Sirius busied himself with his bacon, accidentally puncturing the egg yolk on his plate. The rest of his food was quickly soaked, and he pushed his plate away in disgust.
"I'm not sure what you did, but I have a feeling it has to do with your not being able to keep secrets. That's what she said, at least."
James frowned. He lightly put a hand on Lily's shoulder and turned her around. His first sight of her since she got back startled him greatly.
When she had received the news about her father, she kept losing weight and the circles around her eyes became more pronounced with each passing day. Now, however, she had gained back all she had lost, she wasn't the brittle and frail icicle she had been, the rings around her eyes were almost completely gone, and her eyes had a spark in them, a sort of light that he hadn't seen there for quite some time. The red curls that had unwoven themselves from the waist-length plait framed her glowing countenance, and, wondering what could have caused that change in her, he simply stared till she lifted his hand off of her shoulder with an expression of disgust.
"Excuse you?"
He pulled himself together. "Lil, what happened?"
"How happened? You put your hand on my shoulder. What do you mean, what happened?"
He waved that away. "No. Over Christmas. You look-" he searched for a word-"well, so much nicer than you did."
"Am I supposed to take that as a compliment or an insult?"
"Is anything wrong? Or was something wrong and it's right now?"
With the icy dignity of a heartless queen sentencing a mass of people to death, she looked down on him.
"And what makes you think I'd honor you with my confidence?"
He started to speak, then seemed to notice the full Great Hall for the first time. "Oh. Tell me later?"
Her glare became piercing. "And what makes you think I'd tell you anything?"
When he didn't answer, she stood up, pulling Eva with her. "Eve, let's go. There's no point staying here and talking to simpletons. I've got Study of Ancient Runes next and you're going to help me find my alphabet of the dwarf-runes. I left it somewhere in my trunk, and now�" They left the Great Hall, chattering like a pack of mice, and Sirius had to hit James hard on the back before he turned around and paid attention to the pretty blonde girl that had just slipped into a seat next to him. Now, however, she was a bit pink with rage.
Lily, persuaded by Eva, told Sirius everything in Study of Ancient Runes. It was a relief to tell him; he listened and didn't interrupt at all; simply looked at her, absorbing everything with an air of-of-well, of something Lily couldn't quite put her finger on, but it comforted her. She didn't need to tell him not to tell James-she knew he wouldn't. That was one of the things about Sirius-you could tell him anything and trust him with it.
By the time lunch rolled around, Lily was getting rather sick of teachers patting her on the back and nodding to her in the hallways, so she begged Eva to bring a bit of lunch up to the common room. Eva appeared, empty-handed, but with a following of a dark-haired dog-like person carrying something looking disturbingly like a picnic basket with him. "House-elves," was the only explanation he gave, and, almost on cue, Minky came toddling in with two jugs of pumpkin juice in her hands, set them down, bowed very low, and retreated, almost knocking her head against her knees.
The food stayed hot all through the lunch hour, and Lily told both her friends exactly what happened, this time including the details. There was one detail she kept to herself, however-her conversation with Severus. She had an eerie feeling that, however good Sirius might be at keeping secrets, he was terrible at it if it involved a possible blackmail situation and Severus Snape in the same sentence.
But, that evening, when Lily and Eva were sitting in the windowseat, the darkest corner of the common room, she told Eva about Christmas Eve. Eva was both impressed and disgusted, but she kept that last feeling to herself. No matter how much she disliked Snape, he was Lily's friend, and therefore she had no right to say anything mean about him.
"He asked you out?"
Lily nodded. "I told you, I said no."
"But why? You'd have James begging for forgiveness!"
Lily frowned. "I don't follow your thought processes."
Sighing, Eva gripped Lily by the shoulders. "I don't care how many bottles of butterbeer he shares with his Cissa git, he still likes you. And if you did that, he'd either be begging you for forgiveness or-"
Smoothly, Lily cut in. "Or he'd never speak to me again."
"Oh." Eva sat back. "I didn't think of it that way. By the way-" she straightened up-"can I see the note?"
Lily had expected this, and she pulled it out of her jeans pocket. "Read and keep to self."
Eva rolled her eyes. "All right, all right. What on earth-" she was staring at the bot of parchment-"If you aren't too busy this year, do you mind if we officially-" She was snorting with laughter. "That is the weirdest way I've ever heard of of asking anyone out."
Lily ripped the note out of her hands cleanly, tucking it back into her pocked. "I figured you'd say that. It could be worse, though."
"But not by much."
Lily and Eva both jumped, then glared. Looking over Lily's shoulder was a familiar tousle-headed, raven-haired someone that Lily wasn't too friendly with at the moment.
"Excuse you?"
"Bathroom's down that hall. What's this about Snape?" His eyes twinkled mischievously.
Eva was holding onto the back of Lily's robes to keep her from attacking James. "Will you leave? This was none of your business!"
"Exactly. Was. It is now. So-what's this about Snape?"
Lily wrenched herself free from Eva's grasp. "Go away. I haven't told you this for a reason."
"And that reason would be?"
"Look at the way you're acting now! Not to mention that you spilled what I told you to Sirius!"
He shrugged. "You would have told him anyway."
"THAT DOESN�T MATTER! I TRUSTED YOU!"
"All right, all right! Calm down!" He saw with relief that Lily obeyed him and sank back down onto the window seat. "Lil, I promise, I didn't tell him anything except what you heard me say. Now what's going on? You can trust me."
Eva sat in her corner, smirking as she saw the angry face of Serena peeping our from behind an armchair, barely visible between the two in front of her, inches apart. The only drawback to that, Eva noted, was that Lily was glaring daggers at James.
"Can I?"
"Yes. Truly. I promise you, I won't tell anyone."
"Why do you want to know?"
He shrugged. "Well, it's pretty important to you. And I'd like to know what it is, so if anything else like it happens, I can be there for you?" His voice raised in a question at the end.
Lily's angry glare faded, and she almost gave in. But then she caught sight of his eyes. They were just as concerned and understanding and pleading as they had been the night she had told him about her father, and she drew back, out of his reach.
"You mean, so you can spread it all around the school. No thanks." With that final statement, she whirled around, headed for her dormitory, and vanished from sight, leaving James to a disappointed but amused Eva and an enraged, possessive girlfriend.
Eva drew back even more into the curtains, effectively hiding herself but able to see and hear all. It was lucky that she knew how to contain her laughter, otherwise she would have interrupted the extremely interesting discussion that went on only three feet in front of her. Serena was foaming at the mouth.
"Excuse you? What were you doing there?"
James raised his eyebrows. "Talking."
"Yes, talking! Talking to the one girl who's made my life here miserable! Two inches away from her face! That kind of talking!"
"She's just had her father die! What do think I was doing? You've never had anyone close to you die-she's lost both her parents in six months!"
Serena shook her head. "No, she didn't."
He was dumbfounded. "What do you mean, no she didn't?"
"She didn't tell you? That note was a fake. Her dad's still there to abuse her if he wants to."
"A fake? How do you know?"
"I know."
"And where'd you get the idea that her dad abuses her? You've got no right to think that!"
"Well, excuse me! I'm simply repeating what you said! You mean it's against the law now to agree with you?"
"And when did you hear me say that?"
"On the lawn. It was a Sunday."
"So you were eavesdropping, too?"
Serena folded her arms. "Well, I have the funny feeling that I have a right to know what my boyfriend's doing outside on the lawn with my greatest enemy, who just happens to be a girl."
"So you have a right to know everything that goes on in my life?"
"Well-yeah!"
"Well-no!"
"I'm your girlfriend, James Potter, and I have more of a right to you than anyone else here. Remember that."
"No."
"What do you mean, no?" She wasn't remotely pretty anymore. Practically spitting with rage, her features were convulsed and the usual innocent sweetheart look was wiped off.
"I meant what I said! No! To the first bit of that last sentence, that is."
"That I have more of a right to you than anyone else?"
"No, that you're my girlfriend."
Her jaw dropped. "WHAT?"
"Jesus!" He covered his ears. "Don't scream like that!"
"I'll scream if I damn well please! WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!"
James lost control, effectively drawing the attention of the entire common room to the arguing couple silhouetted by the light of the moon outside the window.
"I TOLD YOU WHAT I JUST SAID! I'M SICK AND TIRED OF YOUR POSSESSIVENESS! I'M MY OWN PERSON, FOR GOD'S SAKE!"
Upstairs, Lily heard screaming and shrieking noises coming from downstairs. Swiftly throwing her navy bathrobe on over her black nightgown and quickly plaiting her hair to that morning's style, she slipped downstairs, hiding in the shadow of the stairwell, with a clear view of the verbal fight.
"So what does this mean?" Serena squared her shoulders defensively.
"You, of all people, should know! Of all the uninteresting idiots in this whole darn school that don't have an idea of their own, you should know!"
"Excuse me? I am uninteresting? You weren't singing that tune a year ago!"
"Well, yeah! I never did. You were the one picking on me for not being able to sing! Besides, a year ago I was an idiot."
"So what you're telling me is that I'm an uninteresting idiot without any original ideas, an eavesdropper-what else, James Potter? What else?"
Remus was sitting in an armchair, leaning over to Sirius. "Five Galleons on James."
Sirius shook his head. "I don't know about that. She's got a lot of rage. And spit."
James stepped back. "What else? Well-let's see-you're dumped, maybe?"
Sirius slapped Remus on the back. "I'll take that bet!"
Mouthing wordlessly and resembling a dead codfish with a moving mouth, Serena stared after James as he left the common room, slamming the portrait closed and earning an enraged shout from the Fat Lady. She only left the common room when she was unfrozen by applause and whistles from the common room. Then she brushed herself off with as much dignity as she could muster, turned on her heel, and left for the girls' dormitory. On her way up, however, she caught sight of a redhead clad in shadows, standing on the stairwell.
Serena stopped, scowled, smirked, and glared all at the same time. She thought she was frightening Lily. Lily was thinking to herself how stupid Serena looked.
"So, happy now?"
"Why should I be?"
"I've been totally humiliated in front of Gryffindor Tower, dumped by my boyfriend, and insulted rudely. And it's all your fault."
"Wow." Lily looked approving. "I should get a medal for that!"
Stamping her foot on the stairwell, Serena's contorted features returned. "If you know what's good for you, you're going to find a way to get us back together."
Lily shrugged. "I'm not the best person to use that line on. I ate rat poison once when I was eight to see what would happen. And when I was ten, I stuck my hand into a pot of boiling water to see how hot it was. Same goes for the iron."
Mad as a smushed hornet, Serena practically started spitting again. Lily thought to herself that tonight she'd have to take her shower at night instead of in the mornings.
"You little impudent rat! You've completely ruined every single chance I had with him!"
Lily resumed a thoughtful look. "No, I'd say you did that. You didn't have to be so possessive."
"So you eavesdropped on us?"
"I didn't need to. I'll bet they heard you in the Alendoren Cove."
"The who?"
"You're not very good at geography, are you, dear?"
"You were eavesdropping?"
"So were you."
Serena could find nothing to say to that. She simply stared after Lily as the slight figure made her way down to the common room where Eva was waiting for her. A bit to late, Serena found her voice.
"I'll make sure you don't forget this, Evans!"
Lily sighed. Calling over her shoulder, she sent her remark back. "And Hogwarts will make sure you don't forget your humiliation, Sikora."
Without bothering to watch Serena vanish up the stairwell, she grabbed Eva's robes and pushed her into a chair. "Tell me what happened."
The next morning, when Lily walked into the Great Hall Sirius and Remus were slapping James on the back, clapping loudly as he tried to eat. He gave up just as Lily slid into her seat, choking on a mouthful of milk.
"How are you?"
James spit the mess out into a napkin. "Sick."
"Oh. I mean besides the milk."
As he was coughing up the rest of the milk that had found its way into his lungs, he didn't answer right away, but when he did, his answer was to be expected. "Absolutely wonderful. Do you know, I haven't been able to play one really good prank since Serena happened? Oh, think of the possibilities!" His voice faded, and he drifted off into a sort of dreamland, where Sirius and Remus obviously didn't exist, for he took another swig from his mug. Immediately, hands were clapping him on his back, and he woke up with a loud snort of milk coming out of his nose and a howl of pain. Everyone around him almost killed themselves laughing. Serena wasn't too happy. She had been walking by, and some of the milk had landed on her robes. They laughed even harder at her stamped foot and storm out of the Great Hall, and when they subsided, Lily had only time for a quick bowl of oatmeal before they had to dash off to Transfiguration.
Lily had forgotten that she shared this subject with James, and she didn't know quite what she felt about that when she remembered. He waved to her to sit down in the desk next to him, and, after a bit of uncertainty, she gave up and slid into the seat.
"So, forgiven me now?"
"No."
"But you're sitting here!"
"There is no other seat left, genius!"
James looked around. "Oh, right. Well-what'd you think of last night?"
Lily pulled out her quill and bottle of ink. "I think that you're going to regret it."
He looked dumbfounded. "Why? You're taking her side?"
"NO." Lily shook her head determinedly. "I just think that you're more vulnerable to her wrath than I am."
"So, you're worried now?" He nudged her in the side, but pulled his arm away quickly as she pointed the inky quill at him.
"I am not worried."
"So, why'd you decide to warn me?"
"Blood and guts spread all over the common room are not nice to sit down on."
"Oh." He stretched, yawning loudly. "Shame."
"Why?"
"I thought for a minute there you had actually turned human."
"Me and human in the same sentence? Excuse me; is this St. Mungo's? Someone's using me and human in the same lifetime�uh-huh�temperature? Five hundred and ninety�"
James grabbed the imaginary phone out of her hand. "Will you grow up?"
"You need to shrink. You're sitting on Bob."
It was just as well that Professor McGonagall was out of the room, for Lily burst into laughter at seeing his perplexed expression.
"Bob?"
"Yes, Bob! Can't you see him!"
"Who is Bob?"
Lily put her hands on her hips in feigned indignation. "Bob is my invisible friend! Stand up! He doesn't like having you on his lap!"
James rolled his eyes. "For a moment there I thought you were serious."
Lily gasped affectedly. "Don't you dare insult Bob!"
Their conversation was terminated by the entrance of Professor McGonagall, but they continued it in Anatomy while they were working with giant tarantulas. Lily, after insisting that Bob be let to do his share of the fun, entwined James in a long conversation about how he couldn�t prove that Bob didn't exist. James left that room at lunchtime with his head grasped in his hands, whining for headache medicine.
In Astronomy, however, Lily had snapped back to her previous coldness, scowling at the person working at her star chart. Wisely, for once, he decided not to interrupt her.
He wasn't in the common room that night; the Quidditch team was practicing. They tromped in at about eleven, freezing and bruised, since the snow had iced over. Miranda was the first to fling herself onto an armchair, and Lily quickly snapped her book shut as tiny ice particles came flying her way.
"I take it it's cold outside?"
Nigel sighed, stretching out in front of the fire. "I would answer that, but I have a funny feeling that the ice hanging off of my robes says it for me."
Rebecca Oxley, the new Chaser, shoved him out of the way, her chestnut hair almost frozen stiff with the cold. "Move. Now."
Lily shook her head and returned to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but she was startled rudely when water droplet dripped onto the page.
"Potter, can't you go thaw somewhere else?"
He shook his head. "I wanted you to see this."
"See what?" Her voice was almost as icy as the wind beating the windows.
He knelt down next to her. "Look at my hair."
She obeyed, and next instant burst out laughing. "Why, of all things, do you have your hair frozen to your head?"
Miranda waved that away. "That's nothing. He had icicles reaching down to his armpits before, but he broke them off."
"Really? May I ask why?"
"You just did."
"James, shut up." John had butted in. "He was being an idiot, so we emptied some lake water over his head. He had nice little sheets of ice lining his eyelashes!"
James glared. "You could have left that part out."
John smirked. "Why-you embarrassed to have your faults revealed in front of a lady?"
Miranda, Anya, and Jacqueline coughed loudly.
"They don't count. No, really-you're blushing!"
"That would be blood rushing to the head."
"Yeah, that's what happens when you blush!"
"Or when you're angry."
Lily stood up, interrupting the conversation. "Goodnight, my statues of ice. I betaketh me to my quarters now."
James leaned around the back of Lily's armchair. He was now occupying it. "James thanks Lily very much for the empty seat Lily just gave James! James is eternally grateful for a place to sit; thank you, Miss Lily!" He interrupted his house-elf talk as a piece of ice came hurtling down the girls' dormitory stairs at him.
"As James was saying, James is very grateful to the-" He had to duck as she aimed another bit at him.
The next few weeks were passing relatively eventlessly; they were taken up with excitement over the next Quidditch game, Gryffindor against Slytherin, and this game would decide who won the House Cup. It was a bit early for the last Quidditch match, but the fifth years were taking their O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) earlier than usual, so the match was scheduled for the second Saturday in March. Lily had started helping both teams out again; they were mostly too frozen to care that she was helping their enemies. She hadn't learned from last time, seemingly, and she was still doing her on homework between classes and during meals. But she didn't have as much of a workload as she did; several of the teachers were sick and hadn't assigned much, and Sirius was helping her with the teams' work. By the time the match rolled around, the teachers had assigned them homework due to them on Saturday instead, and Lily was swearing to herself never to do anything as insane as this again, and she didn't know why she didn't stop. It was pandemonium in the common room the night before the match when Nigel dropped the bomb on them.
He entered, ruffling his (formerly blonde, now streaked with mud) hair, and slamming the portrait closed behind him. Everyone looked up.
"Nig, whassa matter?"'
"Match isn't called off, is it?"
He shook his head. "Bad news, all."
The team jumped up. "How bad news?" "Are we playing someone else?" "Is it hailing tomorrow or something?"
He shook his head again. "We've been practicing all those moves-and now the Slytherins've practically changed their whole team! Most of them left last year, and we're stuck with new people, and we've got no idea how they play."
The team groaned audibly as the rest of the Gryffindors slumped. Nigel picked up his broomstick and waved them all outside.
"Come on! We've got to!"
The team groaned even louder as they caught sight of the fingernail-clipping sized hailstones beating the window.
"Nigel!"
"Look, do we want to lose? Come on, forget about homework!" He walked over to Lily and Sirius, who were working together on Rebecca's star chart for Divination. "Do you two think you can do this? I swear, this'll be the last time."
Sirius ignored Lily's 'ugh' and immediately nodded. "Of course. We'll have this done by-what time do you intend to get back?"
Nigel shook his head. "It's eleven now, so four would be a good estimate." The team slammed into the floor, whining loudly.
Sirius nodded. "We'll have it done. Have fun, all." He bent over the measurement of the corners of the Great Dipper as the team got up and filed outside.
It was five-thirty in the morning when they came back, weather-beaten, exhausted, and dead tired. They found Sirius asleep and Lily poring over a History of Magic book when they came in, and, after mumbling an unheard 'thank you', they all trooped back to bed. The only good thing about that interruption was that it awakened Sirius, and he immediately got back to Rebecca's Transfiguration summary.
They had thought the homework and staying up all night was hard; it was nothing compared to the job they had getting the team members out of bed at ten, though Minky's spraybottle full of ice water helped a lot.
Wiping sleep out of their eyes and accepting gratefully the large mugs of coffee and chocolate from Minky and her sister, Twinky, the team, Sirius, and Lily walked out onto the field. It was only when Lily took her place in the stands that she noticed that her shirt was on inside out. But as the teams took off, she could forget about it, as no one paid any attention to anyone else in the stands. The biased Slytherin fifth year was commentating again.
"Captains Patil and Damant shake hands, they're off, aaand-Quaffle goes to Frank Crichlow-we've got a nice new Slytherin team here-Crichlow and Clarik're the only ones we have left from last year, but there Crichlow goes-Quaffle to Malcolm Chissick-Crichlow-Buckley-Elmer, for Pete's sake, don't drop the thing!-Quaffle in the hands of Gryffindor's Potter, Potter flying up the field-Quaffle to Miranda Shaw-also one of those stinking lions-well, they do, Professor!"
Hail was falling lightly now, not hard enough to do much damage, but hard enough. The spectators were pulling out large umbrellas they'd had the foresight to bring along this time, but they made it a bit hard to see the players.
"Slytherin's also got a nice new Beater-well, two, actually-we've got team captain Alistair Damant and Mycroft Gedgrave. Gedgrave launches a beautiful Bludger at Potter-missed his nose, but he'll do better next time. Potter's got a nice red ear now, no blood-shame-but he aimes-and-Cathryn, come on! Never mind-Potter scores, and Clarik is going to do better next time. That's what comes of having girls on a team-see what the effect on the Gryffindor team was!"
The Gryffindor team's girls were shooting daggers at him, and if looks could kill, Murphy, the commentator, would be falling off of the Cliffs of Insanity, belly slashed open, head hanging off like Nick's, and guts tied to a tree, with the eels and sharks waiting below for him. He was hissed at violently, and Rebecca was so mad that she missed the goal by a good foot and a half.
"What'd I say! I told you so! And hail's falling in thumbnail-sized clumps now and Gryffindor's getting nervous! What's wrong, can't take falling bits of ice? Harmless little jest, Professor, jesting never hurt anyone-and we've got Chissick heading up the fields-loops Patil-aaand-HE SCORES! THIRTY TO TEN FOR SLYTHERIN!"
The boos coming from the Gryffindor end were enough to shake the stadium. Needless to say, they encouraged the Slytherins even more, and after showers of hail were falling in clumps and the game wasn't delayed any, James was still shooting desperately up the field, trying hard not to be hit by Bludgers, passing brooms, Beater clubs, random elbows, and fists. He pulled his arm back to throw-and just them he saw the new Slytherin Seeker, Warren Mallinson, streaking up the field, heading for something. Madly, ignoring the Bludgers that had just rearranged his insides, he yelled out to Anya, who hadn't noticed anything.
"ANYA! BEHIND YOU!"
She swerved and caught sight of the green bullet whizzing past her. Urging her broom on to faster speeds, she was slowly catching up.
Behind her, John had pulled James onto his broom-James had been hanging off dangerously-and was trying to signal Nigel for a time-out. Nigel didn't see him-he was too caught up in the Seeker race, as was the rest of the school.
Anya, three feet behind Mallinson, was trying desperately to catch up, but she was almost thrown off of her broom forwards when he stopped straight in front of her and grabbed something in the air. The Slytherin team and side exploded with cheers and screams, crowding onto the field as Cathryn Clarik was holding the Cup aloft, while the Gryffindors were cheering half-heartedly and accompanying Anya and James to the hospital wing.
Only the first thirty Gryffindors were allowed in, and when they were, Anya was sitting up, being clapped on the back ("Good job; you did great!") and trying to drink some strong black tea. James, on the other hand, was lying down, his chest covered in bandages, and his eyes half-closed. They were more solemn than they had been in ages, and the whole frost-bitten Gryffindor team was pretty downcast.
Miranda was the first to speak. "Well, it's only one year! We've been getting it for almost a decade running; we had to lose sometime!"
Nigel half-nodded. "We would have won, too, if we hadn't been informed at the last minute that they had switched teams and techniques."
"Yeah. But we tried our best! And under those conditions, too-when was the last time we had to play in hail?"
Vanessa sniffed. "Eighteen seventy-three."
They all stared at her. "Well, that explains it!"
They spent a relatively mediocre afternoon in the hospital wing till Madam Pomfrey shooed them out. Anya would return to Gryffindor Tower right before dinner, she said, but James would be staying a bit. Reluctantly, the visitors left the wing, returning to the common room, where they half-gratefully grabbed their finished homework from the table where Lily had been working and handed it to Rebecca, who was going round, delivering their things to their respective teachers. As soon as everyone finished a shower and got into some dry clothes, they met down in the common room, most of them wondering about Anya and James.
"I mean, Anya's coming back this evening, but James got hit in both sides with those Bludgers."
"D'you think he broke some ribs?"
"Doubt it. Nothing worse's ever happened here than broken jaws. He'll be all right."
Everyone agreed, everyone except Lily. She knew how aggressive Damand and Gedgrave were, since she had seen them at practice, and she highly doubted that he'd come out of that with only a sore side.
She was right. The day he returned to the Tower, five days later, he was limping a bit. Lily knew Madam Pomfrey was good, and if she couldn't fix an injury, it would have to be severe indeed. Still, she wasn't prepared for the sight she got when Sirius insisted to see his injury.
Lily and many others could have killed Sirius for that. James' whole stomach area was a nasty purplish-yellow, and it looked like he had been serving as a door when a battering ram hit it. It was terrible to look at, and after the first glance, many of the girls had left the common room for their dormitories. Lily stayed, mainly because of her odd notion that the bruise on his stomach wouldn't go crazy and start killing people, as several girls seemed to think.
Sighing loudly, James let himself fall into an armchair, wincing a bit.
"Sirius, thanks a lot. They're not going to speak to me again!"
"And the drawback to that would be...?"
"Ugh." James shrugged. "I don't really blame them for leaving; it's not pretty, is it?" That last was directed at Lily, who was buried in Robinson Crusoe.
Lily looked up. "What isn't?"
"You saw."
"Oh, that." Lily waved that away. "Do you really want to know what it looks like?"
"Not especially, but your comparisons are usually interesting to listen to, so shoot."
Lily rolled her eyes. "All right then." She shut her book. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that Sherlock Holmes had forgotten that people that breathe aren't dead and tried to do one of his experiments on you. He liked to beat corpses with clubs in order to see how far bruises can be produced after death," she added.
James raised his eyebrows. "Not bad. I could tell people that!"
"James, dear, Sherlock, one: is fictional, two: would be dead if he weren't fictional. Therefore, three: you cannot go around telling people that."
"I can try and see what happens?"
"That would be my phrase. Stop that." She rearranged herself in the armchair. "So, terribly disappointed that Slytherin got the House Cup?"
James' lighthearted half-grin vanished. "You just had to remind me of that, didn't you?"
"Sorry. But how much do you really mind?"
James scowled at her. "You know better than to ask me that. You know how much I like Quidditch."
Lily nodded. "I do, and I wish I didn't. It's practically all you ever talk about."
His frown deepened, then cleared. "Never mind."
"Never mind what?"
"I forgot that you don't like Quidditch all that much."
"How can you forget?"
He amended. "There is that." Suddenly, a mischievous grin spread across his face. "I'd forgotten something. You were telling Eva something about Snape the day we returned and then you wouldn't tell me. What is it?"
Lily's impassive, cold face returned. "Excuse you?"
"No. Now, tell me!" He had assumed an attitude that, if you didn't keep your wits together, would make you think he was in control. Lily kept her wits together.
"And why, pray tell, should I tell you that?"
He grinned. "Easy." Then the grin faded. "Never mind. I would have said that since you don't like him, then you should rejoice to-but never mind. You're out of your head, you know, associating with him."
"I'll associate with whoever I please, Potter." The common room, mostly empty now, was ideal for an argument.
"Yeah, but when that someone is Snape, then the situation's totally different."
"How different?"
He shrugged. "Isn't it obvious? Nasty, slimy, greasy-haired git who's always seeking for a chance to put Gryffindor down..."
Lily set her mouth tightly. "Well, you'd be surprised at what they say about you."
His eyebrows went up again. "What do they say?"
Lily closed her book. "I'm going to bed. Goodnight!"
James saw her vanish up the girls' dormitory stairs, the black nightgown trailing behind her and, finally, even her shadow cast by the torchlight faded, and he remembered what he'd had in mind to ask her.
"Man, Sirius, I'm an idiot!"
"Yeah, you are." Sirius agreed heartily. "What about this time?"
James pounded a fist into the armchair. "I meant to ask her something-something important."
"Ohhh." Sirius winked. "I think I can put a name to that!"
Raising his fist, James looked from it to Sirius.
"I think you and my knuckles would go very well together. Care to find out?"
"Nah. That would involve my walking over to where you are." He shuddered. "Work."
James rolled his eyes, and, standing up, he began to move towards the dormitory stairs. "Goodnight."
Sirius looked at his watch, shook it, looked at the common room clock, and finally at James. "What's wrong with you? It's only ten-thirty!"
James stopped shortly. "Yeah, and I've got marks from two vicious Bludgers on my stomach. You really want me to throw up all over you, just say so."
Sirius grinned. "Nah. Never mind! See ya whenever!" With a large, pasted grin on his face, he waved affectedly after James, who sighed loudly and continued on his way up the stairs.
His watch struck twelve before all the late sounds in the common room and dormitories had ceased. Quietly, he pulled the Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk and flung it over his dark blue bathrobe. Taking a key from Remus' trunk, he slipped outside the dormitory to the house-elf door. He quickly dodged the small figure traipsing around with a glass of water, though the large tennis-ball eyes made him nervous-he'd never felt that house-elves couldn't see through Invisiblity Cloaks. But he got by the small elf and re-emerged in the hallway of the girls' dormitory. He knew which one was Lily's; after all, he'd been in there to see Serena more often than he dared to count. Making sure not to dislodge anything, he slipped inside the dormitory and made his way over to her bed.
Something came up that he hadn't expected-he hadn't expected her to be awake. But she was-she had pulled out an old book that he recognized as being The Princess Bride-but she wasn't reading it. Her hands were running over some writing on the cover, and, with a shock, James noticed that she was crying-long pathways of tears were already evident on her face. Leaning over her so as to see the writing, he read only a small sentence.
Lily, dear, I loved this book when I first read it, and now it's your turn with Inigo and Westley and Buttercup, with true love and fencing and fighting and giants and miracles. Love, Mother.
James had to blink at that, for an image of losing his own mother flashed across his mind. Quietly setting his hand on her shoulder, he waited for her startled tenseness to subside.
He pulled his cloak off of his head and shoulders, kneeling by the side of the bed so as not to be noticed by any other possibly awake inhabitants of the dormitory.
"Lily, I need to speak to you."
Hurriedly running her hands over her cheeks, drying them, she sat up straight defensively.
"What gives you the right to come in here?" Her angry whisper glared at him.
He looked at her. "Lil, I need to talk to you."
Moved a bit by the urgency in his eyes, Lily slipped out from under the covers, pulling on her own bathrobe and looking at him questioningly.
"Where?"
"Where what? You mean where talk?"
"Exactly."
He nodded. "This way."
Lily followed him out of the dormitory as he led her towards the house-elf door, out through that one slimy corridor, to the unused wing, and finally to the room she had blurted everything out to him in. He waved her into a seat, pulled out a couple of Chocolate Frogs from a drawer, and threw a few over to her. Then, seating himself, he found he couldn't say what he meant to, not yet, at least. She still had some mockery left in her, and he couldn't bring up anything serious if she was in that kind of mood. Instead, he started the conversation off differently.
"So, what's this about Snape?"
Lily raised her eyebrows. He'd dragged her out of bed just so he could have an embarrassing fact he could blackmail his enemies with?
"Is this all you brought me down here for?"
"Nah." He shrugged. "But it's a good conversation starter. How about it?"
Lily shook her head. "He trusted me not to tell anyone, and I'm not going to let him down."
James smiled wickedly. "Oh, so it's that kind of secret?"
"Yes," Lily replied shortly. "Are you letting me go now?"
"No." Shaking his head firmly, James pressed her back into her seat. "Did he actually tell you not to tell anyone?"
Lily hesitated a bit, but then shook her head. "No; he only asked me to forget that it ever happened."
"Ohhhh. You know, you give too much away. First it's a something you can't tell anyone, second, it's a 'forget this ever happened' secret-what, did he ask you to marry him?"
Lily's face flushed angrily at his tart words, so close to the point, but before she could find a fitting retort, he had made a meaning out of her silence.
"So he did? Is that it?" This had gone a bit farther than James had intended, and he was sort of dreading the answer she would give.
Lily scowled. "You idiot. You knuckle-brained, pig-headed idiot. He's only fourteen. Who on earth thinks of marriage at that age?"
James shrugged. "Serena."
Waving that aside with an 'of course, how could I forget that?' air, Lily re-settled herself in her chair. "Well, yeah, that's pretty much all she's good for."
"Well, what did he say? You can rest assured that if you don't tell me, it'll be all over the school by lunchtime tomorrow."
Lily looked skeptical. "What will?"
"The fact that he asked you to marry him."
"That's not a fact."
"But it's pretty close, isn't it?" He noticed her red cheeks and triumphantly grinned. "Told you so!"
Lily let her face drop into her hands. Oh, great. Why on earth did this tormenting devil ever have to be born? Why did he have to do this? Idiot, she reproached herself. Talkative, babbling, readable idiot. Choosing her words carefully, she looked back at James her eyes hard.
"James, whatever he told me, it was to be kept to myself. He trusted me, and I'm not about to spoil that. Can't you understand? If you can't, please try to."
Her seriousness made him reconsider the jibes he was ready to throw at her, and he averted to the topic he had intended to choose. Instead, he pulled a note out of his pocket.
"I found this when I was cleaning out the wastebaskets in the teachers' offices as a detention. This was in Madam Pomfrey's."
Lily took it from him, rather confused. But then her face grew dark with anger as she pulled another piece of parchment out of her bathrobe pocket and compared the torn edge on each. They fitted together perfectly.
Her face hard and impassive, Lily looked up at James. "And you're positive this isn't just another prank?"
"More than positive."
Lily glanced over it again. It had a few short lines on it, in bubbly, large handwriting.
