Eyes as Green as a Fresh Pickled Toad

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Final Prank

The students stood divided. One half of the stands was a great mass of scarlet; the other, a massive blob of blue. In the midst of all this was a solitary patch of green, sticking out between the other colors like a stubborn grass stain.

"Slytherins," Lily muttered, rolling her eyes and pointing.

"They're such little buggers," Mimi agreed, shaking her head. She and Lily were moving rather slower than the rest of the crowd because of Mimi's limp. Mimi had a small cane now to help her walk, but she much preferred using it to whack the heels of the people in front of her when they got in her way.

"What d'you think they're planning on doing...cheering against both teams?" Lily wondered.

"Well, I for one," came a vaguely familiar voice from behind them, "will be cheering for Ravenclaw, although I think some of my housemates have the general idea of mocking both teams."

Lily turned around and was immensely surprised to see Sally Parkinson walking behind her, dressed mostly in green but with several accents of blue.

"Sally!" said Lily, stunned. She hadn't seen or spoken to Sally much since Auror Training, and in the last several months had hardly given thought to her or Naomi at all.

Sally smiled in a sly sort of way. "I don't suppose you're torn overmuch about the match?" She indicated Lily's robes of vivid blue.

"Ravenclaw is my house, isn't it?" Lily replied, drawing herself up in what she hoped was a dignified manner.

"Indeed," Sally agreed, somewhat vaguely. "But it's not your boyfriend's house, now is it?"

"I don't see what a difference that should make," Mimi said bluntly.

Sally looked at her as though noticing her for the first time. "Perhaps it doesn't," she said, shrugging. "I was just asking...." She trailed off, scanning the crowd. "Well, enjoy the game then...I see my friends...."

With a slight wave she vanished into the crowd.

"I'm not sure I like that girl too much," Mimi said, as they finally made it to the stairs leading up into the stands.

Lily shrugged noncommittally. "She's all right, I guess. She takes some getting used to." But, Lily thought as she and Mimi began climbing the stairs into the stands, it was very reassuring that someone like Sally would still be talking to her at all, when the general trend of the students was to ignore everyone but their own personal group of friends.

"What was the point of her question, anyway?" Mimi wondered, apparently still irritated. "I mean, you are in Ravenclaw, like you said...blue robes and everything...I think it's pretty clear who you're cheering for, isn't it?"

Lily attempted not to blush.

Of course she was going to cheer for Ravenclaw...and it was her house, after all, but...but....

Just at the end of breakfast, she'd looked over at the Gryffindor table to see James staring dimly at his plate of scrambled eggs. He'd blinked at the eggs for a moment, and then glanced up at his teammates before nodding, his mouth set into a thin line of determination. And then, for just a moment, just after James picked up his broomstick and just before he turned to lead his team out of the Great Hall, he glanced in the direction of the Ravenclaw table and his eyes met Lily's. For one brief moment, Lily's heart seemed to leap out of her body, in the general direction of the Gryffindor table, and she could almost swear she felt it leaving the Great Hall as James turned away and walked with his team out toward the pitch.

So she could pretend to cheer for Ravenclaw all she wanted...she could scream and sigh and cheer with her housemates, but...but she secretly knew that in the end nothing would make her happier than seeing James hoist that Quidditch Cup over his head. He'd worked so hard...waited so long...wanted it so badly....

Lily and Mimi settled themselves in the midst of the Ravenclaw section, far from any Gryffindor fans. It felt unusual to be sitting among so many Ravenclaws for a change; Lily had become so used to sitting near the Ravenclaw-Gryffindor split with the Marauders that to change back now felt odd. But this was more for Mimi's sake than for Lily's; Lily scanned her eyes through the Gryffindor crowd and spotted Remus and Peter in the front row, not too far from the great Ravenclaw-Gryffindor divide. It was probably best that they sat this way, but it was still strangely sad not to be sitting with people who cared about James as much as Lily did.

It was the last Quidditch match they would see at Hogwarts...the last James would ever play in...the last Sirius and Melody would ever play in, for that matter. After this, the N.E.W.T.s were just a week away, and then...then....

The crowd erupted. The players had emerged from their respective locker rooms and were now marching purposefully onto the pitch. All non-Quidditch related thoughts flew out of Lily's head as the game commenced, and Third Year Charissa MacKenzie's bubbly, twittering voice filled the stands.

"Here come the players now!" she squealed. "Playing for Gryffindor today, it's Fletcher--Figg--Archer--Cauldwell--Black--Brown--and their Captain and Seeker, James Potter!"

The Gryffindor side roared its approval.

"Potter's shaking hands with the Ravenclaw Captain now, Adam Johnson--such a great Beater--and he leads Filibuster--Gladgrow--Sawyer--Appleton--Croaker--Fulley!"

The blue-clad portion of the crowd erupted in cheers. The Hufflepuffs seemed to be split evenly between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw; whoever won this game would take the House and Quidditch Cups, so it was a match of no real consequence for either Hufflepuff or Slytherin, and Hufflepuff, at least, had the decency to cheer for one side or another.

"Good luck to both teams. Oh--oh--oh--this is going to be so exciting!" Charissa shrieked, as Madam Hooch blew her whistle and the players kicked off.

Lily laughed at Charissa's excitement, but tuned the commentary out as the game got underway. It was intense and beautiful from the very first moments. Lily had been right--Ravenclaw's strategy with Gryffindor was much more sophisticated than it had been in their match against Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw's Chasers bobbed and weaved and passed with silky, dangerous precision, in a way they hadn't had to with Hufflepuff, and within the first few seconds of the game got into scoring range.

"Ooh--Sawyer's already in range for the shot--she aims, she--oh watch out, Emma!" Charissa shrieked as a Bludger came hurtling out of nowhere. Emma hastily took the shot and dove to avoid the Bludger, which had been hit by a very smug-looking Melody. The Bludger did the trick; Sawyer's shot was clumsy, and Gryffindor Keeper Anthony Brown snatched it neatly out of the air. He passed it on to Arabella Figg, who made quick work of handing it off to Alina Archer before weaving out of the chaos in the Gryffindor end toward the Ravenclaw goalposts.

The Gryffindor attempt at scoring was unsuccessful as well, much to the disappointment of the scarlet blob on the western side of the stands. The game continued in an agonizing string of near-misses for nearly half an hour before Ravenclaw finally claimed the first goal. Lily screamed with the rest of her section as Emma Sawyer took a victory lap for her hard-earned score, but then Lily made the mistake of glancing up at James, who pounded on the end of his broomstick in frustration and dove down to have a quick word with his team before play resumed. Lily suddenly felt a twinge of disappointment at the goal, but quickly forgot it as Ravenclaw scored again--and then again--and then once more before Gryffindor finally managed a response.

Sirius and Melody practically manhandled the Ravenclaw Chasers with several extraordinary Bludger shots, giving Mundungus Fletcher a chance to snatch the Quaffle away from Louis Gladgrow and streak down the pitch toward the scoring end. Mundungus smartly tossed the Quaffle to Alina Archer as a Bludger came zooming toward his head, and Alina took her first good scoring chance of the game to blast one through the right-hand goalpost--a brilliant shot that the Ravenclaw Keeper's outstretched hand only missed by inches.

"Ooh, and a splendid shot by Archer gives Gryffindor its first score of the game! Forty-ten, Ravenclaw lead!" Charissa gushed.

"Looks like Gryffindor's finally decided to put up a fight, eh?" Lily yelled over the noise, grinning. She nudged Mimi in the ribs when Mimi didn't answer, and Mimi barely flinched. "You okay?" Lily asked, managing to tear her eyes away from the action, and she saw that Mimi wasn't paying attention to the match at all.

"Hm?" Mimi managed, absently, and looked over at Lily with a vague expression in her eyes. Lily sighed.

Mimi's eyes had been trained, somewhat obviously, on a scarlet-clad figure in the front row of the Gryffindor section. Lily watched for a moment as Remus whooped in joy (Gryffindor miraculously got its second goal of the game just seconds after scoring the first), and then she looked back at Mimi, who had a deeply pathetic look on her face.

"Have you talked to him lately?"

Mimi sighed and shook her head. "He hasn't given me a chance. Every time I try to talk to him, he--" she shrugged helplessly. "What can I say? He's a Marauder, he knows more secret passages than Filch. He disappears every time I try to catch his eyes and I just...can't keep up with him to catch him alone."

Lily mulled this over for a moment. "Have you tried ambushing him in MHQ?"

"Well...well yes, but he's almost never in there and the one time I did manage to catch him, he hurried out before I had a chance to say anything. And...and they changed the password last week, so I can't get in anymore."

The crowd erupted around them in cheers as Ravenclaw scored another goal, and the last of Mimi's words were drowned out.

"What?" Lily yelled. Mimi waited for the noise to die down and then repeated her statement. Lily frowned. "Why didn't you just ask me what the new password was?"

Mimi shrugged, looking back over at Remus. "Dunno."

"'This is an annoyingly complicated password.'"

"What? The new password for MHQ is?"

"Yeah. That's it." Lily returned her eyes to the action and became momentarily distracted as both Seekers shot off toward one of the Ravenclaw goalposts. She sighed disappointedly when it turned out to be a false alarm.

"Well?" Mimi prompted.

"Well...well what?" Lily blinked and stared at her with blank green eyes.

"Aren't you going to tell me what the new password is?"

"I just did!"

"I must have missed it."

"Oh, sorry. 'This is an annoyingly complicated password.'"

Mimi blinked and stared at her. "Yes...you said that already."

"That's the password."

"The password is 'an annoyingly complicated password'?"

"No, no... 'This is an annoyingly complicated password.'"

"So... 'This is an annoyingly complicated password' is the new password for MHQ?"

"Exactly," Lily agreed, thrilled to be done explaining herself. She returned her attention to the Quidditch match.

"That is an annoyingly complicated password," Mimi muttered, and she rejoined Lily in watching the match, only occasionally allowing herself to be distracted by the brown-haired Gryffindor boy screaming his lungs out in the first row.

Lin was sitting with Anthony, Bridget, and Jen, one of Bridget's friends. She sat wedged in between Anthony and Bridget, which was turning out to be rather annoying, as the two had very different opinions about Quidditch and insisted on arguing about the game over Lin's head practically nonstop. Lin attempted to tune them out by focusing alternately on the Quidditch game and the fact that Anthony's hand was currently wrapped around hers, but she was only mildly successful. Mostly her mind was boggled by the extreme boring-ness of their endless chatter about defensive schemes, Beater strategies and Keeper follies. Jen, it seemed, was too enthralled with the game to notice.

Several rows behind them, Lucy sat with her Fully Pure Club friends, glowering down at Lin and Anthony's interlocked hands. Twice, Gillian tried to comment to Lucy about the Quidditch match before she realized that Lucy wasn't paying attention.

"What are you--oh." Gillian rolled her eyes. "Lucy, I know you like him and everything, but...if he's going to associate with them don't you think it's better for you to just forget about it?"

"I don't get it!" Lucy fumed. "What has she got that I don't? She has no family--no connections--no nothing--and besides, she's an absolute raving lunatic! All those visions she claims to have, and yet she never even predicts anything--it's not as though she's a Seer or something--and she's not even that pretty, is she?"

Gillian sighed. Lucy was in a particularly nasty mood this week; her father was facing an inquiry at work (though about what, she wouldn't say) and she'd gotten particularly bad marks on her last Charms exam. "No, I s'pose she isn't very good-looking," Gillian agreed absently, her eyes trained back on the Quidditch match. She winced suddenly as James Potter nearly got decapitated; he'd apparently been en route toward the Snitch and the Ravenclaw Chaser had been too far away to compete with him for it, so one of the Ravenclaw Beaters lobbed a Bludger in Potter's general direction to prevent him from ending the game.

"And she hasn't got any fashion sense," Lucy added sourly, pursing her lips.

Gillian thought she heard an irritated sigh coming from the other side of Lucy.

"Maybe," Rachel said, sounding a little impatient, "you're simply not Anthony's type."

Lucy snapped her gaze over to Rachel fiercely. "What are you saying? Do you think I'm not smart and pretty enough for Anthony?"

"I'm saying I don't think that's got anything to do with it! I know Anthony's good-looking, but that doesn't make him shallow. Maybe he just likes Lin because she's Lin."

"But--but--but what's there to like?" Lucy sputtered. "You said it yourself, didn't you, Wendy?" she demanded, leaning back to see Wendy, who was on the other side of Rachel. "She got all weird and moody and dark after her family died--didn't she?"

Wendy shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah...pretty much."

"Doesn't sound to me as though she's got much personality at all," Lucy sniffed.

"Well, maybe she's gotten better," Rachel suggested. "Who knows? But whatever the case, I really think you ought to get over it."

Lucy looked deeply affronted. "Just whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Whose side--whose side--what is it with you and sides?" Rachel snapped, her face suddenly pink with anger. "You're on the right side if you're in the FPC, you're not on our side if you're a Muggle, we're not on You-Know-Who's side--honestly, Lucy, what makes you think it matters so much?"

"I--you--sides are--sides are all that matter!" Lucy spluttered. "We're in the middle of a war!"

"No we're not," Rachel said bluntly. "We aren't in the middle of anything. We are fourteen-year-old half-trained witches who haven't got any business sticking our noses into things we have absolutely no control over."

This statement seemed so obtuse that Gillian, Wendy, and Lucy could do nothing but stare at her.

"Rachel," said Gillian, who recovered first, "I think you've missed the entire bloody point."

"We're going to be out in the world eventually," Wendy pointed out, "and what are we supposed to do then? Turn our backs on everything that's been going on?"

"Don't be silly, that's not what I meant," Rachel snapped, turning back to the game. "I only meant that if you want to actually do something about the war we're eventually going to have to face, then what you're doing with the FPC is a complete waste of time."

"How can you say that? It's all about networking--about knowing who you can trust--about--"

"About excluding perfectly nice, good people just because of who their parents were?" Rachel exploded. "About deciding you can only trust people who are just like you? Who have the same views as you, who have fathers in the Ministry like you or--or--who suck up to you because they think you've got connections, or because you're pretty or--I don't know what--and frankly, I don't know why some of these people even bother. Your opinion is no more or less important than anyone else's, Lucy, and the sooner you get that through your head, the sooner you'll be able to do something worthwhile instead of acting like a big whiny git all the time!"

Rachel had, apparently, been wanting to say this for quite some time, because when she was finished she looked neither regretful nor uncertain. She stared at Lucy head-on, brown eyes blazing, nostrils flared in an eerie kind of triumph. Lucy gaped at her, painfully aware of the number of people who had turned to watch their argument, including, several rows in front of her, Jen, Bridget, Anthony, and Lin.

"Well--I--that's--you--you're completely out of line!" Lucy managed, her cheeks flaming. She was unable to hide the hurt in her voice.

"Brilliant," Rachel said, still with that same vicious blaze behind her eyes. "You know something, Lucy? I don't care anymore. And this is all killing you because you know I'm right."

"I don't think we know anything of the sort!" said Gillian shrilly. "I think you're just jealous because you didn't think of it first."

Rachel barked out a laugh. "Your brain would collapse if it tried to hold half the thoughts rolling around inside my head, Gillian. You don't have the slightest inkling of what I think or what would make me jealous."

Rachel stared Lucy down for one long moment, the Quidditch match forgotten amidst their anger.

"Fine then," Lucy spat. "Since we're all such big idiots, why don't you just go sit somewhere else? We certainly won't miss your company."

"Yes, I think I will," Rachel said airily, and with that she squeezed out of their row and disappeared into the stands.

Lucy, still hurt and bewildered, attempted to trace the steps of her former best friend through the crowd, but she was immediately distracted by the great roar of the Gryffindor crowd as James Potter went into a spectacular dive, starting from a hundred feet above the rest of the match. Lucy watched numbly as he streaked down, down, down--he weaved in and out of the action, dodged one Bludger--then another--the Ravenclaw Seeker had apparently seen the Snitch too; he was right on Potter's heels--then--

Lily's breath had become permanently jammed somewhere in between her mouth and her lungs. It often took her a whole minute just to remember that she needed to breathe at all. This was easily the most nerve-wracking game of Quidditch she'd ever watched, and it didn't help that she couldn't quite make up her mind who she was cheering for. Every time James or Sirius or Melody did something brilliant, she wanted to cheer with the Gryffindors. Every time Ravenclaw scored, she jumped up and cheered enthusiastically with the rest of her House.

But then the final moment came, and she couldn't sit on the fence any longer. James threw himself into a spectacular dive, right in the midst of a gaggle of Chasers all convening on the Quaffle, and all of Lily's bodily functions seemed to cease. She clutched at her necklace instinctively, holding the "L" pendant in between her fingers and whispering words of nonsense under her breath, urging James on, advising him not to crash and die, praying that he'd get the Snitch--

The Ravenclaw Chaser was right behind him, but Lily didn't care, she didn't pay attention--James was a better flier, James was thirty feet ahead--James would grab the Snitch and soar back up into the stands triumphantly, providing he didn't face plant right into the ground--

Lily seemed to go numb for a moment as James stretched out his right hand--the noise of the crowd roaring around her seemed to momentarily die out--she clutched her necklace tightly and stared with all her might as James's fingers grew ever closer to the fluttering golden ball--closer--closer--

Lily closed her eyes as a great jolt ran through her. Her necklace glowed in happy warmth beneath her fingers and for a second she could almost swear she felt the cool round sphere of the Snitch in her hand....

Then the stands erupted into life around her. The Gryffindor section was a mass of absolute chaos--scarlet-clad figures were jumping up and down, shrieking, hugging each other, sending red and gold sparks into the air--someone conjured a great sparkling lion's head and sent it soaring around the stands, roaring in victory--Professor McGonagall seemed to be jumping up and down in the commentator's booth, and Lily--Lily entirely forgot herself.

Not caring anymore that she was entirely clad in blue or that she was supposed to be disappointed at Ravenclaw's loss, she plunged into the crowd and allowed its momentum to carry her down the stairs and onto the pitch, where the Gryffindor team was being congratulated by a gaggle of enthusiastic fans. Lily shoved her way through the blob of scarlet to the seven screaming lunatics with broomsticks and practically threw herself at James. He, too, seemed to forget for a moment that she wasn't in Gryffindor, because he picked her up and twirled her around and kissed her without any hesitation at all, as though it was perfectly obvious that Lily supported Gryffindor's win and that she had been secretly cheering for them all along.

James set her down and she looked up into his face, laughing. She couldn't quite remember seeing James look so positively...giddy. He bent down to kiss her cheek and then whispered (or attempted to whisper; whispering wasn't really a practical possibility with the noise of the crowd around them) "ginger root" into her ear, before turning around to whoop in joy with his teammates. Lily laughed as she watched them retreat, leading the way back to the Gryffindor Common Room for what would surely be an excellent party. She grinned as the crowd thinned around her and a group of disappointed Ravenclaws appeared at her back.

"Enjoying yourself?" Mimi asked, sounding slightly put out.

"You might say that. Listen--would you mind if I ran ahead? I think...I think I've got a little party to go to."

"Go on," Mimi sighed. "I'll see you back at the common room later?"

"Yes--we'll have a chat then, all right?" Lily called over her shoulder, already heading back to the castle. Mimi nodded and waved her on, and Lily wasted no time in hurrying back up to her dormitory. She quickly donned different-colored robes and headed to Gryffindor Tower, where the password "ginger root" admitted her into a frenzy of scarlet and gold.

James was waiting for her. He took her hand as she climbed through the portrait hole and welcomed her once more into his crazy, sugar-drenched, prank-filled Gryffindorian world.

Lily didn't return to the Ravenclaw Common Room until very late, and so it wasn't until the next morning that she remembered about her letters from Potions school. Unwilling to make up her mind about any of them, and yet a bit more unwilling to even mention the word "Australia" to James, she decided to write to her mother asking for a bit of advice. She didn't think much of it at the time, nor did she anticipate that her mother's reply would cause a bigger row with her boyfriend than she'd had with him for months.

But those were worries for next week. At the moment, what with a depressed Mimi and the ever-approaching N.E.W.T.s on her hands, Lily had quite enough to be getting on with.

The last week of classes before N.E.W.T.s and O.W.L.s commenced in a frenzy of homework. Monday and Tuesday were the last real lessons of the year; after that, all of the teachers threw a flurry of material for review at the students, claiming that it was for their own good and that it would help them on their exams. James, personally, felt that it would have been more helpful for Professor McGonagall to run around the classroom beating them all over the heads with their disturbingly large Transfiguration books than to try to cram seven years' worth of review information into two lessons, but what did he know? He was not, by any means, a professor--nor was he overly concerned about the second-to-last Transfiguration lesson of his life.

Trying to ignore the fact that he would be leaving Hogwarts for good in less than three weeks, James nonchalantly dropped a small piece of parchment over his shoulder and onto Sirius's desk. Sirius, he suspected, was doodling little pictures of his motorcycle again, rather than re-copying the notes on Invisibility and silent Human Transfiguration that McGonagall had charmed onto the board. James, personally, was doodling the initials L.E. onto his parchment and trying to suppress an enormous yawn. Lily sat several seats in front of him, looking miraculously as though she were paying attention.

A crumpled-up piece of parchment came flying over James's shoulder. With a careful (and hopefully attentive-looking) glance up at Professor McGonagall, who appeared to be only halfway through her lecture and nowhere near the point of asking them to get their wands out, James surreptitiously smoothed out the piece of parchment and grinned at Sirius's response.

James had written, How do you feel about pulling one final prank before NEWTs start next week?

Underneath, Sirius had scribbled WICKED, with several enthusiastic underlines. MHQ tonight to plan?

James glanced over his shoulder and nodded briefly at his partner in crime, who grinned wickedly before returning to his doodles.

"Mr. Potter!" Professor McGonagall called from the front of the classroom, and James froze. "Kindly come up here and silently transfigure Miss Fleming into a goat."

James half-suspected that this was punishment for not paying attention, but seeing as turning people into animals had become something of a specialty of his, he felt none too abashed by it. He strolled to the front of the classroom and calmly turned Andrea Fleming, a Seventh Year Hufflepuff, into a rather fine-looking mountain goat.

"Very well, Mr. Potter...and back again, if you would be so kind...."

Andrea was human once more, and she returned hastily to her seat.

Professor McGonagall, it seemed, was not angry with him at all; in fact, James could have sworn he saw her give him a faint smile as he returned to his own seat. Apparently, the Head of Gryffindor House had not quite gotten over the euphoria of the match on Saturday, and was prepared to cut her Quidditch Captain a modicum of slack for passing notes, so long as he could, among other things, still turn his classmates into furry, hoofed animals.

James scribbled the last note he dared before the practical part of the lesson began and dropped it casually over his shoulder onto Sirius's desk.

Eight o' clock then. No girlfriends.

"We are here," James began imperiously, "to implore you."

"Implore us...to what?" Remus asked wearily. He was looking rather careworn these days, and hadn't been in a joking mood since the night he'd attacked and nearly bitten Mimi. Not even the excitement of Gryffindor winning the Quidditch Cup had been enough to bring him entirely out of his funk.

"To act on your sworn duty as a Marauder," Sirius added pompously, bringing a fist to his chest. "To solemnly swear by the statutes laid down by our own loyal Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs--"

"To boldly prank where no student has pranked before--" James added, banging his fist against his own chest.

"To remain vigilant and unwavering in the face of infuriatingly sensible rules, even those that have been thought up for our own good--"

James nodded briskly and cut in again. "To, in short, to swear by that most noble and honorable of all Marauder creeds--the one which we swear by most frequently and effectively, in the way only a true troublemaker knows how to swear--I think you know, dear comrades, to which phrase I am referring...."

"'Bloody hell'?" Peter suggested.

"No, no, Wormtail, not that kind of swearing--" Sirius said, exasperated.

"Honestly, Peter, what kind of filthy rule-breaking organization d'you think we are?" James asked in mock-disgust.

"Oh...you meant the other thing we swear by," Peter said lamely.

"Yes!" James agreed triumphantly. "And it is...?" he demanded of them, waiting with an almost theatrical sense of expectation for them to respond.

"That we are up to no good," Sirius, Remus, and Peter finished, with varying levels of enthusiasm, Remus being the dullest and Sirius the most frighteningly eager.

"Look," Remus began, after a moment of silence. "I'm not sure--considering the things that have happened--well--d'you think a prank right now is really such a good idea?"

James nodded as though he'd been expecting this. "We anticipated your reluctance, Moony, and we are thrilled to report that we've come up with an entirely non-violent, inoffensive, unharmful, non-directly-Slytherin related, non-werewolf related, good, clean, wholesome prank that will, among other things: affect many more people than our usual level of prankage, amuse many more people than we would normally be able to amuse, and yet break only about half the school rules we'd normally have to shatter to engage in anything nearly so entertaining--"

"With the added benefit that we likely won't get into as much trouble as we normally would," Sirius interjected. "Especially considering it's going to include us for a change."

"Indeed, Padfoot. Well spoken. And--though it will be tricky to pull off without a hitch--it would be a lovely farewell to the students who have seen so many of our glorious works over the years. Don't you think so?"

Remus and Peter regarded them warily.

"I find it a bit difficult to believe that you've come up with a final prank that can accomplish all that," Remus said finally.

"Curiosity has spoken!" Sirius cried triumphantly. "So you're with us then?"

Remus considered. "Well--if it's not--not going to harm anybody--"

"Excellent! Glad to have you on board. You as well, Wormtail?" James grinned.

Peter twitched uncomfortably. "As long as we're not going to get in too much trouble--"

"Fantastic! We'll have a go of it, then."

"Hang on just a minute, James," Remus protested. "You haven't even told us what we're going to be doing. I'd like a little more description first before--"

"Nonsense!" James cried, looking thrilled. "It'll be more fun if you haven't a clue what's going on until we've got all the supplies here."

"Supplies?" Remus echoed, looking somewhat less sure of the idea.

"Naturally," Sirius replied, whipping out a large scroll of parchment and clearing his throat. "Ahem. Marauders pay attention. We will need the following materials--"

"Hang on," Remus said firmly. "Are you forgetting about the massive piles of homework we've all got for tomorrow? I don't know about all of you, but I'm nowhere near finished reviewing my notes for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and if we've got our final review session tomorrow then I want to be ready with questions so Professor--"

"Calm down now, Moony, don't get your knickers in a twist," James said calmly. "Luckily for us, this is a fun activity we can accomplish alongside our homework."

"And, happily, it's something we have two whole nights to complete," Sirius pointed out. "So as long as we get the preliminary supplies in order and get everything rolling for tomorrow night--"

"There's no reason we shouldn't have this whole thing whipped up and coordinated by lunch on Friday!" James concluded triumphantly.

"Lunch on Friday? Really, what are we--" Remus began, but Sirius cut him off again.

"All in good time, Moony, all in good time. Now then--the following supplies must be obtained by the various members of the Marauder crew." Sirius held up the scroll of parchment so that it blocked his face. "Master Moony! Kindly report with your cauldron and some of your finest potions ingredients. Master Prongs?" Sirius prompted, sticking his nose over the top of the scroll, and James brandished a smaller piece of parchment containing a list of the necessary Potions ingredients, which he handed to Remus. Remus accepted the piece of parchment rather reluctantly and frowned as he read the list.

"Master Wormtail!"--Peter squeaked in response--"Kindly procure your copies of Advanced Potion-making and Confoundingly Complicated Upper-Level Charms for us." Peter nodded, looking relieved.

"Masters Prongs and Padfoot!"--James snapped rather unnecessarily to attention--"Kindly proceed on specialized mission to the kitchens for goblets and pumpkin juice."

Remus and Peter exchanged rather bewildered glances.

"No questions!" Sirius cried, rolling up the scroll of parchment off which he'd been reading and which, upon further inspection, proved to be entirely blank. "All will be revealed in due course. For the moment, however--"

"Marauders, move out!" James cried, in the most military-like fashion he could muster, and he and Sirius marched rather ridiculously out of MHQ, leaving behind an extremely skeptical and bewildered Remus and Peter.

The potion-brewing and goblet-charming took rather longer than expected, and resulted in a very late Thursday evening, but on Friday afternoon the Marauders proceeded with their most complicated prank to date.

"Have you got it, Moony?" James hissed under his breath as they walked into the Great Hall, following a particularly brutal end-of-term Potions lesson. Remus nodded solemnly and patted the pocket of his robes reassuringly. James then traded significant glances with Sirius, who also nodded and patted his own pocket confidently. Peter had long ago done his part, and his job at present consisted mostly of trying not to look too eager.

"What's going on?" Lily asked absently, fishing through her Bottomless Bag for something.

"Food, that's what," James said swiftly as they neared the Gryffindor table. It was somewhat trickier pulling the prank at this particular lunch break than it might have been, seeing as the Marauders shared Potions class with Lily and Melody, and there was no good way to ditch them and sprint to the Great Hall to set things up without them. The Marauders, therefore, had planned to covertly execute the prank right under the girls' noses.

"I hope they've got turkey," Lily said vaguely, still rifling through her bag. "I've been craving turkey."

"Turkey. Absolutely," James repeated as they sat down, but he was distracted by the first phase of the Marauders' prank. Sirius produced a goblet from the pocket of his robes, and Remus swiftly pulled out a small vial of the potion they'd whipped up the previous night.

Lily didn't notice the mysterious appearance of the goblet or the surreptitious tipping of the potion into the goblet, but she did notice James's violent lunge for the pitcher of pumpkin juice as food and drink magically appeared on the table.

"Thirsty?" she asked, half-amused, as James sloshed pumpkin juice into the goblet until it was nearly overflowing.

"Parched," James replied, hoping his voice sounded vaguely raspy. "Care for some pumpkin juice, Lily?"

"All right then," Lily agreed, finally abandoning the search through her bottomless bag. She tied it shut and shoved it under the table as James filled her goblet, then happily seized one of the turkey-pastrami sandwiches that sat on the platter before her. "Excellent," she said, before taking an enormous bite.

"Here, Lily, wash that down," James said, shoving the goblet of pumpkin juice into her hand.

"Ffanks," Lily managed, but she looked at him oddly.

James looked away quickly, determined not to let his excitement show. He passed the pitcher of pumpkin juice along to the rest of the Marauders and waited until all of them had filled their goblets before nodding briskly. As one, the Marauders took up their goblets of pumpkin juice and drained them.

There, James thought, setting down his goblet with a decisive thunk. It's all even now.

He watched happily as Lily washed down her first bite of sandwich with a large swallow of pumpkin juice, and then glanced around as the first effects of the potion started to take place. Shrieks of laughter, surprise, and then astonished horror echoed off the walls as, all over the Great Hall, people who had drunk the enchanted pumpkin juice began to shrink.

Just moments after Lily swallowed her first gulp of pumpkin juice, she began shrinking. The table became higher and higher, rising up at an extraordinary rate, and everything about her was becoming rather smaller--her arms and legs were shorter, her head and her waist were shrinking slightly--even her chest was flattening out and becoming more prepubescent by the second. Across the table from her, Melody was giggling ridiculously.

"Lily, what's the matter?" Melody asked, trying to sound concerned, but she couldn't hide the laughter from her voice.

All around the Great Hall, people were crying out, clearly astonished, and Lily whipped her head around to see that, at every House table, dozens of people were succumbing to the same shrinking effects Lily was experiencing. It took Lily a long moment to realize that she'd stopped shrinking, and another moment to realize that James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter--who were sitting off to her right--were all positively dying with laughter.

"James Christopher Potter!" Lily shrieked, in a much higher-pitched and girlish voice than she was used to having. She was rather astonished to see that James, even in all his amusement over the situation, was looking quite a bit smaller and--did he look younger?--himself. "What in the name of Merlin's beard have you done?"

James, between fits of laughter--which were rather higher-pitched than Lily was used to hearing from her boyfriend--managed to get out, "Reverse--Aging--Potion!" before collapsing against the other Marauders, who could only manage to sit upright and look around for a few seconds before falling back onto each other in laughter again.

"Reverse Aging--what--in the pumpkin juice?" Lily demanded, her voice squeaking in a way that it hadn't since she was eleven years old.

"Uh-huh," James managed, nodding and wiping tears from his eyes. He also sounded as though he were eleven--and, more to the point, he looked it. Despite his youthful appearance, however, Lily felt not a trace of sympathy for him, nor did she find his prank nearly as amusing as he did, and so she felt no remorse at seizing the ill-fated pitcher of pumpkin juice and dumping its contents violently onto James's head.

The effects of the Reverse Aging Potion could not be sorted out immediately--although, James assured the student body, they would not last much longer than the end of this afternoon's lessons--and so it was that half the students at Hogwarts (and some of the Professors, to boot) exited the Great Hall looking six years younger than when they had entered. For some of the First Years, this meant having to toddle off to class looking five years old, shouldering book bags that were nearly bigger than they were. (In such cases, the students were allowed to place Weightless Charms on their bags before heading off to class.) For many of the Seventh Years, this meant going off to class looking as though they'd only just completed their first year at Hogwarts, which many of the teachers could not help but find humorous.

The most amusing bit of the prank, perhaps, was not that so many of the students had ingested the Reverse Aging Potion, but that an equal number of their classmates had not. About half of the N.E.W.T.-level Transfiguration class that afternoon looked as it normally did: like a group of seventeen and eighteen-year-old witches and wizards ready to take their exams and tackle the real world. The other half of the class looked like a bunch of surly First Years, some of whom seemed bent on hexing the living daylights out of James Potter and his friends, but some of whom seemed to find the whole thing rather amusing.

Professor McGonagall, who had herself drunk the enchanted pumpkin juice, had a couple fewer gray hairs on her head, but otherwise looked much the same as she had the entire time the Seventh Years had known her.

"Welcome to our last Transfiguration class," she greeted them, looking slightly less stern than usual. "I would like to begin by saying that it has been a privilege teaching the lot of you, and in a few specific cases"--her gaze landed briefly on James and Sirius--"something of an experience. I am very pleased at how each and every one of you has progressed from your First Year"--her mouth twitched in unmistakable mirth--"to this N.E.W.T.-level class. As you all received an 'E' or 'O' mark on your O.W.L.s, I expect nothing less of you during the N.E.W.T.s. I am quite happy with your progress these past two years, and I wish you the best of luck as you finish your time at Hogwarts and move out into the greater wizarding world.

"Normally I would take this opportunity to implore you to think back on your first year at Hogwarts, and to congratulate you all on how you've progressed throughout the years. However, it seems that some of your classmates have taken then liberty of bringing your first year rather farther to the forefront of your minds than you may have ever wished." Her eyes lingered on the group of apparently eleven-year-old students in the class. "Although this bout of rule-breaking will not go unpunished, we must acknowledge the unprecedented opportunity it allows us." The class stared at Professor McGonagall, feeling rather dumbstruck. To what good use could their stern, no-nonsense Transfiguration teacher possibly put this ridiculous prank of James's?

"Never in my life," stated Professor McGonagall, "have I had the opportunity to teach a First Year student capable of advanced Transfiguration. It is not to be expected, and it would be most astonishing and suspicious if a First Year were capable of performing any one of the spells each of you has mastered in N.E.W.T. level. However, while we have this most unique opportunity...Miss Evans, if you would be so kind."

Lily shot James a furious glare and marched purposefully to the front of the room, feeling preposterously like a midget.

"Please Transfigure my desk," Professor McGonagall requested, indicating the large piece of furniture that, for today, was only a foot shorter than Lily, when normally it only came up to her thighs.

"Into what?" the childlike voice of an apparently eleven-year-old Lily Evans asked.

"Anything you like, so long as the spell is silent."

Lily, whose mop of red hair now cascaded around her shoulders and ended past her waist (instead of stopping just below her shoulder blades), turned her very freckled face toward James, who was happily swinging his feet (which now only just hit the floor) under his chair. She silently and furiously thought of the Transfiguration spell, and pointed her long willow wand at Professor McGonagall's desk. You're going to get yours, James Potter, she thought, just before a jet of white light burst from the end of her wand and hit the desk, Transfiguring it into a beautiful tawny doe.

There was something eerily awe-inspiring about seeing an eleven-year-old perform a N.E.W.T.-level spell, and it seemed to have the effect on the class that Professor McGonagall desired. "Now then," she said, indicating with a nod that Lily should return to her seat. "Kindly take your inspiration from Miss Evans and perform the list of spells on the board, beginning with the one that was just performed." McGonagall flicked her wand and a list of complicated Transfiguration spells appeared on the board. "When you have completed this review and had all your Transfigured items properly approved by me, you may go." She flicked her wand, and boxes containing all the necessary supplies appeared on either side of the room.

Lily refused to speak to James for the rest of the lesson, but she sat right across the aisle from him, and engaged in a sort of silent war with him for the remainder of the period. Each object that James Transfigured, she attempted to Transfigure better, or with more flourish, until finally she Transfigured one of her classmates into a great purple peacock that had such large plumage it filled up nearly half the room and disrupted a number of her classmate's spells. James sniggered as Professor McGonagall gave Lily an exasperated scolding, and after she had gone, Lily angrily conjured up several large flies that she enchanted to buzz around James's head for the rest of the lesson.

When Lily finally had all her Transfiguration spells approved, she hastily packed up her bag and hurried from the room. Unfortunately, James--who was still, infuriatingly, more at ease with Transfiguration than Lily--finished just behind her, and hurried to catch up.

"Lily! Come on--wait up! You can't be mad at me forever, you know," the eleven-year-old James informed her.

"Oh yeah? Says who?" Lily demanded in an exceptionally juvenile tone of voice.

"Says me, that's who," James said, grabbing her arm and turning her to face him.

Lily glared down at him and opened her mouth to retort angrily, but stopped short when she realized something. "You know--I'm taller than you like this."

"You are not," James said quickly, straightening up. It didn't make all that much of a difference, however--Lily was still about an inch taller than him.

She grinned, amused for the first time since lunch. "You are too." She straightened up and stood on her tiptoes, peering over James's head. "Hey--I can't do this normally. This is pretty cool."

"Stop it. You are not taller than me. You just--think you are," he protested lamely.

"I am too, shorty," Lily said, returning to the flats of her feet and poking him in the arm. "That's what you get for reverse-aging me, you know."

"What, a poke in the arm?"

"No--an inferiority complex." Lily smirked and tossed her insanely long-looking hair over her shoulder.

"Has your hair always been that long?" James demanded.

"No, silly--it just looks longer because my waist is shorter."

"Oh." He rocked back and forth for a moment, considering. "So are you still mad at me?"

"Mad at you? Of course I am!" Lily said, remembering, and she turned away and continued walking down the hall.

"But why? Don't you think it was at least a little funny?" James caught up with her and seized one of her hands.

"It's funny that I'm taller than you," Lily said thoughtfully.

"Besides that," James said hastily.

"I think--well, I think--" Lily cut herself off, apparently reluctant to voice her true opinion.

"Yes?" James prompted, looking eager. Lily trained her eleven-year-old eyes onto his and considered.

"I think you should have let me in on it!" she burst out finally, and pouted as only a child can pout.

James looked stunned for a moment, and then laughed. "Lily--you are positively the most brilliant girlfriend in the world."

"I--well--you--" Lily spluttered, but she didn't get a chance to say anymore, because just then, quite suddenly, James grew. He shot up over her head so that he was truly taller than her once more, and Lily absently noted that her hand seemed to shrink inside his as his palms grew bigger. Before James reached his proper height, Lily began to grow as well. She shot up next to James and her robes fit her correctly once more as she filled out in all the appropriate places. Her hand reclaimed its normal size and fit itself comfortably inside James's as they both reached their normal proportions.

James grinned, looking pleased with himself. "See? That wasn't so bad, now was it?"

Lily declined to answer directly. "How'd you do it, anyway?" she demanded, still a little miffed.

"Ah, yes, you wish to know our brilliance!" James grinned cheekily and Lily rolled her eyes at him. "Well, the Reverse Aging Potion was the simple part--that's easy enough to brew--but the really tricky part was to enchant the goblets so that once we dumped the potion in and mixed it with the pumpkin juice, all the other pumpkin juice poured into any given goblet within the Great Hall would instantly contain the potion as well."

Lily's eyebrows shot up well toward her hairline. "I'm impressed," she admitted.

"Of course you are, it was brilliant," James grinned, and continued quickly as Lily glared at him. "Anyway, we had to use a Protean Charm to sort of make all the goblets mimic the contents of our goblet, but that was tricky, seeing as we couldn't get our hands on all the goblets at once. So we sort of just had to add a little charm that would make the other goblets recognize the contents of this goblet and then decide to mimic it of their own accord...sort of a--a--lemming charm, if you will. Then we had to charm the potion itself with a sort of...automatic refilling charm, so it wouldn't run out...what's the matter? You all right?"

Lily was gaping at him. "James...for someone as brilliant as you, you sure do waste your time on some idiotic schemes."

James looked extremely flattered. "Thanks, Lily. I appreciate that."

"And..." Lily added, still feeling slightly miffed.

"Yes?" James wanted to know, looking smug.

Lily stuck her tongue out at him. "And I still think you should have let me in on it."

"It was a top secret mission! I couldn't betray the trust of my friends," he protested, but he was still grinning and looking immensely pleased with himself.

Lily gave him a somewhat pointed 'I-don't-believe-you' look and turned to continue down the hallway. As James was still holding onto her hand, he followed.

"I s'pose I could've saved myself from having a pitcher of pumpkin juice poured on my head, couldn't I?" he reasoned after a moment of silence.

"Mm," Lily agreed, and after some consideration squeezed his hand reassuringly. With that, Lily and James went back to normal, and as the final effects of the Marauder's spell work wore off all around school, the Seventh Years were propelled most unpleasantly into the agony and frustration of their Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests.

Lily nearly forgot about her mother's reply. Though she received it Friday morning, she didn't get a real chance to read it until Saturday afternoon, and after she had, she shoved it back into her Bottomless Bag and resolved to forget about it until after exams.

Lily dear,

I'm so glad you decided to write me about this. This is a big life decision, and I'm thrilled you want my opinion. That said--congratulations on all your acceptance letters! Mrs. Potter has explained about the N.E.W.T.s to me, and I think you're absolutely right in waiting to make a final decision about Potions school until you get your exam results back.

However, out of all the offers you've gotten from Potions schools so far, I encourage you to strongly consider the offer in Australia. I know that it's far away from home, and please don't think I want you to move so far away simply for the sake of moving. But, Lily darling, it is an opportunity to go to school and start teaching straightaway, and I don't know that you're going to get a better offer than that!

Furthermore, although the distance may make things more difficult, I believe it might be better for you to move away for a while. Please, dearest, don't think of it as running away. There is nothing more important to me than the safety of you and Petunia, and with everything that's been going on lately I worry that Britain may not be the safest place for you any longer. Please consider it, for my sake. I wish for nothing more than your safety and happiness.

Good luck on your exams, and I can't wait to see you soon!

Love,

Mum

Lily's insides churned unpleasantly at her mother's suggestion. True, she'd briefly had the same thoughts about moving to Australia herself, but--but still. How could she just abandon her home and her friends for money and a job and...

Poppycock. Don't think about it, she told herself sternly, shoving the letter deeply into her bag, where it got itself mixed up with books and quills and Charms notes for days until anybody read or even thought of it again.

It was a mark of the seriousness of the N.E.W.T.s that the deserted classroom Melody and Sirius had holed themselves up in was actually being used for studying. They had shoved several desks together, and the desktops were all strewn with hastily-written and poorly organized Defense Against the Dark Arts notes, which Melody and Sirius were attempting to understand and memorize before ten o'clock, when they were supposed to meet Lily, James, Remus, and Peter in MHQ to do a final review of Potions notes.

The Seventh Years had sat through their first round of written exams today, which (all things considered) hadn't been exceptionally brutal. The Herbology written exam had been first thing in the morning, followed by a glorious free afternoon and evening of studying for Melody and most of her friends. The Care of Magical Creatures and History of Magic written exams were held in the afternoon and evening, but Melody hadn't pursued N.E.W.T.-level study in either of those subjects, though she vaguely thought James and Remus might have gone to sit for the Magical Creatures exam.

Either way, those exams were over with for now, and weren't really worth worrying about. Melody was far more concerned with getting through her Defense Against the Dark Arts notes and getting through this review session without exploding than she was about whether she'd gotten question seventeen wrong on her Herbology exam.

Melody hadn't been alone with Sirius for weeks, and now that she was, she desperately wanted to talk to him about something entirely non-N.E.W.T.-related, but she wasn't sure it was an appropriate time for her to broach the subject. The topic of marriage had always been tricky to bring up around Sirius, but now it was especially so. When Melody had tried to bring it up again after Frank Longbottom's rather public engagement, Sirius had flatly refused to discuss the matter, and lately when it seemed like group discussion might turn toward marriage, Sirius hastily steered the subject in another direction.

If only Sirius could be a little bit more like James in the matter, Melody thought, sighing. She could have sworn she'd overheard James discussing something about a ring with one of the Marauders last week....

"Sirius, where'd we put those notes on Disillusionment Charms?" she asked absently, trying to keep up the façade of studying.

Sirius glanced up from a paragraph he'd been reading about Dark Detectors and began rifling through a large stack of notes to his right. "I think in here--somewhere--"

Melody yawned and leaned back, stretching her arms over her head. "I feel like we've been doing this for ages. Maybe we ought to take a break."

Sirius glanced at his watch. "We've only got another hour before we're supposed to meet James and everyone, we should really start cramming--ah--here you go--"

He handed her the stack of notes on Disillusionment Charms and Melody sighed, picking up her quill again. She had a whole scroll of parchment on which she was taking notes of her notes, creating a condensed version of (hopefully) everything she'd need to know for the exam. She spent a valiant minute trying to read the new page of notes before her eyes started drooping and her brain started buzzing unpleasantly. This was a clear sign of overload.

"No, really, Sirius, I can't...please let's just take ten minutes..."

"Oh, all right," Sirius agreed finally, setting down his quill. He rubbed his eyes and let his head fall over onto the desk. "Naptime," he announced.

Melody giggled and laid her head down as well, but on the opposite side of the desk from Sirius so she could still look at his face.

"You know, I find studying for Defense Against the Dark Arts really frustrating," she commented, reaching over to brush back a lock of dark hair that had fallen over Sirius's eyes.

"Why is that?"

"Because--I dunno--I feel like I basically know all of it, I just...don't know how to phrase any of it, that's all. I feel like I'm constantly second-guessing my definitions and explanations of things, and...well, what's the point of a written Dark Arts exam anyway? Shouldn't it all be centered on the practical?" Her reasoning trailed off into a string of mumbling. Her brain really was quite tired--and it was only Monday. "Unghhff," Melody grunted, before Sirius had a chance to reply. "I don't know if I can take much more of this."

Sirius sat back up and reached over the desk, gently taking one of Melody's hands in his. "Think of it this way," he said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. "If your brain ends up feeling like a big runny blob of useless jelly when exams are through, then you've done your job."

Melody half-giggled, half-groaned. "I think we're already most of the way there, to be quite honest."

"Excellent. You'll get high marks for sure at this rate."

Melody grinned and wrapped her fingers around Sirius's. He laid his head back down on the desk and they regarded each other for a moment, in an upside-down sort of fashion, twirling their fingers on each other's skin in intimate circles until Sirius took firm hold of Melody's hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the back of it gently.

Melody felt some of the tension leave her body and she sighed and closed her eyes, allowing herself to relax. Her brain still felt like a big pile of mush, but her limbs were far looser, and the crick in her neck seemed to ease somewhat as she closed her eyes and allowed Sirius's thumb to make soporific circles against her palm. When she finally opened her eyes, it was to find Sirius still gazing at her. She grinned faintly and squeezed his hand. "Love you," she whispered, and he brushed his lips across the back of her hand again.

"Love you too," he murmured back, but this time he did not meet her gaze.

"Sirius," she said faintly, looking at him until he looked at her. This was probably a bad idea, but she had to talk about it...she had to know.... "Have you thought much about life after Hogwarts?"

"Of course I have. It's practically upon us, isn't it?"

Melody nodded slightly, and gazed at their interlocked hands. "Have you thought much about...us...after Hogwarts?"

Sirius visibly stiffened. "I...I've...yes, I have."

Melody couldn't hold herself still any longer. She sat up, and Sirius followed suit, but their hands remained entwined on the center of the desk. "And...what do you think?" she asked, suddenly feeling rather short of breath.

Sirius stared very determinedly into his lap. "I think...I think we ought to be together."

A tiny glow of hope sent warmth spiraling through Melody's chest. "Sirius--do you mean to say--"

He looked up at her sharply. "I meant exactly what I said. Nothing more."

Melody's hope flickered and disappeared at the near-scowl on Sirius's face. "Sirius, can we at least talk about the subject of mar--"

"I think we've got rather a lot of studying to do, don't you?" he said flatly, withdrawing his hand from Melody's.

"No," Melody said angrily, and lunged across the table, taking hold of Sirius's wrist. "I'm sick of you avoiding the subject. I want to know what you think about it. I want to know if we've--"

"I think it should be rather obvious what I think about it," Sirius fumed, looking frustrated that Melody refused to drop the subject.

"Yeah? Well apparently it's not obvious enough because I need to hear it."

Melody stared him down, unwavering, and Sirius unsuccessfully tried to withdraw his hand from hers. "I--well--look, since you're so keen on the subject, why don't you tell me what you think about it first? You haven't exactly stated your opinion flat out yet, have you?"

"Me?" Melody cried, abashed. "Sirius--if I haven't already made everything perfectly clear to you--" But Sirius looked unconvinced, so she finally relinquished her hold on his hand, got up, marched around the group of desks they'd pushed together, and fell to her knees beside Sirius's chair, grabbing both his hands in hers. "Sirius--for goodness' sake--I'm in love with you! I want to be with you--I want to marry you, Sirius, and have a family, and--"

Sirius pulled his hands from hers and dropped his head into them, taking rather forceful hold of his hair. "Merlin's beard, Melody, I--I don't know what to--"

But Melody, who felt quite suddenly abandoned, wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. "I don't know that it matters what you say now. I think...I think I understand you." She couldn't help the silent tears that began dripping down her face.

Sirius glanced up at her and looked positively horrified that she was crying. "Melody--don't--" He shoved his chair behind him and dropped to his knees across from her, taking her hands back into his. "Look, I want to be with you, all right? I've said that. I just don't know--right now--look, I'm not ready. That much is evident, isn't it? And--and you shouldn't want to be married to someone who's not ready."

Melody knew she was acting like a moron, but for some reason she couldn't stop herself from crying. "I don't, but--but I'm ready, Sirius, I want to be married--I want to be married to you, and I just--I just always thought--" She paused as a particularly vicious sob caught her off guard. "I always thought when I was ready, you would be too."

Sirius held her hands pointlessly for a moment, completely unsure what to say. "I'm--sorry," he managed finally. "I just...I don't know why it's so important to you that this all happen right now. We're young, aren't we? We're--we're too young for this sort of thing, really, and why do you want to rush into this when we've got our whole lives ahead of us to--"

"Our whole lives? Really?" Melody hissed, her sobs halting suddenly. Her cheeks still streamed with glistening tears, but she had stopped crying. "And how long do you think those lives are going to be, exactly?"

"Well--long, we hope--" Sirius stuttered.

"Yeah, we hope, but we don't know, do we? We're both going to be fighting You-Know-Who after we leave school, aren't we? We're both going to be doing everything we can to save more innocent people from dying? And--and we both know what generally happens to people who get in You-Know-Who's way."

"So what are you saying? You're planning to leave Hogwarts and throw yourself into the path of a premature death?" Sirius's grip on her hands tightened angrily.

"No--I'm saying--I'm saying we don't know what's going to happen after we leave school--who knows what could be waiting out there for us, and--well--you can't deny the fact that people die every day...people who oppose You-Know-Who...."

"So you're saying this is a reason to rush into some rash decision that will affect the rest of our lives--"

"Rash? You think marrying me would be rash?"

"At seventeen, what decision isn't rash?" Sirius bellowed.

Melody's face flushed angrily. "Oh, that's rich--sage words coming from a person who last week thought it would be amusing to turn half the student body into ten-year-olds--"

"Oh, come off it Melody, that's got nothing to do with this, and anyway you can't pretend you didn't think it was funny--"

"Anyway, I don't know why I didn't see it sooner--you're still pulling pranks, you're so immature--probably never crossed your mind to do something responsible like get married--"

"Responsible? Married at seventeen? Melody, how do you even know if that would be a responsible decision or not--what if it turned out to be a big fat mistake--"

Melody recoiled as though she'd been slapped. "Mistake?" she echoed, her voice hollow. "Mis--mistake? Is that what you think it'd be? Is that what you think I'd be?" She slowly withdrew her hands from his. "I see," she said coolly. "I think I see what you mean now. How foolish of me to speak of marriage--what a mistake I've made--"

Instead of crying now, she was shaking. In white-faced fury, she rose from the floor and walked back around the desks, seizing her book bag and tossing parchment, quills, and ink back into it with unwonted venom.

Sirius blanched, realizing his mistake. He leapt from the floor and jumped over the desk, trying to stop Melody from packing up and leaving, but she wanted no part of it and jerked away from him furiously, attempting to go about her packing as though he wasn't even there.

"Melody--please--that's not what I meant to say, it came out all wrong--you put me on the spot--don't go--I never meant to--Melody, please, wait--I love y--"

"You love me?" Melody screeched, wrenching herself away from the grip Sirius was attempting to place on her arm. "Are you trying to say you love me? How could you possibly love me? You don't want to marry me--you think it would all be some big mistake--" Hot, angry tears popped into Melody's eyes, and she backed away from Sirius, hoping he wouldn't try to touch her again, because if he did she didn't know what she would do. "If we're too young to handle marriage, how could we possibly be mature enough to handle something as big and complicated as love?" She backed herself up against the door and groped for its handle.

Sirius advanced on her, but she held up her hand, unwilling to hear any more.

"Why don't you just think on that for a while?" she suggested. "Maybe try getting back to me when you've grown up enough to handle it. Wouldn't want you saying anything rash, after all--God forbid you make any more mistakes," she snarled. Her hand found the doorknob, and she wrenched the door open, slamming it behind her practically right into Sirius's face.

What a load of shit, she acknowledged as she strode back to the Gryffindor common room, hastily wiping tears from her face. Whether Sirius wanted to marry her or not, she was still in love with him. It has to be love, she reasoned. It has to be, because nothing else could possibly make me feel this miserable.

Exams the following day swallowed most of Melody and Sirius's agony, but they could not temper or prevent the argument that disrupted Lily and James's relationship later that evening.

It happened at around nine o'clock. Lily and James were drowning in Charms and Transfiguration notes, which they'd spread all over MHQ in preparation for their most difficult day of written exams. They were moving along quite companionably until James, rifling through a stack of Lily's Charms notes, found a piece of parchment there that didn't quite belong.

Lily, who was deeply absorbed in her notes on conjuring furniture, didn't notice the look of consternation on James's face as he read and then re-read the parchment several times, nor did she notice when James let the piece of parchment fall into his lap and then gazed at her for a solid minute, dumbfounded.

Just when Lily seemed to be on the verge of understanding her notes, James found his voice. "Lily?" he managed, sounding a bit hoarse.

"Mm?" Lily replied absently, scribbling something down on a spare bit of parchment.

"When were you planning to tell me--bout--this?"

"Hm?" Lily blinked and looked up from her notes, puzzled. As soon as she spotted her mother's letter lying open on James's lap, she knew. "Oh--oh--James--I'm so sorry--you really weren't supposed to see that--"

"Clearly," James said tightly, and he picked up the letter and scanned it again. "But this is really very interesting, Lily. See--here--this line about Potions school--in Australia?"

Lily winced. "James, please. I know you're upset, but I can explain--"

"Explain what? That you've already been accepted to Potions schools all over the world but have mysteriously forgotten to tell me? Or that you're secretly planning to move to Australia and--whoops!--the details just seem to have slipped your mind?" James's face was bright red, but at this point it was difficult for Lily to tell if this was from anger or hurt.

"Well--it's just an offer, James--it really doesn't mean anything--"

"Oh, no, of course not! Nothing at all, except your mum wants you to take it! Wants you to--to move halfway around the world, leave behind all your friends--and your boyfriend--"

"James, it's not like that!" Lily cried, but James was already beside himself. He stood up and began pacing the room furiously.

"You know, Lily, it seems to me that if this were really nothing, you would have told me about it by now. It seems to me that the only reason you've been keeping this from me is because you're seriously considering it, and--and--Australia? Lily, how could you be so daft?" he demanded, halting and whirling to face her.

Lily's cheeks heated angrily. "It's not daft, James--if you'd seen the letter from the school you'd know it wasn't--and I'm not trying to keep things from you, it's just that I...I'm just...there's a lot going on right now, and I'm uncertain--"

"Uncertain?" James repeated incredulously. "I don't understand why you're contemplating the offer at all! It's halfway round the world, Lily, and--"

"Yes, it is halfway round the world!" Lily agreed shrilly, and she threw the stack of notes on her lap aside and stood to face James. "Thus the basis of its appeal!"

James jerked and stared at her as though he'd been slapped. "Appeal?" he echoed flatly. "I see. So all this--hogwash about moving away from Britain--you're actually taking it seriously, are you?"

Lily didn't know why she was feeling so defensive about all this. She didn't particularly like the idea of moving to Australia herself, and she wasn't sure she'd ever had any real intention of following her mother's advice. The thought of leaving James made her stomach curdle, and she couldn't quite imagine truly choosing to turn her back on her home--her friends--her boyfriend--

But stupid James was the one being daft about all this, wasn't he? He was the one attacking her--he wouldn't even listen to her--and on top of that, Lily's brain already felt so befuddled by Charms notes she wasn't sure how much rationality she had left in her. She was tired, she was hungry, she was stressed out from N.E.W.T.s, and right now the last thing she needed was James questioning her and insulting her mother's advice.

"You know what, James? Maybe I am!" Lily yelled, taking several steps toward him so she could scream properly into his face. She felt like a dirty liar the moment the words left her mouth, but she couldn't help herself. She felt immensely, twistedly satisfied at the look of furious frustration on James's face.

"But--but Lily--" he sputtered, "what about us?"

"Oh, what about us?" Lily snarled, feeling quite nasty.

James blinked and stared at her, looking struck, and most of the color seemed to drain from his face. "You don't mean that."

Lily fidgeted uncomfortably, unwilling to lose her ground. "Well--well maybe I do," she lied, feeling like an idiot, but James didn't seem to think she was lying at all.

"Lily--how can you say that? Don't you want to be with me after Hogwarts?"

"Well--I do, but--but--" Lily flustered, cheeks blazing. Perhaps she'd gone too far, but she wasn't quite sure how to turn back now. "But it is a wonderful offer in Australia and this is a very important decision I need to make about my life and if in the end it seems like the best thing for me then you're just going to have to deal with it as it comes, all right?"

She said all of this very quickly and in one breath, and after she'd finished she realized, with no small amount of horror, that she'd said "you're" instead of "we're" and had virtually disrespected their relationship right out of existence.

"I'll just have to deal--I'll just have to deal with it, shall I?" James demanded, looking dangerous and pissy again. Lily steeled herself for an attack, but still wasn't quite prepared for the explosion. "So the last few years mean nothing to you, do they? I mean nothing? I'm so inconsequential you can just up and leave for Australia AND NOT EVEN BOTHER TO BLOODY TELL ME ABOUT IT, EH?"

"Well maybe if you didn't have your big fat head so far up your own ARSE, you would've tried to let me explain everything to you calmly instead of MAKING A BIG BLOOMING IDIOT OUT OF YOURSELF!"

"Oh, my head's up my arse now, is it? So I suppose my head's not good enough for you now either? First Britain's no bloody good for you--next my head--well, I suppose after all that Hogwarts is a bit inconsequential to you--you might as well not bother with the rest of the bloody N.E.W.T.s--hell, what do they mean to you anyway? You've already GOT A BLOODY JOB WAITING FOR YOU IN AUSTRALIA--I mean, why stick around really? It's not as though there's anything here you're going to miss--why don't I just go grab some you some International Floo powder right now so you can bugger off? I'm sure your bags are already packed, and--well--it's not as though you've got anyone you might want to say good-bye to, is it? So what are you bloody waiting for? Don't you just want to be ON YOUR MERRY WAY?"

His voice echoed briefly off the walls, and after that the only sounds in the room came from Lily and James's angry breathing as they stared each other down.

James's outburst had only poorly disguised the deep amounts of pain and betrayal he was feeling, but Lily was so hurt by his speech that she didn't quite care how James was feeling at the moment.

"As it happens, James," Lily said, giving an enormous sniff, "my bags aren't already packed." She picked up her Bottomless Bag and made a great sweeping motion with her wand, so that all of her notes flew neatly back in. "But now that this bag's taken care of, perhaps I should go up to my room and sort out the rest."

Lily had no intention of leaving Hogwarts or Britain, but she felt so wounded by James's accusations that she couldn't quite stand being in the same room with him any longer. Plus, she thought as she turned away from him and the first tears began dribbling down her cheeks, she wasn't sure she could handle him seeing her cry.

She left so hurriedly James didn't have time to say anything, and she was so distracted by her thoughts that she nearly bowled over the first person she met in the hallway--Melody, as it turned out, who appeared to be walking in the general direction of MHQ.

"Lily! I heard shouting--what--oh, Lily, what's the matter?" Melody cried, noticing the tears on Lily's face.

"It's nothing--I just--I'll explain later," Lily managed, and hurried off down the hallway, leaving a very astonished Melody behind.

Melody hovered outside MHQ awkwardly for a moment, listening to James curse and rave and knock over what sounded like extremely large pieces of furniture. Then, with one final extremely loud and vulgar curse, there came one last faint thud--it seemed James had thrown something against the wall. There was silence after that, and Melody, making what was possibly a very stupid decision, slid open the panel to MHQ.

She found James stalking around the room, picking up various pieces of quill, impatiently repairing ink bottles, and hastily shoving leafs of parchment back into his bag.

"Um...everything all right?" Melody managed awkwardly, and James scowled up at her.

"Everything's lovely," he spat, and picked up the last pile of parchment, stuffing it rather violently into his bag. "I hope you weren't listening to that," he added, and Melody shook her head quickly. "Good," James said darkly. "Enjoy MHQ. It's all yours." With that, he stalked past her and left.

The room still crackled with eerie tension after he'd gone, and Melody walked around carefully, gently setting right all the furniture. She was prepared to leave the room as it was and find somewhere else to study, but as she turned to go, she spotted something lying near the far wall.

It was a small, innocent-looking black box. This must have been the last object James had thrown, Melody realized, and with a sense of overwhelming curiosity she strode to the wall and picked the box up. It was velvety and rounded at the edges, and even before she opened it, Melody recognized it as a jewelry box, the kind that usually contained--

"Oh," Melody breathed, and clapped a hand to her mouth. Nestled between cushions of black velvet sat an exquisite diamond and emerald engagement ring, sparkling innocently in the firelight.

The Charms and Transfiguration N.E.W.T.s were so monumentally important Melody didn't have the heart to tell Lily about the ring until they were over. The Charms written exam took place Wednesday morning, followed by a break for lunch, and then Divination and Muggle Studies students sat their tests, followed by dinner. After dinner, all the N.E.W.T.-level Transfiguration students poured into the Great Hall for their written exam. This test was, by far, the hardest they would have to sit, and certainly far more intimidating than the Transfiguration practical they would face on Saturday. Performing Transfiguration spells was one thing--explaining the theory and methodology behind them was quite another.

Once Melody was finished with her exam, her brain felt like a rather large bowl of pudding. It was a good thing the only exam she had tomorrow was her Herbology practical, or she might not have been able to handle it.

"How'd you do?" she asked Lily wearily as the Seventh Years trudged out of the Great Hall.

"Mmpf," Lily managed, and looked pointedly through her bag for something as James and Sirius walked by.

"Have you talked to James at all today?" Melody asked quietly, and Lily shook her head. Melody sighed. "I know how it is. I haven't spoken to Sirius either."

Lily looked at her curiously. Because of exams, the girls hadn't had a real chance to talk lately.

"Thank God the written exams are over," Mimi said, limping up behind them. "If I have to write one more essay I'll go insane."

Lily and Melody grinned weakly.

"What's gotten into you two?"

"Boy trouble," the girls murmured, and Mimi looked quite unhappily surprised.

"Not--not Sirius and James?" she cried, and Melody and Lily looked carefully away. "Well, that just isn't fair...I mean, it's one thing that I've been having boy trouble, but you two...."

"No luck with Remus for you yet, eh?" Lily asked, and Mimi shook her head.

"Nah, he's impossible to get alone. I've got--I've got some ideas, though."

Lily and Melody helped Mimi jump the vanishing step halfway up the staircase.

"It seems to me, ladies," Melody announced, sounding quite matter-of-fact about things, "that we need a girls' night. Come on--grab your Herbology notes and we can pretend to study while we chat."

The girls used one of Lily's private Head Girl rooms to get together and stuff their faces with chocolate while complaining about tests, relationships, and boys in general. Mimi vented her frustrations about Remus, Melody recounted her agonizing fight with Sirius, and Lily produced the letter from her mother and rehashed her rather unnecessary and shameful fight with James.

"I just--I can't--I have no idea what to do now!" Lily wailed. "He was so furious--and some of the things he said were so hurtful--I just don't even know where to begin."

"So...you don't really want to move to Australia?" Mimi clarified.

"Of course not...I couldn't leave my home...I couldn't just turn my back on everything that's happening...."

"I just can't believe James of all people would be so--so pigheaded about something like this. I mean...well, he's a boy, so obviously he's a bit of an idiot, but isn't he normally--you know--sweet?" Mimi ventured.

"Well, he is--that's the thing--he's very romantic generally...you know, when we're not around other people and everything...but what I still can't get my mind around is that he didn't even let me try to explain. He was just so--so furious at the thought of me leaving, like I'd broken some sort of promise to him by writing to my mum about it--by even appearing to consider it--"

"And then he basically backed you into a corner and made you feel defensive about it," Melody summarized.

"Well--yes," Lily agreed. "That's exactly what he did. So--so I couldn't just let him, I had to save face, so I argued back, but--I didn't really mean most of it...."

Mimi sighed. "Boys really are fantastic idiots, aren't they?"

Lily sighed as well, wanting to agree, but she knew James wasn't entirely to blame. "I can't say they're not, but all the same, I should have told him...I shouldn't have let him get to me like he did...I've just been so stressed out this week, and...well...what should I do now? I want to talk to him, but I don't even know where to begin. And--I don't know--maybe he's still mad at me. What if he doesn't want to talk to me and we just end up fighting again?"

"Lily," Melody began carefully. "When you two were fighting, d'you think James seemed more...hurt, or more...angry about things?"

"Well...hurt, I guess."

"Like he really didn't want you to leave?"

"Well, of course he didn't want me to leave."

Melody nodded, and began searching through her bag for something. "Yeah. I think...I think I might know why he reacted so...violently to all of this."

Lily and Mimi both stared at her. Melody's hand closed around the small velvet box and she hesitated for a moment. "After I ran into you outside MHQ--after your fight with James--I...um...sort of stood there for a moment and heard James cursing and throwing things around the room. And...and when I went in, he left, and I found...um...I found this." She slowly withdrew her hand from the bag and opened her palm.

Lily froze and gazed dumbly at the jewelry box for a moment.

"Holy poo on toast," Mimi said, and Lily numbly reached out and took the box.

"You--um--you found--you're sure this is James's?"

"Yeah. I think he sort of...threw it against the wall and then stormed out."

"Ah. I see," Lily said blankly, and, with a shaking hand, reached over and cracked the box open. "Ohmigod," she breathed, as a cluster of sparkling diamonds and emeralds came into view. "James was--you think he was going to--I--" Lily's breathing became very uneven, and then, quite suddenly, she was crying. "No wonder he was so upset--I can't believe he--when could he have bought--d'you suppose he was just carrying it around with him and waiting--?"

Beneath her tears, Lily looked at once both miserable and ecstatic. Melody's stomach churned in bitter envy. Why, if James was ready, would Sirius not--why couldn't Sirius--

Melody was happy for Lily, but quite suddenly she began crying as well.

"Oh, Melody," Mimi breathed, and hobbled over to the couch to give Melody a hug.

"Oh no!" Lily cried, when she saw Melody crying as well, and she scooted over on the couch to wrap her arms around both of them. The ring sat sparkling on her lap, and the girls admired it awkwardly, four of six eyes glistening with tears.

"My goodness, we do carry on, don't we?" Melody sniffed, attempting to wipe off her cheeks. Lily and Mimi both laughed briefly.

"You know," Mimi mused, still gazing at Lily's engagement ring, "for as big of idiots as boys can be, sometimes I wonder if girls aren't just as big of idiots as well."

Mimi had stopped caring that Remus didn't want to talk to her. Well, perhaps this wasn't entirely true, but at the very least Mimi had stopped obsessing over it. She had other things to worry about--like N.E.W.T.s, for example, and her friends...and the Potion she still had brewing that she hoped might help Remus some day, if he ever decided to speak to her again. She desperately wanted to test it, and had the somewhat less-than-brilliant idea that it might be helpful to test it on the scar on her leg. However, she did have enough sense to realize that if something went terribly wrong, she wouldn't be able to properly finish out her exams, so she simply left the Potion brewing and waiting...waiting...waiting.... Mimi had become rather good at waiting.

On Friday the Seventh Years were put through their paces during the practical Potions and Charms exams, but then they had a glorious evening off to reflect and prepare for the Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration practical exams they had the next day, which would mark the end of the N.E.W.T.s and the beginning of their long, glorious week of freedom before the end of term.

By Friday evening, Sirius and Melody were on speaking terms again, though they carefully avoided having any real conversations, and Lily and James, though they weren't exactly speaking to each other, had at least begun acknowledging each other's presence. Despite the tension, they were all sharing MHQ and using the space to practice their best hexes, shields, and Transfiguration spells in preparation for the last exams they would ever take inside Hogwarts.

The study session quickly deteriorated, however, into a long-winded conversation about how this was their last night of studying at Hogwarts, and how none of them could believe it was ending. This, in turn, led to a long rehashing of their seven years at the school, and an even longer bout of James and Sirius retelling some of their various petty misdeeds, to great laughter and occasionally great skepticism from the girls.

Although this was a great deal of fun, it did not manage to properly conceal the fact that the relationships of both couples were rather on edge. When they'd finished pretending to study, Sirius and Melody shared only a brief kiss before parting, and Lily and James an even more awkward hug. Ignoring the conflicts hadn't caused them to fade; instead, things felt a little more complicated.

And Melody realized, as she briefly chatted with Lily and then trudged back up toward her dormitory, that she didn't know how much energy she had left to deal with all of this. Sure, she still wanted to be with Sirius, but she couldn't keep banging her head against the wall trying to convince him to do something he clearly had no interest in, and that he was even a little bit--should Melody think it?--afraid of.

Sickeningly, thoughts of marriage these days sent Melody's thoughts drifting to the one person she most sincerely did not want to think about--the one person to whom, coincidentally, Melody could most decidedly become married with very little preamble, or, in fact, consternation from her potential partner. The only problem with this was that Melody was still very much in love with Sirius, and besides the fact that she very much wanted to be married, she still had little desire to marry Lucifer Malfoy.

But she'd found, lately, that she couldn't quite put him out of her mind, and his unread letter had been haunting her thoughts ever since her argument with Sirius.

On Friday night, Melody gave in to her curiosity. She rifled through her trunk and found the letter that she'd shoved in there so many weeks ago. What could Lucifer possibly have to say to her? What could she have to say back?

She cautiously unrolled the scroll, and although the sight of the spindly writing made her stomach lurch unpleasantly, she managed to get all the way through the letter without wanting to vomit--so that, perhaps, was a good sign.

Dear Melody,

Although I hope you have given some thought to my proposal, I have not written you to discuss marriage again. I most enjoyed seeing you over Christmas holidays, and I wonder if you're going to be staying at Hogwarts for Easter holidays as well? If not, you are of course invited to visit me in London.

More to the point, I recently had a friend come to visit who is involved in professional dueling. I know you have some interest in the sport, and I mentioned your name to him. He has not, as yet, heard of you, but he seemed most interested when I outlined your enthusiasm and your considerable hand at spellwork. (Hans tells me you are a first-rate dueler--are you not?)

This friend of mine, coincidentally, owns a firm that manages duelers on the International Dueling Circuit. He professed interest in speaking with you about dueling, and, if your spellwork measures up, his firm might consider managing you during the coming summer tournaments. You would, of course, need a sponsor, and I would be most happy to fulfill that role.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Yours most sincerely,

Lucifer Malfoy

"Sincerely my ass," Melody muttered, dropping the letter onto her bedspread. Her hands, however, were tingling excitedly, her fingers itching for her wand the way they only did when she had the urge to duel.

This was hardly sinister at all...of course, he had still mentioned marriage in the first line of the letter and he was offering to give her money (like she hadn't heard that one before), but--but still. Dueling. How many wizards had the opportunity right out of Hogwarts? And--well--if she was sponsored, it would mean she wouldn't have to worry about finding a job right away, either. The prize money for dueling was nonexistent in amateur tournaments, and hardly substantial in professional tournaments until you reached a certain rank and seed within the International Dueling Circuit, but if she had a good sponsor...a very wealthy sponsor....

Marriage shoved completely out of her mind, Melody impulsively rifled through her trunk again and seized a quill and a spare bit of parchment.

This might be the dumbest, rashest decision Melody had made to date, but she scribbled out a response before she could think about it. I want to know more, she wrote, and hastily cobbled together a suitable reply, which she sent off first thing the next morning, not caring how belated her response was or how much of an idiot she was being. If it didn't turn out to be a total load of hogwash, it would be an absolutely amazing opportunity, and if it brought her one step closer to facing You-Know-Who...well, then damn the consequences.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts practical was a little nerve-wracking, but by the time she was through, Lily didn't care about it quite as much as she cared about getting back into the Great Hall for lunch. When she was finally seated at the Ravenclaw table with a sandwich in her hand and a glass of lovely, non-potion-filled pumpkin juice in her other hand, she felt much better. She'd had an almost constant headache since Thursday evening, and couldn't wait for N.E.W.T.s to be over. Just one more...just one more... she kept telling herself, wearily sipping her juice.

The part of Lily's brain that wasn't occupied worrying about exams had been buzzing since Wednesday evening wondering what to do about the engagement ring. As far as she knew, James had no idea she had it, and she suspected that by now he would probably realize that he'd lost it and start panicking. But--how to bring it up? "Oh, here James, Melody found this in MHQ...thought you might want it back...thought perhaps you might want to use it to ask me to marry you one of these days..."

Lily snorted and bit into her sandwich. Mimi gave her an odd look, but she ignored it.

Just as Lily was contemplating what life would be like after her last exam ended, screams erupted in the Great Hall, originating from a point somewhere behind her, and Lily whirled around to see that the cause of the commotion was at the Gryffindor Table--and that the girl screaming was none other than Lin, who had doubled over and was now shrieking as though she was being attacked.

Lin had never had a vision this bad before. One moment, she'd been sitting upright, enjoying a lunch with Anthony, Bridget, and Jen, and the next she was sucked into a vision so rapidly she gasped, and nearly fell face-first into her bowl of soup. Normally during visions she didn't move or shriek, but during this one she convulsed, shaking all over, and screamed uncontrollably as grotesque visions of a man being tortured appeared before her eyes.

Then, suddenly, images began flashing before her, faster and faster--mental replays of all the visions she'd ever had, in a sort of macabre reel that she couldn't shut off no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes. Her brain, unable to process all the images and all the pain, went over the deep end. She couldn't stop screaming, and the real world seemed to fade around her as her shrieks grew ever more distressed.

She was completely unaware of Anthony and Bridget on either side of her, shaking her, speaking to her, trying to calm her down, and she was further unaware of the teachers who hurried down from the staff table to see what was wrong. Lin was so deep into her visions by the time they removed her from the Great Hall that she had no idea they'd carried her up to the Hospital Wing, and she had shrieked herself so senseless that she didn't even notice when Madam Pomfrey placed a Silencing Charm on her and drew the curtains around her bed shut, shooing Bridget, Jen, and Anthony out of the ward.

The rest of the school, however, was in a frenzy over Lin's episode. Lin appeared to have lost her mind, and furthermore, her visions usually seemed to indicate that an attack had just been made on the family of someone who was currently attending Hogwarts. The students regarded each other carefully in the hallways for the rest of the day, wondering who it could possibly be, and whose family would be next....

Exams ended on this somber note. Lily didn't know how well she'd done on her Transfiguration practical and she didn't much care; all she knew was that N.E.W.T.s were over and she couldn't be happier to be finished with exams. She and a great number of the other Seventh Years spent most of Sunday sleeping and lolling about in the Common Room and doing as much of nothing as they could muster. Occasionally Lily took out the engagement ring and gazed at it, wondering how to go about giving it back to James, but mostly she let her mind wander and tried not to think of anything.

The students had freedom for one more glorious week, and then it would be time to board the Hogwarts Express and ride back to London one last time. What had once seemed an interminable amount of time into the future was now only days away, and whether or not the Seventh Years were ready didn't matter--the end was coming anyway, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it.

On Monday morning, the student body discovered which student Lin's vision had concerned. An official-looking owl from the Ministry of Magic swooped over the Gryffindor table and deposited a somber-looking envelope into Lucy Forester's lap. Lucy's entire face went white, and her friends Gillian and Wendy, who were sitting on either side of her, stared at her with horror-struck faces.

Shaking, Lucy picked up the envelope and fumblingly tore it open. After reading its contents, she burst into tears.

Her father had been attacked. Her father was dead. Lucy's whole world was suddenly empty, and the only thing the Ministry could offer was cheap condolences; they didn't even have the decency to say how he'd died.

Abandoning her breakfast and her bag, Lucy ran from the Great Hall. Gillian and Wendy exchanged a glance and then hurried after her.

Lucy ran up the stairs and tore through secret passageways left and right, making it very difficult for Gillian and Wendy to follow. She did not, however, head for Gryffindor Tower as they'd expected. Instead, she made her way to the hospital wing, where Gillian and Wendy were extremely shocked to find her asking for Lin.

"I don't think she should see any visitors right now," Madam Pomfrey was saying firmly. "She's not in a fit state."

"Please," Lucy blubbered. "She saw what happened to my dad--I know it--I need to talk to her--"

Madam Pomfrey's mouth was set into a grim line. "Even if she were in a fit state to receive visitors, I would certainly not permit you to ask questions about any visions she may or may not have experienced. She's upset enough already."

Gillian and Wendy burst into loud protests, and Madam Pomfrey turned on them, hushing them angrily and informing them that their pleas would not help them or their friend gain admittance to the Hospital Wing.

While Madam Pomfrey was busy scolding Gillian and Wendy, however, Lucy slipped into the wing and tiptoed her way over to Lin's bed.

Lin was thrashing about underneath the covers, her mouth opened in a horrible silent scream, the sound of which, Lin could tell, was being suppressed by spellwork. Lucy tried to speak to her, but Lin didn't hear. Lucy tried to grab her hand and calm her down, but Lin didn't notice. Her eyes were unfocused, her mind seemed unhinged, and she was blatantly unaware of her surroundings.

Lucy's cause was lost. Lin couldn't tell her anything about her father...there was no point being there, no point sticking around. Lucy left the hospital wing, still crying, and Gillian and Wendy hurried after her.

"What was that about?" Gillian demanded, rather heartlessly. Wendy looked somewhat more sympathetic. She grabbed one of Lucy's hands and squeezed it reassuringly.

"I was wrong," Lucy sobbed, choking and shuddering as her world came unhinged. "My father's dead. I was--I was wrong about everything, but--Lin, she--she knew what was happening, she's seen what's been happening to people--" Lucy squeezed Wendy's hand very hard, until Wendy thought her fingers might break. "I was wrong," Lucy repeated, looking ill. "There's nothing I can do...I was wrong...and now my father is...my father's--"

But she couldn't finish; she burst into wretched sobs, finding it impossible to keep herself together as her world came shattering apart.

On Tuesday, Lin was sent off to St. Mungo's for intensive treatment. Lucy spent most of the day holed up in the Fourth Year Girls' dormitory, refusing to speak to anybody, but she finally emerged around dinnertime with puffy red eyes and a pathetic look on her face. When she entered the Great Hall, the first thing she did was approach Bridget DeBeauvois and, in a horribly timid and shaky voice, ask if she could sit down and join her for dinner. Bridget, who was too astonished to say much of anything, nodded dumbly. A great paradigm shift seemed to occur as Lucy settled in next to Bridget and her friends and calmly asked Jen to pass her a bowl of broccoli.

Lily, who was watching them from across the Great Hall, recognized the significance of this moment, and for some reason seeing Lucy communicate humanely with Bridget made her realize, quite suddenly, that she couldn't avoid James any longer.

They hadn't truly spoken since their fight last week, and the ring had been burning a hole in Lily's pocket for days. She couldn't go on agonizing over this, and it seemed brutally unfair to force James to do the same thing, so she finally caved. After she finished eating, she approached the Gryffindor table and asked James if he wouldn't mind taking a walk with her around the lake after dinner.

James still didn't look too keen on speaking with her, but he didn't refuse, and so it happened that after supper, Lily and James were to be found on the far side of the lake, James sitting somewhat distantly on a rock that only had room for one, Lily sprawled out on the grass before him.

"So what's going on, Lily?" James asked, sounding rather as distant as he'd made himself look.

Lily quit picking at the dandelions around her and looked up at James. She had decided that the most direct approach would be the best, and so she wasted no time in explaining herself. "I don't want to fight with you anymore," she said quietly. "I miss you."

"I see," James said stiffly. "So I suppose you're just going to take it all back then? Say that you never meant any of it and that you're not going to move to Australia?"

"Well...yes," Lily said slowly. "Yes. In a way, I am."

"In a way?" James echoed.

"I'm not going to move to Australia. I don't want to move abroad anywhere. Britain's my home, and as long as Voldemort's still around, I...I have no business leaving. Besides," she added softly, "I'd be making a huge mistake if I left you."

She looked steadily into James's eyes and saw them flicker with emotion.

"So...just like that?" he said. "You're taking it all back?" He still sounded a little defensive, but his expression had softened considerably, and he looked almost--well--hopeful about things.

Lily nodded briefly. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I am. I think we both said a lot of things we didn't mean, and...and I'm sorry for not telling you everything sooner. I just thought--with exams and everything--you had quite enough on your mind."

James considered this and scratched his head uncomfortably. "Well--yeah--I suppose you have a point there." He grimaced, and Lily expected he was thinking over some of the rather vicious things he'd said. "Listen, Lily--I did say an awful lot of things--things that I don't--"

"Hush for a moment," Lily said, holding up her hand. "I think...I think I have something here that can help clarify a lot of things."

James watched her curiously as she pulled the small velvet ring box from her pocket and opened it so he could see the ring sparkling inside.

He blanched.

"Lily, you--where did you--you weren't supposed to see--"

"Now, now, James," Lily said, waving his protests away. "Can't you see there's something important to be done here?"

He stared at her, looking at once uncertain, nervous, and embarrassed.

"Ahem," Lily said, and got on one knee, facing--instead of James--a patch of thin air. "Lily dear?" she said, and then set down the ring, jumping up quickly to turn and face her imaginary kneeling self.

"Yes?" the standing Lily replied, giggling foolishly at the sight of the ring.

She turned around and kneeled again, picking up the ring. "I have something very important to ask you."

She jumped up again and giggled furiously. "Oh--oh my--that's really so beautiful!"

She got back down on her knee. "Will you--that is, d'you think you might want to--?"

Lily stood one last time, and whirled around, staring at the ring. "Yes! Oh--yes yes yes!" She shrieked, picking the ring up and twirling around with it. "Oh--James! Haven't you heard?" she cried, hurrying over to him and making room for herself on the rock he occupied. "Look!" she said, waving the ring in front of his face. "We're going to be married. I'm going to marry--me! Isn't it marvelous?" She looked at the ring and sighed, then threw her arms around herself violently, giving herself a massive hug. "I'm so happy!"

James couldn't help himself. He grinned, and then laughed, and then pulled Lily into his lap and wrapped his arms around her, still laughing. Lily joined in, giggling, and slipped her arms around him as well. The ring lay in her lap, still sparkling.

"It's really beautiful, James."

James gazed at the ring for a moment and then, decisively, snatched it up, snapping the box shut and shoving it deep into his robes. "What's really beautiful?" he asked absently.

"I--well--James--"

"The lake is rather stunning, I suppose..."

Lily gave him a tight squeeze. "Come on."

James looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time in days, and brought a hand to the side of her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb gently. "I said a lot of things I didn't mean, Lily. I think maybe I ought to grovel at your feet first."

Lily grinned and squeezed him again, affectionately. "Oh no, no groveling required."

"Excellent. Well, even so..." James tilted his head toward hers and kissed her. Lily's necklace glowed happily. It was brilliant to be able to have made up with James so quickly. He seemed to know that Lily, simply from finding the ring, understood a lot better why James's reaction to her mother's letter had been so violent. Lily also realized that James, by taking the ring and refusing to talk about it, was reclaiming his power over the situation. It seemed understood, through their kiss, that James would spring the ring on her again later, when she wasn't expecting it, and it seemed further understood that, however James asked, there was no doubt as to what Lily's answer would be.

On Wednesday evening, Mimi's potion was finally set to use. It was a gurgling, bluish-greenish substance, and smelled like rotten egg yolk--but sometimes, she'd noted in Potions class, the foulest-smelling potions had the finest results.

After doing a quick test with her wand to make sure the potion wasn't toxic (it would glow briefly red for a moment if it was), she siphoned off part of the potion into a small vial and attached a small rubber dropper to the top instead of screwing on a cap, so she could administer the potion to her wound in small doses.

Mimi hobbled over to a chair and eased herself into it, unwrapping the nearly-invisible bandages on her thigh that made it appear as though her leg was still normal. In reality, there was still a score of terrible gashes in her thigh where Remus's claws had dug into her, but recently they had begun to close up slightly. If all went well, this potion would accelerate that process, and if not...well, Mimi thought that she had the right substances present to act as antidotes, but she wasn't entirely positive, and she sincerely hoped it didn't come to that.

"Here goes nothing," she whispered nervously, her mind flashing back briefly to the moonlit night and the original potion that had caused all this trouble in the first place. She squeezed the dropper gently and a small drip of potion came out, landing in the smallest of her scars. For a moment, nothing happened--the potion simply spread along her scar, cool and gentle, and for a fleeting second Mimi thought she'd come up with a potion that actually worked.

Then terrible things began to happen. Small boils popped up along the length of her scar, swelling and bubbling, and then finally bursting, releasing pus and blood and that same awful rotten egg yolk smell the potion gave off, and Mimi gasped and clutched her leg in pain as the boils spread, bursting into each of her scars and releasing the foul combination of bluish-greenish pus and dirty looking blood that dribbled down her thigh and streamed all over her calves.

Gasping for breath, tears pouring out of her eyes, Mimi dragged herself back to her potions stores and dumped essence of murtlap on herself, crushing up mint leaves with aloe and smearing them over her leg, but these alleviations to her pain were brief and unsatisfying. The boils continued popping up, mercilessly, and Mimi could do nothing but sob and drag herself across the floor, fumbling pitifully at the doorknob for a long moment before wrenching the door open.

"Help!" she wailed into the empty hallway, and the only creature listening was Mrs. Norris, who bounded off immediately. Just seconds later, the caretaker burst from one of the secret passages, wheezing. It was the only time in her life Mimi could remember being happy to see Filch. "Here--help," she gasped, and howled in pain as a particularly vicious boil bubbled up underneath her skin and then burst all over her leg. Pain seemed to explode inside her head, and she sobbed onto the stone floor for a brief moment before she blacked out entirely.

"We've got to stop coming to see you like this," Melody said, as Mimi blinked open her eyes. Melody, Lily, James, Sirius, Peter, and even Remus were crowded around her bed.

Mimi grinned faintly, vaguely aware that she should still be in enormous amounts of pain, but the lower half of her body had gone mysteriously numb. "You all didn't have to come," she mumbled. "I'm fine, I promise." Her eyes fluttered closed and she had to force them open again.

"Mimi, what on earth were you doing?" Remus asked, looking pained.

"Testing potions," Mimi said absently, as though she wasn't quite aware of the conversation.

"On--on yourself?" Remus said, looking horrified.

Mimi shrugged limply. "No one else to test them on," she pointed out.

"Jumping toadstools," Remus vented, letting his head fall into his hands.

"Well--at least you're going to be all right, Mimi," Lily said gently. "That's all that matters."

"Was I going to...not be all right?" Mimi wondered.

Her friends exchanged nervous glances.

"Well...there was a period where you were sort of just shrieking uncontrollably, kind of like...like..." Lily trailed off, looking stricken.

"Like Lin," Melody finished.

"But you're all right now," Sirius said roughly, before the girls got too emotional.

"Yeah. All right now..." Mimi agreed vaguely, and turned her head in Remus's general direction. He had taken a seat to her right and still had his head in his hands dejectedly, as though this was somehow all his fault. "So sad," Mimi observed, frowning, and slowly reached out one of her unsteady hands to touch his.

Remus lifted his head and looked at her finally, allowing her to curl her fingers around one of his hands.

"Mimi--what in the bloody hell ever made you think of doing something so stupid--" he began, and then choked on his words. He clasped her hand in between both of his and then bowed his head again, resting his forehead against their interlocked hands.

Lily, James, Melody, Sirius, and Peter gazed at each other awkwardly, and murmured unheard good-byes before shuffling out of the hospital wing.

"Sh," Mimi advised gently, once she registered that Remus was crying. "I'm all right. Everything's going to be all right..."

Remus tried to speak but choked on his words instead, and Mimi simply put a cool hand to his forehead and stroked it gently, murmuring words of comfort and occasionally just sounds of comfort until she couldn't speak or keep her eyes open anymore.

And with that, she drifted sweetly off to sleep.

The end-of-term feast was upon them before they knew what to do with themselves. Lily spent most of the evening preceding the feast running around her dormitory, shoving things back into her trunk in a haphazard manner and trying to ignore how sad she was that this day had finally come. She was leaving Hogwarts behind forever, and...oh well, never mind that sentimental nonsense, she'd have plenty of time for that later.

Although Lily felt that it was her duty, particularly as their Head Girl, to sit with the Ravenclaws at the beginning of the feast, by the time dessert rolled around she'd happily squeezed herself in between James and Sirius at the Gryffindor table, and was enjoying her last-ever meal at Hogwarts with her boyfriend, trying desperately not to think about how this was her last evening here. James and Sirius were busily stuffing their faces with every manner of dessert they could get their hands on, and Lily and Melody were pointedly sighing and rolling their eyes at them.

Once all their bellies were happily full, and once the platters of cakes, truffles, pies, and puddings had disappeared, Professor Dumbledore stood to give his final speech of the school term--and, to the Seventh Years, his final speech as Headmaster.

"We have reached the end of another year at Hogwarts. To those Fifth and Seventh Year students who have survived their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, I congratulate you." A brief and somewhat unnecessary smattering of applause filled the Great Hall. "I must further congratulate Gryffindor on their excellent performance in the House and Quidditch tournaments. Well done, well done indeed," he said, and the Gryffindor table erupted in cheers, each pair of eyes at the table glancing up proudly at the gold and scarlet banners that decorated the Great Hall.

Professor Dumbledore let them carry on for a moment, and then held up his hands for silence.

"In addition to our merrymaking, however, we must also consider the graveness of the events that occur daily in the greater wizarding world. During the course of this school year, many of you have suffered terrible losses. I do not believe there is a person in this room who has not been affected by the Dark wizard known as Lord Voldemort."

A great gasp and shudder ran through the students at the mention of You-Know-Who's name.

"For those of you leaving us this year, I sincerely hope your seven years at Hogwarts have taught you more than just wand work. We are facing dark times, and I must impress upon each and every one of you the importance of recognizing what is right and doing whatever you can to fight for it. If we are to withstand this attack on wizarding society as we know it, we must stand united.

"For those of you not leaving Hogwarts--I encourage each and every one of you to return to school next year. I know that many of your parents have become nervous and fearful of the attacks that have been plaguing us recently, but I hope that you have all come to understand the importance of an education, particularly in times like these. Please know that as long as Hogwarts remains open, its doors are open to you.

"I wish you all the best of luck in the coming months, and I hope to see your happy, shining faces once more at next year's start-of-term feast. And to the Seventh Years...a fond farewell."

There was a brief moment of silence as Professor Dumbledore's twinkling blue eyes swept the hall, resting briefly on the faces of each and every one of the Seventh Years. Was it just Lily's imagination, or did he actually pause and smile briefly at the sight of Lily sitting inappropriately at the Gryffindor table? But then the moment passed, and Dumbledore clapped his hands and spoke again.

"Now--off to bed you go! Chop-chop! You have a long journey ahead tomorrow."

The spell of silence was broken, and there was a great burst of chatter and scraping of benches as the students moved away from the House tables, and--in the case of the Seventh Years--headed, for the last time, up to their dormitories to sleep.

Lily couldn't sleep. She still couldn't quite wrap her head around the fact that this was it--Hogwarts was over. It was done, done, done, done, done. This was the last time she'd ever sleep in the Head Girl's room--this was the last night she'd ever spend inside this marvelous castle--ever gaze out Ravenclaw Tower's windows onto to school's sweeping lawns and the icy black lake that, tonight, reflected the half-moon and a million shining stars in its inky depths.

Lily curled up in a seat by the window and tried to imagine a life in which Hogwarts did not participate. She found it impossible, and stopped trying.

Of course she was excited about the prospect of being an adult, of attending Potions school and starting a life with James and having her own flat and whatnot.... But right here, right now, Lily still felt a small bit childlike. It was impossible, now, to separate memories of her youth from memories of Hogwarts, and she found herself reluctant to let those memories go. When the time came tomorrow, she would board the train and not shed a tear as it pulled away from Hogsmeade and began zooming across the Scottish countryside. But for right now...so long as she had the night to herself to think over everything she had to say good-bye to...the tears slipped freely and silently down her cheeks, and she itched for the opportunity to run through the halls of Hogwarts and bid farewell to all the places and people she loved most.

She could not manage, however, to tear herself away from the window, and so she sat there and consoled herself by gazing across the grounds, mulling over the countless generations of students who had prowled the grounds before her, and the hopefully countless generations that were to come.

But Lily wasn't the only Seventh Year at Hogwarts who couldn't sleep, who didn't want to say good-bye to Hogwarts, who could barely resist the thought of running about the grounds to bid farewell to her school. Over by the Quidditch pitch, rapidly approaching Lily's vantage point, were two dark figures that came bounding across the lawns. A great shining stag and an enormous black dog were racing each other across the grass, and Lily laughed as they stopped at the edge of the lake and dove in, splashing each other violently for a moment before streaking off toward the Forbidden Forest.

The train ride passed in a great blur of sugar and laughter and memories. Lily, Sirius, James, Melody, Peter, Remus, and Mimi all shared a compartment, four squished in on one side and three on the other, and swapped stories and sweets all the way back to London. Every so often, a fellow Seventh Year would stop by to bid them farewell, and the Marauders and their girls greeted each one gaily. Arabella Figg came by first, happily informing them she'd gotten a job at Eeylop's Owl Emporium in Diagon Alley, and urging them all to visit her. Mundungus Fletcher came by next, offering to sell them talismans that he claimed would help ward off Dark creatures and, coincidentally, help prevent dandruff. Being perfectly aware of the bogus nature of Mundungus's schemes, they all politely declined, but Mundungus merely grinned and headed next door to try to hawk the items to a group of Third Years.

"D'you think we ought to warn them?" Lily asked. They could faintly hear Mundungus giving his sales pitch next door ("Prevents dandruff and wards off hinkypunks, all in one! Even said to slow the growth of unpleasant nose bogeys!"). They all looked at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing.

"Nah," James and Sirius said, waving their hands dismissively.

Matt and Susie came by next to bid farewell to Lily and Mimi. Matt was wearing a pair of musical socks again, but this time he'd enchanted them himself--they played the Hogwarts school song over and over, at various tempos and in various styles. The Marauders twittered excitedly as the socks changed from a slow funeral march to a smooth reggae rhythm, which they all started singing along to, using the walls and floors of their compartment as impromptu bongo drums.

"Oh, yah man, learnin'...learnin'...learnin' til our brains...all rot!" they sang for the finale.

With that, Matt and Susie bid them farewell, holding--as Lily noticed for the first time--hands with one another as they walked down the corridor.

Bridget and her friends showed up next, twittering excitedly about Quidditch, and imploring several of them--namely Lily, whom Bridget had seen nearly die, and Melody, whom Bridget had played Quidditch with--to keep in touch. Bridget's group of friends now most conspicuously (to Lily, anyway) included Lucy and Wendy, and they brought news of Lin.

"She's still at St. Mungo's," Wendy said glumly. "I just wish...I wish I'd had a real chance to talk to her before this happened. After her village was attacked, she wouldn't talk to me anymore, and...things just got so confusing..." She shrugged and stared sadly at the floor of the train compartment.

"Well, at least now," Lily said, trying to sound reassuring, "you'll know what to say to her when she does get better...right?"

Wendy nodded, looking a tad happier at this thought. "Yeah," she agreed. "She's got to get better--hasn't she?"

"Let's hope so," said Lily, smiling.

"Ooh--the trolley's coming down this way!" Bridget exclaimed, looking down the hallway. "Come on girls, I'm starving!"

They left in a great flurry of good-byes, and after they were gone, Mimi said curiously, "So um...who are they again?"

Lily laughed. "It's kind of a long story," she said, waving it away. "They're just...sort of friends of mine."

"That Bridget girl is in Gryffindor," Melody added. "She plays Quidditch. Her father's a professional, he plays for France, he's pretty good...she'll be replacing James next year as Seeker...."

"Hey!" James said, sounding miffed. "She may be taking over as Seeker, but I don't think anybody could ever replace me! I mean--aren't I brilliant?"

"Sure you are, James," Melody said dryly.

"Who won you the Quidditch Cup, eh? Who made that fantastic dive through all the action to grab the Snitch? Who has the sharpest eyes in all of Hogwarts?" he ranted, climbing on top of his seat to gesture.

"Sharpest eyes? Um, that would be me," Lily said calmly, and tugged him back down.

James looked surly, but the rest of the group laughed, and they were interrupted momentarily by the trolley, off which they purchased another round of unnecessary sweets.

As they stuffed their faces, Peter excused himself for what he promised would only be a moment, but he didn't come back for another hour. Mimi ran off to find some of her other Ravenclaw friends, Lily and James left to "patrol the corridors" one last time, and Remus suddenly remembered that he'd borrowed a book off one of his classmates and never returned it, so he rifled through his bag briefly and set off down the train with the book in hand, leaving Sirius and Melody alone for the first time in days.

They were all right around each other so long as no one in the vicinity mentioned the "m" word, but their relationship as a whole still felt rather rocky.

"So," Sirius managed awkwardly, taking a large bite out of a Chocolate Frog.

"So..." Melody repeated, nodding and gazing out the window. "Um...what're you going to do now? Have you figured it all out yet?"

"Mostly. I think," he said, shrugging. "I'm moving out of my mum and dad's house, that's for sure. I'm going to stay at James's for a while, 'til I find a flat in London. Then...then I've got some interviews lined up, got some tryouts and things."

"Tryouts?" Melody repeated, her interest piqued.

"Erm...yeah. I've been trying to keep it kind of quiet, but um...I've got tryouts for the Wasps in a few weeks, then the Cannons the week after that."

"Did they...did they approach you about it?" Melody asked, beginning to feel slightly miffed that she hadn't been scouted by any professional teams. Sirius was a good Beater, but surely he couldn't be that much better than Melody...could he?

"Nah," Sirius said, scratching his head. "I contacted them, asked if they had any openings. I don't expect I'll make it, but...should be a good experience just to try out, don't you think?"

"Yeah...I expect so," Melody agreed. There was an awkward pause, and Melody asked another question, hoping to ease them into real conversation. "So...so you've got interviews too, eh?"

"Yeah," Sirius nodded. "With--ah--with Gringott's, as a matter of fact, and then one with the Ministry...curse-breaking's very big these days, you know, and...and the Ministry's got some postings in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and in--ah--International Magical Relations."

"You're not going for the Auror program straightaway?"

Sirius shrugged. "It's more James that's into that stuff than me, honestly. I mean, I think I'd like to do it, but I'm not so sure I'd like to do it right now. Maybe in a couple years, after I've trained myself up a bit more...and I daresay in a few years they're going to need all the help they can get."

"Mm," Melody agreed, nodding, and she gazed out the window once more.

"So, erm...what about you then? Got something planned?"

Melody grimaced. This was the part of the conversation she'd been hoping they wouldn't reach. "Yeah, as a matter of fact," she said quietly, examining her fingernails. "I do."

"Well?" Sirius prompted.

"Dueling," Melody replied, glancing up at him briefly before looking down at her hands again. "I'm going to enter the International Dueling Circuit, starting almost straightaway."

"Wow," Sirius said, looking impressed. "Melody, that's--you're really going for it, huh? That's fantastic. I think you'll do well, I really do."

Melody looked up at him and grinned. "You really think so?"

"Yeah," Sirius grinned back. "I think you'll be great. You'll write to me while you're away, won't you?"

"Of course."

"All the time?"

"As often as you like." Melody couldn't help smiling at him, but it was bittersweet. He didn't know...he didn't know all the details.... Her smile faded slightly.

"What's the matter? Aren't you excited?"

"Yeah, I am, of course I am, it's just...." She sighed. "Sirius, you're not going to like this."

"What? I mean, you are--you are just dueling, aren't you? You're not doing anything--bad--that might go along with it?"

"No, of course I'm not, Sirius, it's just...when you first start out dueling, you need a manager and a sponsor, too, because it's expensive. And--and I think I've got a manager, and I've got a sponsor, too, but...but my sponsor is...um...he's...."

Melody trailed off, feeling uneasy, not wanting to look into Sirius's eyes and say the name.

"Just spit it out, Melody," Sirius demanded, his voice tight.

Melody stared very pointedly at the floor and mumbled out, "Lucifer Malfoy," half-hoping that Sirius wouldn't hear.

"Lucifer--Lucifer Malfoy?" Sirius exploded, and Melody winced. "Bleeding billywigs, Melody, have you lost your mind? Haven't we already had this conversation--a hundred times?"

"Yes, we have," Melody said firmly, looking him dead in the eye, "and I've made up my mind about it, so I'd greatly appreciate if you'd just lay off."

"Fine," Sirius said sourly, "I will lay off. And I wash my hands of your stupid decisions, Melody. From now on, whatever Lucifer Malfoy may or may not do to you, I don't want to hear about it. You want to be an idiot--great. You deal with the consequences, because I've had it."

"Fine," Melody snapped, crossing her arms, and she resumed staring out the window.

Thankfully, Lily and James stumbled into the compartment within the next minute, laughing, and broke up the tension in the compartment by telling them how someone had hexed Snape so that he stuck to one of the compartment doors on the train, and had to slide open and shut along with the door because no one could figure out how to take him down.

"Well, that's quite an appropriate end to Snivellus's time at Hogwarts, isn't it?" Sirius said, cheering slightly.

After that, Mimi soon rejoined the group, and Peter came hurrying back some time later, apologizing for his absence and retelling the same story about Snape, only his story had the rather disappointing ending of Snape being let down from the door by some of his fellow Slytherins and then attempting to hex everyone in the vicinity.

"Aw, you shouldn't have told us, Wormtail," James said, sounding disappointed. "I was rather enjoying the thought of him stuck to a door on the Hogwarts Express for all eternity...."

Sirius chortled in laughter and Lily failed to suppress an eye roll.

They were nearing London now, and the last few visitors stopped by their compartment to say farewell. Vivian Horvath of Slytherin appeared with her boyfriend, Adam Johnson of Ravenclaw, and with them was Sally Parkinson, who commented vaguely on Gryffindor's win at the Quidditch Final (with a pointed look at Lily) before disappearing down the train. Next, Frank Longbottom and his fiancée Alice stopped by, both grinning like madmen, and they distributed invitations to their wedding in July.

After that, the Marauders somberly changed out of their school robes and back into street clothes as they prepared to disembark from the Hogwarts express for the last time.

When the train finally pulled into the station, Lily didn't know what to make of it. She'd expected she would feel very sad, but she found that she didn't have much of a feeling about it at all. She'd already spent so much time talking over leaving with her friends that, now that the moment was actually here, she found she could go through with it without worrying too much about it.

There was a great commotion as all the students emptied their belongings from the luggage racks, dragging their heavy trunks behind them along the long train corridors, shouting back and forth to each other, making promises to keep in touch over the summer, the younger students shrieking excitedly that they would see each other next year.

For Lily, however, this was all there was. She walked with her friends toward the barrier that separated Platform Nine and Three-Quarters from the Muggle world, and she and James moved forward as the wizard who was letting students back through the barrier told them it was their turn.

"You ready?" James asked, taking her hand.

"Not at all," Lily realized suddenly, but she squeezed James's hand anyway, and together they stepped through the barrier and out into the great wide world that awaited them.

End Seventh Year

* * *

A few weeks later, Lily and James were sitting on the beach in the indoor gardens at Potter's Cottage, watching the sun set. They'd gotten their N.E.W.T. results back a few days ago, and just yesterday Lily had accepted enrollment at a very good, reasonably priced Potions school in Edinburgh, where she would begin studying in the fall. James was currently in the midst of jumping through red tape at the Ministry trying to get into the official Auror training program, and in the meantime he had a part-time job at Florean Fortescue's serving people ice cream and cleaning up after messy customers.

Lily was living at Potter's Cottage for now, where her mother was still staying, and Lily felt very much back in touch with the small fragment of her family that remained. Every great once in a while they'd get a letter from Petunia, who'd recently begun a serious relationship with a man called Dursley, who was currently working as a salesman in a large department store, but had ambitions to become a salesman at a much larger company. Lily thought he sounded dull as beets, but never had the opportunity to say so to Petunia, who apparently found it too stifling to visit them at Potter's Cottage.

Lily and James had been getting on very well since school ended, though lately Lily had become increasingly concerned that she had not seen, nor heard talk of, the emerald and diamond engagement ring. Neither of them had mentioned it since the day James had snatched it back from her by the lake. Sometimes they would do romantic things--like sit on the beach and watch the sunset, for instance--and Lily would keep expecting him to pop out the ring and propose, but he hadn't yet, and she was becoming a bit anxious that it was taking so long. Really--honestly--how hard was it to find the perfect moment?

The sun had finished setting, and the first stars started to appear in the sky, twinkling brightly against the backdrop of gradient blue. Lily sighed. Twilight really was a very beautiful--and often overlooked--time of day. She was quite content to just sit here and watch the sky darken, gazing as a new silvery star appeared in the sky and winked at her out of the blackness every minute or so.

James, however, stood, brushing the sand off his pants, and held out his hand for Lily. "Come on," he said. "Let's go for a walk."

"All right," Lily agreed, sighing, and she took his hand, standing and slipping her shoes back on as they walked away from the beach.

"So how is it?" James asked conversationally as they walked along and the beach melted away into a Japanese garden. "Being out of Hogwarts?"

"Oh...I dunno," Lily said as they crossed a small, arched bridge, underneath which a stream full of large orange catfish bubbled pleasantly. "Sort of...weird, I guess. All that time in school, you...you don't really know what the next year's going to be like, but...but at least you know what school's going to be like. I don't think I've felt this uncertain about the future since...since I got my Hogwarts letter, actually."

James nodded, ducking slightly as they passed by the low branch of an oak. They were now entering a more foresty area of the gardens. "I know what you mean. It's like...I sort of have a plan for my future, but...who knows if it'll work out or not? Who knows if I'll be an Auror? Who knows where I'm going to live when I move out?"

Lily nodded. "Yeah. And...and you try to wonder where your life's going, but you realize...you have absolutely no idea what's going to happen, and...there's really no point trying to figure anything out, is there?"

James grinned. "Yeah...yeah, I think that's about right."

They had now reached Lily's favorite part of the indoor gardens, a grove of large pine trees, all nestled up against each other like old friends. This was where James had given her the necklace...this was where he'd first told her he loved her...this was where...

"Oh, James, I love this place," Lily breathed, sighing, gazing up at the tall old pine trees. "If only it were winter--it's so- pretty in winter--"

"It's quite pretty in summer, too," James noted, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, appeared dozens of fairies, who adorned themselves all over the pine trees, creating a great ring of sparkling light surrounding the grove.

"Oh, James," Lily breathed, bringing a hand to her mouth. The fairies seemed to become brighter and more beautiful as the sky dimmed around them, and Lily tilted her head back to see that the sky was now strewn with a glittering explosion of stars, each one brighter in its own way than a hundred fairy lights. "It's so beautiful...I..." She couldn't seem to find the words.

Lily felt James moving beside her, and his grip on her hand changed as he turned to face her. Lily tore her eyes away from the stars in time to see him fall to one knee in front of her. Lily gasped and clapped one hand to her mouth, her heart whomping wildly inside her chest.

"Lily," James said seriously, his voice rather deeper than usual. "I love you...I love you so much."

"I love you too," Lily managed to squeak out from behind her hand, and the emotions swelling inside her chest became so great that she started to tremble.

James reached into his pocket, and Lily, who knew exactly what was coming, could hardly contain herself. He let go her hand so he could open the ring box, and Lily's newly released hand flew to her mouth as well. The sight of the diamond and emerald engagement ring brought the first hot tears of joy to Lily's eyes, and she was touched to see that James actually looked a little nervous. He wiped his palms off on his pants before he spoke again, and when he did, his voice sounded a little dry.

"I--you--Lily, wehlyou--that is--will you--will you marry me?"

Lily tried to speak but found that she could barely form words. "Uh-huh," she managed, nodding her head, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she burst into sobs of intense happiness as James stood and fumblingly slipped the ring onto her finger. Laughing and grinning beneath her tears, Lily pulled James toward her, and he wrapped her in an enormous hug, smiling like a madman.

Lily could never remember feeling so happy--her chest swelled so proudly with joy she thought that it might burst--

And as Lily welcomed James's lips onto hers for what she knew must be the thousandth time, she couldn't help thinking that this, right here, was the most important thing in the world. Love was all that mattered--James was all that mattered--and no matter what they faced in their uncertain futures, everything came back down to this.

* * *