Eyes as Green as a Fresh Pickled Toad

Chapter Twenty-Four

Everything Is Revealed

"Lily, I think I might be pregnant." Melody stared at her best friend with apprehension and waited for her to speak.

Lily shut down momentarily. She knew that she'd been cold, but suddenly she didn't feel it anymore, not even with the blanket slipping off her lap and pooling down around her ankles. She saw Melody's eyes, full of fear and guilt and a little shame--mostly fear--and she couldn't think of anything to say. She stopped thinking. Her mouth opened itself and worked on its own as Lily tried to process what she'd just been told.

"Who's the father?" she asked, her voice shockingly even. Deep inside her mind, Lily registered the fact that she didn't sound astonished or terrified or judgmental or any of the things she knew she was going to feel in a moment just as soon as her body started working again. She didn't even register how offensive her question might or might not be to Melody. She just needed to know.

"Sirius," Melody whispered, looking a bit ill, as though the magnitude of her actions was beginning to hit her.

"Oh," Lily said, and then her emotions hit her all at once, in such a jumble that she couldn't decipher what she was feeling. All she knew was that she felt rather as though her stomach had dropped right out of her body and a big block of ice had been put in its place. Goosebumps sprang up all over Lily's skin as she registered the magnitude of Melody's statement. When Melody didn't say anything, Lily raced for something to say. "Melody, I..." she trailed off, and then shook her head, lost for words, her eyes dropping from Melody's. "Does he know?"

"Yes," Melody replied, very softly.

Lily took a deep breath and nodded. Silence persisted for a few moments, and then Melody grabbed for Lily's hands, squeezing them tightly in her own.

"Lily, I'm so scared! I don't know what to do!" Melody cried, her voice for the first time rising above a whisper, and then she was choking out sobs, huge and wet and anguished, and Lily couldn't think of anything better to do than wrap her arms around Melody and let her best friend cry on her shoulder.

Melody shuddered with sobs, and Lily shuddered with shock. They rocked back and forth on the couch, both of them processing something greater than themselves. In some back door of Lily's mind, she'd known--known that these things went on at Hogwarts, known that Melody and Sirius looked at each other like they wanted more than just kissing, and known--God, how she'd known--that she and James sometimes wanted more than that as well. But--for the life of her--for all that was good in this world--she'd never thought that--never imagined that--well--

This was the conversation Lily was never going to have. This was the kind of thing that Lily was never going to deal with. Some teenagers had these problems, but they weren't any that Lily knew--at least not very well. Lily's friends were just...well, they were just...they were smarter than...these things didn't happen to Lily.

Melody interrupted any chances for further reflection on Lily's part. "I'm--so--sorry--Lily!" she sobbed, choking. "I know I've been d--d--distant lately and w-we haven't t--t-talked like we used to, b-b-but you can't be m-m-mad at me! If you d-d-don't talk to me, I w-won't have anyone to t-t-talk to, and my m-m-m-other w-w-will be s-s-s-s-so angry--" Melody cut herself off sobbing.

"Melody, I'm not mad at you, I promise!" Lily cried, hugging her. Melody sobbed until she regained her voice.

"I know it was s-s-stupid, but I swear to God, Lily, we used p-p-protection! And I've p-prayed so many times today, and I d-d-don't ever pray, and even if G-G-God heard me I know He'd h-hate me, and I just don't know what to d-d-do!" she wailed.

"Of course God heard you," Lily whispered. "And He would never hate you."

She thought of telling Melody that it would be all right, but how could she, in all good conscience, say that? It wouldn't be all right. It would never be all right. Things would never be the same again. Melody was so young, and her career prospects had just been cut in half--a woman with a child just didn't have time to put in the kind of hours Melody might need to--well, to do who knew what. And Sirius--God, what would Sirius do? He wouldn't leave Melody alone; he was better than that. But what would they do? What would they do for money and jobs and...

It was too hard, too much to think about. Suddenly Lily felt as though she were drowning in the pressure of it all. She was too young--too young--to deal with this, and yet she knew people younger than herself had gone through this. None she knew personally, but still...how had they managed? Nothing was even definite yet and already Lily was too scared to handle it.

And she wasn't even the one pregnant. She couldn't imagine just what Melody was feeling.

"L-L-Lily?" Melody choked out, though she seemed to be calming slightly.

"What?" Lily asked.

"Would you think I was st-st-stupid if I kept the baby?"

Lily considered this for a moment. "No," she replied, almost surprising herself with the answer.

"I just c-c-couldn't live with m-myself if I didn't," Melody sobbed. "I mean--I know I g-got myself into this mess, and I'm n-not just going to g-g-give it away."

"I understand," Lily assured her, even though she wasn't really sure she did.

Melody's crying slowly stopped, and she gave Lily one last hug, sniffing. She pulled away, looking at her best friend with a face damp with tears. "I think I need some tissues," she reflected.

"I'll be right back," Lily promised, dashing up the stairs to grab some from her room. She tiptoed quietly past the doors of the girls' dormitories, careful not to disturb any of the girls who were sleeping peacefully, so innocent and ignorant of the emotional battle being played out in the common room by a girl who didn't even belong to their house.

Lily picked up the box of tissue from her bedside table and then paused for a minute, sinking onto the bed. Her knees were shaking and she suddenly felt ill. How drastically different this room was from the one downstairs. It was amazing how different Lily felt now. How...scarred. Like she'd been walking around in ignorant bliss and she'd suddenly been attacked and sliced up by a gang of enchanted kitchen knives.

Composing herself, Lily got up and tiptoed quietly back past the dormitories, descending to the common room where Melody was curled up on the couch, looking more composed than when Lily had left.

"I must look wonderful," Melody said with a weak bit of sarcasm in her voice as she took the box of tissues from Lily.

"No worse than you usually do at three in the morning."

"That's reassuring," Melody replied, without much emotion. She seemed to have dulled a bit. Melody blew her nose several times and wiped off her cheeks with the tissues, but tears still swam in her eyes, clinging greedily to her eyelashes. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Melody declared, "I am never doing it again."

"Ever?" Lily questioned, looking at her.

"Not for a long time," Melody replied, shaking her head. "It's not that I regret it. I just...God, Lily, it felt so good at the time...you have no idea how good...and I just...forgot for a while that it could bring anything but good...we were being careful, you know? Every time we'd be careful, and I just never thought..."

"Wait. You...you and..." Lily swallowed hard. "More than once?"

Melody looked up and then away again rather quickly. "Well...yeah. I mean...the first time...it...well, we waited a little while, you know, and it was all clear, so we figured...everything must have worked just fine and...oh, God, Lily, I don't expect you to understand, it's just--"

"No, it's fine. I understand. James and I--"

Melody's eyes flew open wider than Lily had ever seen them. "You mean you and James have--"

"No!" Lily cried, then clapped her hand over her mouth. "No," she said again, a bit more quietly. "We...almost. Several times. But...I just didn't feel like...I mean...you know?" she said helplessly, and Melody nodded slowly.

"If I get out of this...I mean, if it's not...if I'm not..."

"I know what you mean. Go on."

"I'm going to take this as a warning. A big warning. Not to...you know...be stupid. It's not that I thought I was invincible, it's just that...you know?"

"Yeah," Lily replied quietly. "I know." She knew, too, that Melody's late-night visit had cemented something inside of herself as well. She wasn't ready.

And to think, just a few hours before, she'd nearly had sex with James.

This wasn't just a sign for Melody, Lily decided. It was a sign for her as well. It was a sign for all of them. They'd started to meddle in things that were bigger than they could handle. There was a whole world outside of Hogwarts full of bigger, scarier, more monumental things than a baby, but Lily couldn't quite think of anything more frightening just now. And if she couldn't handle news of a new life right now...would she be able to handle the world out there?

If she and James had done anything, and...if Lily had a child any time close to now...Lord, what would they do? They'd be able to get by, certainly, but--there were so many other things to be done. Voldemort was still out there, looming, gaining power, getting closer. How could Lily, in good conscience, fight against You-Know-Who's forces knowing she might very well leave an orphan behind? Would Melody be able to face the Death Eaters knowing she had a--

"When are you going to know for sure?" Lily asked, trying to distract herself from her own thoughts.

Melody shrugged and shook her head. "Whenever Sirius and I can figure out how to test me, I guess. He said he'd skip classes tomorrow and go to the library--"

"He can't do that tomorrow! We have a Double Potions exam tomorrow!" Lily blurted, aware just after she'd said it how stupid it sounded.

"I'll lie and say he's sick. It's not a final exam. And, as a matter of fact, Professor Thorne can shove his Potions exam up his arse. I might not go to class tomorrow."

"One of you has to go. Wouldn't that look a bit suspicious?"

"Everyone will know soon anyway. Why does it matter?"

"Melody, what if you're not?"

Melody stared at Lily with damp eyes. "I'm two weeks late, Lily. And I threw up this morning. Several times."

"It was probably just nerves," Lily said weakly, her heart sinking.

Melody shook her head and stared at the ground. "I just wish I knew for sure. It's killing me."

"Oh, Melody," Lily said, wrapping her friend into a hug. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Melody replied. "I just...never imagined things turning out this way."

Lily released her friend from the embrace, but grabbed both of her hands, squeezing them gently. Melody cried again, and they sat in front of the fire for a while, talking, worrying, wondering. Finally, Melody decided she was too tired to cry anymore and stumbled across the common room to head back to her own dormitory for some sleep.

Lily cried a little after she'd gone, mourning the loss of Melody's youth and innocence and wondering what exactly would come of this. She picked up her blanket from the floor and wrapped herself in it, curling into a tiny ball. This was too much, too much...too much for her to digest. It was amazing that after all she'd been through this year, this would hit her that hard.

For the first time all year, Lily Evans decided she'd had enough. Her father had been killed, and her brother, and her sister. Lin's family had been killed. Sophie's mother had been killed, and her father driven insane. Lily herself had been attacked and murdered. Long ago, Melody's father had been killed as well. Half the people Lily knew had lost someone to You-Know-Who's steadily growing army...legion...whatever demented, sick alliance it was that he had with these murderers, these life stealers, these Death Eaters. And if God was trying to balance all of these deaths out with a new life, well...then...He could just put the new life somewhere else!

Suddenly Lily was furious--furious--for a cacophony of reasons, but they all flitted through her brain so fast she couldn't put her finger on any of them. She was furious with You-Know-Who for ruining all those people's lives, furious with Melody and Sirius for what they'd done, and furious with God--because--because--because she needed somebody to be furious with. Lily threw herself off the couch and onto the ground, cursing everything and everyone she could think of, sobbing, cursing God, apologizing, cursing more, sobbing some more, until finally her energy spent itself and she cried herself to sleep in front of the dwindling fire.

This was how several second years found her the next morning, passed out as though she'd been horribly drunk, and they were so concerned that they ran and alerted Madam Pomfrey as to her condition. Madam Pomfrey could not find anything immediately wrong with her, nor could she wake her by any normal methods, and so it was with an innate sense of confusion that Lily woke to find herself in the hospital wing on Friday morning.

The angle of the sun sweeping in through the window suggested that it was long past breakfast, and Lily gasped and attempted to leap out of bed, but Madam Pomfrey forced her back into it.

"Not until I've had a look at you," she informed Lily sternly.

"But--my Potions exam!"

"It'll wait," Madam Pomfrey assured her. "Now, sit back."

"Madam Pomfrey, I'm fine, really, I--"

"I'll be the judge of that. Now hush, and open your mouth."

Lily sighed briefly before complying. The nurse inspected her mouth, her ears, her eyes, and even took a peek at her nose before shrugging. "I suppose I'll just tack it up to exhaustion, then," she decided, noting the pronounced circles under Lily's eyes. "But really, what were you doing sleeping by the fireplace?"

Lily opened her mouth to answer, but then decided against it and instead simply shrugged and shook her head. Madam Pomfrey sighed.

"Well, I trust you won't do it again?" she asked sternly, selecting a large bottle of potion from her well-stocked shelf.

Lily nodded in agreement.

"Well, just have some of this, then," Madam Pomfrey ordered, handing Lily a cup of bubbly orange liquid.

"What is it?" Lily asked, intensely curious.

"Just a bit of pep-up potion. Go on, drink it. We don't need you passing out in the middle of your exam, do we?"

"I guess not," Lily agreed, drinking it. It was intensely spicy--not at all what Lily had been expecting, and she nearly coughed it up after she'd swallowed.

"Serves you right," Madam Pomfrey said sternly, taking the empty cup from Lily's hands. "You scared the wits out of a couple of second years, you know."

"Well, I didn't mean to!" Lily defended herself, feeling a bit less friendly toward Madam Pomfrey than she had a moment ago. She attempted to leave the bed again, thinking her treatment was over, but Madam Pomfrey stopped her.

"Just cool your heels, dear. Wait a moment while that kicks in."

"But my exam!"

"I'll write you a note. Please relax."

Lily sighed and laid back on the pillows as Madam Pomfrey bustled back to her store room. So far, this Friday was not looking promising.

Lin trudged down the stairs from her dormitory to the common room feeling extremely groggy.

"Lin! Lin, are you all right?" Bridget rushed up to her, abandoning the Herbology homework she'd been pretending to work on.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just...tired." Lin shuffled across the carpet and plopped into a big comfortable chair, her eyes drooping.

"What happened to you? I've never seen one of your visions go on that long before."

"I dunno. I don't remember anything, just that we were playing Exploding Snap one minute, and the next I was watching people die, and then--I completely blacked out. I woke up in my bed feeling like I'd had no sleep at all."

Bridget's steely blue-gray eyes became wide with dismay. "Lin, is there anything I can--I mean, should you see someone about--"

Lin shook her head, blinking sleepily. "I don't see what good that would do."

"Well--I mean--we could at least take you down to the hospital wing and see if there's anything Madam Pomfrey can give you that would make you less tired, couldn't we?"

Lin didn't even have enough energy to argue. She shrugged and said, "I guess so," and allowed Bridget to drag her down to the hospital wing.

Much to their surprise, they encountered Lily Evans on her way out. "Lily!" Bridget cried. The girls hadn't seen her in nearly a month--hardly at all since they'd got back from Christmas holidays, and seeing how it was nearly February now, it felt like quite a long time.

"Oh! Hi girls--sorry I can't talk long, but--Lin! What on earth happened to you?"

Lin looked up at her sadly, feeling acutely aware of the bags under her eyes. "I'm...not sure," she managed, and shrugged again.

"Well, I hope Madam Pomfrey will be able to help--I really wish I could stay, but--Potions exam--I have to--anyway, we'll see each other soon, you'll have to tell me what's going on--all right?" Lily called, backing down the hallway quickly.

She was practically out of earshot already, so Lin and Bridget just waved lamely. "I hope we'll get to see her," said Bridget, sighing. "It's been too long, and anyway I'd like to know how she's been since we nearly saw her die."

Lin was feeling mute this morning, but she nodded slightly in agreement as they entered the hospital wing.

Madam Pomfrey nearly went into a tizzy when she saw Lin. She fired a lot of questions at her, most of which Bridget managed to answer, and in the end gave her a bottle of the same spicy pep-up potion she'd just given Lily. As Lin hastily gulped it down and shivered at its effect, she glanced in the mirror, and for the first time all morning had the energy to lament how dreadful she looked. Madam Pomfrey insisted that she stay in the hospital wing for at least another half an hour, so Bridget kindly ran back to Gryffindor Tower to grab some of her make-up and hair things to lend Lin, so she'd at least look presentable for the Care of Magical Creatures class she had at noon. Bridget herself had a class at noon--Herbology--so she smartly grabbed the essay she'd been attempting to work on and shoved it into her bag along with the cosmetics.

Madam Pomfrey was a tad reluctant to let Bridget back into the wing due to Lin's need for rest, but Bridget weaseled her way through, and happily spent the next fifteen minutes helping Lin to apply a flattering coat of make-up. Bridget was far more handy with cosmetics than Lin, who normally didn't bother, and after finishing with Lin's face and hair Bridget decided to move on to her own appearance rather than scratching out a few more lines of her Herbology essay.

When Madam Pomfrey finally released Lin from the hospital wing, both she and Bridget were looking rather better than when they had entered. Unfortunately, as they tramped downstairs for a quick lunch before class, they ran into the four people at Hogwarts they least wanted to see--Lucy, Wendy, Gillian, and Rachel, four of the biggest idiots (in Bridget's opinion) ever to be allowed in Gryffindor. They wore annoyingly shiny gold badges with the letters "FPC" on them, standing for the "Fully Pure Club," which they were still trying to pretend was an organization for students who were merely interested in becoming Prefects.

Lucy sneered when she saw them coming. "Well, well, well, girls, look who it is. Gryffindors who think they're too good for us."

Bridget snorted. "We are too good for you."

Lin couldn't help smirking. "Still trying to convince people that a silly club can save them from You-Know-Who?" she asked, flicking Lucy's FPC badge.

Lucy's nostrils flared. "Don't mess with that!"

Lin rolled her eyes. "With what, your pathetic club or your tacky badges?"

Bridget looked rather impressed with Lin's attitude; normally Lin just skulked around glaring at Lucy instead of openly confronting her. The pep-up potion was apparently doing quite an excellent job.

"The only thing pathetic here," Gillian huffed, butting in, "is your general disregard for the importance of sticking together when we all know perfectly well that You-Know-Who is only going after Muggles and wizards who have gone too soft to remember how important keeping magic within the wizarding world actually is."

"At the rate You-Know-Who's going," Lin said coldly, "he'll expose all the wizarding world and kill half the people in it before we have the chance to cover our own arses and run away."

"No one's running," Lucy snapped. "We're just uniting."

"Yeah, but who are you uniting?" Bridget demanded. "People who are going to fight, or people who you think will be safe from attack?" She stepped a little closer to Lucy, her eyes glinting. It was amazing how intimidating Bridget managed to look when she was generally four inches shorter than everyone else around her. "I don't think You-Know-Who gives two figs if you're a pure-blood or a Muggle-born as long as you don't stand in his way. So if you're not going to be against him, you're halfway with him. And if he asked you to join him, what would you do? Cower behind your silly badges and your stupid club? Or would you be brave enough to be a true Gryffindor--to throw yourself in his path and try to stop him, no matter whether the worst would come or not, to--"

"The worst would come!" Lucy shrieked, looking furious. "My dad works for the Ministry--he knows what's going on--and how dare you accuse us of siding with You-Know-Who--what would you know about what's happening out there--you know just as much as the rest of us and less than I do, I can bet you--I don't see your parents working for the Ministry," she snapped at Bridget. "I don't see them working with the most powerful and trustworthy team of wizards in the country trying to stop--"

"Most powerful team, are they? Most trustworthy?" Lin interrupted. "So powerful and trustworthy they have to constantly investigate Ministry workers to ensure they're not spies?"

Lucy flustered at this. One of the fundamental reasons for starting the FPC in the first place had been because of those Ministry investigations--because it was getting harder and harder to know who to trust, and Lucy wanted a group of people she could trust.

"Well, they're doing more than any of us can," Wendy said, speaking finally. "And don't say Lucy's not brave just because she's not spouting heroic phrases and running off to get herself killed as fast as possible. Wizards aren't much good to anyone dead, are they?"

"They're not much good hiding in a corner with their heads up their arses, either," replied Bridget, looking disgusted.

There was a moment of tense silence as the girls stared each other down, and then from the back of Lucy's group came a voice that said, "Oh, that's enough!"

Rachel, the last of Lucy's friends, pushed her way forward. Bridget and Lin were surprised to note that she was not sporting one of the shiny gold FPC badges.

"Look, this is all silly," Rachel snapped. "We're fighting over a cause that we can't even do anything about! We're too young to fight anyone--we're not well-trained enough to pit ourselves against any adult wizard, let alone a Dark wizard who's done as much damage as You-Know-Who has. Look," she said, staring down Bridget and Lin, "if you don't like the club, just--just stay away from it. Ignore it if you like, it doesn't matter."

Lucy, Wendy, and Gillian all opened their mouths to argue, but Rachel rounded on them as well.

"And will you three please stop picking fights. I've about had it!" She looked somehow more frustrated with her friends than with their chosen enemies. "Who cares if they want to join your club or not? Why does it matter so much to you that you got in a fight with Bridget?" she directed at Lucy. "Or that you got in a fight with Lin?" she asked Wendy. "Just--for heaven's sake, let it go."

She was so fed up she couldn't bring herself to say more, and turned away, stalking up the stairs and leaving them all behind.

Lucy, Wendy, and Gillian stared at their friend as she walked away, looking rather stunned. Lin and Bridget were so impressed they couldn't think of anything more to stay.

The girls all glared at each other one more time and decided to leave each other without further comment.

As Lin passed by Wendy, however, she couldn't help but reach out and grab her wrist. She looked into her old friend's eyes for the first time in a long time and said softly, "All those years we were friends...I thought you were better than this."

She turned and continued walking down the stairs with Bridget, not looking back to see the look of bewildered shame that momentarily flashed across Wendy's face.

Sirius showed up for the Potions exam, looking haggard, but Melody did not. Lily didn't even want to think about how the Gryffindor team was going to play tomorrow, not with its two Beaters completely preoccupied with a potential pregnancy. Lily found it somewhat hard to concentrate on her exam with Sirius sitting nearby--a constant reminder of his and Melody's foolishness, and also of what Lily and James had nearly done last night--and her potion turned out a little runnier than it should have been, but it was still acceptable, and she was relieved just to be able to turn it in and hurry out of class.

James caught up with her when she was halfway up to Ravenclaw tower. "Hey, what's the matter?"

"What d'you mean, what's the matter?" Lily evaded his gaze by digging through her bag for something.

"I can tell something's the matter."

"Oh, and what are you, a mind reader now?" Lily considered burying her head in the bag along with her books. Melody and Sirius's potential baby issue was the last thing she wanted to discuss with James right now.

James dropped his voice and edged closer to her. "Listen, if this is about last night--look, it's all right, and I'm sorry I--"

"No!" said Lily quickly, her cheeks flushing, and she looked up from her bag finally. "Listen, it's not--not about me. It's more--Melody."

James frowned. "Why? Is something wrong with her?"

"Well, as you may or may not have noticed, she didn't show up for Potions today."

James thought about this for a second. "Ah. Yeah, you're right. D'you think she's sick?"

Lily's brain was so full she didn't think she could handle any more questions or real conversation. She sighed. "Look...why don't you ask Sirius if you want to know? I really can't say anything more than that."

He looked puzzled at first. "Sirius? But...what could...."

A horrible spark of recognition registered on his face, and he grimaced. "I'll just have a word with him then, shall I?"

"Mm." Lily felt bad for pushing James away, but she still felt a little on edge and wanted more time to mull over things alone.

"See you later." James gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and then hurried back downstairs, hopefully to intercept Sirius before he went looking for Melody and they ended up doing something even more foolish, like try to convince Snape to go through the passage underneath the Whomping Willow again.

"Sirius, what are we going to do?"

Melody paced in front of the fireplace in MHQ, frantic. Sirius sat on the couch and stared numbly into the flames.

"Dunno," he offered lamely.

"For the love of God, we've got to do something!" she cried, and fell to her knees on the floor in front of him. She put her hands on Sirius's legs and stared up at him. "Please...please think of something..."

"Me? What d'you want me to do?" Sirius asked, amazed.

"I dunno, just...think. My brain's so scrambled, I can't--I can't think of anything. I can't even think of Quidditch tomorrow. I--I just keep thinking about--about--" she put one hand over her stomach and stared down at it, her lower lip trembling slightly.

"And you think somehow my brain's in much better of a state?"

"Well--well--you made it to bloody Potions this morning, didn't you? Obviously something up there isn't as screwed up as everything is in my head."

"Melody, I was still so numb this morning that it didn't matter--I couldn't think--I don't even know if I made the right potion."

Melody looked frustrated with this response. "Well, one of us has got to think of something!"

"Something--what kind of something? Melody, I don't even know what you're looking for!"

"A ruddy--solution, that's what. To--to--to this!"

Melody was shaking all over now. Sirius grabbed her hands and pulled her up next to him on the couch. She still shook, but she curled up next to Sirius and buried her face in his shoulder.

"Melody," Sirius said softly, wrapping an arm around her. "I don't know that this is the kind of thing to which there...is...a solution."

"I just wish I knew what we were going to do," she moaned, her voice muffled.

Sirius sighed. "Well...it would help a lot if we actually knew whether you were...or not." He couldn't quite bring himself to say the words.

"And you couldn't find anything in the library?" Melody pressed.

"Well--well I haven't had much time there so far, you know, and--it's not like it's the kind of thing I can exactly stroll up to Madam Pince and ask about, is it? But...I'm sure we'll find something, Melody. Eventually."

"Another week or two and it won't really matter, will it? We'll know for sure either way."

"If we can stand to wait that long," Sirius muttered.

Melody lifted her head from Sirius's shoulder and regarded his face sadly. He looked so--worn. So much older than he'd looked even a day ago. Instead of laugh lines, now it looked like he had permanent frown lines on his face. The mere sight of him looking so somber caused a lump to form in Melody's throat. She leaned over and kissed him on the neck. "Sirius...I'm so sorry," she murmured, and small tears leaked out of her eyes.

Sirius stared at her, looking--was aghast the right word? "Melody," he said, half-soothing, half-scolding. "How in the bloody hell can you blame yourself for this?"

"Well--I mean--it's affecting you, too--we both shouldn't have to suffer because I--"

"As I recall it," Sirius said gently, "it took more than one of us to get into this--this. And it'll take more than one of us to get out of it."

For a moment Melody's bottom lip trembled like she might cry again, but then she buried her face back into Sirius's shoulder and flung her left arm around him, wrapping it around his waist. "Sirius, why are you so bloody amazing?" she wondered in a rather muffled tone of voice.

Sirius, though she couldn't see it, looked rather flattered. "Well...I'm just brilliant, I guess," he managed.

Sirius grinned as Melody managed a laugh and turned her head sideways again, making it easier for her to breathe. They sat in silence for a moment, holding each other, and then--

"Sirius," said Melody, sighing, "I would at least like to know that--that we have some sort of plan, if--if--well, either way."

The momentary mirth left Sirius's face. "Ah. Yeah," he said.

"If--if we're not..." Melody began.

"Then--back to normal?" Sirius suggested.

"Yes," Melody agreed quietly. "But not exactly--I mean--" she sighed. "I don't think I want to have sex anymore. Not--not just yet."

Sirius took a long moment to think about this, and Melody was distinctly reminded of the fact that he was a teenage boy. Finally, he turned his head and kissed Melody on the forehead. "Yeah," he agreed. "All right."

Melody took a deep breath. "And if--if we are, I...." She closed her eyes and said the next part very quietly. "I'd like to keep it."

Another long silence. "I thought you might," Sirius managed. "I think--that's all right."

"Really?" Melody managed to open her eyes.

"Yeah." Sirius didn't sound, overall, too enthused, but he wasn't running for the hills either, so that was something.

Melody wiggled closer to him and sat wrapped up in his arms for another minute before bravely introducing her next idea.

"Sirius," she said softly, "if...if we are, and...if we do...keep it...we...." Melody nearly lost her nerve.

"Yes?"

"We'd get married, wouldn't we?" she said quickly.

Sirius froze. Whatever he'd been expecting, clearly this was not it. He didn't move or speak for quite a long time, and when he did, "Bloody hell," were the only words that escaped from his mouth, almost as more of a reflex than an actual pronouncement.

Melody couldn't help feeling a little hurt. She wriggled away from his embrace and sat up on the couch next to him to get a clear view of his face. "We would, wouldn't we? We'd be in this thing together no matter what, wouldn't we?"

Sirius's face went rather pale. He opened and closed his mouth, but couldn't manage to say anything.

Melody's feelings skipped over the hurt and moved right along to rage. "Sirius Black," she snapped, glowering at him, "you are not abandoning this child."

At the mention of the word 'child,' Sirius's face went rather whiter. "I'm--I'm not--I wouldn't--" he rasped.

"Good," Melody said, and contemplated, in her mix of anguish and fury, whether she ought to say any more.

"Melody," Sirius finally managed, sounding slightly more like himself, "it's not that I would--I mean, I would not abandon--I--" He took another moment to compose his thoughts. "It just came as a shock, all right? This is rather a lot at once, isn't it? And--and until we know for sure, what's the point in stressing ourselves out over--over everything that might come a long with a ba...a bab...a...you know."

Melody did not feel altogether satisfied with this response, but now that some of her anger had started to ebb, she could feel the shock and panic returning. Maybe Sirius had a point. Pregnancy was a lot to think about on its own, especially when they didn't even know....

"Yeah," she agreed, sinking back into the couch next to him. "I know."

She let Sirius put his arm around her again and leaned into him, trying not to feel sick with worry.

"My God," Sirius said after a few minutes, a thought popping into his head. "It's hard to believe there's still Quidditch tomorrow, isn't it?"

Melody considered this extremely normal bit of news with a certain amount of astonishment. "Bloody hell," she agreed.

The morning of the Quidditch game dawned bright and breezy and unseasonably warm for early February, but three of the Quidditch players from Gryffindor House looked unusually ill as they tramped down the stairs for breakfast. Melody and Sirius particularly appeared to have a little something more on their minds--a preoccupation that James and Lily shared, but that their teammates chalked up to pure nerves.

This game was big--if Gryffindor won, it would put them in the lead for both the House and Quidditch cups. It was still only February, but if Gryffindor won this game, it would make it nearly impossible for Slytherin to make it to the final match--unless, by some miracle, Hufflepuff clobbered Ravenclaw (the team currently in first place) in the next match. This seemed about as likely as Professor McGonagall deciding to permanently transfigure herself into a tea kettle, so unless all the Ravenclaw players developed mysterious illnesses within the next month and a half and lost their next game, it looked like Ravenclaw would be playing the winner of today's Gryffindor-Slytherin matchup.

Melody felt distinctively ill, and her abdominal area was roiling unpleasantly. She could barely manage to look at the kippers Sirius had dropped on her plate, and had to pinch her nose to force down a little pumpkin juice, which for some reason this morning smelled disgusting.

James, who was sitting across from Sirius and Melody, stared blankly ahead the whole meal and grunted in protest when Lily tried to force-feed him a piece of toast.

Finally, James blinked and focused his gaze on the couple sitting across from him. "All right, you two?" he managed. They just stared back at him, looking rather queasy. "Right," James managed. "Off to the pitch then."

He stood, and the rest of the team followed. Lily sighed and watched them go, then looked rather worriedly at the three untouched plates of food her friends had left behind.

The Gryffindor team dominated in streaks of blurry scarlet. Lily, however, was having a hard time concentrating on the action. Despite Gryffindor's stunning lead of sixty to ten about fifteen minutes into the game, Lily had most of her attention trained on the two Gryffindor Beaters zig-zagging through the action, rather than the superb Chasers who were making all the exciting, game-dominating moves. Melody still looked a little ill and sluggish, but so far no one on the Gryffindor team had been badly beaten by a Bludger, so presumably she was still doing her job. She just didn't seem to be doing it quite as--fervently--as she usually did, particularly considering her opponents. All in all, the Beater action on both sides was rather dull.

James wasn't doing anything particularly exciting, either. From what Lily could see, he spent about half his time looking for the Snitch, and the other half of the time surveying the movements of his team--mostly, Lily guessed, just Melody and Sirius.

"Good game today, isn't it?" Mimi said, taking a close-up peek of the action through a pair of binoculars.

"Mm," Lily agreed absently.

Lily was sitting with her Ravenclaw friends Matt and Susie on one side, and Mimi, Remus, and Peter on her other side. Of these five people, Lily was apparently the only one who knew of Melody and Sirius's current dilemma--otherwise, she supposed, they wouldn't be nearly as excited about the current state of the match.

"You're quiet today," Mimi said, looking at Lily curiously.

Lily focused in on Melody as she hit a Bludger half-heartedly across the pitch. Was it just Lily's imagination, or did she seem to be leaning over on her broomstick somewhat, as though she'd gotten a sudden stomachache?

"Lily?" Mimi nudged her. "You okay?"

"Hm? What? Yeah, I'm great, I'm just...sleepy," she lied, and pretended to be more interested in the action on the pitch.

Melody was starting to look a little odd, wasn't she? Sort of...in pain? The game went on for a few more minutes--Gryffindor scored again, and Lily nearly forgot to cheer--and Lily kept a close watch on her friend. She watched as Melody moved toward a Bludger that was streaking across the pitch, heading straight for Mundungus Fletcher--and then, quite suddenly, Melody stopped. She halted her broom right in midair and got the funniest look on her face--one Lily couldn't quite decipher from a hundred yards away--and completely ignored the Bludger as it flew right by her and hit Mundungus Fletcher square on the nose.

The crowd gave out a great "Ooh" of disappointment (the Slytherins cheered appreciatively) as Mundungus clutched at his nose and lost control of the Quaffle. One of the Slytherin Chasers picked it up and managed to get it past the Gryffindor Keeper, making the score seventy-twenty.

Lily ignored this. She was still staring intently at Melody, who was still completely frozen on her broom. Lily snatched the binoculars from Mimi ("Hey!" Mimi cried in protest) and trained them on Melody, just in time to see her snap back into motion.

"Madam Hooch!" Melody bellowed, waving her arms wildly. "TIME OUT!"

Lily couldn't actually hear her over the roar of the crowd, but the binoculars allowed her to see the words she was mouthing, and Lily watched with interest as the Gryffindor team flew to the ground. Melody was facing away from Lily now, so it was impossible to see what she was speaking with Madam Hooch about, but in the next moment, Melody abandoned her broomstick and went running off in the direction of the locker rooms.

The crowd seemed rather stunned. After a moment, the Slytherins remembered themselves and started booing, yelling out things like, "We don't need her in the game, ref!" and, "She's just trying to destroy our momentum!" The rest of the crowd ignored the Slytherins, but burst into confused chatter over Melody's rather unprecedented actions. Madam Hooch ignored them all, but took the opportunity to attend to Mundungus Fletcher's freely bleeding nose.

Lily tightened her grip on the binoculars and tried to zoom in to see if James or Sirius were reacting to Melody's actions in a positive sort of way.

"Lily, what are you looking at?" Mimi asked, confused. "It's just a time out--nothing's happening--"

"Sh!" Lily said, her heart leaping as she trained the binoculars on the locker rooms and saw Melody running out. Even from this distance, the expression of glee on Melody's face was unmistakable. "I don't believe it," Lily breathed. "Is she--she's--"

She watched as Melody ran back to her team and threw herself at Sirius, knocking him to the ground. Madam Hooch quickly intervened--it looked as though Melody was kissing him fervently--and pulled them both to their feet.

"Yes!" Lily cried, jumping to her feet. The people around her stared at her as though she'd gone mad. But who cared--that didn't matter--what mattered was that Melody was fine.

Though the rest of the crowd was still in a confused tizzy, Lily thought she knew exactly what happened: Melody had just gotten her period. She'd had to call a time out to run to the locker rooms and grab feminine products, and then ran back out onto the pitch to tell Sirius the news. She wasn't pregnant.

"Thank God," Lily breathed, and sank back into her seat.

"What? What just happened?" Mimi demanded, snatching the binoculars back.

"I'll tell you later," Lily said happily as the players kicked off and the game resumed.

Mimi did not look nearly satisfied with this answer, and opened her mouth to protest, but she was cut off by the exuberant roar of the crowd.

By some miracle, James had spotted the Snitch during the team's ascent, and as soon as Madam Hooch blew her whistle to resume play, he shot after it, snatching it neatly out of the air and ensuring Gryffindor's place in the Quidditch final.

All of Gryffindor House stormed the pitch as the team flew to the ground, and herded the players back to the locker rooms so they could make themselves presentable for the party that was sure to follow.

The Monday after the Quidditch game, Peter Pettigrew stood in the front hall of Hogwarts, clutching a small piece of parchment in his hands and staring apprehensively at the great front doors of the school. The piece of parchment was from Peter's girlfriend, Sophie, and read:

Dear Peter,

I've been to see my dad at St. Mungo's. He's not doing very well.

I'll be returning to Hogwarts on Monday afternoon and I'll explain everything then. Please meet me in the front hall around three o'clock. My train gets into Hogsmeade at two-thirty, so hopefully I'll see you a little before three.

Yours,

Sophie

Peter unfolded this note and read it through one more time, then checked his watch (it read 2:55) before training his eyes on the front doors again. He looked rather more nervous and twitchy today than usual, and could hardly stand to keep still as he waited. He hadn't told his friends about the note--he wanted to meet Sophie alone and find out what had happened in private before James, Sirius, and Remus found out.

The letter didn't sound very promising, so Peter wasn't exactly looking forward to hearing Sophie's news.

After a few more agonizing minutes, the front doors finally opened and Sophie came in, followed by a tall, white-haired, deeply imposing man, who Peter later found out was her grandfather. Sophie halted and spoke softly with her grandfather for a moment before walking over to Peter and taking him by the hand.

"Come on. Let's talk for a minute."

Sophie led him to the nearest empty classroom and shut the door behind them, sighing. She motioned for Peter to sit down and took a desk next to the one he chose, turning the chair to face him.

"This is hard for me to talk about, so I'm just going to say it as fast as I can...okay?"

Peter nodded nervously.

Sophie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her blonde curls were limp today. She had deep circles under her eyes, and even the light splash of freckles across her nose looked rather faded and downtrodden.

"I'm going to leave Hogwarts," she blurted, and didn't give Peter time to speak before continuing, in a long, blurred-together string of words that seemed to be strangling her the longer she went on. "I've seen my father and he looks terrible--he doesn't recognize me, doesn't know where he is--and my mum is"--she choked--"well, you know, she's gone--and anyway all my cousins and aunts and uncles were there and my grandparents, and Grandfather says I should be with the family right now--the whole family's distressed, they don't know what to do, don't know what happened--Mother was in charge of everything, really, she kept the whole family together and now without her it seems like the whole thing's about to fall apart--and anyway Grandfather says I shouldn't be here anymore, so I'm leaving, he's making me leave--he doesn't understand--" she sobbed briefly before barreling on. "I want to be here, I wish I could stay here, but Grandfather's insisting--they're all insisting--they've already sent a letter to Dumbledore"--another choke--"there's nothing I could do to stop it and I wish I had longer to say good-bye, but we've come to collect my things, and Peter--oh, Peter--I wish"--an even bigger sob this time--"I don't want to do this, any of this, but I'm leaving now and I'm sorry and I have to break up with you and I hope you'll understand, I just can't handle any more right now than I already am."

She sobbed once more and tried to contain the tears that were threatening to dribble all over the desk. Sophie Fullcox was a Hufflepuff from a long line of Hufflepuffs--kind, loyal, hardworking, but not the bravest soul in the world. Peter Pettigrew didn't know it, but he had just witnessed what was perhaps the bravest moment in Sophie's young life.

Peter was, in fact, too dumbfounded to notice much of anything. He just stared at his girlfriend--his first real girlfriend--and gaped. "They--they can't!" he squeaked finally. "They can't just take you out of school! Tell Dumbledore you don't want to go."

"Oh--I wish I could, Peter," Sophie moaned miserably.

"You don't really have to break up with me either, do you?"

"Oh Peter," Sophie said, letting her head fall into her hands. "This is too complicated. I don't know if I'll ever see you again, and--I'm in no state to be in a relationship right now." She buried her face behind her hands and sobbed.

Peter wasn't one much for crying, but he did start trembling and squeaking unhappily. "No--Sophie--stay," he managed to squeak out.

"I'm s--s--sorry, Peter," Sophie sobbed, still hiding her face, and Peter couldn't bring himself to reach out and try to comfort her. "I r--r--really do like you. I ho--hope I'll see you again."

Before Peter had a chance to say or do anything, Sophie burst into uncontrollable tears and ran from the room. Peter sat there for a moment, stunned, and then he started shaking worse than ever.

Confusing thoughts spun around inside his head--thoughts of family, thoughts of death--thoughts of You-Know-Who--

Peter was suddenly terrified, terrified in a way he hadn't been since the first time James and Sirius had told him he had to run past the swinging branches of the Whomping Willow and find the secret knot that would let them get into a secret passageway that would lead to the Shrieking Shack where--far worse than angry ghosts--a bloodthirsty werewolf awaited them. Sure, the werewolf was Remus, but that didn't make him any less bloodthirsty, and even though James and Sirius had assured Peter that werewolves were only interested in attacking humans, Peter still couldn't quite shake off the idea that, human or no, a rat was still rather smaller than a dog or a stag, and he might look a trifle tastier to a werewolf than Sirius and James imagined....

What had You-Know-Who done? What had the Death Eaters done to Sophie's father, that he didn't even recognize his own daughter anymore? Could they--would they--do the same to Peter's mother and father, somewhere down the line? Peter's parents were pure-bloods, sure, but then...so were Sophie's parents. A lot of Sophie's relatives were Muggle-borns and half-bloods of course, but--all the same, they weren't the ones who had been attacked.

The way Sirius and James talked about things, you'd think the Death Eaters were going to be easy to go up against. They acted like You-Know-Who was some sort of force that could be stopped...like Dumbledore was going to be able to solve everything...like all they had to do was practice a couple of spells and put on a brave face, and they'd be able to conquer anything.

But, Peter realized suddenly, sickeningly, that that simply--wasn't--true. You-Know-Who was more than any of them could handle. His Death Eaters were great and terrible enough to be able to destroy Sophie's family, and from what Peter had heard, all the Death Eaters combined weren't as powerful as the Dark Lord. What kind of damage could You-Know-Who inflict, given the chance?

Peter wasn't entirely sure why this was all hitting him now. Lily Evans's family had been attacked a while back, during the summer, and that hadn't hit him nearly as hard. A lot of that probably had to do with the fact that Peter wasn't nearly as close with Lily as he was with Sophie, and also that--fair or not--Lily's parents were Muggles. Muggles and the families of Muggle-borns did seem to be the main targets...well, until now. Sophie's parents were the first full-fledged wizards Peter had heard of being attacked. So maybe that was it. Maybe that was the big difference.

Or maybe it didn't matter. All Peter knew was that his world had suddenly gotten smaller and more depressing, that You-Know-Who seemed like an even more real threat than before, and that he'd just lost his girlfriend to a war that he was only just beginning to understand.

And just then, sitting in that empty classroom, staring at the inappropriate sunshine beaming in through the windows, Peter Pettigrew contemplated, for the very first time, what it might be like to join forces with You-Know-Who, rather than wasting a lot of time and energy and lives fighting against him.

As soon as Melody's relief about not being pregnant started to ebb, it was replaced by another emotion--one rather sharper and more bitter. In the week following the Quidditch match, she received a letter by owl post from Paolo's mother, informing her that Paolo's body had been discovered in London more than a month ago, but that he had only recently been identified, and his family had only just received word of his death.

After she had gotten past the initial shock of this letter, Melody was immediately overcome by a wave of guilt that left her moping around for days--guilt that couldn't be overcome by talk of Quidditch, or the announcement of the next Hogsmeade weekend (second weekend in March), or even Sirius's various attempts (some goofy, some serious, some mushy) at cheering her up.

It wasn't Melody's fault, of course, that Paolo was dead, but she'd been so preoccupied since the start of term that she hadn't thought much about him, and when she had, she'd been distracted by something else so quickly that she'd subconsciously dismissed the thought of writing to him, of worrying about him, of trying to find out if he was okay.

But now...here, here was proof that Melody should've done more--should've worried more--should've been less of a twit--

"You're not a twit...what could you have done?" Sirius tried to reason with her many times, but she couldn't quite listen--it didn't quite help--she was awful and selfish for not having tried to find out anything about Paolo sooner, and now he was gone. He'd gone up against the Death Eaters...and lost.

After Melody got over her initial guilt and the subsequent grief, this thought terrified her. Paolo was older than her--he'd finished with school already--he'd been bent on avenging his father his whole life, and--look where it had gotten him. Was this a precursor to Melody's own vain attempts to set right the wrong that had been committed against her family so many years ago? She shivered just thinking about it, and not even having Sirius's arms wrapped around her could make her feel completely warm again.

But all the same, Paolo could not have died for no reason. Melody couldn't stand that thought, so she pored through old newspapers in the library for days until she found it--one small blurb in the Daily Prophet near the beginning of January about a wizard gone missing--a wizard by the name of Lestrange, whose whereabouts no one seemed to know. S. Lestrange, the article said, missing, presumed dead.

Melody couldn't quite remember whether the person Paolo had been after had the initials S.L. for his name, but she did remember the dagger--did remember Paolo's promise to dump the man's body, turned to stone and shattered into a thousand pieces, into the Thames--and, for the first time, she felt some peace at the thought of Paolo's death. If he had died, he had at least taken one of those bloody bastards with him. If Paolo's sexy, laughing, Italian face was no longer a part of this world, then at least one sick, cruel, demented soul was no longer a part of it either--and that, Melody supposed, was all that Paolo wanted in the first place. And knowing that, at last, was enough to bring Melody some measure of peace, even if it could not entirely soothe her grief.

The weather compensated for its unseasonable warmness in the first week of February by turning nastily cold and bitter in the second and third weeks of the month. It was during this third week of the month that Lily had her meeting with Professor Dumbledore, and so she drudged through the drafty castle with her robes pulled tightly about her, wishing it was possible to walk about indoors with a cloak on and not look ridiculous.

Professor Dumbledore was waiting for her. He greeted her pleasantly as she entered his office and indicated that she should sit down in the chair across from his desk.

"Feeling a bit befuddled about the future, Miss Evans?" he asked, a familiar kind twinkle in his eyes.

Lily managed a smile and sighed. "I'm feeling a bit befuddled about everything, I think. There's so much--so much going on lately, and my brain feels so full...I just can't seem to get organized."

Dumbledore smiled. "I quite understand the feeling. But happily, we are here to try and organize a bit of your life. I find that having a plan for the future always makes me feel a bit more secure about the present."

Lily couldn't imagine Dumbledore feeling insecure about anything, but she nodded anyway. "Yeah," she agreed. "I don't--I don't really know where to begin."

Dumbledore nodded. "Have you given much thought to what I suggested the last time we met for career planning?"

"Yes--teaching Potions," Lily affirmed. "I have. And...I think...I mean, I think I'd like it. I'm not really sure how to go about applying for teaching schools, but...overall that sounds like a good option."

"I believe I can help you with the applications," Dumbledore said, and waved his wand briefly. A stack of parchment organized itself on Dumbledore's desk, and Lily picked the pieces of parchment up, astounded (as always) at Dumbledore's efficiency.

"Oh wow--thanks, professor." Lily rolled up the parchments carefully and put them in her bag. She looked back up at the headmaster, unsure now what to say. She didn't feel quite as intimidated or uncomfortable in Dumbledore's presence as she once had--she was Head Girl now, after all, and interacted with him a great deal more than most of the students. However, the particular thing she really wanted to talk about--and it had to do with career planning, but not entirely--she wasn't sure how to bring up. She cleared her throat. "Er..." she began.

"Please go ahead, Lily," Dumbledore encouraged. "I take it you have more on your mind than potions schools?"

"Well--well, yes," Lily managed, and considered for another moment how to proceed. "Professor--I--" she sighed. "It's not that I'm not interested in becoming a Potions professor. I am--I'd like to--and...I'm sure it would be an excellent job. I think I'd like it better than working at the Ministry--than working as an Auror, I think--but--" She hesitated for a moment.

"Please do not hesitate to shock me. I assure you I will not be offended."

Lily grinned briefly. "All right--well--I know the Potions job was your suggestion, Professor, so obviously you think it's something that would be worthwhile for me to pursue, but--I mean--will it help?" she blurted. "Will it make any difference?"

Far from looking shocked, Dumbledore looked rather pleased that Lily had asked this question. He smiled. "Quite a worthy consideration, Lily," he said calmly. "I trust that you are thinking just now of Lord Voldemort?"

Lily blinked for a moment, and stared. She'd gotten so used to hearing people refer to him as You-Know-Who that to hear the name suddenly spoken again--and Dumbledore of all people--

Well, of course, she realized after an instant--Dumbledore of all people wouldn't be afraid to speak You-Know-Who's name, would he? He was perhaps the only wizard Lily could think of who seemed quite as good as You-Know-Who was bad, who was quite as powerful in his own way as You-Know-Who was in his. And it was only recently, really, that Lily herself had stopped referring to him as Voldemort--only recently that people had started flinching when someone referred to him by his real name....

"I find that it's best," Dumbledore said gently, correctly interpreting Lily's shock, "to always refer to things by their proper name. To be afraid of a formidable wizard like Voldemort is only natural. To be afraid of merely speaking his name, I think, gives Voldemort more power over us than we would like him to have."

Sitting in that office with Dumbledore just then, Lily could think of no reasoning more sensible for calling Voldemort by his proper name. She was momentarily shocked and ashamed at the reaction she'd just had to hearing the name spoken aloud--in addition to the stunned silence, Lily's brain had registered a brief twinge of fear--and Lily resolved, from then on, never to fear calling You-Know-Who by his proper name again. No Dark wizard, no matter how frighteningly powerful, deserved the kind of disgusting honor that people afforded Voldemort every time they refused to speak his name.

"Right," she said, and tried out the name once more. "Voldemort." She felt briefly uneasy, but fought the sensation off quickly. "I think--whatever I do after Hogwarts--I'd like it to be worthwhile. I'd like it to be as much--as much against him--against Voldemort"--this time she spat the name, trying out its effect--"as possible." It felt good to spit the name out, distastefully, discarding it as though it were a particularly shabby and dirty sock. That was all the respect Voldemort's name deserved, regardless of the terror and respect his power commanded.

Dumbledore smiled benignly. Lily couldn't tell if he was amused or not.

"Miss Evans," he began, speaking softly, "rarely do I come across students who are at once clever, loyal, brave, and rule-abiding. Even with your various minor transgressions"--Lily's cheeks flamed at the thought of Dumbledore catching her and James out of bed after curfew in Fifth Year--"I believe you remain one of the most steadfast Prefects and Head Girls I've seen in recent years." Lily's cheeks burned further, but this time it was from the flattery. She couldn't think of anything to say, and Dumbledore took this opportunity to ramble pleasantly.

"I'm sure it is most unorthodox of me to openly praise a student in this manner, but--ah, well--seeing as I've been getting owls every week since I became headmaster telling me what a misguided old fool I am, I'm sure I can handle the backlash from this error. Certainly I can handle it as well as I can handle Slannery O'Toole writing me once a month to inform me that I'm the worst Headmaster he's ever seen, and if it were up to him, he'd turn me into a flobberworm and have me spend the rest of my natural life searching for food in the Mojave Desert."

Lily gaped at him openly.

The edges of Dumbledore's eyes crinkled up into a smile. "It has been a privilege having you as Head Girl. And I think--I hope, surely--we can continue working together after you leave school.

"To answer your question more directly, Lily--I can think of no profession more noble or life-changing than teaching. There are few things more important than ensuring that our youth have been properly taught how to handle the world we live in once we are gone." He paused again, and gazed at Lily, who found her face rearranging itself into a smile. "I find, too," Dumbledore mused, "that keeping in touch with youth makes me feel like something of a less old doddering fool than some of the wizarding world would make me out to be. How else, indeed," he wondered, "would one be able to keep up with all the possible implications of the word 'groovy?'"

Lily attempted not to snort in laughter. She felt that this would somewhat undermine her status as one of the cleverest, loyal-est, law-abiding-est (James would laugh if he heard that one, and Lily decided not to tell him) students Dumbledore had ever had. She took her time swallowing and clearing her throat so that when she finally did speak, she sounded normal rather than amused.

"I hope we can work together after Hogwarts as well, Professor," she agreed, and tried to keep her smile from quavering with pride as her mind thought over everything Dumbledore had just said to her. "And I think that--" she paused briefly, and then let her words tumble out in a rush, hoping that if she did so they would sound less ridiculous and mushy. "You're probably the best Headmaster Hogwarts has ever had, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather have as a professor, or--or as a friend, I think, after school."

Lily felt slightly embarrassed, but that feeling was nothing to the astonishment she felt at seeing glistening tears pop into Dumbledore's eyes. Fawkes the phoenix, sitting on his perch by the door, let out a long, pearly, silvery note, and Lily felt somewhat happier and less embarrassed than she had before. Dumbledore didn't say anything for a moment, looking rather at a loss for words.

"I'm very touched," he said finally, and Lily, despite the phoenix song, couldn't quite remember ever feeling more bashful.

Sophie was gone now, which left an unexpectedly large and awkward hole in the room. Lily hadn't expected to notice her absence quite so much, but there it was, just as blisteringly obvious as the merry fire crackling behind the grate. They had all piled into MHQ again for the final installment of Lily and James's epic journey through the past--which, somewhat disappointingly, mostly consisted of them passing a piece of parchment back and forth between themselves and Godric Gryffindor.

"Yeah, so, Slytherin wasn't too friendly," James said, once everyone had settled in and they'd briefly reviewed everything Lily and James had related to the group thus far.

"Shocker," Sirius said, snorting.

Lily jumped in. "He didn't like that we couldn't speak proper English--laughed at James when he tried speaking Latin--wouldn't even let us try to communicate to him with the thing Dumbledore gave us--"

"Ooh, what did Dumbledore give you?" Mimi asked, leaning over the edge of the couch.

"Hush, we're getting there," said Lily, and turned her gaze to James, indicating that he should go on.

"So anyway," James continued, "Slytherin was really nasty, he kept sneering at us, staring at us menacingly--"

"He had these gross little beady eyes--" Lily cut in.

"Oh, yeah, and that creepy pet snake he kept hissing to in Parseltongue--"

Lily shuddered.

"Anyway, not a nice guy. I reckon he wanted to hang us by our ankles from the ceiling, but luckily by the time he'd called someone to help him--the caretaker, we think, who started messing with the chains on the wall--the other Founders had got wind that there were trespassers in the castle, and came down to see us. Helga Hufflepuff was first--big lady, very round, dressed all in yellow--"

"Yeah, with a great yellow feather coming out of this...sort of turban-looking hat on her head--" Lily interjected.

"Quite a sight, really, but anyway she was very nice--started arguing with Slytherin, got a bit red in the face--"

"She sent the old caretaker away, and thank goodness, too--the old creep kept staring at me, gave me the willies--" Lily shuddered again.

"So anyway, she sends old Slytherin away, and he sort of marches off, hissing to that snake of his, and then Hufflepuff tries to talk to us. We reckon she went through about twenty languages before she realized we weren't going to be able to understand a word she said--"

"We tried to talk to her in French; the first few words she said sounded familiar, but the moment we got to full sentences we were lost...French in those days was very different as well...finally James got the quill out and mimed that he wanted to write something, and she reluctantly went and got a piece of parchment for us--"

"Yeah, I reckon she thought I was crazy," James reflected. "All those languages she tried to speak to us, and we didn't understand a single one--bet she thought I was a bit of a duffer to think that writing something down would help."

"Yeah, but--oh, this is where it gets good--we wrote her something and it self-translated and we finally got to tell her we were looking for Godric Gryffindor."

"Wait. You did what with the quill?" Sirius demanded.

"Oh right," Lily said. "That was what Dumbledore gave us--this enchanted quill that, no matter what language you write in, automatically translates your writing into the language that the reader best understands."

"Wicked," Melody said, looking impressed.

"I didn't know you could enchant quills to do things like that," Mimi added.

"Oh yeah...you'd be amazed at what you can enchant quills to do," Sirius replied. "I remember one of my uncles once--he'd somehow got his hands on a quill that, whatever you wrote, if someone read it they had to do it. His wife loved it at first--used it to write notes and things that she left around the house to remind people to do stuff. After a couple days, though, it got a little nasty. They had this pet chicken that their son was supposed to take care of, so she left a note for him--feed the chicken--but every time he saw it, he had to do it, so he ended up feeding it about ten times a day and the chicken ended up dying from overeating.... She had a sign for my uncle, too--make the bed--because he never remembered, but the problem was, if he got up earlier than her, he had to make the bed whether or not she was still in it. Caused a lot of rows before they finally got rid of it."

"Wow...imagine if we had one of those quills," James said, rather dreamily. "Imagine all the stuff we could make Snape do...."

Lily gave him a very sharp look.

"Er--I mean--if we'd had one of those quills--when we were younger--all the stuff we could have done--"

Lily, her eyes still sharp with disapproval, shook her head.

"It seems like that'd be really dangerous, all around," Mimi said thoughtfully. "Imagine the kinds of things you could leave lying around for people to do. Like a sign that says hit this--and then it opens a trapdoor that leads you to a room with a bunch of monsters in it. Or--or if you have a sign that says give me your money, everyone'd have to fork over their Galleons straightaway, wouldn't they?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure those quills are banned now," Sirius said, shrugging. "Just thought of it."

Lily gave James a very sharp look now, and he tried to look innocent, purposefully letting his gaze wander around the room.

"So the magical quill you used to translate for you--it worked, didn't it? And you got to meet Godric Gryffindor?" Remus asked, calmly steering the conversation back towards Lily and James's story.

"Yes," Lily said, looking eager to continue. "And we learned a lot more about this"--she clutched her necklace in one of her hands--"not everything, but lots of things--and I think it made it worth it to have gone back into the past."

"Mind you, though, we didn't get to meet him right away," James interjected. "See, he wasn't there at the time--he'd gone off somewhere for something, and of course they wouldn't tell us what--so we had to wait almost another week before he got back."

"Yeah...and they made us stay in the dungeons the whole time, because they didn't trust us," Lily added, looking distressed at the memory.

"But then he finally got back, and...well..."

Godric Gryffindor was an impressively large man. He wasn't unnaturally large like Hagrid, or wide of girth exactly, but he was tall--muscular--largely framed. He seemed to fill up more of the room than he actually did, and his stature dwarfed even that of tall, plump Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw and Slytherin seemed rather skinny by comparison. Salazar was by no means a small man, but he wasn't so tall as Gryffindor, and his frame was lean rather than muscular. He had a creepy, slinky, silky way of moving and of talking, and Lily could immediately sense why he had such an affinity with snakes and why most people regarded this affinity with caution and even fear, interpreting it as the mark of a Dark wizard in the making.

Ravenclaw was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with bangs that fell down to her eyebrows, making it hard to read the expressions behind her eyes. If the firelight glinted in the right way, however, it reflected the shrewdness in her gaze, and though she looked sharp and stern, tiny laugh lines around her lips and her eyes revealed her good humour. She was tallish, though not so tall as any of her companions, which made her appear shorter, and she was easily the slimmest of the four.

It was very odd seeing all the founders live, real, standing in a room together and evaluating Lily and James with something that resembled curiosity, though the posture of each of the founders suggested suspicion and hesitation. Gryffindor evaluated them most keenly of all, his eyes boring into Lily's in a way that made her want to back out of the room and flee down the corridor to hide behind a suit of armor.

Gryffindor was dressed simply, in clean-cut black robes, wearing some sort of red garment underneath, and a bulge under the left side of his robes suggested that he carried a sword. The most impressive part of his ensemble was easily his hat, which was tall, black, and wide-brimmed--and it was more than that, Lily realized with astonishment after a moment--it was the Hogwarts Sorting Hat! Perhaps the hat would not have looked so grand on another wizard, but Gryffindor was so tall already that the hat seemed to make him tower all the way to the ceiling. His face stood out from his dark robes largely because of his rusty-colored hair and beard--which managed, impressively, not to clash with the red garment underneath his robes. He looked the part of a hero, and Lily could see why he, of all people, would value bravery above all else.

Lily swallowed thickly and, determined to be brave herself, returned his gaze steadily. He seemed to approve of her, and bore his gaze into James instead, who met it unflinchingly. Lily briefly felt a mushy sort of pride in him before Gryffindor spoke and distracted her.

They couldn't understand what he was saying, of course, but he got their attention (well, Lily's--she'd been looking rather obviously at James) and motioned them over to a table in the center of the room.

Communicating with Gryffindor was going to be a rather lengthy process, as they soon found out--writing with the quill wasn't nearly as fast as speaking, and sometimes, if there was a particularly horrible scribble or misspelling of a word, the translation became rather botched, so it took a moment to sort out what it meant.

The first question of Gryffindor's was simple, however. Why did you wish to speak with me directly?

James nodded, as though agreeing this was a sensible question, and held out his hand politely for the quill. We've come to talk to you specifically about a necklace--one that we believe you may have had a hand in making.

Lily wasn't sure if they should have jumped into specifics right away, but she could understand James's desire to do so. Writing things out took a frustratingly long time--why not just skip to the important stuff?

Gryffindor looked a little confused at this response, and wrote back quickly, I am not a necklace maker.

We know, James scribbled back, but we believe you made one necklace, and we now have it.

Gryffindor appeared affronted at this suggestion, and stared at Lily and James even more suspiciously than before. The other Founders had, by this time, crowded around the table on which James and Godric were writing, and peered at the parchment curiously. They all frowned at each other after reading James's messages, and looked suspiciously over at James and Lily as well.

After a brief conference with the other Founders, Gryffindor wrote out the obvious questions. Who are you? Where are you from?

Lily and James glanced at each other before James wrote out the response. They'd discussed this quite carefully with Dumbledore after he'd given them the quill. They were not to tell anyone in the past anything about the future except that they were from it, and that--if Gryffindor asked--James was one of his descendants. Dumbledore anticipated that the Founders would each be wise enough to refuse information about the future if it was offered them, but he felt that just in case the curiosity became too much for any of them, it was important to impress upon James and Lily how monumental a mistake it would be to tell the Founders of Hogwarts what the world was like a thousand years into the future.

Our names are James and Lily. We are from the future.

Godric evaluated this statement with some disbelief. The other Founders evaluated it as well, and none seemed ready to believe them. Rowena Ravenclaw outright giggled, and motioned for the quill, which she took from Godric before writing a message to James and Lily in big, loopy letters.

Be honest, she advised.

Lily took the quill this time. We're telling the truth. We live a thousand years into the future, and have gotten here by means of a time travel spell contained in my necklace.

She pushed the parchment and the quill back toward the Founders and, as they read the message, pulled her golden necklace out from underneath the collar of her robes. She held it up so they could see the L pendant dangling from the chain, and as the Founders looked up from the parchment, each of them acknowledged Lily's necklace with a blank stare. Gryffindor was last to look up, having started to write a response, but with a prod from a confused-looking Ravenclaw he trained his eyes on Lily, and dropped the quill as he saw what she was wearing.

Gryffindor stood up quickly and turned to have a discussion with the rest of the Founders. They argued briefly, and then, casting James and Lily looks of deepest suspicion, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff left the room. With them gone, Godric hastened back to the parchment and scratched out whatever he'd been writing before to scribble out one question: Where did you get that?

James and Lily glanced at each other briefly before James took up the quill. He explained as best he could about his mother, about her finding it in a jewelry box of a master bedroom in their house--he then explained briefly about being an heir of Gryffindor's, and how this led them to believe that the necklace (having been found in a part of their house once inhabited by and older family of Gryffindor's descendants) might have belonged to Gryffindor--

Lily jumped in here to scribble out a short explanation of all relevant information she'd discovered about the necklace through Livana Delany's reports, and how all signs seemed to point back to Gryffindor, not simply as the owner of the necklace, but as the maker. She described all she could about the experiences the necklace's previous owners had had...of the necklace tugging girls in the right direction when they were lost (and indeed, of the necklace tugging Lily in the direction of Hogwarts when James had Apparated them to several miles outside of the future site of Hogsmeade)...of it warming a girl during the winter when she might otherwise have died of cold...of girls flying without broomsticks, producing money in times of poverty, using it for time travel....

There is more, Lily scribbled at the end. Would you like me to tell you what it's done for me?

She almost wrote "what it's done to me" but decided this would seem like something of an insult, and it probably wasn't wise to insult Godric Gryffindor.

Gryffindor's face grew paler as he read, and every once in a while he would glance up at Lily and James looking practically aghast before resuming his reading. When he was finished, he stared blankly at Lily and James for a few minutes before picking up the quill again and scribbling a few careful words onto the parchment.

Don't tell me, he advised. That necklace does not exist. I have not made such a thing.

Lily's heart fell out of her chest and plunged into the depths of her stomach, morphing itself into what felt like an ice cube as it did so. She and James stared at each other in confusion. Gryffindor took back the parchment and wrote again, correctly interpreting their dumbfounded gazes to mean that they had little to say in return.

He wrote just one word on the parchment, a word that changed everything: Yet.

"What?" Melody exploded, clearly flabbergasted at this turn of events. "You mean you went too far back in time?"

"Yep," Lily said, shrugging, "but only just. A lucky thing for us it was, too--if we'd gone back that much farther, we probably would have been hanging by our ankles in the dungeons, and who knows if we would have made it back all right?"

"Wait--so--what did you do?" Melody pressed.

"The only thing we could do--we hopped a couple years into the future," James replied.

"What about the anchor, though?" Sirius asked. "Wasn't it supposed to pull you all the way back to the present?"

"Not exactly," Lily said slowly. "It wasn't supposed to pull us anywhere...it was just there as a sort of landmark; something we would recognize so we would know when to escape the time tunnel."

"Kind of like recognizing the right grate when you're traveling by Floo?" Remus suggested.

"Kind of," Lily agreed.

"So what happened?" Mimi asked. "Are you finally going to tell us what Gryffindor told you?"

Lily and James exchanged a smile.

"Well, if we must," James said, shrugging.

"I suppose...there doesn't seem to be another way to delay it..." Lily said, sighing dramatically.

"Oh, get on with it!" Melody said, and threw a pillow at them.

Time traveling proved tiring once again. Lily and James weren't quite as tired as they'd been after traveling a thousand years, but they were still quite sleepy. They reappeared in the same room in Hogwarts they'd just left, only here, several years into the future, there was no Godric Gryffindor standing across the table from them--and the table, it appeared, had been moved, so that Lily and James ended up depositing themselves on top of it instead of next to it.

As they climbed down, they heard a loud crack!. Lily looked alarmed, but James, helping her down, said, "House-elf. Gryffindor must've put one on the lookout for us."

Sure enough, not five minutes later, Gryffindor burst into the room, looking pleased. He exclaimed something neither Lily nor James could understand, but that they took to mean, "Finally!", and Gryffindor ushered them out of the room. Godric gestured at them emphatically, and James understood him as asking if he still had the quill, which of course he did. Godric nodded happily and continued striding down the hall, leading them up several flights of stairs, in the direction--as James recognized it--of Gryffindor tower.

They stopped a tapestry or two short of Gryffindor Tower, however, and entered instead what was unmistakably Gryffindor's office. It was decorated in reds and golds, with a real stuffed lion's head on the wall and a marvelous oak desk that seemed to take up most of the space in the room. The desk was littered with parchment, quills, and ink bottles, the occasional candy wrapper, what looked like an ancient set of gobstones, and several spindly silver instruments that reminded Lily vaguely of some of the instruments Dumbledore had in his office, though most of these looked cracked and broken.

Gryffindor mumbled something that might've been, "Excuse the mess," and with a wave of his wand cleared off his desk. He conjured two chairs for Lily and James to settle themselves in and held his hand out for the quill, which James promptly handed over.

And, right then, on the spot, Godric Gryffindor told them nearly everything they'd been wanting to know about the necklace since they first discovered its value.

He explained, first of all, that when they'd visited him several years in the past, the Founders had been starting to have real issues with Slytherin, and that the discord among them was almost to the breaking point. Godric himself had only just begun to think that Salazar might truly leave, and that if he did it would mean great trouble for the school. Salazar was deeply secretive, and the other Founders suspected that, during the construction of Hogwarts, he had created a hidden room or two that none of the others could access. It was this lack of trust that led Gryffindor to believe, should Slytherin choose to leave, he might prove a danger to the school or the Founders themselves.

Gryffindor in particular feared for the safety of his wife. He and Salazar had once been great friends, but as great as they had been, their relationship had quickly deteriorated, and the bitterness left behind easily turned them in to great enemies. Gryffindor's desire to protect his wife spawned the idea of creating some magical object to help guard her when Godric himself was not around. She was a capable witch, of course, and so it would not do to actually tell her that he intended to create an object that would help ensure her safety, but he felt that if this object was given to her as a present, she would accept it unblinkingly and Godric would be able to sleep easier knowing he'd done something extra to protect her.

When Lily and James had first appeared to the Founders, Gryffindor had only just conceived the idea of creating this object, but had not yet decided on its form or what specific powers it might contain--and he certainly had not breathed word of this idea to anybody else. After seeing Lily's necklace, however, he became convinced that the object had to be created, and that it had to be a necklace, and that it ought to possess many of the powers Lily had described.

That said, Gryffindor embarked on a en explanation of the necklace's power, and, in turn, of what made the necklace so very powerful.

Enchantments were not enough. There needed to be something more behind it, something that would not only make it impossible to steal, but also that would make it unable to be used effectively by anyone other than a Gryffindor, or a descendant thereof. I therefore created a spell that would bind all the enchantments together and link them to one extraordinarily powerful force that no amount of hexing or cursing could undo: the love I share with my wife.

At this Lily and James stared at each other and blinked slowly before reading on.

The necklace's powers remain dormant unless such a bond of love exists, Gryffindor explained, looking quite unabashed, but Lily and James both blushed slightly.

The enchantments the necklace contains can only be accessed when a Gryffindor gives the necklace to a woman he loves, and even then the strength and the duration of the love dictates how powerfully the necklace will react. Furthermore, the bond created by love creates a bond between the necklace and its two owners. Both of you should have felt by now something of this bond, for it is what has allowed you travel through time together. Nobody else could have utilized the necklace's powers as you have, not even your dearest friends.

By this point, Lily and James's faces both resembled large, overripe tomatoes, but Gryffindor chose to ignore this and move on.

"Wait--so is that why you two have been eerily psychic ever since you got back from the past? Because the necklace is sort of...melding your minds together?"

"No," Lily and James said indignantly. "Well...sort of," they admitted.

"It just brings us closer together," Lily explained. "The more we use it--and mind you, we can't really use it--the greater the link is between the necklace and us. And because the necklace can catch whiffs of my thoughts and emotions, sometimes those thoughts and emotions get passed on to James."

Everyone just stared at them for a moment.

"Creepy," Melody managed.

"So you're saying I couldn't have gone into the past with you even if I'd tried?" Sirius demanded, distraught.

"Yeah," they said, shrugging.

"Sorry, mate," James added. "But it seems that it's a good thing you didn't bother trying; otherwise it wouldn't have worked at all."

"Hang on," Mimi interjected, "what did you mean when you said you couldn't really use the necklace? Did you or did you not just travel a thousand years into the past and back?"

"We're getting there," Lily said impatiently, and they continued.

The necklace is not to be used as a spellcasting device, however, and it was never intended to be so. It is a pendant of protection, nothing more. As I have already said, its powers can only manifest when true love exists.

Gryffindor was blatantly ignoring Lily and James's embarrassment now; otherwise he could not have continued his explanation with a straight face.

Although love will activate the necklace's powers, it does not necessarily guarantee that the powers will ever be used. The necklace's primary owner--he nodded at Lily--will only experience the necklace's powers if she is in danger, or if she desperately needs them in some way.

Lily and James both motioned for the quill, wanting to ask about the time travel spell, but Gryffindor held up his hand and scribbled on the parchment again.

The obvious exception to this is the time travel spell, which can be harnessed by both necklace owners--but only if both have the same clear idea of where they want to go, and only if they have a strong intent and purpose behind traveling. Meddling with time is a very dangerous thing, and it is unwise to interfere with the past.

He gave Lily and James a momentarily sharp look before continuing.

I therefore will ask you nothing about the future. I do not even wish to know what the necklace has done to prompt your visit. I can only tell you what I feel it is safe to tell you, though I must warn you that after a thousand years even I may not know everything about the necklace.

Lily and James nodded, accepting this.

Your necklace has been altered, he informed them, which at the very least confirmed Schmundertoe's theory that some of the enchantments placed on it were not created by Gryffindor himself. I can sense enchantments on it that I did not place there, so whatever you do with the necklace, I advise you to do it with caution. I cannot ensure that everything I intended the necklace to do will happen any longer, nor can I ensure that the new enchantments are better or worse than I intended.

He then launched into a brief explanation of the enchantments the necklace contained, most of which seemed fairly basic--and, Lily was surprised to note, most of which were mentioned in some capacity in the essay she'd seen Livana Delany write while trapped in one of the necklace's memories. The necklace had the ability to guide owners home if they were lost, warm the body if there was no external source of heat, create a little magical luck if a family was down-and-out, help heal wounds that otherwise might not be able to heal, repel minor hexes and jinxes should the owner feel threatened, and most importantly of all, react violently against any who wished to steal it. He also explained that the necklace was built to learn over time, so that if the owner learned of any powerful new curses and of a way to repel those curses, the necklace would be able to mimic the effects of the counter curse.

They had now reached what Lily felt was the most important part of their conversation.

What if, she began, writing rather shakily, the necklace tries to protect against a curse to which there is no counter curse?

She wasn't sure if Avada Kedavra truly existed yet, wasn't sure if Gryffindor would have caught wind of such a spell, or if he would have any idea what Lily was referring to. Perhaps it didn't matter; perhaps an indirect answer would be better anyway.

Gryffindor's answer was slightly disappointing.

I am not sure, he admitted. It could very well fail. The enchantments are not foolproof; they are merely a weak substitute for the kind of protection I could provide. In fact, the main purpose of these protections is not for them to be the absolute protection the primary owner should enjoy...they are merely precautions, created to help protect the owner until greater help--real help--arrives. This is why the bond between both owners is so important; if one is in trouble, the other will know, and--hopefully--be able to rush to the other's side.

This explained why James had known how to find Lily on Christmas. This explained a lot of things--just not, entirely, what had happened to Lily.

Lily attempted to explain further what she'd experienced with the necklace, but Gryffindor seemed reluctant to read her explanations or answer many other questions; he did not want to know too much about the future, and he did not think there was much else he could tell them that they could not figure out on their own. He did, however, say that because the necklace was an object enchanted to learn, it could very well hold the memories of its owners deep within its enchantments, and this helped to explain why Lily had had her series of vivid Not-Dreams.

After that, there was little more to say about the necklace, and Gryffindor, sensing how tired Lily and James had become, escorted them both to separate bedrooms so they could rest for the night.

"So that's it?" Mimi asked, somewhat dreamily. "You just slept at Hogwarts and returned to the future?"

Lily and James glanced at each other and shrugged. "Yeah...pretty much."

And so Lily and James's epic tale came to a close.

Mimi and Remus were holed up in an empty classroom, working silently and companionably on some homework, the soft pitter-patter of rain against the windows occasionally drowning out the scratching of their quills. Mimi sighed and attacked the last paragraph of her Divination essay with determination. It had been hanging over her head for nearly a week now, and she couldn't wait to see the end of it. As she reached the last sentence, she felt Remus's gaze on her and glanced up.

"What? Have I got something on my nose?"

Remus grinned. "Nah. I was just...you get a cute little crease on your forehead when you're concentrating. Did you know that?"

"You think the wrinkles on my forehead are cute? That's...sweet, Remus." Melody frowned and returned to her essay, scribbling the last few words with relish. "Done!"

Remus laughed. "Done predicting the future, are you?"

"Mm," Mimi agreed. "Next month's bad for those born under Jupiter. Did you know?"

"Er--was I born under Jupiter, perchance?"

"Not that I'm aware of, but I could be wrong."

"What does that even mean?" Remus wondered.

Mimi shrugged. "Beats me. I'm not sure I ever entirely understand what's going on in Divination. I just do the work blindly."

Remus grinned. "I bet if James and Sirius had known that when we were in second year, they would've signed up for Divination courses straightaway."

"Yes...they do seem like they'd be excellent purveyors of made-up answers, don't they?"

"The best," Remus agreed.

Mimi smiled and rolled up her parchment, tucking it away in her bag. She had quite a lot of respect for James and Sirius these days. Peter, too, come to think of it. Ever since she'd figured out that Remus was a werewolf, she'd been amazed at how loyally James, Sirius, and Peter had stuck by him--and how, having known about Remus's condition as well, they hadn't breathed a word of it to anyone.

Mimi had the great advantage of being Muggle-born when it came to evaluating Remus's lycanthropy. For most of her life, she'd been convinced werewolves didn't actually exist, and for most of the time she'd known Remus, she hadn't known he was a werewolf. After she did find out, she'd still had a hard time understanding what most wizards thought was so awful about werewolves. Remus was a perfectly sweet human being, and...well, he had been going to Hogwarts all these years, and he had never hurt anyone. Mimi hadn't quite understood the extent of the fear and distrust most wizards held for werewolves until she'd started researching them.

For most of history, werewolves had been as heavily persecuted by fellow wizards as wizards had by Muggles. Wizards attacked werewolves in their human forms, killing them when they were in their least dangerous state to prevent them from killing--or worse, simply biting--other wizards. Now, of course, it was against the law to murder or to treat lycanthropic wizards inhumanely, but that didn't stop wizards from being extremely nasty to them overall.

And there was no cure for the condition--nothing that even helped. No spell, no potion, no nothing. Mimi could imagine why wizards feared bloodthirsty werewolves running free once a month, but--but--that was only once a month. And it was only at night. And only when there were no clouds. Obviously there was something to be done for werewolves who wanted to exist in normal wizarding society; otherwise Remus would never have been able to get through Hogwarts in the first place. Judging from what Mimi had read so far, however, it was a miracle Remus had even been admitted to the school. If anyone but Remus's close friends ever found out about it...

Well, that was why Mimi respected Remus's friends so much these days. They'd done everything they could to make his life normal at Hogwarts, hadn't they? Kept people from asking too many questions about where he went every month, hadn't they? Pulled a lot of pranks to keep people distracted, didn't they? They really were terribly clever when you got right down to it, though Mimi for the life of her would not have said so in front of them. There were some things James and Sirius might have needed, but a nice stoking of the ego wasn't one of them.

"What are you thinking about?"

Remus put his hand over Mimi's. She'd been doodling absentmindedly on a piece of parchment, procrastinating the writing of her extremely dull and complicated History of Magic essay.

"You," Mimi said, dropping the quill and twisting her hand around to lace her fingers with Remus's. She frowned, still thinking. "Remus...what are you going to do after Hogwarts?"

The small smile that had been creeping across Remus's face quickly faded. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'm not sure."

Mimi nodded, looking at their intertwined fingers. Hers were so pale and smooth; his were darker, rougher, covered in odd scratches. Remus seemed to notice this and tried to tug his hand away awkwardly, but Mimi leaned down and planted a kiss on one of the scratches.

"It's not fair," she said softly. "You're brilliant. You could do anything."

Remus smiled sadly. "It is what it is."

"I don't understand how you can just accept it and go on like it's all right. You should fight it--fight the stigma. It's so stupid--you're so nice--I don't think anyone who's ever met you would look at you and at first glance think, 'Aah! He's a werewolf! Run away!'" She flailed her free hand in the air for dramatic effect.

Remus laughed. "That's not the point. I'm--I'm dangerous, Mimi. There's no way to control what happens to me."

"What if--what if there was?" Mimi asked urgently. "Remus, what would you be able to do?"

He shrugged dismissively. "There isn't though. I don't know that there will ever be."

"But if there was?" Mimi pressed.

Remus's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Mimi, what are you up to?"

"Nothing," she said hastily, and Remus didn't look as though he believed her. "I just--if there was some way to make things better for you--even in the smallest amount--wouldn't it be easier to make people see that--you're just you? The transformation is something that happens to you--it's not who you really are."

Remus's brown eyes were large and very sad. "But it is a part of who I am, Mimi. I can't change it. I can't stop it. And I certainly can't change how other people think and feel about it."

Mimi pursed her lips, feeling frustrated. "But Remus--surely there's something you're able to do about it. I mean--all these years at Hogwarts, and--no one's been attacked by a werewolf--what do you do? They can't just send you away all the time; sometimes you're here during the day after a full moon, aren't you? Why can't you just keep doing--whatever it is you're doing?"

Remus sighed. This was why he'd avoided having a girlfriend before. They asked all kinds of questions he wasn't supposed to answer. Then again...nobody was supposed to know he was a werewolf, either, and plenty of people did now. "I do go away," he admitted. "Just...not terribly far away."

"But where--?"

Remus sighed deeply and decided to be irresponsible. "All right," he sighed, and launched into an explanation that he was not supposed to give to anyone. He explained to Mimi about the secret passage to the Shrieking Shack and its entrance underneath the Whomping Willow--though he refused to tell her how he got underneath the tree without it attacking him--and about staying inside the house and destroying the place and scratching himself instead of running around attacking humans. He tactfully left out the details about Sirius, James, and Peter figuring out how to become Animagi and running around Hogsmeade and the Hogwarts grounds with Remus in his werewolf form every month.

Mimi looked a little deflated when he'd finished. "I see," she said. "Well...you can't exactly take a portable Shrieking Shack with you everywhere you go, can you?"

The corners of Remus's mouth turned upward mirthlessly. "Not exactly, no."

Mimi reached out for Remus's other hand. "You can take me with you, though."

He blinked and stared at her, astonished.

"I mean it," she continued. "Wherever you need to go to find work, I--I want to come with you. I can find work anywhere. It doesn't really matter. I'd just...I'd just like to be with you."

Remus swallowed rather visibly. "Mimi, isn't it--isn't it a little early to be thinking about this?"

"I don't think so. We're talking about it, aren't we?"

"Well--yes, but--I mean--think of your Daily Prophet internship and everything, Mimi. You already have good plans for life after Hogwarts. I have...." He sighed again. "Look, Mimi, I know you want to help, but I'm still not sure you understand what it's going to be like for me in the wizarding world. Even with Dumbledore's recommendation, it's going to be extremely difficult for me to find work anywhere. This isn't the sort of thing I'm going to be able to hide from most potential employers, and--let's face it. How many people would willingly employ a werewolf?"

"Dumbledore would," Mimi said quickly. "I would," she added, rather more softly.

"Well, that makes two of you, doesn't it, and neither of you are exactly in a position to hand me a job, now are you?"

"Dumbledore could--what if they need a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher? You'd be good at that."

"I'd need more training first," Remus reminded her. "Look, I know you mean well, but this is something I'd prefer not to think about today. I have a meeting with Dumbledore in a couple weeks to discuss all of this--stuff--and I'd rather not discuss it till then. All right?"

Mimi didn't look altogether too happy with this response, but she didn't think it would be worth it to argue. "All right," she agreed, squeezing his hands gently. "I just...wanted you to know I'll be there for you. If you want."

Remus gave her a small smile. "Sounds fair enough," he said, and kissed both her hands before leaning across the table and aiming for her lips.

Melody wasn't quite sure where her life was going. Her relationship with Sirius was...fine, she supposed. After she'd discovered that she wasn't pregnant, Melody had been so relieved that she hadn't had the heart to broach the topic of marriage--or of anything more serious than what they had--any further. She definitely wasn't ready to have a child--that much was evident--but that didn't stop her from wanting something...more permanent.

So she was waiting. Watching. Trying to be patient. She examined Sirius very carefully these days, avoiding bringing up marriage herself but watching his reactions when others did. Engagements were so rampant amongst the Seventh Years these days it was hard to go more than a week without hearing of some random couple or other deciding to tie the knot. Unfortunately for Melody, Sirius was infuriatingly calm upon hearing about each and every one of these engagements. Apparently he had no problem at all discussing marriage as long as he himself wasn't directly involved.

Further, their relationship had recently become so pleasant Melody didn't fancy the idea of disturbing it for much of anything. They were performing better than ever as Beaters during Quidditch practice, even with the dismal weather they'd been having lately. With the unpleasant tension between Sirius and Melody gone, the rest of the team seemed to relax; the Chasers stopped second-guessing the location of the Bludgers, trusting Melody and Sirius to clear the way, and James was freed to look for the Snitch because he didn't have to keep worrying about whether his team was in danger of getting bloody noses all the time.

Beyond Quidditch, Melody found that they simply had more time to talk. There was less snogging, less of...other things...and they just...hung out all the time. They talked about everything and nothing--Quidditch, dueling, N.E.W.T.s, life after Hogwarts (was there such a thing?), joke products, candy, Death Eaters, the Ministry, Dumbledore, Voldemort.... They talked about everything, really, except their relationship. It seemed assumed that everything was going fine, and there was no need to take things forward or backward.

This all was fine, really, for now. Really. They were very comfortable--comfortable in a way they'd never been before, and the thought of disturbing that seemed almost blasphemous.

The problem wasn't them, Melody reasoned. It wasn't Sirius and it wasn't her and it wasn't how they felt about each other. The problem, really, was everybody else. The problem was the outside world. The uncertainty, the panic. The fear. The problem, when you got right down to it, was Voldemort. It was always Voldemort, had always been Voldemort, would always be Voldemort. Nothing would settle quite right in the world until he was gone. All the kids being pulled out of school--all the rushed marriages--everything--it all pointed to a deep-rooted fear that everyone's lives would be over before they knew it, and there was a fierce desire to spend all remaining time on Earth with loved ones. Melody had this crazy idea that she'd like to spend the rest of her time on Earth with the person who would make her most happy.

The problem--Melody's eternal problem these days--was trying to figure out how to explain this to Sirius without disturbing the happiness they already shared...happiness was hard to come by these days, and it seemed a shame to waste it.

The weather was finally pretty by the time the Hogsmeade weekend rolled around, and students happily walked up and down the streets of the town, chatting, shopping, and blatantly ignoring the slew of homework they were being assigned in anticipation of Easter holidays (just two weeks away)--and, in the Seventh Years' case, in anticipation of the N.E.W.T.s.

After a drink in the Three Broomsticks with the Marauders and various assorted friends, Lily and Mimi wandered down a side street of Hogsmeade together, looking for a potions shop. They'd had a couple late nights of it together, trying to work out more precisely just how potions worked, and trying to concoct a potion that would soothe scratches--or, more specifically, werewolf scratches. This proved both tricky and scary, because they had nothing to test the potions on but themselves, and if something went terribly wrong there was no immediate remedy. Lily was still a bit hesitant about the wisdom of this whole plan, but Mimi was adamant.

Today, though, it was hard to be worried overmuch about Potions. On a day like today, it was difficult to be worried about much of anything.

"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" Lily mused, tipping her head back to stare at the sheer blueness of the sky. "This is one of our last Hogsmeade visits ever. It's almost over."

"Don't remind me," Mimi advised. "I can't even imagine life outside of Hogwarts. What was it like before we came here?"

Lily tried to think that far back, but found it hard. Before Hogwarts, there had been...her father. Her family. Her...

"I dunno," she replied. "It's hard to believe there was a time when we didn't know any of this even existed."

"Yeah," Mimi agreed. "And it's hard to believe there was a time before you were in love with Quidditch," she teased.

"Oh, shut it," Lily said, but she grinned.

"Ah, here we are," Mimi announced, stopping in front of a small shop with a display of newt tails, frog livers, and unicorn horns in the window.

"Excellent," Lily said, unable to hide her somewhat nerdy excitement at being asked to prowl around a potions store for an hour looking for something--anything--that might be useful in a healing potion. Lily wasn't like a walking textbook or anything--she wasn't nearly as bad as all that--but she was still rather more familiar with One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi than she liked to admit, and became dorkily happy when she was able to apply this knowledge to anything relating to her and Mimi's attempts at Potion making.

"Here," she said to Mimi as they strolled around the store, gazing at bottles and bottles full of frog eyes, bat wings, powdered bicorn horn, and peculiar slimy substances not even Lily recognized. "You might want to try some of this essence of murtlap. It's generally used to soothe scratches and things on its own, but...well, for what we're doing it might work better in a Potion."

Mimi nodded and took several bottles off the shelf, dropping them into a small basket she'd picked up for shopping, and continued following Lily around the store, adding Potions ingredients to the basket as necessary. Werewolf scratches weren't like regular scratches; they were very difficult to heal, even with magic, and this was the main reason Remus looked so woebegone most of the time. His scars generally started fading near the end of the month, but then the full moon would come again and he'd have fresh scratch marks to worry about. Mimi wasn't sure what made werewolf scratches so hard to heal, but she was determined to help in any way she could--if she could. She'd decided to keep Remus ignorant of her plans for now; it was difficult to say how he would react.

Once they'd toured the store and cobbled together as many relevant Potions ingredients they could think of, the girls pooled their money to pay (a disturbing twelve Galleons and nine Sickles) and shoved the lot into Lily's bottomless bag before wandering innocently back to the main streets of Hogsmeade. They stopped at the post office briefly so Lily could send off her applications for Potions school, using several domestic and international owls in the process. The girls then headed for Honeydukes, where a large crowd of Hogwarts students had gathered. Lily happily spotted James in the crowd (his pockets were already bulging; apparently he and Sirius had just come up the street from Zonko's Joke Shop) and convinced him to buy her a box of Sugar Quills and some Chocolate Frogs, as her own purse was beginning to feel tragically empty.

After wandering around a bit more with Mimi and Sirius (where their significant others had got to was anybody's guess) and stopping to chat with a few schoolmates, Lily and James decided to catch one of the horseless carriages back to school early, and arrived back at Hogwarts well before dinner.

"What are you going to do now?" James asked as they walked up the front steps of the school, holding hands.

"Dunno," Lily shrugged. "Got a couple hours before we eat...I've got a pile of homework waiting for me, so I probably ought to be doing that...why?"

James paused on the middle of the steps and evaluated the sky, which had turned the pale blue color of very late afternoon. "It's a beautiful day out. Come on."

He led her back down the steps and started walking across the lawn toward the Quidditch Pitch.

"You're not going to try to teach me how to fly again, are you?" Lily asked suspiciously.

"Nah, you're hopeless," James said, grinning. Lily tried very hard not to roll her eyes. "But there are brooms involved."

He led her to the broom shed rather than to the pitch, and got out two well-worn school brooms.

"And we're going...?" Lily asked.

"Up there," James said vaguely, pointing. "Roof," he clarified.

"Ah," remarked Lily, suddenly feeling much fonder of this plan. The roof was one of her favorite places to escape to when life at Hogwarts became overwhelming, and she had several fond memories of sitting on the roof with James.

She followed him up. Lily still wasn't brilliant at flying, but at least she wasn't as shaky as she had once been, and anyway the thought of relaxing with James for a few hours made her happy enough not to care much about whether she was flying smoothly or not.

Once they'd gotten to the roof, they both set down their bags and their brooms and placed clever sticking charms on them so they wouldn't fall off. Then they both sat down to have a gaze at the sun and the sky, the lawns and the forest and the great inky black lake stretching out toward the mountains. For a long while, neither of them spoke. James just slipped his arm around Lily and she rested her head on his shoulder and they sat there living in a sort of soft happy glow until the first streaks of orange and pink shot across the sky. Lily sighed happily and leaned into James, enjoying the warm feeling of his body next to hers as the air slowly cooled around them.

James shifted and turned so he could kiss her. Lily closed her eyes as happy tingles exploded inside her head and raced down to the tips of her fingers and her toes. The world spun around her, but Lily stayed still, holding James's face between her hands and reveling in the mad dizzy rush as she kissed James back, inviting him to wrap his arms around her--kiss her slowly--get his fingers tangled up in her long auburn hair--

It didn't matter what he did, really, as long as he didn't let go for a while.

James appeared to be reading Lily's thoughts, because he kissed her for quite a long time. Long, slow, kisses--kisses that made it seem like they had all the time in the world to be together, and further that all James wanted to do with that time was kiss her until her toes fell off with tingles, until her heart stopped, until her brain was reduced to a big pile of mush that didn't care about much of anything except being wrapped up in James's arms.

And meanwhile all around them the sky blazed various shades of orange, pink, red, and purple, different colors streaking across it as the sun continued its slow dip behind the mountains. The light became softer, sweeter, more flattering, and when James finally, finally pulled away Lily thought he looked even more handsome than normal, particularly since he hadn't bothered to open his eyes yet and seemed perfectly content to just sit there with his arms around Lily, breathing somewhat irregularly and making no attempt whatsoever to disentangle his hand from Lily's hair.

Lily realized, with something vaguely resembling shock, that if she hadn't already been so madly in love with him, she would have fallen in love with him just then. This did not, however, stop her from falling in love with him again, which she promptly did. Her necklace glowed happily for a brief moment and then faded against the glow of the setting sun.

James had bothered opening his eyes and was now looking at her in a mushy sort of way that would have probably made the other Marauders gag behind his back and then tease him mercilessly for weeks on end, but it merely made Lily lean closer and tilt her head to kiss his neck, and then his cheek, and then his chin, and then his lips again.

It was easily the most romantic thing Lily and James had done for weeks.

"I love you," James murmured, kissing her neck, her earlobe, her cheek.

Lily smiled and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer and whispering, "Love you too," into his ear.

There were so many things she'd wished for on this rooftop--so many things she never thought she'd have--and--so many things she'd lost...so many things she'd lost since the first time she flew above the school, searching for a place to be alone with her thoughts and her dreams and her life. And James was...well, when he wasn't being a complete dunderhead, he was pretty perfect.

"Lily, d'you remember the first time we met?" James murmured as they shifted back to their original position on the rooftop--his arm around her, her head on his shoulder.

"What, do you mean you terrorizing me in Flying Class in First Year or you spilling a great big bottle of ink down the front of my brand-new dress robes in Fifth Year?"

Lily couldn't see it, but James's cheeks flamed slightly pink. "The--er--ink bottle thing."

"Yes, I remember. What about it?"

"Well...er...I mean, I was going to say that I thought you were...um...now that you mention it, how did it come off that I spilled a bunch of ink down your robes? I didn't--erm--come off as too big of a prat, did I?"

Lily couldn't help herself--she giggled. "It wasn't your finest moment," she admitted, "but...I mean, if anything, your reaction made me like you more rather than less. You didn't seem as full of yourself as usual. It made you seem more interesting, I think. Less...one-dimensional."

"I am not one-dimensional!" James sounded rather offended.

"Oh, calm down, that was before I really knew you. All I knew about you back then was that you were some big Quidditch player who strutted around with his hair mussed up all the time looking silly."

"I do not strut," James sulked. "And my hair isn't silly."

Lily giggled again. "Oh, please, James...your hair is ridiculous." But she reached up and ruffled it affectionately, soothing his wounded pride with a kiss on the cheek.

"So you just thought I was some silly-looking Quidditch player? That's it?"

"Well, and clumsy," Lily said thoughtfully. "After all, you had just spilled a bottle of ink on me."

James's cheeks were now very obviously pink. "I see."

Lily looked at him curiously. "Don't look so embarrassed, James. It was a long time ago. Why did you bring it up anyway?"

"Well--I was going to say that I--I mean, I thought you were--" But he cut himself off, looking as though he thought it might be foolish to continue.

"Oh, don't stop now," Lily encouraged. "What did you think of me? And...why did you spill that bottle of ink in the first place? You haven't spilled anything on me since; you're really not clumsy at all."

James seemed to feel better after she said this. "Well--I was going to say--I thought you...er...looked beautiful. Yeah. Really--really pretty. And that was--that was why I tripped and sent that ink bottle flying at you. I was kind of--erm--struck."

He seemed to regret saying this as soon as it was out of his mouth, and his cheeks turned pinker than ever. Lily, however, felt her insides turn to complete mush and tried not to feel obscenely girly as her lower lip quivered with extreme happiness. "Really?" she managed, wondering vaguely when James had become so incredibly, wonderfully (almost sickeningly, really) sweet.

"Er...yeah," James said, scratching his head awkwardly. "That'd be...that'd be what I thought," he added lamely. He looked, if possible, even more embarrassed now than he had a moment ago, as though he'd suddenly become painfully aware of the extreme mushiness of his statement. He avoided looking at Lily and chose to glance around the rooftop instead, as though he expected Sirius to pop out of nowhere and start making fun of him for being such a sap.

Lily, however, was not about to let this statement slip away unnoticed. She grabbed his face in her hands and pulled him into a fierce kiss. This seemed to ease his embarrassment, because when he pulled away he looked happily dazed rather than distracted.

"You're amazing...did you know that?" Lily asked.

"Er...well...yeah," James said, shrugging and trying to act cocky, but the smile he gave her was so utterly, hopelessly, completely dopey that she couldn't help grinning back.

"Oh, I don't want this to end," Lily moaned, burying her face into James's shoulder. "It's been so...wonderful."

"Erm--well--I wasn't planning on breaking up with you," James managed awkwardly.

"No, I don't mean us," Lily said, rolling her eyes. "I meant...all this." She gestured widely, out toward the lake, across the grounds, around the school. "Hogwarts. It's been...." She trailed off and shrugged helplessly. There weren't really words for everything Hogwarts meant to her.

"Yeah," James agreed, nodding slowly. "I understand."

Lily sighed and fitted herself against him once more, his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder. The sunset was still blazing beautifully before them. More carriages were starting to arrive back at the school, depositing students out front, who hurried up the steps to get inside for dinner. Lily vaguely registered her hunger, but ignored it. There were more important things to think about right now, and anyway it would be more fun nicking food from the kitchens after with James than it would be to disrupt this moment for a plate of sandwiches.

The big fluffy clouds in the sky above them were tinged different colors now, various shades of pink and purple and orange, and they looked vaguely like big celestial swirls of...

"Cotton candy," Lily realized, smiling.

"Huh?" James said.

"The clouds...don't they look like cotton candy?"

"What? What's cotton candy? Who in the world would want to turn cotton into candy?"

Lily laughed, and then thought of her conversation with James about Milk Duds on this very roof and laughed harder. James looked at her like she was a crazy person, and when she finally calmed down and turned to him and tried to explain what cotton candy was, he looked even more befuddled.

"Oh, never mind," she sighed finally, exasperated, and turned back to watch the sun set.

Yes, Lily thought as the last rays of the sun slipped behind the mountains, he really is a dunderhead. But...he's quite perfect, all the same.

The evening before the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff Quidditch game, Melody holed herself up in a deserted classroom to practice spells. She did this sometimes when she was bored or frustrated or just needed to clear her head. It seemed like essential practice for dueling, too, to work on quickly and accurately performing silent spells, so she practiced on various objects around the room, jinxing and destroying random things before silently performing counterjinxing and repairing charms. She worked through the extensive list of spells she knew by heart and focused on aiming and performing them as accurately and quickly as possible.

Her concentration was interrupted mid-spell, however, by an owl that suddenly swooped up next to one of the windows and began tapping on it. Irritated, Melody halted her spell work and opened the window, untying the scroll attached to the owl's leg hastily and tossing it aside to finish her practice. Whatever it was would just have to wait.

She found herself unable to concentrate as well as she had a moment ago, however; her mind kept straying to the unopened letter lying on the desk. Finally, after performing three badly botched spells in a row, Melody gave up and stuffed her wand back into her robes, grabbing the letter and making her way back up to Gryffindor Tower. She unfurled the scroll as she walked, and as soon as she saw the slanted, spidery writing her heart stopped.

The letter was from Lucifer Malfoy.

Her heart started again with a painful lurch, and Melody gasped for breath, staring dumbfounded at the parchment, her eyes unfocused and aghast. "Gobbledegook," she managed, upon reaching the portrait of the Fat Lady, and the portrait swung open to admit her to the common room.

Melody couldn't bring herself to read the letter. As soon as she'd got over the initial shock, she rolled the parchment up again, tightly, and tied it up hastily before shoving it into her trunk, burying it under a pile of books and several school robes before slamming the trunk lid shut over it.

Lucifer Malfoy had no business intruding on her life at Hogwarts, and so his letter lay silent and unread on the bottom of her trunk for months, forgotten.

It was a drizzly day for a Quidditch match, and the school wasn't nearly as excited about it as they might have been, had anyone thought Hufflepuff actually had a chance against Ravenclaw. All Ravenclaw had to do was win the match--no matter by how slim a margin--and they were first place heading into the final, just barely edging out Gryffindor.

"Hey Remus, I bet you five Galleons Ravenclaw wins," Melody said at breakfast.

Remus snorted. "Fat chance. There's no way I'm taking that bet."

Lily, who was currently hiding behind an edition of the Daily Prophet, poked her head over the top and said, "Doesn't Melody still owe you money from some bet or something? From a long time ago?"

Melody and Remus both stared at her for a moment, and then, suddenly, Remus remembered.

"You're right! She does! Fork over the money, Cauldwell, we all know you're good for it."

Melody, however, did not seem to remember this at all. "What? What in the world are you guys talking about? I don't owe Remus anything."

"Erroneous," Remus said promptly. "You owe me five Galleons. I don't remember why, but I know that you do, so cough it up." He held out his hands, and Melody pushed them away.

"I do not! Seriously, I don't remember this...why would I owe you five Galleons?"

"No idea," Remus said, smiling cheerfully, "but I know you do. We bet on it. Fifth Year."

"Fifth--Fifth Year? Are you serious? You can't call me out on a silly five-Galleon bet we made during Fifth Year!"

"You're right, how rude of me. I've forgotten to charge you interest. That'll be ten Galleons, then, and don't hesitate to pay me immediately."

Melody gaped at him for a moment and then recovered herself. "No. I refuse. I'm not going to pay you until you tell me what the bet was over."

"Haven't the foggiest," Remus admitted again, but this did not seem to trouble him a bit. "Don't argue, though, even Lily remembers--you've got to pay up now--"

Melody glared over at Lily, who retreated sheepishly behind her edition of the Prophet. "I don't remember what the bet was over either," she mumbled, before Remus could ask her for assistance. "I just remember Remus telling Melody she owed him five Galleons...."

Lily was saved from persecution, however, and Melody from having to pay up, by the sudden decision of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team to vacate their table and head for the locker rooms. The Hufflepuff team followed shortly, and the rest of the student body, en masse, decided that the time was right to head for the stands. Melody and Remus squabbled on their way out to the pitch, but Lily ignored them, choosing to walk instead with James, and when they arrived in the stands, Mimi and Sirius rather wisely decided to pull their significant others away from each other and seat them on opposite ends of the bench they chose in the stands.

Nearly everyone was cheering for Ravenclaw; if Hufflepuff won by less than four hundred points, Slytherin would advance to the final match to face Gryffindor. Slytherin House found itself in the odd position of cheering for Hufflepuff to win, and Hufflepuff found itself torn between cheering for a brutal victory for their team or just cheering for Ravenclaw, because no one wanted to see Slytherin advance in the tournament any further.

Frank Longbottom was commentating today, for reasons that did not become apparent until the end of the match.

Ravenclaw took a strong, early lead, and it became clear after their seventh unanswered goal that Hufflepuff had no hope of coming back. Sirius and James, who were sitting on either side of Lily, were analyzing Ravenclaw strategy over her head, hoping to pick up ideas for defensive strategy for the final match. Occasionally Melody jumped in to add an insight or two, but she spent the greater part of the match fuming and shooting dirty glances down the bench toward Remus.

"Hang on," Lily said, interrupting James and Sirius's conversation after Ravenclaw had scored its twelfth goal, making the score a lopsided one hundred and ten to twenty. "I think you're forgetting something absolutely crucial here--Ravenclaw is playing Hufflepuff. They're not using their best moves out there; they're working on an entirely different strategy now than they would if they were playing you. I mean--look, look right there--" She pointed as one of the Ravenclaw Chasers easily dodged a Bludger and headed for the goalposts.

"Aaand it's Filibuster, he swerves, he dodges, he swoops, fakes out the Hufflepuff Keeper aaand--GOAL to Ravenclaw!" Frank exclaimed as most of the crowd broke into an excited roar.

"See that?" Lily asked. "Ravenclaw's counting on the weakness of the Hufflepuff Beaters to let the Chasers into Hufflepuff territory. If that Bludger had been well-aimed, that Chaser would have had no chance of making it to the goalposts--he probably would've dropped the Quaffle and given Hufflepuff a chance to score. Hufflepuff's Chasers aren't that bad, really, it's just their Beaters and Keeper who are mediocre, and Ravenclaw's Keeper's too good for them...."

She trailed off, giving a great "ooh" of disappointment with the rest of the crowd as one of the Hufflepuff Beaters collided in midair with a Ravenclaw Chaser, apparently so distracted by the location of one of the Bludgers that he wasn't paying attention where he was flying.

"You know," Sirius said thoughtfully as Ravenclaw took its penalty shot ("Bladgrow gets it by the Hufflepuff Keeper easily, making the score a hundred and thirty to twenty...come on, Hufflepuff, you've got more in you than that!"). "I think dearest Lily-bean has a point."

"Don't call me that," Lily said automatically, as one of the Hufflepuff Beaters managed a good shot for once, and Hufflepuff scored a rare goal.

The game continued much in this same manner for the next hour, rain drizzling down occasionally to make the play a bit more slippery. Finally, however, the Ravenclaw Seeker spotted the Snitch hovering in mid-field, and made a fantastic dive into the midst of the action, where he was rewarded for his spectacular catch by taking a Bludger to the back before Madam Hooch could blow her whistle.

"Aaaand that seals the game up, putting Ravenclaw ahead at four hundred and twenty to eighty, bumping them up into first place heading into the Quidditch Final"--cheers erupted from the Ravenclaw section of the stands--"where they'll face a strong Gryffindor team in the final match"--Gryffindor House roared its approval--"and our condolences to Hufflepuff--and, ah--speaking of Hufflepuff--"

At this point, it became clear why Frank had weaseled his way into commentating, instead of allowing the bubbly third-year girl (who had commentated most of the matches in the fall term) to do it.

"I believe there's a lovely young Hufflepuff lady in the stands by the name of Alice--my girlfriend, incidentally--now, now, Professor, this is nothing inappropriate," he assured Professor McGonagall, who appeared to grabbing for the megaphone.

"It's just that I--ah--it's a very important day, you know, for Alice and I--our anniversary, as it were--and I--Professor, please, this is hard enough already without you hitting me."

The crowd laughed as one. Professor McGonagall had been indeed tapping him smartly on the shoulder, but, seeing Frank's determination, she gave up, exasperated. The student body had fallen silent (all except for a few rude Slytherins), and they were now staring at the commentator's booth expectantly. The Ravenclaw team had even put off celebrating their win, and were now hovering in a state of suspended curiosity above the pitch, along with the Hufflepuff team.

"Alice, dear--I was wondering--well--er--d'you think you'd--that is to say--"

"Oh, get on with it!" McGonagall snapped, now looking exasperated for different reasons, and the crowd laughed again.

"Alice-will-you-marry-me?" Frank asked, very quickly, and the crowd gave a great collective gasp.

From the middle of the Hufflepuff crowd came what sounded like a small explosion. A girl was shrieking happily, shoving her way through the crowd, and it took her less than a minute to bowl through most of the audience and make her way to the commentator's booth, where she threw herself at Frank, knocking the megaphone out of his hands.

Professor McGonagall retrieved the megaphone quickly. "I think we'll take that as a yes," she said crisply. "Kindly stop gawking and return to your dormitories."

With that, a great chatter broke out amongst the students, and Lily took James's hand and let him lead her through the crowd and back up to the castle.

"You know," she mused, once they'd gotten to the lawns and the crowd started to thin out a bit, "I can't think of a less romantic way of being proposed to."

"Er--you can't?" James asked, looking surprised.

"Well--maybe. If you were trapped in the middle of a sewer or something, that certainly wouldn't be romantic...but that's not really what I meant. I meant that, of all the carefully planned ways of proposing to a girl, I find that way the least romantic."

"Oh. But--but why?" pressed James, who could think of few things he loved more than Lily and Quidditch. And, after all, Lily loved Quidditch too, so...what was the problem?

"It's just so--public," Lily said, scrunching her nose up at the thought. "Who would want to answer a question like that in front of hundreds of people?"

"Alice didn't seem to mind," James pointed out.

"Well...no, but that's Alice. Some people are okay with that, I suppose."

"Well, if that's not romantic, then what is romantic, pray tell?"

Lily shrugged. "I dunno. Something...not public. It should be private, just between the two people involved. I don't...I don't think I'd even like to be proposed to in a restaurant. I'd much rather just...have it be personal. At a place that's...special, in some way. I guess."

At this point Lily became dreadfully aware of the fact that she was discussing this with her boyfriend, who she loved--and, she supposed, who she one day hoped to marry--but with whom she'd never actually discussed the subject of marriage. She wasn't sure she wanted to have this conversation with James just yet, so she hastily changed the topic to Quidditch, and she and James discussed the Ravenclaw-Gryffindor matchup the rest of the way up to the castle.

Mimi wiped a few drops of sweat from her forehead and bent over to check the steaming potion in front of her. It was bubbling smoothly and had recently turned a pale shade of green. Lily had suggested they stew a batch of lacewing flies in the potion for thirty days and check the results. Lacewing flies, she said, were a primary component in the Polyjuice Potion, and one of the main ingredients that helped affect the change in appearance. Since Mimi and Lily were trying to create a potion that would help alter the appearance of scars, this seemed reasonable; all they had to do was check on the potion once a day to stir it to ensure that the lacewing flies would not congeal.

Mimi did most of the checking and the stirring. She was grateful for Lily's help, but this was her project, and she took most of the responsibility on her shoulders.

Tonight, for example, she had plans to sneak out onto the grounds and pick several flowers and herbs by moonlight. There were certain ingredients that were only good when picked by the full moon, and Mimi happened to know that on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest there were a few plants that could prove useful in her potion making endeavors.

She had elected not to tell Lily of this plan, partly because Lily was Head Girl and Mimi didn't relish the idea of trying to explain why she wanted to break so many school rules for this, but another, smaller part of her was afraid that Lily would completely overlook the school rules and insist on coming with her. That would, in many ways, be far worse, because it would increase their chances of getting caught, and Lily--Head Girl or not--had no more right than anyone to be out on the grounds after hours.

Mimi was vaguely aware that James now had an Invisibility Cloak, but she wasn't quite bold enough to ask him if she could borrow it. She was afraid it might be too presumptuous of her to ask to use it, considering she and James had never been that close, but she was even more concerned that asking for the cloak would lead to uncomfortable questions about why she wanted to use it--questions that she was in no way prepared to answer. She could've come up with a lie, of course, but Mimi was not the most spectacular liar around. Even if she managed to come up with something convincing beforehand, she'd probably botch the retelling of it. So going it alone, she decided, would be sufficient.

Mimi gave the potion one final stir and walked over to the window to check the sky. Slightly cloudy, but the full moon had risen and was quite visible, shining brightly against the ink-black sky and bathing the grounds in silvery, pearly light. She thought briefly of Remus, alone and miserable in the Shrieking Shack, before fastening her long black cloak around her and sneaking out into the castle corridors.

She met with good luck the whole way down; she narrowly avoided Filch by ducking into a side passage and managed to hide behind a suit of armor as soon as she saw Peeves round a corner into her hallway. She waited silently behind the armor as Peeves bobbed along, merrily chucking what looked like blueberries onto the floor, only they couldn't possibly have been blueberries, as they exploded on contact and left a slimy, sticky-looking substance in their wake. Mimi waited until Peeves had disappeared around the far end of the corridor and Filch had come wheezing along, looking furious, before ducking out from behind the armor and hurrying down the final staircase to the Great Hall. From there it was no trouble at all to sneak out the great front doors and onto the school lawn, where she could only pray nobody would see her from the castle windows.

It was unfortunate that the full moon made the outdoors seem so very bright. She suspected that even hiding behind her hood and clutching her cloak tightly around her wouldn't be enough to conceal her from random onlookers, so she would simply have to make this quick and hope that there were no onlookers. She made it to the edge of the Forbidden Forest quickly enough, and it only took her a minute or so to find the herbs she was looking for. She fell to her knees and picked the plants eagerly, shoving them into the small sack she'd brought and hoping that it wouldn't damage them to be all shoved in together.

Things went smoothly until she started picking the third type of plant she needed, and then she froze, paralyzed by a sound that came echoing off the lake.

Howling. Unmistakable howling. A long, high-pitched, eager, terrifying noise that raised the hair on Mimi's arms and neck, left her straining for breath, groping blindly for the sack of herbs that she'd momentarily dropped, and stumbling, panic-stricken, back across the grounds toward the school.

Mimi had never heard a werewolf howl before, but she knew. She knew just as unmistakably as she knew she was a witch that she'd just heard a werewolf howl somewhere over by the not-so-very-far-away lake, and knew beyond anything she'd known before that it was Remus, that he'd smelled her somehow, that he was coming after her, completely unaware of himself--of who she was--of what it meant--

Mimi ran. Her heart pounded painfully, her breath came in short, heaving, dreadful gasps, and she focused with all her might on the castle looming before her--on the great oak front doors that seemed so very far away--that didn't seem to be getting closer at all--

And then, suddenly, behind her she heard the pounding of paws, heard a great terrifying beast bounding after her, and in one great shining moment of stupidity, Mimi Ramirez made the most catastrophic mistake of her young life. She glanced around to look. Just once, just barely, just for an instant, and the sight of a full-grown, snarling, bloodthirsty werewolf took all the breath out of her. She wheezed and she stumbled and she fell.

The werewolf was upon her in two bounds. She didn't have time to think, didn't have time to yell, didn't have time to push herself up off the ground before--

"AAAAUGH!" Mimi half-groaned, half-screamed, half-fainted with pain. The werewolf split her thigh open, one set of sharp, angry claws digging into her skin and ripping away entire chunks of flesh, slicing a gash in her leg that tore all the way through to her muscle.

The world exploded in a kaleidoscope of pain, and Mimi collapsed, clutching her leg, with no room in her brain to even think about pulling out her wand--trying to fight it--trying to prevent the werewolf from sinking its jaws into her neck, from killing her, or perhaps just biting into her and then abandon her, leaving her to a lifetime of painful transformations that would forever alienate her from the wizarding community--leave her trapped in a condition she had absolutely no means to fight--helpless and alone and--

It took Mimi a while to realize that the werewolf was no longer on top of her, no longer attacking her, no longer ripping into her flesh. Her vision cleared momentarily and she caught a glimpse of a great black dog tangled up in a vicious fight with the werewolf, snarling and snapping and generally preventing the werewolf from leaping back on top of Mimi to finish its job. Wearily Mimi turned her head and tried to roll over, tried to pull herself up--somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she had to leave--had to get back to school--had to escape or else she'd--

Mimi blinked. Apparently she'd progressed to hallucinations now, because suddenly right in front of her there stood a great stag, pawing the ground and snorting at her impatiently. It lowered its front legs to the ground and stared at her imploringly, snorting angrily in case she didn't get the point.

Mimi dragged herself over to the stag and threw her right leg over its back, trying to ignore the explosion of pain in her ravaged left leg as she did so. The stag straightened up and Mimi held on for dear life. She nearly fell off as the stag cantered back toward the school. The sack of herbs lay forgotten behind her, now unimportant and abandoned.

The stag vaulted up the front steps of the castle and Mimi fell off as soon as it halted at the top. She managed to land on her back, which hurt immensely, but not quite as much as it would have hurt to land on her injured leg. She attempted to hoist herself up from the ground, rather unsuccessfully, and was rather astonished when a strong hand gripped her arm and pulled her upright, perhaps a bit more violently than necessary.

Nothing matched Mimi's astonishment, however, when she looked up and found that the stag had disappeared entirely, only to be replaced by James Potter, who was gripping Mimi's arm painfully and shaking with anger from head to toe, staring at her in white-faced fury.

"WHAT--THE--BLOODY--HELL--ARE--YOU--PLAYING--AT?" He bellowed, with complete disregard for the way Mimi was doubling over in pain, swaying on the spot in an attempt to balance herself on her one good leg. James appeared not to have time for this nonsense, as he grabbed her other arm and shook her once, which was painful, but when he didn't let go Mimi felt marginally steadier on her feet.

"Picking--stuff..." Mimi mumbled, before her head lolled forward and the world swam before her in an explosion of pain once more.

All attempts at thought were drowned out by James's yelling. He was entirely beside himself, and had Mimi been slightly more conscious she might have appreciated his rather terrifying and terror-stricken attitude.

She barely heard what James said, barely noticed when the front doors of school opened and an incensed Filch and Professor McGonagall were there to meet them, and hardly cared when fifty points were docked from both her and James's houses, they were both assigned a detention, and Mimi was carried off to the hospital wing.

She didn't know or care until morning that Remus had managed to vacate school premises and arrive back in the Shrieking Shack before anyone came to investigate, or that the great black dog that had saved her from the werewolf had also, somewhat miraculously, disappeared. She didn't piece together until morning, either, that James was the stag that had saved her, not some strange apparition that had appeared without sense or reason.

Even when Mimi was coherent again, she was not well, and had to remain secluded in the hospital wing for several days before Madam Pomfrey allowed her any visitors. When she finally was allowed visitors--to Mimi's very great surprise--the first people who came to see her were James, Sirius, and Peter, looking very somber and rather sick with themselves over her condition.

"Where's Remus?" Mimi asked as they gathered around her bed.

"Shh," James said, pulling out his wand. He whispered "Muffliato" before pocketing it and drawing the curtains closely around Mimi's bed. "We need to talk to you in private," he explained. "This is important."

Mimi stared round at all of them, looking pale and careworn and rather--shaggier--than when they'd seen her last. "Are you going to tell me why Remus wasn't in the Shrieking Shack that night?" she asked softly. "Are you going to tell me why James seems to be able to turn into a stag?"

"Yes," James said heavily, and pulled up a chair, looking as though he felt this might take a while.

And so it was that the Marauders divulged their deepest, darkest secret to one more person outside of their small circle, forcing Mimi to promise that she wouldn't tell anyone that they were all Unregistered Animagi before they left the hospital wing. She took in this information gracefully--perhaps she was still a bit in shock over everything--and hardly spoke at all until James, Sirius, and Peter stood to leave.

"Wait," she beckoned. "Where's Remus?"

The boys exchanged uncomfortable looks.

"Look, he's, uh...not feeling too well at the moment," James managed, scratching his head awkwardly. "You might want to give it a few more days."

Mimi looked disappointed, but somewhat unsurprised.

"I think he's a bit--sick--over what happened," Sirius added, looking a bit uncomfortable with the topic.

Mimi just nodded and waved limply as they walked away.

She'd only been trying to help him. How would he ever, ever, ever forgive her after this?

Lily waited for him nervously in their favorite room, the one behind the dragon tapestry on the fourth floor, fiddling with her necklace. She couldn't sense him coming, exactly, but she could tell when he was just outside the door, and stood to greet him anxiously.

"Well?" she asked.

"Mimi's fine...or as fine as she can be," James said, looking weary. Lily gave him a quick hug and tugged him to the couch, where they both sat down.

"James, I still don't understand why you didn't want me to visit--"

"Just wait, I'll explain," he promised, and took a moment to rest his head on the back of the couch. He rubbed his hands over his eyes, thinking. "What's most important, Lily," he began, sighing, "is that you don't go thinking I've been lying to you. Because I haven't." He seemed to take this most seriously, and opened his tired eyes to stare into Lily's.

Lily blinked and stared at him, unaware of how impressively green and completely lost-looking her eyes were. She was further unaware of the guilt churning in James's stomach, though naturally she had some inkling that his conscience was not entirely clear.

"Well?" she prompted again.

James pushed himself away from the back of the couch and sat up straight, so that he was taller than her once more. "I haven't been keeping anything from you," he said softly, "that has anything to do with us."

Lily grasped his hands, feeling uneasy. "James--what have you--"

"You know that...that Remus is a werewolf, yes?"

Lily nodded slowly.

"And of course you know that we all know he is."

She nodded again, a bit baffled as to where this was going.

"Well, Lily...you know...you know we call him Moony. Because of...of his furry little problem."

It was a mark of how concerned Lily was about all this that she did not snort in laughter. She couldn't quite manage speaking, however, and simply nodded again.

"And I'm sure you've heard us...all of us...referring to one another with...somewhat odd nicknames every now and again, haven't you? And we've never explained it properly?"

"Ye...es," Lily said slowly, as a suspicious buzzing picked up in the back of her brain.

"Well...you see...being the friends we are, Sirius and I couldn't just--and well, Peter too, although of course you know he's mildly hopeless at Trans--well--that is to say--it wasn't something we thought Remus ought to go through every month alone--holed up inside the Shrieking Shack, you know, and--oh. Oh, you didn't know."

Lily's eyebrows had shot up toward the ceiling at the mention of the Shrieking Shack. James seemed to welcome this momentary diversion.

"That's how he gets around as a werewolf," James explained. "Or...doesn't, rather. But that's how he's been keeping away from the students, you see? All...all alone in there, no one to bite."

"But...but he hasn't been alone?" Lily asked faintly, half-afraid of the answer.

"Not...quite as alone as...as you might imagine."

"James, what did you--"

"The reason I didn't want you to go and visit Mimi," he said hastily. "Is because--because she knows. Found out, most unfortunately, about...us. And--and I didn't think you ought to hear it from her, because--well, because I think you've earned every right to hear it from me."

Lily stared at him blankly, but her brain was still buzzing with suspicion. He hadn't--he couldn't have--and surely not Peter--

"Please try not to be alarmed," James advised, and he got up, backing away from the couch. "I just want you to know that we all--we promised not to tell, otherwise--"

"Oh, get on with it," Lily managed, sounding faint again.

And so Lily blinked and stared in stunned silence as her boyfriend, with a faint popping sound, transformed from the tired, scruffy, wild-haired seventeen-year-old before her into a great, antlered, shining stag, its full and glossy coat gleaming in the firelight.

Mimi was not allowed to leave the hospital wing for another several weeks. She became quite agitated at having to lay in bed for so long, but as the wound on her leg was not healing particularly well and had started secreting a greenish-purplish slimy looking substance, she wasn't exactly keen on frolicking around the grounds with the rest of the students, either--especially considering the rumors they'd undoubtedly cooked up in her absence. They knew she was still at school, of course--once a day there strangers came by the hospital wing claiming to be friends of hers and craning their necks for a good look at her, but Madam Pomfrey (thankfully) shooed most of them away.

According to Lily, most of the school was now convinced that Mimi was sprouting fur and speaking only in growls, and very few students seemed to have grasped that sustaining a werewolf scratch was not nearly as transformative as sustaining the bite--although, Mimi suspected, had she sustained a bite, far less students would be interested in coming to check on her progress. She wasn't nearly as bad as the rumors suggested, but her hair did seem to be growing a bit faster than usual--already her normally neat brown locks were growing in long scraggly curls down her back--and her senses of smell and hearing had improved quite a bit.

But none of this mattered very much to Mimi; it was extremely boring, living in the Hospital Wing. She only got visitors once a day, she was confined to her bed, and although she was spared the agony of having to sit through lessons, she still had to spend hours at a time poring over schoolbooks and writing vicious essays for all of her teachers in preparation for the ever-advancing N.E.W.T.s. Plus, and perhaps worst of all, the one person from whom she'd most desperately been wishing to receive a visit had not yet come. Once or twice she thought she'd seen Remus lurking outside the Hospital Wing, but each time he'd hurried out of sight the moment he sensed that Mimi might be looking at him.

Mimi had begged Lily, begged Melody, begged each of the other Marauders in turn to talk sense into him, to ask him to come see her, but he had not yet obliged. It seemed, in fact, that he was avoiding all of them, that he hadn't spoken to anyone outside of class in several weeks, and that there was, apparently, something very brutal going on inside his head that he did not see fit to share with anyone. Mimi wrote him dozens of notes that she had various people and owls deliver to him, but she wasn't sure if he read or even cared about them.

Just when Mimi was about to give up hope, however--just when it looked like Madam Pomfrey had her on the mend, and she'd be able to limp to classes on her own soon, if not walk--Remus finally came to visit her. Mimi was so stunned she could think of little to say except "Hi," and just stared at him unblinkingly for a few long moments as he sat by her bed, looking deeply tired and sad and a little stricken.

"Mimi," he said finally, and rather hoarsely, as though his voice wasn't something he was quite used to using these days. "I...." He seemed almost to lose his nerve, but then shook his head and took in a deep breath, as though steeling himself for something. He was resolutely staring at Mimi's bed sheets and not anywhere near her face. "I have no reason to expect you to ever forgive me."

Emotions hit Mimi in a rush, and she burst out, "But I do, Remus, I--"

But he plowed on, appearing not to have heard her. "I hope you'll understand...after everything that's happened...after what I almost...." He trailed off again, looking ill, but rallied himself quickly. "It would be poor judgment for us to stay together."

"What?" Mimi exploded, feeling shocked and hurt and--well--perhaps, considering the way he'd been avoiding her, she shouldn't have been all that surprised, but still--all the same--he couldn't possibly blame himself for--

Remus's eyes dropped to the floor so she could not see the expression in them at all anymore. "I've been so stupid, Mimi. We've--I never thought--there were close calls, but never--I would never want to--"

Mimi burst out all her thoughts at once, babbling. "Remus, no--listen, I forgive you--it's all right--look at me, I'm fine, and anyway it was all my fault--you can't blame yourself, you just can't--I was breaking school rules, I ought to be punished--well, I am being punished, but--oh, Remus, please...you don't need forgiveness, it's me...please forgive me...."

Remus looked at her for the first time, but it was not a pleasant stare. He gazed at her as though she were barking mad. "Don't you understand?" he demanded, sounding furious for the first time. "This is all my fault--I was too stupid--too cocky--I betrayed Dumbledore's trust," he hissed, very softly, afraid of Madam Pomfrey overhearing them. "I should've just stayed in the Shack like I told you I did--like I promised--I can't control myself when I transform; you saw me, you know...how could you possibly...after what I did to you...."

"But--but it's like you said," cried Mimi desperately, near tears. "You're not in control of yourself--you couldn't help it--how could I possibly blame you for--when I shouldn't have been out there in the first place, when I knew it was full moon--"

"Mimi, I'm too much of a danger to you," Remus insisted, now looking vaguely annoyed that she wasn't taking him at his word. "We shouldn't--we can't--how could you possibly want to, after everything--"

"I was terrified," Mimi admitted softly, moving her gaze from his face for the first time to rest on her half-mangled leg. "For the first time, I understood...I knew why wizards feared werewolves...why they hated them...." She brushed her fingers over the foot-long gash in her skin and stared sickeningly at the green pus that stuck to them. Madam Pomfrey was having quite a time trying to keep the wound from infecting. She'd had a Healer down from St. Mungo's to have a look, but he'd said there wasn't much more the hospital could do for Mimi than Madam Pomfrey was already doing, so she'd simply kept on with applying ointment six times a day and watching anxiously to see how it healed.

"I realized afterwards," Mimi continued, "that the only reasonable thing to do was...was try and help. It isn't your fault," she repeated, softer, fiercer. "How you can even attempt to blame yourself when--"

"But I knew better," snapped Remus, looking rather angry that she was not taking him seriously. His voice was still a bit raspy, which only made him sound angrier. "I knew the risks--I've always known--I just couldn't resist because it was fun--because it was nice to feel I've got friends, good friends, friends who'd stick themselves out on a limb for me and--" he made a choking, strangling sound and looked intensely at the ground, trying to hide the shimmering tears in his eyes.

Mimi groped for his hand and grasped it, clenching his fingers between hers firmly. "They're not the only ones," she said fiercely, and decided the time was right to tell him about her attempts at potion-making, about her reason for being out on the grounds that night, about her ambitions to help him.

Far from looking flattered and appeased by her explanation, however, Remus looked aghast. "Mimi--I don't--what were you thinking? Anything could've happened to you--you could've killed yourself experimenting with Potions--listen to me, it's not worth it--there's nothing you can do for it, it just is what it is--blimey, Mimi, I'm not worth it!"

"Yes you are!" she shrieked, anguished, and at this Madam Pomfrey burst from her office and threw back the curtains around Mimi's bed.

"Is everything quite all right?" she demanded, staring at Remus suspiciously.

"Yes," Mimi said tightly. "We're fine, thanks."

Madam Pomfrey eyed Remus for another moment before glancing back at Mimi. "Another outburst, and it's out with visitors," she warned. "You need your rest."

And with that she closed the curtains and marched back to her office, shutting the door smartly behind her.

Mimi and Remus regarded each other awkwardly for a moment. Remus took the opportunity to speak first.

"Look, Mimi," he said, all traces of anger gone from his voice. He sounded sad again, his voice low and raspy, and he stared at the floor as he spoke. "I couldn't...I could never forgive myself if I put you in harm's way. Never. I can't forgive myself for what I've already done...all the damage I've...I never meant to...oh, God, Mimi, can't you see? Can't you see what it'll be like for me? Once a month, for several nights at a time, I have no control over who I am. I can't tell the difference between my worst enemy and my girlfriend, and...and worst of all, I don't care. When I transform, I...everything changes. And were I to stay with you, there would be simply no way for me to prevent myself...you'd be with me too often...sooner or later, it would go wrong. No, don't! Don't argue, Mimi--it would. It already did. And the next time, there...there'd be no one to save you. I could hardly save you from myself could I?

"I'm sorry, Mimi, but it's too much. It...it could never work. It's too risky, and...I care about you too much to let anything happen to you." He paused a moment, shifting uncomfortably. "Like I said, you have no business forgiving me, and it doesn't mean very much--doesn't mean anything at all, really--but I wanted you to know that--I am so sorry, Mimi. If I could go back in time and...well, I can't but...but if I could, I--" he cut himself off, sounding strangled again, and let his face fall into his hands.

After this speech, Mimi could think of little to say, so she just stared at him, stunned. She only found her voice again when Remus got up to leave.

"Remus, no," she managed, her voice strangled. "Please. Please...you can't go...this can't be over...please...." Hot tears began slipping silently down her cheeks.

Remus paused and glanced back at her face, and for one brief shining moment Mimi thought she'd done it--thought she'd gotten him back--his look of utter anguish was heartbreaking; it had to mean that he didn't want to leave her--didn't want to do this--

But then he looked away again, and, grasping the curtains tightly between his hands, whispered, "I'm so sorry, Mimi," before throwing the curtains aside and hurrying out of the hospital wing.

"No," Mimi moaned, half-hoping he'd come back, and she stared at the gap in her curtains helplessly for several moments before the real tears started flowing, and then she was bawling. She couldn't even turn over and sob properly into her pillow, because her injured leg would allow her no such thing. So she just sat there, sobbing, until Madam Pomfrey came hurrying out of her office and force-fed her a potion that not only calmed her crying but sent her into a swift, restful sleep.

When Remus finally spoke to the Marauders, he said only two words. "Never again," he informed them, his tone absolute.

None of them had the heart to argue with him. Their monthly adventures had been a source of joy, of excitement, for three years, but now, it seemed, the game was finally up. James and Sirius threw away their plans for next month's full moon without further comment, and the Marauders continued their lives in a very subdued manner for the next few weeks, as April sped past and Mimi slowly healed and was finally released from the hospital wing several days before the start of the summer term.

The summer term meant several things: first, that N.E.W.T.s were looming closer and uglier than ever, and second, that the Quidditch Final was nearly upon them, mere days away now. James, despite all that had happened--despite the many extraordinary things he'd seen and done in the past year--could hardly remember wanting to win the Quidditch Cup more. For one thing, it was his last great hurrah as Quidditch Captain--his last shining moment at Hogwarts--his last great opportunity to show the school just what he was made of--to go out with a bang--to prove to Lily that her sodding Ravenclaw Quidditch team was nowhere near as good as his--

Plus--as James so desperately kept trying to forget--it might very well be the last time James would ever get to play Quidditch as part of a real team. His ambitions to be an Auror did not exactly include playing Quidditch on the side. So...so this was it, really. And James, despite his considerable excitement, couldn't help feeling a bit sad that it all seemed to be drawing to a close so quickly.

The morning of the Quidditch Final, Lily helped Mimi rewrap her wound and hobble down the stairs to the Great Hall for breakfast. She sat at the Ravenclaw table today, thinking it unwise to bother James when he had such a furious look of constipation on his face. Plus she was bedecked entirely in blue, and it was undoubtedly smarter to wear such an ensemble at her own House table rather than parading it in front of a bunch of bloodthirsty Gryffindors who were clamoring for the Cup now more than ever, especially considering the decisive way Ravenclaw had snatched it from them the previous year.

Of course Lily wanted her own House to prevail, but a large subsection of her mind seemed not at all to object to the idea of James hoisting the Cup over his head--of Sirius and Melody whooping in joy at Ravenclaw's defeat--of Lily later sneaking into the Gryffindor Common Room to celebrate with some of her best friends--

It was not the first time in the past year Lily had wondered what it would have been like to be in Gryffindor House...to have known James all seven years instead of just three.... The Sorting Hat had almost put her in Gryffindor, of course, but on a slim decision stuck her in Ravenclaw, and Lily wondered...Lily wondered...

The post arrived in a great flutter of wings and hooting, and Lily was rather surprised when several owls swooped down over her plate and deposited letters.

"What're all those, Lil?" Mimi asked curiously, sniffing a piece of sausage before biting into it. She had a great craving for meat these days, although previous to her moonlight encounter she'd been much more of a fruit and vegetable sort of person.

"Dunno," Lily said absently, picking up the first envelope and ripping it open. As soon as she saw the heading on the letter, she knew--knew what all of them were. "Blimey," she whispered. "They're...they're my decisions. Well--some of them anyway...."

"Decisions? For what?"

"Potions school," Lily said quietly, skimming the first letter with a sinking heart. "I didn't get in. Well--not to this one anyway."

"How can they send you decisions already?" Mimi demanded, snatching the first letter away from Lily. It was for a small Potions school in France, and it didn't seem to think her essay had been quite impressive enough. "You haven't even taken your N.E.W.T.s yet!"

"I know," Lily sighed, "but some of the schools only require O.W.L. results."

"But you got an Outstanding on your Potions O.W.L.," Mimi pointed out. "How can anybody possibly reject you when--"

"I dunno, Mimi," Lily shrugged, ripping open the next one. "Oh, here--here's one in London--I've gotten into this one, but--blimey, look at the cost--"

Mimi snatched this one out of Lily's hand as well and her eyes bugged out at the amount of Galleons they wanted per year. "You'd better hope that last one is more reasonably priced," she said, nodding at the last letter Lily was poised to open.

"Yeah," she agreed, and ripped it open fiercely, unwilling to hesitate any longer. It was rather thicker than the last two letters had been, and its contents spilled out all over her empty plate. Lily gawked as she read it, and continued gawking as she picked up a second piece of paper and read that as well.

"What?" Mimi demanded, staring at her curiously. "What is it?" She reached over and snatched several of the papers from Lily, and when she'd read them her mouth fell open and she gawked as well.

Lily had not only been accepted at a Potions school--she'd been offered a job, as well. They wanted her to start teaching introductory Potions straightaway, and explained that her wages would be put toward her schooling fees.

"Lily--this is perfect," Mimi breathed. "That's amazing--after only receiving your O.W.L. results--what will James say when he finds out?"

Lily blanched, and Mimi blinked at her curiously.

"What? You don't...you don't think James will be happy for you?"

"No, of course he will, it's just..."

"Just what?" Mimi exploded, looking exasperated.

"Look at where the school is, Mimi. Look at the heading."

"Tarwinian and Garbey's Noble School of Potions, est. 1685, Fremantle, Aust--Australia? You applied to a Potions school in Australia?"

Lily nodded numbly. "I applied everywhere Dumbledore suggested."

"Dumbledore--Dumbledore suggested Australia?"

"Please stop saying it like that," Lily requested faintly. "He just handed me a stack. It seemed wisest to apply everywhere."

"Corking," Mimi muttered. "Corking mad."

"It's just a letter. I don't have to accept."

Mimi regarded her suspiciously. "But you want to, don't you? It's an amazing offer--teaching straightaway--and going to school--"

Lily swallowed, looking vaguely ill, and did not answer.

"Do you think you'll go?"

Lily shrugged mutely.

"What are you going to tell James?"

Lily merely shrugged again, trying to look noncommittal, but her brain was burning with the possibilities. Australia--a new life, far away from memories of home and pain and Voldemort...a fresh start...but a cowardly start, running away from everything that still frightened her...it shouldn't even have been an option...she shouldn't even be considering it...and anyway it wasn't worth mentioning to James, was it? Not if she still had other schools to hear back from--not if she still had to wait for the results of her N.E.W.T.s to hear from some of the places she was really interested in--

Never mind. It wasn't a bother.

Lily gathered the contents of the envelope hastily and shoved them inside. "Don't worry about it," she advised Mimi, coming to her senses abruptly. "It's a good offer, but there will be others. And--and it's Quidditch today, besides. Let's just worry about that for now, shall we?"

And, refusing to say anymore on the subject, Lily stowed the letters deep inside her pockets and served herself some eggs and bacon, shoving all thoughts of Potions school out of her head and trying to think of nothing but the all-important Quidditch match that loomed over the rest of the day.