dream may have eased her mind, it exhausted her body further. Lily let her head fall onto James's shoulder and she breathed heavily, apparently suffering from the effort to keep her body upright.

"I must see the necklace. Please," Schmundertoe said urgently, and Sirius gently lifted Lily's left hand, in which the necklace was clutched, and sat it on Schmundertoe's desk. "Just open your hand," Schmundertoe said gently. "I promise it won't be taken from you."

James thought Lily must have been half-unconscious and unable to hear much of anything, but her fist relaxed and uncurled. Sirius and James both sank back into their chairs with relief, but Schmundertoe wasted no time.

He immediately ran his fingers along the length of the chain, looking concerned, bothered, confused. He finally hit the part he was looking for--the ruby, James suspected, or whatever it was, that held the core of the necklace's magic.

Schmundertoe hurriedly moved his collection of magnifying glasses over and peered through the lenses, lined up for greatest magnification, holding his wand at the ready. He began tapping and prodding until great sparks flew. The more Schmundertoe prodded, the more concerned he looked, the more distressed, until his face was pale, his brows were furrowed, his face was covered in sweat. All in all, he was beginning to look a lot like Lily.

James and Sirius could do nothing but sit and stare and wonder. At some point Lily's eyes fluttered open again, and her right hand groped for one of James's, and now James held that hand in between both of his, squeezing it every so often, trying to be reassuring, but he knew that he couldn't really help. Lily's attention was focused elsewhere. All of their attentions were. Nobody could tear their eyes away from the necklace, which was sparking, sparking...occasionally glowing...but still dull, still mysterious, still...

"AAH!"

With a great shout, Schmundertoe was blown backwards across the room, and Lily, James, and Sirius felt the jolt of an electric shock that made their hair stand on end. Blinking, the teenagers all stared at each other for a moment, and then Sirius realized Schmundertoe was having a difficult time getting up, and ran over to help.

On any other day, at any other time, the sight of the four of them with their hair sticking out every which way--especially Lily's--would have been hilarious. Sirius would have started laughing, Lily would have cracked some dumb joke about how James's hair didn't look any different, and they all would have had a good chuckle to break the tension in the room.

But not today. Schmundertoe hurried back to his work, puffing and panting, so intent on figuring out what was wrong that he didn't even bother trying to smooth down his wild white hair. After a few more minutes of feverish work, more panting, and more sweating, Schmundertoe finally looked up at the teenagers, pushing his magic-seeing spectacles back up on his head so he could look each of them in the eye. He waited until Lily's eyes had focused, recognizing that she was still dizzy and shaking and only half-there.

"This is not going to be easy," he said finally. "And I cannot tell you what is the matter until we are through, because I do not need anybody panicking."

James and Sirius nodded quickly, and Lily closed her eyes and squeezed James's hand hard, which they all took as some level of consent.

"All right," Schmundertoe said quickly. "You and I"--he looked at Sirius--"are both going to have to perform a very complicated spell, which you have approximately three minutes to learn. And you two"--he looked at James and Lily--"are going to have to do absolutely everything I say without questioning it, or things may suddenly get much, much worse."

James, Lily, and Sirius all nodded and stared.

"Right," Schmundertoe said briskly. "You come with me." He pointed at Sirius. "You two--turn your chairs so they face each other and hold this between you." He meant the necklace.

James quickly scooted both their chairs around so they were facing each other, and clasped his right hand over Lily's left, so that they were both holding the necklace. Sirius and Schmundertoe left the room.

James could hardly stand the sight of Lily, looking pale, sickly, exhausted, practically like she was about to--

"Do you think...it's going to be...okay?" Lily asked. It took great effort for her to get the words out. Too much effort.

"Yes," James said tightly. "I think Schmundertoe knows exactly what he's doing."

"Yes," Lily agreed, then panted for a moment before continuing. "But...the question is...does...Sirius?"

Even with the nightmare memories gone, Lily still looked like she was in such pain. She tried to crack a half-smile anyway, but that smile didn't help. Instead it made James want to crawl under Schmundertoe's desk and die, because he had a terrible feeling that Lily was about to.

Although honestly, it didn't make a damned lick of sense, did it? She'd already died once, or so she said...but then later she'd said that the necklace died...so...could it be that the necklace, instead of letting Lily die, had...died itself? And...now it was trying to take back that life from Lily?

What the bloody hell was going on here anyway?

James hoped to God that Schmundertoe knew what he was doing, because if he didn't and the necklace decided it would be fun to electrocute them all again, they could all very well end up dead.

Melody found Paolo sitting in the indoor gardens, brooding.

After Lily, James, and Sirius had run off to London, none of the teenagers had known quite what to do with themselves. Peter, Mimi, and Remus were unsuccessfully trying to distract themselves with a game of Exploding Snap. Mrs. Potter was compulsively cleaning the living room. Melody was wandering around aimlessly. And Paolo...well, here Paolo was, sitting underneath a cherry blossom tree, staring at a Japanese garden full of flowers and bonsai trees with a pretty little stream running through it, lost in thought.

Melody sat down next to him and waited for him to acknowledge her presence. There was no point disturbing him, especially if he had something really important to think about. Melody stared at the stream, full of rocks and dark little fish, and tried to let her mind clear. She didn't want to spend any more time worrying about Lily. Lily was in London, and there was nothing Melody could do to help her. Granted, there was nothing James and Sirius could do to help her either, but at least they would take care of her. Melody trusted them with that much.

She did trust them, didn't she? That was a funny thought, after so many months of distrusting Hans, Lucifer, Catalina, and everyone else she'd met at those society functions. She'd also distrusted her friends with her secrets, distrusted Sirius especially. But now Sirius knew. He knew everything. (Mostly.) She'd come here to tell him absolutely everything, to apologize, to tell him that she trusted him and loved him and that she wanted everything to be okay.

She wasn't sure it would be that simple, but the simple realization that she did trust him was an important one. She hadn't thought about it much the past few months, but she realized now that that was the fundamental difference between Sirius and Lucifer Malfoy. She trusted Sirius completely, implicitly, undoubtful...ly. With Lucifer, she wasn't sure she could trust a damned word that came out of his mouth. And that was no basis for a relationship or a marriage.

Lucifer said that Melody would choose him, in time. He had said that she would want to marry him, and that he would never coerce her into it. She supposed that was how he expected to build up her trust. And it was true enough that so far he had demanded nothing of her but her presence, and even that he had not demanded, simply requested. And he was smart enough, surely, and well-mannered, and surprisingly enough he had a sense of humor, and perhaps would not be offended by Melody's honesty, but...oh, he still sent shivers down her back. The way he thought of marriage. Just a rational, practical contract. No love necessary. No lust, even. Melody couldn't live like that. She needed that emotional connection. That was part of what she loved about Sirius, wasn't it? His complimentary need for emotional connection. Physical connection.

Melody supposed she had barred them from moving much farther past the physical connection, hadn't she? They had said they loved each other, but they were still having a difficult time of it. That was all Melody's fault. She hadn't trusted him with her secrets. Maybe he felt like he couldn't trust half of what she said anymore. He was good at calling her out when she was lying, but still. You shouldn't have to call out your girlfriend for lying, should you? That also was a violation of trust.

So Melody just needed to earn his trust back, that was all. She needed to remember what it was like to put total faith and trust in someone else. She was a little out of practice. But that would come in time, wouldn't it? If she could just stay with Sirius. They could work things out, they could build up a real relationship again, they could--

"I have to leave soon."

Melody was sitting next to Paolo. She had forgotten. "Why?" she asked, startled.

"I have to do what I came to do."

"Oh. Your father. That's right."

Paolo nodded, but he didn't look at her. He just stared off past the Japanese gardens, which gave way to a grove of orange trees. Sometimes, Melody noted, the indoor gardens didn't make a whole lot of sense.

"I have to find his killer. I'm not sure how I am going to do this, but I will. I am here now. I have to."

"Do you have any idea where to start?"

"When I first told you of the Lestranges, you said you knew them. Can you tell me where they live?"

"I--well, I don't know them, really. I know...of them. I can probably help you find where some of them live, but--Paolo, do you really want to do this?" she blurted out.

Paolo looked at her intensely. "It is my father, Melody. I have to do this."

Melody's stomach squirmed. "But--I mean--what are you going to do when you find this Lestrange, exactly? If you do find him?"

"I will find him."

Melody hesitated. "Right. But--but listen, Paolo. I mean, what are you going to do when you do find him? You're not going to...I mean, you can't..."

"I must avenge my father, Melody. I must make things right."

"But you can't--you can't kill him. Can you?"

Paolo's mouth set into a thin, hard line. "What would you do to your father's killer, if you had the chance? Is there anything you would not do to stop a man who would kill, and kill, and kill again?"

Melody couldn't look him in the eye anymore. "My father's killer was You-Know-Who. There are a great many wizards who would like to do to him what I would like to do to him."

"And he commissions disgusting cowards like this Lestrange to kill good men, just for sport. You think this man is any less deserving of punishment?"

"But Paolo--please, think about it. If you use the Killing Curse--" Melody's words got tangled on the way to her mouth. She couldn't imagine Paolo--sexy, beautiful, kind Paolo--ever being vicious enough to use that curse. "It's Unforgivable," she whispered. "And I know you know that," she said quickly. "I know. It's just...it's not just the law that gets broken when you use it. It's like a...stain. On your soul. You can't ever take it back. It...it would change you." Melody brought her eyes back to his. "You are so good, Paolo. You were always so good to me. I can't imagine you..."

Hard lines etched themselves across Paolo's face. Concern, understanding. Determination. "I understand what you are thinking. I know. I have thought about this many times. But I promise you Melody, I will never use the Killing Curse."

"But--if you want to kill him, you--"

"My father had a dagger. Ancient. Enchanted." Paolo pulled up the leg of his pants, and a metal blade glinted wickedly. Paolo removed the blade from its leather scabbard. "I will not even have to draw blood to rid the world of my father's killer. One prick and he will be turned to stone."

He held it out carefully to Melody. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt and tried not to move as Paolo gently removed his hands from underneath the blade. "Is there any way to reverse it? Turning people to stone, I mean."

Paolo shook his head. "None that I have heard of." He grinned then, more wickedly than Melody had ever seen him. "Especially not when the victim is broken into a thousand pieces and thrown into the sea."

"Have you ever...used it?"

"Of course. I had to practice."

"On...on what?"

Paolo's expression softened. "On a dummy. On pillows. I had to practice throwing it."

"But on anything...living?"

"Ah, that. Yes, Melody, but never in a terrible way. Never on a person." Melody must have still looked distressed, because Paolo's expression softened further and he gave her a small smile. "On rats, Melody," he said gently. "Rats that got into the apartment and scared my sister."

"Oh," Melody said, relaxing a bit and considering the dagger in her hand. In one way, she couldn't believe Paolo had this, but in another...she understood exactly why he wanted to use it. "And this was your father's?"

"Si. It was given to my family centuries ago, a great gift from one of the Emperors of Rome."

"A Roman Emperor? Are you serious?"

Paolo grinned. "It is the proud part of my family's heritage. My father's ancestors, some of them were the great personal bodyguards of the Emperor."

"Which emperor?"

Paolo grinned. "Well, there were several. My family was full of good warriors, good bodyguards, and for decades my ancestors served in the Praetorian Guard, a special group of soldiers selected as bodyguards of the Roman Emperor. They all had to be Italians, and they lived in the city of Rome. They were elite, paid more than any of the other soldiers, and carried the legacy of the great emperor Augustus, who was the first to have them formed." His chest puffed out a little in pride, but then he grinned at Melody and deflated somewhat. "Of course, the relationship between the emperor and his personal guard was not always perfect."

"Oh?"

"There is a long history of the Praetorian guard assassinating the emperors they were supposed to be guarding."

Melody laughed. "I'm sorry, that shouldn't be funny."

Paolo gave a little half-grin. "Well, some of the emperors should not have been emperors. The first killed by his own guard--it was Calligula, I think--was crazy. He wanted to make his horse a consul, I think, and told soldiers to bring back seashells from battle as...prizes of war."

Melody really laughed now. "That's terrible. No wonder they killed him."

"Si. The members of the guard had hard choices to make."

Melody looked at Paolo with new respect. He was not just talking about the guard anymore. "So," she said, examining the dagger with newfound interest, "which Emperor gave your ancestors this dagger that can turn things into stone?"

"Titus. I think history calls him one of the Five Good Emperors."

Melody frowned. "I don't know that I've heard of him."

Paolo grinned. "Well, they probably don't teach Roman history very well in England. If Shakespeare didn't write a play about it, why bother learning it, right?"

Melody stuck her tongue out at him. "Just because Julius Caesar is the first emperor who comes to mind when I think about Rome doesn't mean I don't know anything about Roman history."

"Oh, really? Well then you should be able to tell me whether or not Caesar came before or after Titus."

"That's not fair, I don't even know when Titus was the emperor."

"It was in the first century A.D."

"All right. Well...Caesar is more famous, so I'm going to guess...after?"

Paolo really laughed now. "He came long before. Before Antony and Cleopatra, even. And you have heard that legend?"

"Yes," Melody said, feeling slightly more annoyed now.

"And you should know, too, that Caesar was not truly an emperor. He began ruling as one of three--"

"I know, I know, the first triumvirate, right? I'm not completely clueless."

Paolo grinned. "That's right. And he--"

"Hey now, what are you, a walking textbook? Tell me more about the dagger." Melody held the object up for emphasis. "This thing has to be like...two thousand years old, right? That's insane. I can't believe it stayed in your family so long."

"Well, it is an object of great value. You cannot simply let these things slip away."

"No, I suppose not."

"Besides, it is more valuable than simply a gift from an emperor. The way my father told it, the emperor didn't even know what he was giving away. It had somehow ended up in his collection, probably put there by some wizard who was afraid of what he had and didn't want to be suspected of magic. It is likely the emperor had never used it before, and did not even know what it could do."

"But your ancestors found out."

"Yes, quickly. They recognized it for what it was--a legend at the time. Though I doubt many have heard of it now."

"Well what is it?" Melody pressed.

"It's called Il Pugnale di Medusa."

"The...dagger of Medusa?" Melody guessed, and Paolo nodded, grinning. Melody frowned. "I thought Medusa was part of a Greek myth."

"Si, she was. But the Romans conquered Greece, did they not?"

"I suppose they did."

Paolo grinned. "So there you go." His smile faded somewhat. He reached his hand out and Melody gently rested the dagger on it. "And now I must use Medusa's suffering to ease my father's. Wherever he may be."

Melody looked at Paolo long, hard, seriously. "Paolo?" she managed after a while.

He looked up at her briefly. "Hm?"

"Be careful."

Sirius and Schmundertoe returned more quickly than Lily and James anticipated.

"All right," Schmundertoe said quickly, nervously. He flicked his wand at his desk and it sailed across the room, smashing into the far wall. Schmundertoe didn't seem to notice. "Listen very carefully, both of you. I want you to hold the necklace up between you so that the pendant is sticking upward. You must both be holding the necklace--this is very important."

Lily and James fumbled with the chain, Lily's hands still shaky, with both their hands and the necklace now a little sweaty because Lily and James had clasped their hands together over it. Lily and James wound the chain around their fingers and each gently grasped the small cursive "L," so that it stood upright in the air between them.

"Good," Schmundertoe said, looking more and more nervous. "Now please, listen--listen. I want you to hold the pendant up so that it is in between your lips. And in a few moments when we cast this spell, you are going to press your lips together with the pendant in between you. All right? But--NO NOT YET!" Lily and James jerked backwards. Apparently they had started leaning in too soon. But they were all nervous, jumpy, all wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, and Lily was prepared to do whatever it took to feel normal again.

"This is very important--very important," Schmundertoe continued. "We must do this at the exact right moment. You cannot kiss too soon, not too late. It must be at the exact moment we cast our spells, and we both must cast at the same time. Do you understand?"

Lily and James nodded quickly. Lily, still feeling tired--so- tired--tired and shaky and terrified--managed a glance over at Sirius. He was clutching his wand very tightly, but surprisingly he looked like the least nervous one in the room. It was extremely reassuring, in that moment, to see Sirius standing there so straight and motionless and confident, not looking terrified but rather grimly determined, his mouth set into a firm resolved line, his wand already cocked in preparation.

James was doing everything he could, but surprisingly it was the sight of Sirius that calmed Lily down enough to listen to Schmundertoe and prepare herself for whatever was to come.

Lily looked back at James. Their eyes met slowly. Whatever happened, she knew, they had done what they could. James had done more than enough. And Lily wanted to tell him so.

But just as she opened her mouth to do so, Schmundertoe spoke again. "All right," he said, and wiped his hands on his pants before gripping his wand carefully. "Are we ready?"

No one spoke. Lily and James stared at each other. I love you was poised on Lily's lips, but she never got a chance to say it.

"All right, ready? Good--now. NOW!"

Lily jerked when she realized he'd said now, and leaned forward, vaguely aware that on either side of her Sirius and Schmundertoe were waving their wands wildly, and that suddenly two sparks of light burst from the tips of their respective wands, racing right for her--racing for her and James as they leaned--leaned--

Lily wanted to watch, but in the split second before the two bursts of magic light reached her she became terrified, and squeezed her eyes shut against whatever was about to happen, and crashed her lips against James's, the firm metal of the "L" pendant smushed awkwardly between them.

And in that moment, Lily was glad she'd closed her eyes, because suddenly the spell exploded between them, and bright light shot even through Lily's eyelids, and swept into her body, and suddenly--

Warmth. Warmth bubbled out of nowhere, sending happy tingles spreading all over Lily's body, and she seemed to be growing--blossoming--and then a thousand of the tingles, tingles, at her lips, and they moved into her and poured down her throat, blossomed in her chest, and then flowed, flowed--down into her legs, up into her head, through the tips of her fingers, down the length of her frizzy, half-electrocuted hair--

Lily wasn't even aware that James's arms were around her or that they had their mouths open, still pressed against each other, until she realized that their kissing had pressed the necklace pendant into her mouth, and although kissing James felt good, having half a necklace in her mouth was a very strange sensation indeed. Lily pulled away, slowly, and awkwardly pulled the necklace out of her mouth. Ew, she thought, and opened her eyes finally, to see James's eyes staring back into her own. She had a hundred other things she wanted to say and do, but for some reason the first thing she said when she registered that James's face was still only inches from hers was, "I love you." Which, coincidentally, was the first thing James decided to say, at approximately the same moment, and the chorus of their voices sent another rumbling of tingles moving inside Lily, and she couldn't help wrapping her arms around James's neck and kissing him again, ignoring the still-damp necklace chain now dangling from her fingers.

The kiss was cleaner this time, sans necklace, but still made Lily feel warm and happy and complete, even without--

Wait. What was going on? One second Lily was a total mess, feeling like she might collapse at any minute, and the next second she was kissing James like they were all alone in a broom closet and everything was fine. And furthermore, suddenly she felt fine?

Lily had half a mind to pull away from James and glare at Sirius and Schmundertoe and demand to know what was happening. But the strange thing was--she couldn't. She deeply thought about doing this, but somehow none of these thoughts made it anywhere close to her nerves. The desire to move didn't quite send the right pulses to her hands to make them move. Or to her lips, for that matter. Or to her eyes, which she kind of wished would pop open so she could at least see if Sirius and Schmundertoe were all right. Or if they were still even there. She kind of got the feeling they weren't.

But then the world closed in around her, and Lily forgot there were other things and other people she should be thinking about, and let the happiness bubble inside her, and her cheeks flush from excitement, and she let James pull her into his lap and she wrapped herself around him and forgot everyone and everything, especially the little gold necklace chain that was still dangling from her fingers, drizzling itself halfway down James's neck.

Sirius couldn't believe he'd done it. Just one spell, and it was exhausting. But it was a spell he'd learned in less than three minutes, and it had actually worked. Sirius still didn't know exactly what it had done--although Schmundertoe promised to reveal everything as soon as Lily and James were done snogging, which according to the jeweler could last anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. In the meantime, Sirius and Schmundertoe were enjoying nice refreshing cups of tea, and planning to take very restful naps, because quite frankly the spell had exhausted both of them.

It had been part Cheering Charm, part Love Spell, part of a unity spell and some sort of inanimate object spell, a splicing spell and a couple other spells Sirius really didn't understand and Schmundertoe hadn't had time to explain, but he promised Sirius that if his intentions were good and his wand movements right and he could silently cast it with all the right words floating around in his head, it would work.

And apparently, it had. Although, even though Schmundertoe had tried to warn Sirius about the effect the cheering charm and the love spell would have, Sirius still had not been entirely prepared for the way Lily and James...attacked each other.

The most Schmundertoe would say about the spell was that the cheering part and the love spell part were mostly there to help along what the real effect of the spell was supposed to do--which would have been helpful knowledge, if only Sirius knew what the spell was really supposed to be doing.

But right now, Sirius didn't have to worry about that. He just had to worry about finishing his tea and stretching out on one of the large couches Schmundertoe had conjured for a nap, and try not to think about what exactly it was Lily and James were doing in Schmundertoe's office.

The game of Exploding Snap was rather half-assed, although somehow Peter managed to be winning extraordinarily. On a normal day, Mimi might have cared more, but today Mimi had far too many problems occupying her brain, not the least of which included Lily and Remus's werewolfish-ness. Funnily enough, however, she wasn't expending energy worrying about either of those. Instead she was thinking about the Fourth Year, Lin, and her...her...gift?

Was it a gift to see visions of people who were about to die? Or, at the very least, visions of people who were in mortal peril. If Lin was a Seer, Mimi had never heard of one with such unusual powers. When most Seers prophesized, they did not remember their prophecies. They went into a sort of trance, and only the people who were around to bear witness actually heard the prophecy.

Then again, Lin wasn't exactly prophesizing, was she? She was having visions. Mimi itched for her Divination books. As far as she knew, she was the only one of her friends currently taking Divination--or at least, the only one of her friends currently present at Potter's Cottage who was taking Divination. Otherwise she might've asked the boys if they remembered anything about Seers just having plain old visions. Premonitions, perhaps. Mimi vaguely remembered something about this, but they had studied it in Fourth or Fifth Year, Mimi couldn't remember which, and it clearly hadn't been a very extensive study of premonitions, or...whatever it was Lin was having, otherwise surely Mimi would remember.

Much of the study of Divination now was active--reading palms, tea leaves, that sort of thing, and practicing with the crystal balls, examining the movements of the stars, working with different sorts of charms and pendants and things to try to divine where the objects had been and where they might end up. The textbook part of the class was almost entirely devoted to studying the works of Cassandra Trelawney and trying to decode the meanings of various prophecies.

Bugger. None of that was helpful right now. Mimi took her turn at Exploding Snap, but racked her brain for answers. She vaguely remembered something about...pain...about extreme pain, or other extreme emotions, opening the mind to different...levels of perception, was it?

Yes...yes, something about...times of extreme emotion...if you were...how had it been phrased? Something about wizards...going through times of extreme emotion...became more...in tune?...aware?...of the extreme emotions of others, almost like...every emotion was on a wavelength, and if you could tune into the right wavelength, you could pick up people's emotions. And Lin...maybe Lin was just tuned in right now. On the right frequency, she could pick up other people's emotions and...and in her case, that translated to visions.

Did that make any sense?

Mimi didn't know, but she decided to discuss it with the boys and find out.

Lily and James's surge of hormones ebbed, and they pulled away from each other, still tangled up in one of Schmundertoe's large, comfortable chairs. Lily felt drowsy. Her lips were puffy and throbbing, but in a good way. She was flushed from her head to her feet, but that felt good too. Even so, Lily's head was a bit out of sorts. She looked at James, and his expression suggested he was feeling a bit out of sorts as well.

Lily took a moment to gather herself, and registered that, for the first time in days, she felt completely fine. She could feel the necklace still wrapped around her fingers. Good. She still had it. That meant she still had the opportunity to feel perfectly satisfied as she threw it away.

Wait. What?

Lily brought her hand out from behind James's neck, and the necklace still dangled happily from her fingers. The chain glimmered gold in the room's light, and--wait. No. What? Lily shook her head. She had no idea what was going on here. All she remembered was stumbling into Schmundertoe's, feeling very distressed about...something...and then suddenly she was having a massive snog with James, and now her necklace looked like it was back to normal, and...

"What the bloody hell just happened?" James demanded.

Ah. So apparently Lily wasn't alone in her confusion. She didn't look at James, though. She kept staring at her necklace. "I don't know," she replied, frowning. "But we should go find Schmundertoe."

She attempted to get out of the chair, which was more difficult than it seemed. She had somehow gotten her legs wrapped around and kind of--under--James, and both her feet had fallen asleep in the process. Lily ended up sort of tumbling out of the chair and onto the floor, and James laughed at her. Lily glared at him as he got up and helped her to her feet.

"Yeah, sure, laugh at the girl who just gave you a good snog." Lily began stomping her feet as they walked across the room.

"I wasn't laughing at you, I just...Lily, what are you doing?"

Lily was hopping up and down and cursing. "What? Both my feet fell asleep."

James waited patiently while Lily hopped and cursed and shook both her legs out and hopped around some more. "Better now?" he asked when Lily appeared to have finished.

"Yeah. Let's find Schmundertoe." She slipped her left hand into James's and held the necklace up with her right, staring at the evil little thing and wondering how something so small and innocent-looking could cause so much trouble.

Bellatrix had a new mission: find Siegfried. It wasn't an official mission--not from the Dark Lord or anything--but Siegfried hadn't been home to sleep in several days, and Bellatrix was beginning to worry. He had been home occasionally--that much was obvious from the way the liquor cabinet continued to empty. But Bellatrix was somehow never there when Siegfried came home to raid the cabinets, and so she was never there to try to intervene, to talk some sense into him, to make him stop.

She missed him. It had never occurred to her before that she might miss him. She had been so furious with him lately that all she wanted to do was curse at him and hurt him, and she had begun to forget that they shared more than just fabulous sex. The only problem was that Bellatrix wasn't quite sure where to start looking for him.

Although Bellatrix and Siegfried spent most of their time together, there wasn't really any place they frequented. They were far too busy trying to carry on their normal lives, plus follow the orders of the Dark Lord, for that sort of thing.

So Bellatrix did the only thing she could think of. She showed up at Siegfried's cousin Rodolphus's flat and demanded to know if anyone had any idea where the hell Siegfried might be.

Lily stared at Schmundertoe with her mouth hanging blatantly open. Her brain simply refused to process what Schmundertoe had just told her.

Apparently, her soul had been spliced. Lily hadn't been aware that it was possible for something like that to happen, but according to Schmundertoe, it was. This brought back a vague memory of something Schmundertoe had said the first time she'd met him. Something about people preserving their souls in inanimate objects; Dark magic...Hoaxes, they were called. Or...Cruxes. Or...Horxes. Never mind. That wasn't important. What was important was the state of Lily's soul.

According to Schmundertoe, it was all back together again, safely inside her body, coexisting peacefully, and...wait--co-existing?

Lily's brain tried to remember what Schmundertoe had said about this as well. She tried to remember everything, in fact, because right now it was all sort of a jumble.

When the Avada Kedavra spell hit her, Schmundertoe said, the necklace had tried to absorb its impact, but the spell was too strong for the necklace to handle. Instead of being able to absorb or stop the spell, the necklace had grabbed a piece of Lily's soul as it was separated from her body. And the rest of her soul, hovering somewhere in space, apparently hadn't wanted to be separated from the little bit of the soul her necklace had captured.

At least, this was the idea Schmundertoe had come up with after demanding to know everything that had happened, and after viewing Lily's dream--along with James and Sirius--in the Pensieve. He thought that the spirits in the dream who had tried to attack Lily's necklace were trying to grab it because it contained part of her living soul, that was in some way connected to her living body, and though all those souls were still in existence, none of them were what you could call living.

"But then...why didn't I feel so terrible right after I was attacked? Why didn't I feel like I was going to fall apart until this morning?" Lily asked.

Schmundertoe blinked at her from behind his large, round glasses. "Did you feel all right when you woke up? After you were attacked, did you feel normal?"

Lily thought. "I felt tired. Exhausted."

"But then she got better," Sirius said. "Didn't you? I mean, you seemed all right."

"She seemed distracted," James said. "She couldn't focus."

Lily agreed. "All I could think about was this." She held up the necklace.

Schmundertoe nodded.

"I don't understand," Lily blurted. "You said the necklace had no mind of its own. You said it was just an inanimate object. So how could it--how could it know to do that? To my soul?"

"You said it carries memories, didn't you?" Sirius said. "Could that have anything to do with it?"

James seemed to agree with Sirius. "Right. If it's not alive it can't learn, exactly, but at least if it can hold on to memories, it could be sort of...charmed not to repeat failed spells, couldn't it?"

"Yes," Schmundertoe nodded. "That is what I was thinking."

"That doesn't explain anything," Lily snapped. "I still don't understand how the necklace could have done what it did. It would have to have been...been charmed to recognize that spell, right? To react to that spell in a certain way? And...if I didn't do anything special to the necklace except wear it, how could it become connected to my soul closely enough to...steal a bit of it?"

Schmundertoe considered for a moment. "I'm not sure how closely an object would need to be tied to your soul to splice part of it. And I don't know exactly what the necklace did or how it did it. All I have are guesses. However...I think you make a good point. I think the maker of the necklace would have had to be aware of a spell like Avada Kedavra in order for the necklace to have any kind of protection against it."

"But that's not possible," Sirius said.

"And why not?" Schmundertoe asked.

"Because the necklace was made by Godric Gryffindor," Sirius pointed out.

"That's right," Lily agreed, understanding Sirius's meaning. "The Founders lived a thousand years ago. Avada Kedavra hadn't been invented yet."

"You don't think so?" Schmundertoe asked.

The way he said it made Lily unsure. "Well...the first known use of Avada Kedavra wasn't until the 1300's."

"First known use," Sirius muttered.

Schmundertoe considered. "I think there are a lot of questions you need answered. I don't think I can answer them for you."

"But?" James prompted.

"However," Schmundertoe said, smiling, "now that the necklace is off your neck, I wonder if you wouldn't mind leaving it with me for a few days."

"Here," Lily said, her arm shooting out. "I wouldn't mind leaving it with you forever."

Schmundertoe was surprised. "This necklace was made to protect you. And it did. It saved your life."

"No," James said flatly. "The necklace was made to protect someone. We don't know who."

Lily nodded. "That's true. Who can say if the necklace was ever meant to last this long at all?"

Schmundertoe's smile grew a little sad. "Any magical object that lasts a thousand years was probably intended to, Miss Evans."

Lily suddenly felt guilty for being so quick to give her necklace away. "Even so," she said, standing quickly, "I have no trouble parting with it. At least for a few days. Or...however long you need it." She held it out over Schmundertoe's desk, letting it dangle until Schmundertoe finally held his hand out and accepted it.

She stood and watched as Schmundertoe pulled his wand out and conjured a key out of midair to open one of his desk drawers, where he stored the necklace in a plush little jewelry box. "I will take good care of it," he promised, and only then did Lily sit down.

Lily hesitated a moment with her question. "What did you mean about my soul...co-existing?"

Schmundertoe had to hesitate before answering. "The spell we performed was meant to pull the piece of your soul the necklace seized out of the necklace and put it back in your body. I couldn't have managed a spell that fused the two pieces of your soul back together."

"You mean I couldn't have," Sirius said.

Schmundertoe looked at him very sharply. "We had no time to prepare. Neither of us could have done any better than we did."

"He's right, Sirius," Lily said. "I'm all in one piece again. I...think."

"Your soul will put itself back together eventually."

"Eventually?" Lily echoed.

"Sooner rather than later. I promise." Schmundertoe was trying to sound reassuring, Lily thought, but her stomach still twisted around unpleasantly. Awkward silence descended, and Schmundertoe considered Lily for a moment before continuing. "You won't feel any pain," he promised. "At least, not any physical pain. But there will be...mood swings. Sudden, inexplicable. Some moments of dizziness, or fainting spells perhaps."

"Oh, great," Lily muttered.

"But once it's all over, everything will be back to normal."

James, Lily, and Sirius just stared.

"Well. Your soul will be back in one piece, at any rate."

"Thank you," Lily said softly.

"There is one other thing," Schmundertoe said, just as the teenagers were glancing at each other, thinking that now might be a good time to leave. They all froze and stared across the table at the white-haired old man who seemed to have all the answers--even though he had just finished saying that he didn't.

"Yes?" Lily said.

"I think, if possible, you should try to meet the maker of this necklace."

Everyone stared at him.

"You mean Godric Gryffindor?" James said blankly.

"Well...yes," Schmundertoe said. "I know that it seems a little far-fetched, but...well, the first time I examined the necklace I thought I picked up traces of a time-travel spell. I'm not sure what it will amount to, but once I have had time to examine the necklace properly, to strip down all the enchantments and figure out what they can be used for...it may be possible."

Lily stared at him. "Travel back a thousand years to talk to one of the four founders of Hogwarts to ask him about a necklace?"

Schmundertoe did not hesitate. "Yes. If you ever want to know how it was created or how to properly use it, you need to do this. If you can."

Lily got a bitter taste in her mouth. "I think at this point I'd rather destroy the necklace than figure out how to...use it."

Schmundertoe frowned. "Even so...in order to do that, you would need to talk to its creator. It would be very difficult to destroy an object of such power without understanding how it was made."

Lily nodded. "All right. We'll think about it. If it's possible."

Schmundertoe nodded as well. "Very well. Lily, I think you had better go home and rest."

Lily nodded again, although she had a feeling that, even if she did go home, she would not be able to rest.

When Sirius stepped out of the fireplace into Potter's Cottage behind Lily and James, Melody was waiting for him. With Paolo.

Melody greeted Lily and James first, appropriately expressing her relief and happiness that Lily had returned safely. But Lily was exhausted, so she and James excused themselves rather quickly. Melody gave Lily a hug and told her to feel better, but Sirius could tell she wasn't overly concerned that Lily wanted to go rest. She was up to something.

When Lily and James were gone, Melody turned to Sirius. "I hope everything's okay," she said, tipping forward onto the balls of her feet nervously. She managed to look hesitant and impatient at the same time.

"It's better than it was." Sirius said. He didn't feel like asking her what she was up to, but he also didn't want to make small talk, so he just stared at her and waited for her to say what she was waiting to say.

Melody looked at him for a while, her golden brown eyes dancing over his face, her teeth biting down with some concern over her bottom lip. Paolo hovered awkwardly in the background.

Finally Melody made up her mind, and she walked over to Sirius and took one of his hands in hers. "Sirius, we need your help."

Sirius raised an eyebrow at her, and Melody's eyes flickered in realization. "Paolo," she amended, "needs your help."

Sirius looked at Paolo. Paolo wasn't quite as tall as Sirius, but he was still quite a bit taller than Melody, and he looked confident. A sort of priggish confidence, though, wasn't it? He looked like one of those smooth-talking prats, the kind who would lead a girl on and never commit and only go back to them when he needed them for something.

Sirius didn't particularly like Paolo. He hadn't much liked Paolo's participation in the conversation last night, either. He'd been full of touchy-feely philosophical comments, with that prat-ish Italian accent (which had to be put on; he spoke English just fine, damn it), like, "Maybe it is not about any power of any necklace. Maybe it is about the bond that these two share." As if he knew anything about James and Lily. So what if he brought them in out of an alley where Lily was supposedly dying--well, whoop dee doo. How capital for him, and didn't he deserve tea and crumpets?

Sirius felt like snorting derisively, but decided that this would be inappropriate, since Paolo hadn't said anything recently worthy of a derisive snort.

Instead, Sirius settled for tightening his grip on Melody's hand slightly, and raising his eyebrows as if to say, "Well?"

Paolo hesitated. He was coming up with some touchy-feely bullshit to say, Sirius could just tell. Sirius prepared his nose for derisive snorting.

"Please," Paolo began. Sirius let that one slide. "This is very important to me."

Sirius snorted mentally. What a prat. Did he think anyone actually bought that accent?

"I need you to help me find a man," Paolo continued.

Sirius decided to play along. "What man?" he asked, trying to sound melodramatic without Melody realizing he was trying to sound melodramatic.

Paolo looked at him very long, very seriously, his large bushy Italian eyebrows furrowing in concentration, as if to say, "Look at us! We're big furry Italian eyebrows and we take ourselves way too seriously!"

Sirius had to concentrate hard not to snort in laughter this time, and he hoped the furrowing of his own eyebrows would say, "Yes, we're taking you very seriously," and not, "My eyebrows are silently laughing at your eyebrows because your eyebrows look like miniature ferrets."

He was having a little too much fun with this. He glanced over at Melody. She was looking at Sirius very seriously. Very hopefully. Very earnestly. Sirius was, frankly, a little astonished. Could his own girlfriend really be ridiculous enough to buy into all of this? This was supposed to be sexy Italian Paolo, with the ferret-like eyebrows and absurd accent and melodramatic missing persons report? What was wrong with girls these days? How could Melody possibly take any of this seriously?

Wait, no. Scratch that. It was Melody. Of course she bought into all of this. She lived for this kind of ridiculous melodrama. No wonder she was so obsessed with Paolo.

Sirius was glad he wasn't that much of a prat. It was a good thing Melody had finally come to her senses and chosen to go out with a real man.

Or...something along those lines.

Anyway. The ferrets on Paolo's forehead were still staring at Sirius with a sense of solemn urgency, so Sirius decided to play along.

"Well," he said reasonably, "what's this man's name?"

The ferrets twitched. "Rodolphus Lestrange."

Sirius's own ferrets--eyebrows--shot up. (His eyebrows didn't look like small fuzzy creatures that had been pinned down somewhat haphazardly to his forehead. Surely not.) He felt a small amount of concern for Paolo. Rodolphus Lestrange was not the sort of person Sirius wanted to help anyone seek out, not even someone who was as big of a prat as Paolo.

"Why do you need to find him?"

There was a big moment of melodramatic hesitation in which Paolo looked at Sirius, and then over at Melody, and then Paolo and Melody had a Moment, and then Melody looked back at Sirius, and then back at Paolo, and then both Melody and Paolo looked over at Sirius, and Sirius did not pay much attention to any of this because he was still staring at the ferrets perched on Paolo's forehead. They were twitching. One of them climbed slightly father up Paolo's forehead as Paolo turned his gaze back to Sirius, apparently preparing for a big confession.

Sirius waited for it. This was going to be good, he could tell. The ferrets were getting very tense about it.

"He killed my father," Paolo said.

Sirius couldn't help himself. He snorted. Or maybe snorked is more appropriate. Either way, a very rude sound of amusement shot out from Sirius's nose, and the ferrets had the good sense to look surprised.

So did Melody. She squeezed Sirius's hand angrily--well, more like tried to crush his bones beneath her delicate, pretty fingers--and Sirius started to regain his wits. "What?" he asked Melody, and she frowned at him, offended on Paolo's behalf.

"What's the matter with you? Do you think this is funny?"

Melody did not have ferret-like eyebrows. She, in fact, had very beautiful eyebrows, eyebrows that were thin and graceful and artistically angled over her large, jewel-like, golden-brown eyes...eyes that were currently looking at him like he'd just spilled a pan of bubotuber pus all over himself.

"Oh," Sirius said, clearing his throat. "I was--I mean--there was a--thing--I had an allergic snorting--reaction to the, um--thingies in the, er--air."

Melody continued to look un-amused, and shook her head at him slightly, scoldingly, back and forth as if to say, Why do I waste my time with you, you immature prat?

Really, though, what Sirius thought she should be saying was, "Gee, Sirius, I'm glad you don't take yourself too seriously because this Paolo fellow is a real downer."

Sirius noted the thin pursing of Melody's mouth, the angry line of...anger...between her eyebrows, and the burning sensation of annoyance (that was just emanating off her very being) filling the air, and decided that maybe now was not the time for jokes.

"Sorry," he said briefly, and looked back at Paolo. The ferrets--eyebrows--looked somewhat more at ease.

Paolo was all business. He had clearly lost all hope of sympathy from Sirius, and the ferrets had stopped twitching at him with what possibly was supposed to have been anguish. (But really, with eyebrows like that, who could tell?)

"Can you tell me where to find him?"

Sirius realized, with a sinking sense of doom, that, yes, he could tell Paolo where to find him. His conscience strolled into his brain briefly and sat down, evaluating the situation. Nice time of year for vacationing, his conscience noted. Sirius guessed that that was a sign Paolo probably shouldn't be going on any life-or-death missions right now. He could try Majorca, the conscience suggested. Then it got distracted and started to wander off. No, wait--it stopped a moment to stare at something. The ferrets. How peculiar. Then, with little more than a final glance at the ferrets and an offhand glance at Melody (stick with it, she's pretty, the conscience suggested), it started humming to itself and wandered off again, closing the door behind it.

Great. Well, that had been illuminating.

"He lives in London," Sirius said. "I'm not sure where exactly. His cousin is sort of engaged to my cousin, so...." He thought for a moment. His conscience came storming back in, furious. I said Majorca, damn it, MAJORCA!

Sirius decided to ignore this. His conscience was rarely in its right mind, and even then it was little known to be prophetic. "Last I heard they were living somewhere in Knightsbridge. There's a pub near there, The Boar's Leg. That's where I'd start."

Paolo nodded. The ferrets bristled in anticipation. "Thank you."

Melody let go Sirius's hand and went across the room to tell Paolo good-bye, looking very sad and anxious and warning him to be careful, finally giving him a hug before he disappeared into the fireplace.

Sirius didn't say anything, didn't even bother to be jealous. He just stared at Paolo's ferret-brows the whole time and wondered, vaguely, if he wasn't a little bit out of his mind.

Rodolphus was a very amiable host. Bellatrix had appeared at his flat in the afternoon, when he was preparing for a party, and he had graciously invited Bellatrix to stay. His friends were pleasant enough--some of them she was familiar with, and some of them not--and all of them appeared to know how to hold their liquor, which was a pleasant change.

It was frustrating, though, to have to sit through an evening of party games and conversation when she was really burning to know where Siegfried might be. Bellatrix had hardly had time to broach the subject with Rodolphus before the first guest showed up, and she thought it would be uncouth to pursue the subject as long as there was company over.

So Bellatrix sat patiently through the evening, drinking, laughing, engaging in meaningless small talk and warding off the unexpected advances of one of Rodolphus's old Hogwarts friends. She waited as the guests trickled out to go on their various ways, waited as the last guest lingered, throwing increasingly inebriated passes at Bellatrix before Rodolphus finally showed him out the door (though of course his level of drunkenness was nothing compared to what Bellatrix was used to with Siegfried), and waited patiently for the right moment for conversation as she helped Rodolphus clean up a bit, and then sat at the kitchen table as he fixed them each a nightcap. It seemed implied that Bellatrix would stay at Rodolphus's flat for the night, seeing as it was already very late and Bellatrix had no one to go home to--that much, at least, she had managed to get out before the first guest had arrived.

"So," Rodolphus said, handing Bellatrix a drink and joining her at the table. "When was the last time you saw Siegfried?"

Bellatrix sighed and took a drink. "It's been a few days. We've been fighting, though I'm not sure how much he remembers of these arguments, considering the state he's usually in when they happen."

Rodolphus considered this unfortunate circumstance. It was very evident, Bellatrix noted, that he and Siegfried were related. They both had the same dark coloring, the same mop of thick curly hair--though, thankfully, Rodolphus kept his neatly trimmed. Their noses and chins were a bit different, but overall their face structure was similar, and their eyes--well, Rodolphus's dark brown eyes were eerily reminiscent of Siegfried's, though they lacked the cloud of confusion that was nearly always present in Siegfried's eyes. These days, anyway. He had been different before...so much different.

Bellatrix took a long drink of her nightcap and closed her eyes against the burning sensation. Too much at once, she decided, and took a moment to gather herself before looking back up at Rodolphus.

The way he was looking at her unnerved her a little.

She had forgotten how Rodolphus had liked her, once. The summer after she left Durmstrang, she had spent a lot of time with Siegfried's family. Rodolphus had always been exceptionally friendly--moreso than Siegfried liked. Bellatrix had never put much stock in it (she'd always just thought they were joking around), but looking at Rodolphus now she realized Siegfried may have had a point. Since Siegfried had descended into his drunken stupor, she had become much more aware of the way men's gazes lingered on her figure, her hair, her dark eyes and fantastically enormous eyelids and lashes.

Rodolphus looked at her now plainly, unreservedly, unashamed. He wanted her.

Siegfried hadn't looked at her like that in so long.

Something besides gin burned inside Bellatrix, and, more vehemently than usual, she thought, To hell with Siegfried.

She looked back at Rodolphus, enticingly, and for a long moment they stared at each other and forgot what they'd been talking about. Then Rodolphus leaned across the table, and Bellatrix seized the opportunity to meld her mouth into his.

In less than five minutes they were on the floor, and Rodolphus's hands were sliding over her, and Bellatrix pressed herself against him and tried to forget all about Siegfried.

Fog curled through the streets of London. Paolo blessed the weather. He didn't like the idea of someone sneaking up behind him in the fog, exactly, but he did not want anyone to see what was about to be done, either.

He had found the bar. He had seen Lestrange. Lestrange was a drunk--a terrible, hideous drunk--and Paolo's only regret was that he wouldn't be sober enough to understand who was killing him. But it would be done, at last. At last Paolo's father's killer would be undone.

Paolo slipped into the shadows by an alley and lit a cigarette, waiting. He didn't smoke normally, but it didn't matter. He just had to look like he was doing something. He stood.

She emerged eventually. Paolo watched her. Tight skirt, fishnet leggings, heels. Lestrange's whore. Lestrange had gone off with her the last two nights, and last night Paolo followed them. He had waited while Lestrange went upstairs with her, and when they had come back down, Lestrange had slobbered out that he'd be coming back for more. So Paolo came back, again, and again, and waited.

The fog thickened. Paolo stood patiently, smoking. The prostitute looked nervous, shifting from side to side, pacing back and forth, antsy in the fog. The few passersby either stumbled or walked past silently, heads down, minding their own business. It was a slow night of this part of London, hampered further by the fog. A Jack the Ripper sort of night, wasn't it?

Paolo fingered the hilt of his dagger and almost grinned. He'd moved it to a scabbard around his waist for the night, hidden by a long shirt. It would be faster, less noticeable than pulling the weapon out of his boot, even in the fog...plus he wanted the satisfaction of plunging the dagger in as quickly as possible. Paolo didn't need any fanfare or long speeches.

He just needed it to be done.

Rodolphus and Bellatrix had been making love for several days. Rodolphus would go out in the morning, go to work, and when he came back they'd make love. Afterwards they'd go out looking for Siegfried, fail to find him, and come back and make love again. It helped lift Bellatrix's depression.

Plus Rodolphus wasn't slobbering drunk when they did it, and that was a nice change.

Still, though. Bellatrix missed Siegfried. She couldn't exactly explain why, nor could she explain why she insisted on going off looking for him every night when he was clearly content to live without her. But even when Bellatrix slept with Rodolphus, even when she fell asleep in bed next to him with sheets wrapped around her legs, her last waking image was of Siegfried, rowing through the massive icy lake around Durmstrang, taking her out to the island where they'd first made love, where they'd first discovered each other, where they'd made promises to each other that still burned behind Bellatrix's eyes when she thought about it long enough, where for the first time Bellatrix had looked at a boy and thought that it might not be so odious to spend the rest of your life with one after all.

Damn it.

Bellatrix paced the room, agitated. Rodolphus was an hour later than usual. Not that it mattered. Not that she had any say over his life. She'd only really been a part of it for a few days. But...still.

Rodolphus burst in suddenly, his cheeks flushed with chill.

"Bella, get your coat, we've got to go."

"But--"

"Come on, I found him."

Bellatrix didn't waste time arguing. "Where?" she asked, once they were both in the hallway.

She was a little disappointed they hadn't had time for anything else. She had been hoping for one last quickie before...well, never mind. She'd get Siegfried back now, and she'd sober him up, damn it, and that would be that.

Rodolphus led her down the stairs. "Bar a few blocks from here. I didn't see him actually, just went out for a few drinks after work. But I asked around, a few blokes said they'd seen him. Said he's been coming in for drinks for about a week now, stumbling round the bar, then running off with the same prostitute every night."

They were in the street now, making way, but Bellatrix halted. "Prostitute?"

Rodolphus turned back to her impatiently. "Well," he said flatly, "I don't suppose you can judge him too harshly for that."

Bellatrix stared at him. She thought quite wildly otherwise, and didn't appreciate his implication that--

She turned around and marched right back up to the apartment door, with every intention of going back up to Rodolphus's flat and gathering her things and leaving all the bloody Lestranges behind her forever.

Rodolphus stopped her hand on the door handle. "Bella," he said softly, near her ear. A faint scent of gin wafted over from his breath. At least it wasn't firewhisky. At least he isn't drunk. Rodolphus's hands closed over her arms and for a moment Bellatrix wondered if maybe he didn't think of her as a prostitute. It's just been you and Siegfried, she thought of telling him. I've only ever been with you and your damn cousin. Though it could have been far more.

But then Rodolphus's lips landed on her forehead. Prostitutes don't get kissed that way, she guessed. She wouldn't really know, would she? But it was...nice.

Rodolphus's hands ran up and down her arms, caressing. "Bella," he said again. He brought his lips near her ear again, whispering. "If it had been anyone else but my cousin...he would have been out of your life a long time ago."

Tingles ran over Bellatrix's flesh, and she couldn't tell if they were good or not. Rodolphus kissed her, and for the first time it occurred to her just how much she might have betrayed Siegfried.

She let Rodolphus kiss her long and hard. It would be the last time she would let him.

So she told herself.

Lestrange came. He stumbled to the prostitute, happy, drunk. She looked relieved to see him, and took him quickly inside.

Paolo continued smoking and waited more. He would wait until Lestrange came out, wait until he was alone. The fog was thick enough now, if Paolo walked up behind him and stuck the dagger in, no one would even realize what had happened until Paolo was long gone.

It was a good plan, he thought.

He let the fog swirl around him and avoided thinking otherwise.

It was getting harder to see in the fog. Bellatrix and Rodolphus hurried through the streets, looking for the address before it became impossible to find. Bellatrix tripped over an uneven bit of sidewalk and swore. Her words were absorbed by the fog. She couldn't tell if there was anyone besides Rodolphus around to hear them.

They found the street and rushed down it as the fog closed in around them.

Paolo had to move to the other side of the street; it was getting too hard to see. He waited, more impatiently, and fingered the hilt of the dagger. Perhaps he'd left too much time for premeditation. Perhaps he'd--

Wait. There was the door creaking open. He heard giggling and drunken babbling. That was Lestrange. It had to be. The door opened and closed again, and Paolo waited and listened as footsteps shuffled in his direction. The dagger was out now, the hilt cool and smooth in Paolo's hand. His body vibrated, nervous, tense, angry--fearful.

He could see the figure. Unsteady footsteps. Lestrange stumbled closer, until Paolo could see his outline...then with more detail...then, suddenly his face. Paolo's body tensed further, poised, agonized. So this was it, wasn't it? This was the last time the face of his father's killer would meet the world. In a few seconds, that face would be stone. Paolo would come back to claim it later, and before long that stone face would be shattered and lying at the bottom of the sea. Or the Thames. Didn't matter.

Paolo didn't have time to process his thoughts. Lestrange stumbled toward him--toward him--yet further--glanced in his general direction--dismissed him--stumbled onward--Paolo looked at his back, regarded him for a second, and then--

The blade plunged in sickeningly smooth, sickeningly sweet, and by the time Paolo pulled it out there was no blood, just a small, vertical gash in the large stone statue standing in the middle of the street, shaped in the perfect image of Paolo's father's killer. Rodolphus Lestrange was dead.

Paolo stumbled backward, staring, trying to comprehend the moment.

But there was no time. Over the shoulder of the stone Lestrange appeared a pair of dark, heavily lidded eyes, and a woman's scream sliced through the fog like a scythe. Paolo covered his ears and stumbled backward, then turned to run, hoping she hadn't gotten a good look at his face.

The woman screamed out something incomprehensible--then again, this time a--a name--

"RODOOOOLPHUS!" she screeched. An odd, sickening jolt of satisfaction lurched through Paolo as he started running away.

Before he got much farther down the street he heard another voice, a man's, clearer, more imposing, angrier, and--

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

The dagger fell out of Paolo's hand and clattered against the sidewalk. His neck snapped awkwardly to the side as he fell, and his cold glassy eyes stared in the direction of the apartment building where the whore worked.

No one noticed through the fog. No one noticed anything until the next morning, when the prostitute, stumbling out of the apartment building, dead with exhaustion, fishing through her purse to find the money for a pack of cigarettes, tripped over Paolo's body. She stumbled forward, heels clacking angrily on the ground, and turned back to glare at whatever heap of trash had been left outside her building.

When she saw the dead body, she didn't know whether to scream or cry or run away. She'd seen dead bodies before, but never like this. Never just lying in the middle of the street, the face a wide-eyed expression of confusion, as though the boy had been surprised to death. But at least it wasn't someone she knew. At least it wasn't one of her own.

She didn't scream, or cry, or run away. She couldn't think of anything to do but stand there and stare in wonder at the handsome young dead boy, who stared just as wonderingly back.

Once again they'd all ended up at Potter's Cottage for New Year's--the whole group, plus Peter's girlfriend Sophie. There was no big party this year, of course, but Mrs. Potter enjoyed entertaining them all the same. She had a lovely meal prepared, and they all sat around the dining room table acting like civilized adults for once, making actual conversation. Lily and James ended up sitting opposite from each other, next to the seat at one end of the table that Mrs. Potter occupied. Melody, Remus, and Peter shared Lily's side of the table, while Sirius, Mimi, and Sophie filled out the other. Mr. Potter's chair at the other end of the table was conspicuously empty.

It was odd, Lily reflected, that the Marauders all happened to have girlfriends at once, and that three of them happened to be dating girls who were all friends with each other. How common was that? It was nice, of course, but unusual. And...disturbingly convenient, in a way, that they all got along with each other the way they did.

Lily paused for a moment to reflect on that.

Well, perhaps they didn't get along quite as well as they liked to think they did. Certainly all was not perfect in Melody and Sirius land...and Mimi and Melody had only just made up...plus, it seemed, Mimi had only just got over Sirius, which made Lily wonder how stable she felt about her new relationship with Remus--who seemed to have some reservations about it himself, but probably, Lily thought, with good reason. Peter and Sophie seemed to get along swimmingly, although Sophie seemed, understandably, a bit out of her element in the presence of Peter's ridiculous friends.

Lily and James were actually doing quite fine, excepting the fact that Lily had just died and come back to life and had her soul spliced by an inanimate object and then put back together again by a boy who once made up a dance called the Potato Waltz and a man who made watches for a living.

The mood swings were a bit much, though. Lily went from hysterical laughter to hysterical tears sometimes in less than a second, and then jumped from that mood to anger, and from there to a very calm, philosophical state of being. It didn't make sense, and it was driving Lily up the wall. At the beginning of dinner Lily had been talking and joking with James about something, and Mrs. Potter had, perfectly innocently, handed her the bowl of mashed potatoes. When Lily reached over to take it, she accidentally knocked over a salt shaker with her elbow and ended up crying for a solid minute into the bowl of potatoes, which had to be replaced.

But never mind all that. It was still strange to think how they had come together like this. Would Lily have known a year ago that it would end up this way? Maybe so. Lily could still remember the days Mimi giggled over all the Marauders and debated which one she wanted to date first. That had been--how long ago had that been? A couple years, hadn't it?

Dear God--no. Really? Years? It had been years ago that James had spilled his bottle of ink down Lily's front and Lily had sat in the Ravenclaw Common Room fuming while Mimi prattled on about all the cute boys she was thinking of dating? Years...goodness. They'd come such a long way, it seemed, and still at the same time...not at all. It had taken two years just for everyone to admit that they liked who they liked and for them all to enter into real relationships, finally, without childish reservations.

Not that they still weren't childish in many ways, but...but well, here they were anyway. They were growing up fast, Lily thought. It had only been six months ago that Lily had worked in the coffee shop with Ethan, so innocent and flirtatious and...well. It had been only...only six months ago that her father...her family...she...

One of Lily's mood swings claimed her violently, and, due to some unlucky timing on Melody's part, a second batch of mashed potatoes was ruined.

"Look, why can't I bid one?" Sirius demanded, frowning furiously at his hand of cards.

"Because you can't," Lily sighed, doodling impatiently in the margins of the score sheet with her quill.

"But I only want one."

"I know that. That's the point."

"Melody got to bid one."

Lily groaned and smacked herself in the head with the score sheet. "Melody's not the dealer. She can bid whatever she wants."

"But that's not fair."

"I know. That's the point."

"Well that's just silly."

Lily stared at him. "Look, Sirius, why d'you think the game's called Oh Hell?"

"...because it was invented by a fiery redhead?"

"For the last time, Sirius, I did not make this game up. My cousin taught it to me while I was visiting her in America, and if you say that again I'll--I'll"--Lily grabbed frantically for her wand and pointed it at Sirius's face--"I'll hex your nose off!"

Melody instinctively grabbed her nose. "Don't do that, Lily," she said, her voice muffled. "It'll never sit quite right again."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Melody, you have a perfectly fine nose."

"Do not."

"What happened to her nose?" Sophie asked curiously. She'd been rather quiet at dinner, but had become a bit more talkative since the teenagers had moved into the Potters' great room--where the Christmas tree still stood, bedecked in all its glory--and begun a Muggle game of cards Lily was attempting to teach them. The cards themselves were rather odd; the Potters didn't have a normal deck, so they were using Peter's Exploding Snap deck instead, and had only charmed them to look like regular playing cards. Every once in a while, one of them would still unexpectedly explode, adding an extra element of surprise to what, in Lily's experience, was already a rather heated and violent game. (Perhaps, though, it was just her cousin's family that got so heated about a simple game of cards.)

"Melody's nose got cursed off during Potions class a couple years back," Peter explained.

"Snape did it," James added.

Sophie giggled. "How'd you get it back on?"

Melody did not look amused. "Madam Pomfrey put it back on. But I just don't think it's the same. It's never felt right since then."

"That's ridiculous," Mimi protested. "You have a beautiful nose."

Melody attempted to act like she didn't know she had a perfectly fine nose. "Still doesn't feel right."

"I think you're making this up. You've never mentioned it before," Remus noted.

"So what? Just because I've never mentioned it doesn't mean I haven't thought it."

"But if it matters that much to you, you think you would've mentioned it by now," Remus pointed out.

"Well maybe I did mention it. Maybe I just didn't mention it to you."

"Sirius, has Melody ever said anything about her nose to you?"

"What?" Sirius was still engrossed in his cards. He looked up and glanced around. "Melody...very pretty nose," he mumbled, and then stared down at his hand again.

Lily, having recovered from her brief fit of anger, picked up the score sheet again. "Sirius, what's your bid?"

"One," he said decisively, closing his hand.

"You can't do that."

"I just did."

"Take it back."

"No."

"Sirius."

"Fine. Three."

"I--" Lily stared at him for a moment. "Okay."

Sophie burst into a stream of giggles. They stared at her.

"What?" Lily asked.

"Oh, c'mon...that was funny."

"What was?"

"You and Sirius...it just...the way you said it. I...oh, never mind."

Melody tossed her hair over her shoulder. "If you thought that was funny, clearly you haven't known Sirius long enough."

"No, I guess I haven't," Sophie countered, with an ill-disguised eye roll. Melody ignored this and pretended to be concentrating very hard on her playing cards. Lily saw Peter grab Sophie's hand and squeeze it briefly. Awwww, Lily thought.

"Guys," she said, looking around at her group of friends--her wonderful friends--and putting her hand to her heart as a sudden wave of affection struck her. "Isn't it great how we're all here like this? Together again on New Year's?"

They looked at her oddly.

"I mean, it's just so wonderful we can all be together again. Even in times like these, it's good to know we still have our friends. And--and we can still trust each other, and love each other, and be together."

Her friends were beginning to exchange worried glances.

Lily abandoned her cards for the moment and grabbed James's and Mimi's hands, as they were sitting on either side of her. "I just--I just wanted you all to know--I really love you guys. I mean, isn't it great there's still so much love in the world?" Lily felt herself tearing up. It really was beautiful that they all managed to be here together to celebrate the coming of a new year, with the hope that it would be better than the last. So beautiful.

Melody stared blankly at Lily and then turned her gaze on James.

"Isn't there some kind of medication you can give her for that?"

Lily laughed. "Oh, Melody! That is so like you. I love your sense of humor."

Melody looked at James again, alarmed. "No...really."

Peter fidgeted and scratched his head. "Um...isn't it someone's turn now?"

"Oh, Peter, you're so right. Sirius, it's your turn. Don't forget you bid three. Take this trick if you can. And good luck to you. You know I'm always rooting for you, right?"

Melody stood abruptly. "Can someone come get me when Suzy Sunshine disappears? I'm going to go...get a glass of water."

Sirius grabbed her hand and pulled her back down. "Don't worry. I'm sure in two minutes she'll be in a spitting rage again."

"Now, Sirius, why would I ever do that?" Lily asked, looking at him endearingly.

"I think I want to change my bid again."

"What? Don't be silly, dear, you can't do that."

"Dear?" James demanded.

"Oh, don't be offended, Jamesie-poo, it's just a harmless term of affection."

Both of James's cheeks burned bright red. "Lily," he said tightly. "I thought we talked about you never calling me that."

"Don't be embarrassed, Jamesie-poo. These are our friends. They understand how we feel about each other." Lily patted James's hand reassuringly, but for some reason he recoiled in horror.

All of Lily's friends were now convulsing with inexplicable laughter. Lily put her hands on her hips and shook her head. "Now what's so funny?" she demanded.

She wasn't quite sure what was going on in her head, but it was filled with a sort of cloudy happy bubbly haze. Somewhere underneath that haze she was aware she was making an idiot of herself, but as long as that haze lasted, she was just too happy to care. Her friends were so...wonderful! Why shouldn't she tell them how she felt?

"Please can we just play the game now?" Mimi pleaded.

Lily suspected one of her friends would have answered, but they were all trying too hard to suppress their laughter to speak. There was, she thought, something to their laughter. After all...maybe "Jamesie-poo" was a bit much for public.

"Well, if Sirius would stop trying to change his bid we could get on with the game," Lily pointed out. That seemed like a reasonable enough move. What were Lily's friends being so ridiculous about? After all, it wasn't like she was sitting here saying things that were completely outlandish...they were all perfectly true. Just because they were slightly inappropriate for the situation, it...

Oh God.

Very suddenly, Lily came back to herself. She stared around at her circle of friends, and, in a moment of horror, realized what she'd been saying.

"Um...please excuse me," she said, and left the room rapidly. A collective burst of laughter followed her, as did James. They ended up in a room with a couple couches and a piano.

Lily sat on the piano bench and put her head in her hands, letting her hair tumble down around her face to hide her flaming cheeks. "Oh my God," she moaned. "James, what's wrong with me?"

James knelt in front of her and patted her knee reassuringly--because, she supposed, he could reach nothing else. "Come on, everyone understands."

"No they don't. Not really."

"Well...it is kind of hard to get used to. But still, Lily. No one blames you."

"Maybe Melody's right. Maybe I should try to find some pill or potion or...something...." She lifted her head from her hands and stared at James, considering. "Do you think it would help?"

James shrugged. "I'm not really sure. But...this shouldn't last so long, should it? Just another day or two, right?"

"I guess."

"So everything will be okay."

James looked so sure, Lily didn't feel she had a choice except to be sure about it herself.

"Yeah. But--arrrgh, I still can't believe I called you Jamesie-poo."

"Yes. Please don't ever do that again."

Lily grinned. "I'll try to restrain myself."

"Ready to go back out there?"

"Mm. I think so."

James took Lily's hand and led her back into the chaos.

The game of Oh Hell lasted well into the evening, until half the deck had exploded and Sirius gave up in frustration. Sophie was by far the best player; when they stopped playing she was forty points ahead of everyone. Afterwards they shifted to the indoor gardens to talk and roast marshmallows around a conjured fire. Around midnight, a pile of sleeping bags appeared by one of the pine trees they were sitting near, and around three o'clock the teenagers finally decided to use them.

It was in this state that the owl found them the next morning.

A letter fell on Lily from above, and the owl screeched and nipped at her ear before she jerked awake. She emitted something that sounded vaguely like, "Blaawffghh?" and groped around for the letter.

"Wha--?" James, who was sleeping next to her, propped himself up on his elbows and looked around blearily.

"'S a letter," Lily mumbled, fumbling with the seal.

"Fmm oo?" James asked. Presumably this meant, "From who?"

"Jussa minute." Lily rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and scanned the letter. "Schmundertoe," she yawned, handing the letter over. "Wants to see us." She flopped back down on her pillow, and the owl hooted impatiently.

"Got a quill?" James asked, sounding more awake.

"Hm?"

"He wants a response."

"Oh."

The owl hooted and flapped its wings.

"Ah. Thanks," James said, taking the tiny quill attached to its leg. Apparently Schmundertoe was on top of things. He scribbled a quick response and gave it to the owl, which hooted in response and promptly flew away. Then he plopped back down next to Lily. "That was quick of him."

"Mm," Lily agreed. "Wonder what he wants us for?"

"I dunno, but we're going to see him in two hours."

"But that's...soon."

"Yeah."

"I don't wanna get up."

"Me either."

"Shut up," grunted Melody, from the other side of Lily.

"Sorry," Lily whispered.

She and James snoozed for a few more minutes and then slowly rose, preparing to venture once again to London.

It was just barely ten o'clock when Lily and James set foot in Schmundertoe's shop. Sirius was, surprisingly, not with them. He had heavily resisted Lily and James's attempts to drag him out of bed, and eventually they'd decided it would be easier if Sirius just didn't go.

"Fill me in when you get back," he'd mumbled, then rolled over and gone right back to sleep.

Schmundertoe seemed surprised but also oddly relieved that Sirius wasn't with them. "It will be easier this way," he told Lily and James, somewhat cryptically, before taking them to the back room of his shop once more.

"Now then," he said, after they'd all been seated. "I'll get right to the point." He pulled open a drawer and took out a black velvet jewelry box. Lily's heart palpitated oddly. She hadn't expected to see the necklace again so soon, and wasn't quite sure how she felt about it. "I discovered a very powerful time-traveling spell in this necklace, one that I think you will be able to use."

"But--but--" Lily spluttered. "Do you really mean you want us to go back to the time of the Founders and as Godric Gryffindor about this necklace?"

"I meant it then just as I mean it now. I think you must. And I think that in order to do so, you will need someone who can help you better than I."

"What do you mean?" James asked. "You understand the necklace better than anyone at this point."

"I'm flattered you think so, though I daresay Miss Evans knows a bit more about it than even she is aware."

Lily fidgeted uncomfortably. "Never mind that. Who do you think we should see, if not you?"

"Someone who knows a bit about ages past, Miss Evans. Someone who understands about time."

"And about enchanted necklaces?" James suggested.

Schmundertoe grinned. "I will help you out as far as performing the spell with the necklace goes. What you will need more guidance on is how to act once you get where you are going. The language was a little different back then, you know, as were the mannerisms and style of dress. You're going to need some help, and there is only one man in the world who I think could even come close to teaching you all you are going to need to know."

"Who?" Lily demanded, suddenly impatient.

"Nicolas Flamel."