Lily glanced out the window, quickly. She noticed with a relief that it was still dark outside, but the moon was gone. Gathering her things, she started to make her way up to her dormitory, when a cough from behind her stopped her dead in her tracks.
She whirled around. “James Potter? What on earth are you doing here at-“ she checked the clock-“five thirty in the morning?”
He quickly stashed a book behind his chair. “I might as well ask you that. What are you doing in the fire at five thirty in the morning?”
“I’ll tell you if you’ll let me see what you just hid.”
“I’ll let you go to bed.”
“I’m not going to bed now. I’d oversleep terribly.”
“Well, why were you going upstairs?”
“To put my things away and get a book, genius.”
“Ah.”
She vanished up the stairway and appeared a moment later with The Princess Bride. “I’m going to read, you may commence in your book.” She opened it to the visit at Miracle Max’s and buried herself in the nutty Max and Valerie, coming up very unwillingly at a “Lily?” from James.
“What?” she practically snapped.
“Oh-sorry.”
“Never mind. What?”
He looked a bit nervous. “I’m not exactly sure how to say this.”
“Try and see what happens.”
“All right.” He arranged himself in his armchair. “Lily, have you ever felt really inferior to someone you really liked? I mean really liked.”
“I’ve felt inferior to my cat.”
He was a bit taken aback. “You what?”
She shrugged. “My cat is in cat heaven. I will never go to cat heaven. Proceed.”
“Oh.” He looked at her sideways, as if doubting her sanity, but he did proceed. “I don’t mean like that. I mean like-Do you have the faintest idea of what I’m trying to convey to you?”
“Yeah. I’m just making it hard for you.”
“I noticed. Well, anyway, I guess I’m in that predicament, and I need your help.”
“How?”
“I-well, there’s someone I really do like, and I’m a bit scared to tell her.”
“Go on.”
“She’s in third year…and I’m not sure exactly how to say this-“
“You know, Serena Potter sounds really stupid.”
“What-“ He turned brick red. “How did you know-I mean, where did you get that idea?”
“Instinct. And the fact that she’s pretty and that you’re a guy. Not that hard to combine. Oh, I’m forgetting that you’re quite inferior to her. It takes a lot to be that, trust me.”
“Don’t insult her in front of me! You’ve already attacked her!”
“Calm down, Prince Not-So-Charming! I only mentioned an opinion. Is there anything else you want to say?”
His fist retreated like lightning and he sat on it. “Yeah.”
“Well, then, shoot!”
“Erm…you’re on pretty good terms with her, aren’t you?”
“Pretty good. Not best friends, but then, who’d want to be friends with a wet mop?”
“Lily stop it. Are you talking to her?”
“Uh-huh. So what?”
“Well, I was just wondering…” His eyes roved all over the common room, making sure no one was hiding anywhere or listening, and he leaned back to check the stairways. Finally satisfied, he bent closer to Lily, who was running her finger through tousled hair.
“Do you think you could ask her what she thinks about me? I’d really like to know.”
“Why?”
“You’re being difficult again. STOP!”
“All right, all right. I’m warning you, though, I don’t do very well at playing matchmaker.”
“I don’t care. Do your best, please. I’m begging you.”
“What’ll you give me?”
“You want payment?”
“Matchmakers in China got paid for doing this kind of stuff. What’ll you give me?”
“Oh-I don’t know-what do you want?”
Lily started to laugh at the sight of James willing to do anything. “I should really blackmail you for this, and your problem is, I’m the only girl here you can trust.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Logic. And observation.”
“You scare me sometimes. But really, what do I have to do?”
She shrugged. “I’m not going to be greedy, and, anyway, I’m in a generous mood. I’ll question her for you, keep your secret, everything, on the condition that you stop accusing me of beating her up.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t you? Oh, well, if that’s the best I’ll get, then all right. Shake?”
“Shake,” she agreed. They both stretched their hands forward, and the handshake ended in a sort of arm-wrestling contest, both of them laughing.
Around six thirty, the common room was pretty well filled. Lily didn't see Serena anywhere, but she figured it would be best to tackle her while she was more or less alone in the dormitory. Thinking that over and giving James a nod, she sped up the stairs.
She slowed down a bit before she reached the bedroom, her breath coming and going like mad. She was running over a speech in her mind, but when she reached for the doorknob, she pulled back as if it had electrocuted her.
"Why don't I want to do this?"
She leaned against the wall. "He's my friend, I should help him out, I made him a promise, so what is wrong with me?" She reached for the doorknob again but pulled back, not wanting to go inside.
"I'm being stupid. Stupid; there's no other word for it. What in tarnation is wrong here? I promised James I'd help him out; why is there anything wrong with that?"
She sighed. Slumping down onto the floor, she brooded over things a bit.
"Honestly. Truly. I think-I think that's it. I just don't want my friend to become attached to someone I know is no good. I think that would explain it--"
She groaned. She had remembered a passage in The Princess Bride--and people don't look at other people the way the Countess looked at Westley because of their teeth!
"That isn't going to do me a bit of good. It's fiction. And he's perfectly entitled to make a fool of himself over Serena if he wants to--so why don't I want him to?
Over the next few days, Lily kept running over things in her mind that had to do with Serena; mainly opening speeches for the touchy subject. They all were lousy, and she finally decided to do what she usually did when pressed to say something: like the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court said to do for prophesy: take out your brain and put it in a safe, cool place, then unship your jaw and the rest is prophecy. The best bet for her was to make the best she could of an advantageous conversation.
That occasion came sooner than she wanted it to.
They were in their dormitory only a week after Lily's conversation with James in the common room, alone, and Serena was in a generous mood and sharing chocolates her father had sent with her family's crest on them. It was a sort of study session; that is, they had their Potions books out, but they were chattering meanlessly, Lily attempting to hold in an enormous yawn that was resting on her tongue and threatening to pounce.
She was terribly bored with the conversation, which had to do with the ballet company that had sent Serena a catalog, and how the dance program she attended every summer was going to order these tap shoes and this costume, and at the end of every sentence she was adding 'right?' and Lily was getting fed up. She remembered her promise, though, and kept her mouth shut, even thought the speech she was listening to was terribly long and touched on every subject in the world, yet the result was just wind.
"So after that, Kenneth saw the costume he was going to be wearing, right? And it was the clingy kind that was in a sort of brown and gold and lavender color, so he really protested against that, because Monica was the heroine in that performance, right? And she was wearing this flowy blue costume that was sort of a cloak and sort of a skirt, but looked like watery silk, so he was so scared of looking stupid, right? So then he asked Julian to beg his mom to let him buy this other costume he saw in the magazine, because he was really hung up on Monica, right? And-Aah!"
She jumped up and started fishing the chocolates out of where they had fallen, right on her new robes, which Lily had had the foresight to tilt dangerously on the shelf.
"Serena, are you all right? Here, let me help you." Together, they managed to get the truffles back into the box and the smears off of Serena's robes. Lily wasted no time once they got re-settled on the bed.
"You know, Serena, you were talking about Kenneth and Monica? About how they were so hung up on each other? Well, were you ever in that spot?" She started using a bit of flattery that had to be wrenched out of her mouth bit by bit. "I mean, since you're so mature and-pretty, and since all the boys here are falling over themselves for you, I just wanted to know, and of course, if you didn't want it to, it wouldn't go any farther than this room, you know, harmless girl talk."
Serena was obviously pleased. She flung her sheet of blonde hair over her shoulders and leaned close to Lily, who was combating wildly with herself to keep the smile pasted on her face and her nose from sneezing after smelling the strong mints Lily could tell Serena had been nibbling on.
"You've got to promise this won't go anywhere."
Lily leaned forward, too, nodding excitedly. "Why, I'm not the type of girl that goes around blurting secrets. You can tell me!"
Serena nodded, smiling conspiratorially all the while. "All right then. I-you promised?"
"I promise. Tell!"
"Well, then, you guess!"
"Guess?" Lily was a bit taken aback, and since she had no intention of blurting out James' name first, she pretended to think, then appeared shocked. "It's not any of the Slytherins, is it?"
Serena recoiled. "No-what makes you think of that? Gryffindor. Go on!"
Lily rested her head in her hands. "Um-er-is it a third year?"
Serena giggled. "Of course!"
Lily grinned back, though she was about to hurl when she thought of the flaky way she was acting. "Um-do I know him?"
"Yes. You know him."
"That narrows it down a bit…" Lily started to giggle madly. "Is it Remus?"
Serena sniffed loftily, a bit of her old self back. "Of course not."
"All right then. I don't think you'd like any of the Sutton family, they aren't exactly all that smart-and I know for a fact you don't like that odd Pettigrew kid there-"
"Oh, really! Am I that good an actress every time I go around him?"
Lily looked intrigued. "Around who?"
"One of your good friends…" She let her sentence trail off suggestively.
Lily thought she'd have to run to the toilet to be sick after she was done with Serena, but she continued, gasping a bit for breath between giggles. "Sirius Black?"
Serena turned a bit pink. "That was last year. This is now. Come on, girl , think! James Potter, of course!"
Lily grinned even wider and joined Serena in the largest giggle attack she ever thought she could force herself to have. "James? Why-why him?"
Serena tossed her head. "Oh, come on, cute, rich, witty, brilliant, Quidditch Chaser-what more could a girl want?"
Lily didn't say what she thought, namely: "Well, all that's not going to be enough if he's completely rude and heartless," but she dearly wanted to. She had to bite her tongue. That was when she found out that it was possible to bite one's tongue and giggle at the same time.
She left the room a half hour later, after making up some stuff about how she thought one of the Slytherins was cute and how he refused to notice her and she instantly regretted that because she got a load of advice from Serena, who was self-promoted to the position of expert. Lily leaned against the wall outside, feeling as if her stomach had been punched mercilessly. She fled when she saw Serena coming out of the door, then dashed back to her bed and spent the afternoon huddled on her bed, not moving an inch, not twitching a muscle, reproaching herself inside, and getting disgusted with herself for not letting her reason prevail. "It's almost like I have two souls inside of me, and one of them continually wants what I don't. And I have to beat that one down."
She got undressed later that evening, a bit resigned, a bit depressed, and a bit tired. Abigail noticed her somewhat stand-offish attitude when she came upstairs for bed and Lily was already undressed, but the only answer she got was: "I had to spend a morning giggling with Serena. I'm tired." Lily was relieved when Abigail accepted that and climbed into bed, as she was too weary for explanations.
It was a Monday night, but the time seemed to fly unnaturally to Friday afternoon. Halloween. And the night of Lily's detention with Professor Trelawney. Lily was not pleased.
Definitely not pleased. She got a note around five, reminding her to come to her Divination classroom at seven, the hour when the feast would be starting. Fussily saying goodbye to her friends, she tromped up the stairs to the tower at the time when they were leaving for the feast.
She was, as usual, exhausted when she reached the top with cramped muscles and wished for a long, hot bath. The only one she'd get in Professor Trelawney's room, she reminded herself gloomily, was a sort of sauna, what with all of the steam coming from the constant teapots and fires. But she was in for a surprise.
It was freezing in the tower room, almost as if there had never been a roaring fire in there since it was built. However, she clamped her teeth, pulled her robes tight around her, wished desperately that she had brought a cloak, and stepped inside.
Immediately, Professor Trelawney swooshed down on her, bearing a large tray about the size of the tables in the common room. She set it down in front of Lily, snapping at her. "You're late."
Lily didn't answer. She stood where she was, waiting for instructions and slowly turning to ice.
Professor Trelawney pointed to the tray, which held all of the incense ashes and tea leaves the students had used that week.
"Each of those have a different disposal method. Separate the similar ones and come to me for a list." She vanished behind a curtain.
Lily frowned. This was a bit stupid, she was thinking, not to mention pointless. Making up her mind to do this the easy way, she sat down beside the table and pulled out a new book on world religions: Theo's Reise. Fifteen minutes later, she stood up and stepped behind the curtain.
Trying to ignore the fact that her teachers nose was practically glued to a crystal ball, she cleared her throat loudly.
"Professor, you promised me a list-"
"Ah yes. Take it. Begone. You have disturbed my crystal gazing, which it should have been better you not interrupt. I have seen your figure, child, surrounded by evil, despair, even death, and…"
Lily heard the airy voice trail away as she left the room with a rather rude sniff. She regained the table and glanced at the roll of parchment.
"For the tea leaves with the sign of the Sun, remove the sign of the Sun and drop each leaflet into the kettle, which must be containing boiling water, placed over blue, cold-producing flames coming from logs placed in a circle with a diameter of thirty centimeters. After fifteen minutes, stir for twelve seconds and leave off, leaving the handle at precisely thirty degrees west from your person…"
It went on and on like that. Lily got a bit fed up after the first few paragraphs and threw the parchment down, grumbling.
"Miserable old bat! It would be so much easier to dump everything into the stupid kettle at once and-wait, that's not such a bad idea!" Sneaking a glance over her shoulder to make sure she was unwatched, she took the contents of each saucer and dumped it into the kettle hanging over the fire. She stirred haphazardly for a few seconds, glanced into the mound of leaves, and wasn't even surprised this time.
"Tom Riddle, why are you doing this?"
His head, formed out of green and brown soaking wet leaves, cracked a wide smile. "Well, mainly to ask you where you went last time you were at Litharelen's. You just vanished."
"Oh, right." Lily racked her brain a bit. "I-I fell asleep and forgot that they'd miss me at Hogwarts, so I didn't think much after I remembered that at waking up. Are you mad?"
"I am perfectly sane. No, really, Lith and I just wondered. Want to come now?"
Lily shook her head. "Tom, I'm in detention. I have a teacher in the next room, and I'd better commit suicide on the spot rather than face the consequences of what she'd do to me. I really can't."
His eyes flashed a murderous red for one instant, and he reared himself up, causing Lily to veer all the way across the room, into a table, knocking it over, and finally landing in a heap. He stood up, rose out of the kettle, and started making his way across the floor to Lily, who was lying there petrified.
"I asked you to come. You would do well if you obeyed, seeing that-"
Lily gasped. He had vanished and was nothing more than a puddle of leaves and a bit of hot water on the floor. Puzzled, she turned around and saw Professor Trelawney, standing over her with an excited expression behind her glasses.
"Child, you most certainly saw something! Tell me what it was! You were talking to it, walking away-did you see you doom? Did you see a murderer-a beast-what did you see?" She was on her knees beside Lily, who was still a bit shocked. Shocked and frightened.
"Tell me, child, what did you see? Was it a person or a beast or a bird or a bat? Was it something bodiless, only occupied by a soul-What is it, dear?"
Lily jumped up, madness seemingly overcoming her at the chatter and noise Professor Trelawney was making. She dashed all the way to the trapdoor, kicked it open, and ran all the way down to the Great Hall, sliding into her seat as fast as possible, trying to forget those red, snake-shaped eyes, blasting fire and doom at her.
Lily refused to answer any questions that evening, and she went to bed as early as possible, trying to block out her last scene with Tom. She was awakened rudely, however, at about two in the morning, by someone shaking her violently by the shoulder.
"Lily! Get up!"
"Wh-who're you? Go back to bed and let me do the same."
"Lily!" The voice was a bit more urgent now. "Get up!"
"Go away!"
The person pulled her sheets away. "Get up now!"
"I want my sheets back!"
"You'll get tem if you come downstairs with me. Come on!"
"James? You lunatic. Two a.m. is early even for me." She stretched, yawned, stretched a bit more, and snatched her sheets from his arms.
"You're coming downstairs right now or I'll dump a bucket of water on you!"
"Oh, right."
He held up a large tin pail. "I wasn't bluffing. Come on."
"Oh, all right!" Muttering under her breath, she wrapped herself in her blankets and tramped downstairs to the roaring fire, curling up as close to it as she could without singeing her hair.
"All right. You got me out of bed and into a bad mood, so now please get me back into bed."
"Huh?"
"State thy case."
"Oh. It's not a case. But anyway, did you ask her yet?"
"Ask who?"
"You know who!"
"Ask who about what?"
"Lily, stop being difficult!"
"All right, all right. But I do wish I'd demanded payment. What I put up with to get what I did get out of her cost me the front part of my tongue, a load of patience, and a lot of acting. I'm certainly going to get the lead role in any play I decide to try out for after this."
"Come on!"
"Fine, fine. All right, I did get from her that she did like Sirius last year, that she likes someone this year who is a third year, a boy, a Gryffindor…ooh, what was his name? It wasn't Longbottom, it wasn't Remus…ooh, it's on the tip of my tongue-"
"Lily, honestly!"
"Umm…it wasn't Sirius, at least not this year, I know him very well-let's see, could be Peter, could be-"
"Lily!"
"Could be Taylor Young, you know that redhead who never talks,-hey, she said he played Quidditch-it could be John, now, couldn't it? Or Nigel, or that Joseph DeVonn character, or-"
"LILY!"
"All right, all right, I give. Yes."
"Yes what?"
“Yes.”
“YES WHAT?”
“Oh, James, it’s just so much fun to make you mad, do you know that?”
“And?”
“Well, it is.”
“Well? What about-what about Serena?”
“What about her?”
“Lily, please stop! What did she say?”
Lily rolled her eyes a few times. “Thank goodness I’m not into all this stuff. I’d be a walking stress model.”
“Oh, come on. Lily, please!”
Lily looked at the tousle-headed figure in green and blue plaid pajamas, kneeling at her feet, begging for something. She started to laugh.
James jumped up quickly and clapped his hand over her mouth. “Do you want the whole Tower down here? Shut up!”
“All right.” Lily shook herself loose, stretched out on the couch, and closed her eyes.
“What are you doing?”
Lily sighed. She reached for the quill, inkwell, and bit of parchment someone had left lying on the table, wrote something, and pushed it over to James.
You told me to shut up.
He read it quickly, frowned, and crumpled the note up. “Lily, honestly! Please, can’t you see how important this is to me? I’m begging you!”
Lily’s mouth softened into a ridiculing smile as she saw James kneeling at her feet, pulling at her blankets.
“All right. I give. Yes.”
“Not that again! Yes what?”
“Yes. She told me she liked you. A lot.”
His face lit up and he sprang to his feet, beaming all over his face. Lily thought to herself that she’d never seen him so happy.
“Truly? You-you’re not lying?”
She smiled. “No. I’m not. I don’t suppose I have to ask if you’re satisfied, but I’m going to bed.” She picked up her blankets and trailed up the stairs to her dormitory. James followed her and plucked at her sleeve.
“Um-Lily?”
“What?”
“Do you mind doing me another big favor?”
“Ten Galleons.”
“Really-That is, I’ll pay you as soon as-“
“James Potter, you really have gone soppy over her, haven’t you? Depends on the favor.”
“Erm…” He looked very nervous and tongue-tied. “Do you think you can get her to go to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow?”
“We have a Hogsmeade visit?”
“Been up on the board for ages. Do you think you could arrange for her to meet me in the Three Broomsticks?”
Lily rolled her eyes. “The things I go through. All right, fine, but you’re paying for everything I decide to buy in The Three Broomsticks. Don’t worry, I won’t intrude on any private conversations!” she added at seeing his rather horrified face. “I will do my best. But now go to bed!"
The next morning, Lily cornered Serena as they were stepping into the carriages that were to convey then to Hogsmeade.
"Serena, I need to talk to you."
"Why are-Oh, fine. What about?"
"James."
Serena pulled Lily into the carriage, slammed the door, and faced Lily. "What about him? You didn't tell him, did you?"
"What-No. I didn't. But he asked to talk to me."
Serena's eyes narrowed. "Proceed."
"It was last night in the common room, and he asked me if I could manage to get you to meet him in The Three Broomsticks today. I told him I would do my best. What time do you want him to be there?"
Serena laughed gaily. "Tell him I'll be there as soon as I can get out of these musty carriages."
Lily nodded. "I've become the regular messenger girl, haven't I?"
She jumped out of the carriage door and managed to get into the one James was in before the carriages started to move.
"Well? Did you ask her?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And what?"
"Exactly. And what?"
"You're getting better at this." Lily wrinkled her nose. "She's meeting you in that pub as soon as she can get out of 'these musty carriages'. Quote unquote."
He smiled slowly, then stared out of the window for the rest of the trip, not bothering to acknowledge her presence.
When the carriages finally stopped, Lily had to stand back as a charcoal-headed blur raced past her out of the door.
"Anxious, are we?"
She stepped down, right into a blast of cold wind. She saw James leading Serena, who was clutching her cloak around her and looking the very picture of a maiden in distress, to the entrance of The Three Broomsticks. She shook her head and vanished into the joke shop.
A few minutes later, she re-emerged with bright red cheeks and a wish for the common room fire. Not wasting an instant, she stepped into the small pub.
It was welcomingly warm inside, and she didn't waste an instant ordering a large butterbeer and stepping over to the two tables pushed together in a corner, seating Sirius, Remus, Peter, Miranda, John, and several others.
"Hi, all!"
They looked up. "Oh, hi, Lily. Join us?"
Lily shrugged. "Precisely what I came over here to do." She slipped into a chair between Sirius and Miranda. "Did I interrupt an extremely important conversation?"
Sirius shrugged. "Depends on whose point of view you're looking at this. From James' view, yes, you interrupted something as important as life and death-"
"Pain and death. As important as pain and death. Without pain, this world would have severe problems. Proceed."
"This world does have severe problems."
"There is that. But go on."
"Well, from his point of view, as I said, you should be lying dead, even though he isn't here. From ours, you came at just the right time."
"I did? Oh, good. For once-How? For what?"
John jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Lily peered around he shoulder and caught sight of a very secluded table, with two occupants.
"Well, how was I on time?"
"You acted as their messenger girl, didn't you?"
"What do you mean?"
Nigel sighed. "You gave them their little messages for each other and got them here together, didn't you?"
"Well, yeah. So?"
"That was stupid."
"Sirius, shut up. How?"
Remus frowned, Nigel played with his nails, and Sirius sat there, pretending he had no idea of what was going on and why he was sitting at a table with absolute lunatics.
"How?"
Miranda scowled in James' general direction. "They're planning on ditching you as soon as possible."
"What-How-When and where?"
Jacqueline de Forté, the reserve Gryffindor Beater, patted Lily on the shoulder.
"Lily, it's not your fault, they're just a bunch of airheads. We just overheard them talking, and what they were saying basically amounts to this; 'She's done what we needed done, now we get rid of her.'"
Lily's eyes were open and wide, hurt and stunned. "So what you're trying to say is that they used me?"
Sirius flinched. "Yeah, pretty much."
He stooped down to glance at her face, which had drooped down to meet the front of her robes. "Are you all right?"
She snapped back up. "Couldn't be better."
"Really?"
"Truly. I'm all right. Need to be alone for a minute, though. Excuse me." She stepped away from the table, knocking her chair over, and walked out without bothering to pick it up.
Sirius and Remus looked terribly worried. "Do you think she's all right?"
Nigel shook his head. "She should be. We didn't tell her the other half."
"Other half of what?"
"You remember what Serena hinted. They're going to try to turn the whole darn school against her when they make her wand slip and make one of the Quidditch players fall off of his broom at the next match."
"Oh, that. It better not be me!"
"John, it's going to be one of us. Me, Nigel, Anya, or Ashley."
"What about Joseph?"
"Are you kidding? The whole darned school'd applaud if she knocked him into the mud!"
Outside, a moody redhead was ambling down the lane, bumping into people and staring blankly at their "Excuse you!"'s. She had no expression whatsoever on her face, unless you counted, well, nothing. Which no one really did.
She made her way up to the Shrieking Shack, where she leaned on the top rail of the fence and stared dreamily out into space, jumping about a mile when she felt a touch on the shoulder.
"Lily?"
"Serverus-oh, hello." She turned back to wind-watching.
"Lily, are you all right? You left The Three Broomsticks in a sort of-well, twisted way. Like you were going to commit suicide is what your face looked like. Are you all right?"
Lily sighed and turned to her friend. "Serverus, I don't know what I did wrong."
"Neither do I. But then, I'm not sure of all the facts."
"Mmm."
"That was a not-so-subtle hint. You still haven't answered my question."
"Oh-I-"-Lily broke down. For the first time in weeks, her eyes started to fill with tears. Half blinded, she flung her arms around Serverus' neck, hanging onto him as if he were her lifeline. Very stunned and antsy, he patted her back a bit.
Lily regained control of herself fairly quickly. She pulled away, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry. I just needed a hug. Badly." Leaning onto the rail again, she clutched it so hard her knuckles started to turn white and Serverus had to detach them from the fence.
"Lily, you're gonna break the wood if you keep that up. Come on." He took her arm and led her back down the lane.
"Where're we going?"
"I'm taking you back. If you stay in Hogsmeade, you're very likely going to run into Potter, and right now I have a feeling that isn't going to go over so well."
"Back where?"
"They have a new study corner in the library, with couches and a fire. We can talk there."
Gratefully, Lily re-dried her eyes. "Serverus, thanks so much."
"For what?"
"I'm not sure. Everything."
