Lily, with the dignity of a queen, looked down on him, with a sneer on her face. "Oh, really? What makes you think I can't handle a sword?"
"Well, for one thing, girls can't fence. They can't even control the thing."
"Oh?" With a flick of the wrist and a twitch of the sword, Lily disarmed James of his wand before he knew what she was about. It flew out of the window as neatly as if she had just disarmed him with her wand. "You're right. Of course I can't control it. How stupid of me to think I could ever have stood up against you, O High and Mighty One, when thou wast holding thine wand."
Eva peered out of the window. "James, your wand's on the top of the dining room roof!"
James' scorn turned a bit to admiration. "You don't think you can teach me that?"
"Teach you how to do what?"
"Well, use a sword. I'd like to learn. I could beat Snape and Malfoy up, for one thing."
Lily raised her chin. "So, you've been hideous to me ever since the last Quidditch match of the year, and now, out of nowhere, you expect me to be nice to you and teach you to fence? Potter, out of my room." Flourishing her foil, Lily drove him out of her room backwards and kicked the door shut. "Well, that's one problem solved."
Vanessa left her seat on the bed. "Lily, I have to say, that was really good!"
"Of course it was. I've spent my summer doing nothing else."
Eva filled up Lily's glass. "I can tell-wait, what's that?"
"What's what?" Lily and Vanessa raced to the window. Outside, whizzing towards her window, three flecks were flying, rapidly turning darker and larger as they approached the window. Moving aside quickly, Lily caught all three letters that the owls dropped, each bearing the Hogwarts crest.
"Our end-of-term marks! Look!" They ripped their respective envelopes open and pulled out their sheets. Lily's was a bit longer and thicker than her friends'.
Dear Miss Evans,
As you will see from your enclosed marks, your average grade following the exams is one hundred and seven percent. We shall be pleased to promote you to the third year at Hogwarts at your returning. Enclosed is also a form that will give you several choices as to which new classes you will be taking next year. Please fill out the form and return it by no later than July 15th.
Sincerely,
Professor M. McGonagall
Enclosed, Lily found two pieces of parchment, one with her marks on it and the other with the list of subjects. Smiling so hard she thought her teeth would start to crinkle and fall out, Lily handed the letter to her friends.
"Lily, that's amazing!" Eva and Vanessa hugged her tightly. "I just hope you'll help us with studying next year.
Lily sniffed. "Is that your first reaction?"
Vanessa giggled. "Well sort of. My second reaction is what are you going to do when you're in the same classes as James and Sirius next year?"
Slipping her Hogwarts robes off and placing them in her trunk along with her foil, Lily laughed. "I wish I could see their faces when I show up in practically every one of their classes! Actually, I will see their faces, won't I?"
Eva shook her head. "I know. I'm terribly jealous. But you won't forget us little second years, will you?"
"I don't know. I'll try not to miss seeing every single ant when I'm up high floating on an asteroid-I'm joking, honestly!"
Vanessa drew back her fist. "I wouldn't have hit you, but thanks for retracting that."
Later that night at dinner, Lily could see why she had been invited to stay. Basil, their brother, had invited about ten older boys, some of whom had brought their siblings, all of whom had brought friends. The large dining table, used to seat seventy people at a sitting, was filled up completely. Not one of the guests were girls.
The dinner itself was as amazing as the house was marvelous, and there were seven maids in crisp, starched aprons, serving at table. Every possible kind of food had been placed on the table, and it was surprising to Lily to see how fast it all vanished. Eva and Vanessa seemed resigned to the quick disappearance of the food, however, and made up for it by inviting Lily to Vanessa's room after dinner and ordering up some food from the three house-elves that served in the kitchen and around the house. Their parents hadn't showed up for dinner, and after dispatching a quick note to her own parents, Lily had followed her friends gladly to their after-dinner dinner.
Vanessa's room was almost like Eva's, being on the same floor and therefore having the same carpeting, but it was a bit more cluttered and had two more windows. Her room was connected to Eva's through a grandly large bathroom, which had been done in many different shades of blue, so they were able to drag Eva's large dark blue velvet couch into Vanessa's room.
After a dinner that was, if not as magnificent in scale, at least as good in content as the one downstairs, they were discussing the events of that day. Vanessa still fell to the floor giggling when she thought back to the pool and Lily's almost breaking James' nose.
"He looked so stunned, honestly! As if he expected you to let him drown you!"
"Well, what can you say? He's a big stuck-up git who's never had anyone say no to him before, plus he's dreadfully spoiled and needs to be hit several times and more than I did."
Eva looked at Lily in amazement. "You know, you're the first girl I've ever heard talk like that about him; they're all going on about how adorable he is and how wonderful he is at Quidditch."
Lily tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Well, he needs to be told that."
Vanessa gave a short laugh. "And I suppose you're going to be the one to do it?"
"Why not?"
"I'll tell you why not. Because he's already heard." Reveling in the squealing of the blond twins, James stepped out from behind the door.
Immediately on the defensive, Lily's eyes narrowed. "And what are you doing here?" she asked, pronouncing 'you' with a disgusted hiss.
"Well, listening to you three talk. It's extremely interesting to listen to people talking about me."
"What's your point?"
"I don't exactly have one, to tell you the truth."
"Of course. Well, to make it simpler for your most simple intellect, what are you doing in a girl's bedroom?"
He flinched a bit. "Only you would think of it that way."
"I know. Anything else?"
He moved away from the door and sat down on the floor, looking at Lily questioningly. ""Yeah-I wanted to ask why you're being so mean?"
Lily's eyes opened wide. "Me-and mean? What about you?"
Eva and Vanessa, who were looking rather uncomfortable, had finished a silent struggle for the empty food tray and were both carrying it out of the room, trying not to be obvious. They didn't succeed.
"What do you mean, what about me? You started this whole thing!"
"You're a very bad liar. After that Quidditch match the first thing you did was insult the way I looked."
"Oh-I'd forgotten about that. Oops."
Lily reseated herself on the couch and picked up her lemonade, taking small sips and staring into nowhere, thinking.
"What're you thinking about?"
"Hum? Oh-nothing-James, I'm not sure if you realized this, but the only reason I stopped sleeping on knobby curlers was because I wanted to find out who really liked me for who I am. And I guess I found out."
"What-You were refusing to make your hair look decent!"
"James Potter, I did not give up brushing my hair. However, I stopped using curlers and hairspray. All I cared about was my grades, and I couldn't very well concentrate on those if I spent my time in front of a mirror."
"You just sounded like a book. That was scary. Don't ever do that again."
"Oh, so now you're telling me how not to sound? I'm not your subordinate and I never will be."
"You will be. When I get out of Hogwarts I'll fix it so that wherever I decide to work I'll be your boss."
Lily smiled. She'd forgotten all about her letter from Hogwarts. "You won't have enough time."
"How so?"
"I'm leaving Hogwarts with you."
James looked a bit shocked and disgusted, not to mention puzzled. "You're not eloping with me, if that's what you mean. Right now I'd rather elope with Malfoy."
"Don't worry. That was farthest from my mind. I meant what I said, and what I meant was that I'm going to be graduating at the same time you are."
Smirking to see the both horrified and interested expressions that floated across his face, Lily drained her glass.
"What's the face for?"
"Do you mean to tell me that you're skipping second year?"
"Exactly."
"Why? If it's just to be closer to me, it's not going to work."
Lily bit her tongue, counting to ten backwards, but she exploded before she reached five. "You are nothing but a stuck-up git, and if you think that I'd even dream of skipping so that I could be with you-I've wanted to do this for a long time. Stand up."
James was rather puzzled, but he stood up anyway and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to look invincible, tough, and cute as Lily came walking towards him, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. Ten inches away from him, she stopped, looking quite embarrassed and uncomfortable, not to mention that she was blushing a bit. Not a bit--more than a bit. He looked straight into her forest green eyes, then closed them a second later as she did something unthinkable.
He reeled onto the carpet, holding his bright red jaw, cheek, and ear in pain. "WHAT'D YOU DO THAT FOR?" he roared as soon as he could open his eyes. The first thing he saw was Lily, who had knelt down on the floor, holding her stomach in ecstasy. She was laughing so hard she thought she'd split in two, her hair falling in her face and her eyes tearing.
"James, you idiot, what on earth did you think I'd do?"
"You almost broke my jaw!"
"You mean I didn't? Oh, how terribly clumsy of me! I'll be sure to break it next time, though, don't worry."
His eyes widened and he sprang up, knocking a small table over in his hurry to get out.
Lily regained enough possession of herself to get to the door and watch James dash down the hallway, tripping over Remus' outstretched leg fifty yards down
Lily was only standing upright with the help of the doorframe, so Sirius had to catch her as he came up right beside her and poked her in the side, making her fall.
"Sirius Black, what the heck do you think you're doing?"
"I thought I'd congratulate you. He needed to be slapped."
"And how did you know what I did? Were you also behind the door?"
Sirius opened his eyes wide. "You mean he was spying on you? Double congratulations!"
"So you heard me slap him? Criminey, I didn't know I hit him that hard."
"Oh, please, Lily." He set her back on her feet. "We could hear that all down this hall and then some. And if we hadn't heard your slap, we'd definitely have heard James' scream. Peter's still on the floor laughing. He deserved that big time. And, by the way, what did he give you for your birthday? He never told us, but he said it was expensive and mean."
"Ah. It was. He gave me a nice teak chest inlaid with gold, with lots of makeup cases and shampoo and all sorts of things. Plus a brush and a mirror. I say he deserved his slap seven times over."
"Well, all I have to say right now is congratulations. From me, Peter, Sirius, and the rest of the world."
"Why, thank you."
"Say-you're not mad at me because he's been lousy, are you?"
Quizzically, Lily stared into his dark eyes, then laughed. "Of course not."
He looked relieved and smiled too. "Oh, good. Say,-you wouldn't want to come down to Peter's room downstairs? We're playing Exploding Snap-want to come?"
Lily beamed. "Sure."
Lily walked into Peter's room to a storm of applause, while Sirius was walking ahead of her, shooing imaginary people away-"Miss Evans is not going to give autographs at this point in time-she shall be happy to later in the evening after she has been presented with her trophy, please do not crowd the conqueress just yet…"
Besides Peter, half of the second year Gryffindor boys seemed to be in the room, all applauding and banging on the floor with their fists, trying not to choke on excessive hiccuping laughter.
"Way to go, Evans!"
"Did you really hit him? We heard that all down the corridor."
"You rule, girl! Do that to Snape and Malfoy and we will forever be your slaves!"
"So, are you two friends again, now that you've gotten your revenge?"
"Lily has too much sense for that. I mean, wouldn't you?"
The rest of the evening passed rather pleasantly, with several stacks of cards exploding in Peter's face as he dropped them and providing an unending source of entertainment as he jumped around, trying to get the sparks out of his hair.
All too soon, the two weeks and the extension Lily got of three weeks were over, and her mother wanted her back home. The rest of the summer brought nothing new besides the letter from Hogwarts with her supply list on it. Her parents had an international meeting in Berlin, so it worked out that Lily was to go to Diagon Alley with her parents on August first and get a room at the Leaky Cauldron, her parents leaving her there in the care of Amanda's parents, who had also rented a room there.
Lily was waving goodbye to her parents, who were rapidly disappearing down the road in a taxi in a cloud of dust, when she felt a fist connect with her spine.
Lily fell forward onto the street, skinning her hands and knees. Not wasting an instant of time, she jumped up and raised her fists.
"James Potter, what on earth did you do that for?"
He shrugged, smirking. "Payback."
Lily dropped her balled hands. "All right, then I guess I deserved that. But why're you here?"
"Why do you think? I'm getting my supplies. I'd ask you what you were doing here, but you have a very talkative friend."
"I see. Amanda?"
"Exactly. Say, you want to come to Flourish and Blotts with us?"
"Us?"
"Yeah, Sirius and Remus. Peter's got a sick aunt, so he's in Russia, but the rest of us're here. So, what do you say?"
Dusting herself off, Lily walked towards the Leaky Cauldron without saying a word. James followed at a bit of a jog.
"Say, what'd I do?"
"Do?"
"Yeah, you just walked off and left. You're doing it right now, as a matter of fact."
They were inside the small pub by now and Lily was ascending the stairs. James caught her sleeve and held her back.
"Really, I mean it, what did I do?"
"You get one guess. Let me go, Potter." She tried to twist out of his grip, but he didn't let go. "I said, let me go!"
She heard steps on the stairs above her, climbing down the narrow stairway.
"Oh, good, Sirius. Get your friend to let me go, will you?"
"Sirius, tell me what I did wrong. I came up behind her in the street and tried to talk, but she got all huffy and won't talk to me. Talk to me here."
Lily turned around and glared at him. "That might have something to do with the insignificant fact that you punched me in the back. Not counting that my hands are bleeding. Potter, for the last time, get off of me!"
Sirius came the rest of the way down the stairs. "You know, James, she has a point." He detached Lily's sleeve and turned to her. "Say, Lily, since you're gonna be in our year, want to come shop for our things with us?"
Lily tilted her head to one side and stopped at the top of the stairs. "Sure, why not!" And with that, she turned into her room, grabbed her money, and headed back down, missing James' completely nonplussed glare as she and Sirius went out the back doorway.
"Hey, Lily, what new subjects're you taking this year?" Sirius was trying to stuff all of his books into one bag at Flourish and Blotts.
"Oh…" Lily glanced at her list. "Divination and the Study of Ancient Runes. What about you?"
"Well, James, Remus, Peter, and I all signed up for the same things-we're also in Divination, and-oh, wait, I forgot-James and Remus signed up for Care of Magical Creatures, but Peter's in Advanced Astronomy and I'm taking the Study of Ancient Runes. Say-I'll be in all of your classes!"
Lily nodded. "You will, won't you. You know-since you know what to get for my classes, could you get my things? I'll pay you back as soon as I get away from Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor-there's a long line and it's getting hot outside. Do you mind?"
He smiled. "As long as you save me a spot in line. I'm not waiting that long, either."
Lily tossed her hair over her shoulder as she swung out of the shop. "Of course!"
Thirty minutes later, there were only five people left in line for the counter, and Sirius was walking in the door. He took his place next to Lily, who tugged at his sleeve.
"Sirius!"
He bent down, for she was whispering. "What?"
"I've never been here before. What do you suggest?"
"Never been-never mind. Try Beheaded Raspberry."
"Beheaded what?"
"Combination of raspberry sherbet, raspberry ice cream, those Exploding Raspberries, and then there's a real one stuck on top, just with the green stuff gone."
"Green stuff?"
"Come off it, don't you know what-oh, yeah, right, you've never been here-these are huge and have thorny leaves. Try it."
"And I suppose what you mean is that the thorns are gone."
He banged his fist on the counter, attracting the attention of a sleepy clerk. "Exactly. All right, she'd like a Beheaded Raspberry sundae--make that a large with that creamy stuff on top, and I'm having…oh, gimme a Mocha Swirl Deluxe with the dancing mice on top…"
The sun was blazing down on the red-and-white striped umbrella covering Lily, Sirius, and Remus, who had joined them with an account of Malfoy slipping on a melted Ice Mouse in the joke shop, knocked into a shelf, and ended with a smoky, scorched robe and a ruined joke shop. Sirius was a bit upset.
"That git ruined the whole blazing shop? Can't he even walk right?"
"Oh, it's Pink. And Loopy. Who're you?-oh, that's right, the Evans girl." A slow, drawling voice was coming from behind Sirius. Malfoy was there, his white-blond hair still plastered to his head and his robes, which, though they had stopped smoking, were black and ashy. Sirius and Remus stood up, knocking their chairs over. Lily remained seated.
"What's the matter, boys? Can't take a bit of teasing?"
Lily shaded her eyes. "What's wrong, Malfoy, forgot that fires aren't to be walked into?"
Malfoy turned a bit rosy, gave her an expression somewhat between a glare and a smirk, and swished away, pulling Snape with him, who had been standing in the shade of the umbrella. Sirius and Remus, after throwing bits of mud at them, reseated themselves, beaming at Lily.
"Way to go, Lil!"
"She actually made him turn red!"
"He doesn't know that you're going to be sharing Potions with him, does he?"
"He's not going to be ecstatic about that, I can tell you!"
"I know, that nasty, jinxing git!"
Unknown to any of them, James had walked up quietly behind the group.
"He almost killed you last year, didn't he?"
"I don't know. I'm really glad you're not mad at me, because if you were, I might as well commit suicide right now!"
"Why so?"
"She owns a sword, idiot!"
"Oh, right. Lily, you might try teaching me how to handle that, because I'd like to hit him several times, too."
"Sure, why not. He deserves to be hit."
James' eyes were filled with hurt as he heard his two best friends talking about someone who sounded suspiciously like him. The next remark solidified the suspicion in his mind.
"But he really does need to do something with that hair of his. I mean to say-that is just disgusting, don't you think?"
"Definitely. I'm a girl, of course I'm going to think that's terrible. I wonder what I'd make him do with it, though? Besides the obvious, of course."
James looked down at his feet, the apology he'd been meaning to give Lily shoved brutally out of his mind. He slowly turned around, dragged his feet silently out of Diagon Alley, and locked himself in his room, listening to the feet thumping up the stairs.
It hadn't been hard for Lily to notice that James was missing, as he usually never strayed ten feet from his friends, except, of course, when he was playing Quidditch. She wondered what was up, and kept thinking back to that afternoon, wondering if she had hurt him in some way. The whole rest of her stay at the Leaky Cauldron, though filled with unwanted jinxes and taunts from Snape and Malfoy, was empty of James. She had glimpsed him once, when he was taking Floo powder to Fraeden Square, but she didn't follow him, getting the impression he didn't want to be followed.
They got to King's Cross by way of Amanda's parents, who had volunteered their minivan. Sirius, Remus, James, and Lily were to ride with them, along with, of course, Amanda. James, obviously trying to avoid everyone, had seated himself in the back, taking up the seat next to him with his trunk and owl, then buried himself in a book.
The others had by now seated themselves in the van, Amanda sitting in the seat James had left free and the three others in the three seats in front of him. Alisande was looking rather worried as the van started.
Sirius, who had placed himself next to Lily, had immediately turned around, trying to disengage James' attention from Quidditch Through the Ages. Stubbornly, James kept moving the book in front of Sirius' face, blocking his own face.
Sirius gave up, blowing out his breath with a sigh. He reached over the back of the seats and pulled the book away from James, who had not been expecting this. Sirius stashed the book under the front seat and stared quizzically at his friend.
"James, you've been really quiet and been avoiding us ever since the day Lil arrived. What's wrong, man?"
James stared fixedly at his lap. "I'd have thought that by now you'd have figured out that I'm not speaking to you."
"I'm not stupid. But why not? Did I do something wrong when I got you offa Lily? It's the only thing I can think of."
James' mouth was open, and he was resembling a gaping fish. "You honestly don't remember?"
"Remember what?"
"You are, too stupid!" The van stopped and James climbed over several pairs of legs in his hurry to get out. "Good riddance."
Confused, puzzled, and not a little disturbed, the four climbed out of the van, walked through the barrier, managing not to knock over any owls, and got on the train, in search of James. They found Snape and Malfoy.
Sirius was the first to speak. "Outta my way, Lucy!"
"Pink, you're asking for it."
"No, I didn't. I only told you to move. Nowhere in there did I mention a defined request."
"Looking for your buddy, are you?"
Sirius shook his head. "Lucy, it's nice that you've got your own television show, but you've got a husband in there, so stop looking for your own outside of filming."
Malfoy frowned. "Since when am I a star?"
"You're not. No one watches 'I Love Lucy' anymore. Move."
Malfoy narrowed his eyes, squinting at Sirius. Lily had had enough of this, so at the time Snape and Malfoy reached for their wands, she stepped forward, pushing Sirius back.
She remembered a tactic she had used with bullies at Muggle school. Eyes wide, she shook her hair back and looked squarely at Malfoy, not blinking, imitating unknowingly the deep, lidless stare of the elf-nymph. Her vision blurred, then, after a split second, she felt the earth sink under her and everything grow black.
Unwillingly, Lily felt herself fall downwards, landing in something familiar.
She shook herself several times, then, not a little frightened, she opened her eyes. This time, she was floating deep in the dewy ocean, with no solid as far as her eyes could reach. Floundering helplessly in the breathable substance, she tried to make her way up. Her arms, though very helpful in regular water, were no use at all now. She rose not an inch towards the surface.
Discouraged, she tried to sink down. She only succeeded, however, to drop a few inches, so, plainly, she was sort of stuck. Lily shook her head, trying not to scream.
"I'm fine. I'll be fine. I'm all right. I'm not going to die-SOMEONE HELP ME!" Gasping in fright, she closed her eyes and let her head sink onto her chest, trying to avoid panicking. But she still jumped a foot into the air when she felt a light touch on her arm.
Lily whirled around. Beside her was an unknown face, yet rather familiar. It had the snake-shaped eyes, the unnaturally long fingers, and the crescent-moon silvery whiteness of its skin was a reminder of the elf-nymph. Still, the silvery locks were replaced by jet-black hair, tousled, somewhat like James', Lily thought. He-for Lily figured it was a he-had no fish-tail, and his nails were a regular pinkish color, white at the tips. He was more normal than anything than she had encountered down here, including the rocks, because they didn't wobble, yet floated on the surface. About thirty-one years old, his face was rather reassuring.
"Who are you?"
He smiled at hearing her speak. "Tom. Who're you?"
"Lily. Lily Evans. I hate to say this-but what is this place?"
He looked stunned. "You mean you don't know? Where're your parents?"
Lily shrugged. "I don't live here. I go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and some strange things have happened over the last year, and I've landed here three times. I don't know where I am, why I'm here, or how I got here."
Tom frowned. "That sounds rather unbelievable, but, seeing that you go to Hogwarts, anything there's possible. Still, this place is the Alendoren Cove, off of the coast of Albania. I'm going to sound like a brochure here, but bear with me." He grinned at her. "It's several thousand miles deep, and the greatest elf-nymph sect of the world lives here. The water here is the same all to the bottom. No one has actually found out what causes the water to be so filled with light like this, but it's the only kind that the elvish tribe here can breathe. Only kind anyone can breathe, come to that."
Lily shook her head several times, trying to absorb everything and failing miserably. "Do you know, I might be able to understand this better if I could sit on dry land-do you mind?"
He laughed, a chilling, high, cold laugh, though oddly interesting. "Of course not. Come on." He took her wrist and propelled himself upward, dragging her with him.
They broke the surface some thirty minutes later, and, after swimming east for another twenty, they reached a sheltered cove, surrounded by rocks and glistening sand. Both of them struck out for the beach, and, not wet at all, placed themselves on a large, flat rock, Lily looking at Tom as if he were an interesting specimen she was studying in Care of Magical Creature.
"So-not to sound rude or anything, but what exactly are you?"
He laughed again, taking his time before responding. "My mother was an elf-nymph. She had powers that she wanted to take her time to teach, which is why I'm down here."
Lily interrupted. "Wait, wait there just a minute. She 'was' an elf-nymph?"
He sighed. "Yeah, she died when I was born."
"Oh." Lily could have bitten her tongue off for being so tactless. "I-I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "Hey, never mind. I'll live, you'll live, the world will go on." He looked a bit sad for a minute, then his brow cleared. "Anyway, I have my mother's half of the family here. She wrote a long journal of what she learned throughout her lifetime, which, near her death, she transformed into a book. It was spelled so as to only be opened by me, and, as soon as I came of age, my relatives wrote to me. I've been studying her arts ever since."
"Oh." Lily was sitting in silence, absorbing all he was telling her, when a splash broke the silence.
A silvery head was weaving its way through the waves, a thrilling smile on her face. The elf-nymph so familiar to Lily was diving through the iridescent dew and coming towards them. Tom stood up and brushed his robes free of sand.
"Oy, Litharelen! Meet my new friend." He gestured towards Lily as the elf-nymph reached shore, and, before Lily's eyes, changed her long tail into a silken, silvery, flowing gown. Running lightly, she reached their seat and was pulled up onto the rock by Tom.
"Lily, this is Litharelen de Forneque. Tharelen, this is Lily Evans." The two smiled at each other and reached for each other's hand, each seemingly delighted to meet the other. Lily, on her part, was both that and happy to be able to touch the living metal of Litharelen's fingers. "Tharelen here is my grandmother's sister's daughter's niece, if that makes any sense to you. It doesn't to me, but it does to her, and I'm not willing to go through the family tree just to find out exactly how we're related." He smiled. "I'd love to invite you to dinner here. I know Tharelen here would just love to have a homo sapien at her table, as she calls your kind. He laughed again, and Tharelen frowned, a beautiful, silvery frown.
"Stop that, Tom." She turned to Lily. "Welcome here. I've already seen you before, but I'd love to have you meet the rest of our family. Want to come?"
Lily smiled broadly. "Of course."
Litharelen beamed. "Come on. I'm afraid that you'll have to put up with people calling you Miss Evans, but I hope you won't mind. Tom did, though, when he met my grandparents, who call everyone Mrs. Slevanesaden or Miss de Forneque. When they wanted to shake hands, they held out theirs-"Good evening, Mr. Riddle." Tom actually looked over his shoulder, looking for that Mr. Riddle they were talking to!" She trilled a light ring of laughter and dived below the surface, resuming her usual form.
Lily looked back at Tom, who was looking rather disgruntled. "What a mess."
She was puzzled. "What?"
"I hated my father. He deserted us after my mother told him that she wasn't of his kind, and I don't want to be mentioned in the same sentence as his name."
Lily stared at him quizzically. "Well, what do you want me to call you?"
Tom debated on something inside himself, then apparently made up his mind. "Call me Tom, but if you want to, my friends at Hogwarts called me Lord Voldemort. You can go with that."
Lily grinned. "All right, my Lord, let's get to supper before it spoils, waiting for us!"
He nodded. "You're right. This way." And with a well-aimed dive, he was off in the dewy water. Lily, not wasting an instant of time, followed immediately.
They were at the door of a beautiful mansion, being itself a coral reef, when Lily felt a vicious pain on her cheek. Tom and Litharelen didn't miss her wince.
"Lily, what's wrong? Are you all right?" They were especially worried, and, seconds later, when another blast hit her other cheek, she saw their figures, which were rushing toward her with concern written on their faces as she sank downwards, losing her senses, dim and fade into nothingness.
Another hard slap on her cheek woke her up immediately. Regaining enough sense to keep her eyes closed, guessing they were silvery again, she shook her head violently and covered her ears. Around her she could feel the presence of many people, all of them shouting and shaking her. Nearby, she heard James' voice.
"See, I told you she was only messing around. Slapping people usually wakes them up, right, Evans?"
Lily felt a hand grope for her wrist and heard Eva's voice. "I'm taking her to the front. There's a teacher up there, C'mon, Lily." She bent down and hissed in her friend's ear, "Keep your eyes closed!" Then Eva yanked Lily to her feet, and, almost as if leading a blind girl, disappeared with her from sight.
They whirled into an empty compartment and Eva shut the door and pulled tight the curtains covering it. "Lily, this is getting serious. Eyes open."
Obedient to her friend's commanding voice, Lily flung open her eyelids and grasped at the mirror offered her by Eva. She didn't put it down, just kept staring at the image in the mirror.
Instead of the past silver threads twining through her irises and pupils, her eyes were a brilliant silver, sparkling just as the hair of Litharelen had done. Lily tucked her hair behind her ears and felt the tips; pointy and thin, and strangely, they were picking up waves of sound for miles around. The roots of her hair were, in front of her eyes, streaking themselves with silver. Lily laid the mirror beside her on the seat.
"Eva, I don't know why this is happening. I honestly don't."
Eva nodded and sank onto the seat beside her. "I don't think you do. But you didn't look at the necklace again, did you?"
"The last time I did that, it was to keep from drowning. I just stared at Malfoy. That's all. Just stared. And something happened there and I was off. Off somewhere. Actually, into the Alendoren Cove off of the coast of Albania." Exhausted, Lily leaned back against the upholstery and sighed. Eva was frowning.
"How do you know?"
"Oh-that-I talked to two people down there."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Tom Riddle and-oh, I met the elf-nymph I'd only seen before. He introduced me to her. Her name is Litharelen de Forneque and she's some complicated relation to Tom."
"Oh…that really doesn't tell us much about anything, does it?"
"No." Lily stood up forcefully, pushing herself off of the seat in an angry thrust. "But I wish I knew why I'm going there! I wish I knew why this-" she grasped at her silvery roots-"is happening to me. Eva, sometimes I have the feel I'm going insane." She walked over to the window and leaned against it, absently remembering the live metal touch of Litharelen's hand as she pressed her forehead against the cool glass.
