Her funny elf-nymph appearance had faded in seconds, almost as soon as James left the room. Now, she was as back to normal as she could get, besides the unavoidable fact that her necklace kept swirling with forest-green and grayish-white smoke every time she got passionately angry. Which happened a lot, these days.
Christmas had passed in a flash. The only thing she had received was a new package of books from her parents, along with a black shirt with "I'm only wearing black till they make something darker" written on it from Remus, who had noticed that whenever possible, Lily wore all of the dark things she could find. Eva and Vanessa had given her a package of records they got from their cousin, who worked at the Wizarding Wireless Network, and Sirius had given her two small teddy bear earrings with red-and-green scarves.
Lucius had sent her a huge box of all the joke items his parents would allow him to get at Hogsmeade, with an inscription on the cardboard box:
I thought this might come in handy, seeing that you'd love to blast Potter's head off and I'd love to help. Lucius.
Serverus, though, had given her something she valued most. She knew it couldn't have been cheap; seeing that it was made out of feathery light velvet and trimmed with brocade lace. It was a long black cloak, reaching down to her ankles but not trailing on the floor, surrounded with black lace, which scalloped in drooping vines around the edges. It was fastened in front with an ebony buckle, and when Lily wore this in the dark, the only way to ascertain her presence was if she made a sudden movement and dislodged something.
She went at once to Serverus after she had opened it, to ask him to take this back, that it was too good for her, but he told her flat out that if she gave it back, he'd let the cats in his dormitory have fun with it. He didn't want it back, so the only thing for her to do was thank him graciously, with glowing cheeks.
The Friday after Christmas, Lily was awakened at about two in the morning by a rustle outside her bedroom door. She was awake instantly and out of bed in the next second. Her nightgown, another gift from her parents, was dark and long, yet with a wide skirt that didn't hinder her running. Without losing an instant, she slipped into her cloak and was out of the door, flitting around like a noiseless bat in the dark.
Down in the common room, which glowed with a faint orange from the dying fire, Lily stopped, pressing herself against the wall. She had heard a whisper, and a silent reprimand, and a footstep. Her ears were picking up the slightest movement in the common room and beyond its walls even, and she was listening with bated breath to the conversation of two people that were climbing out of the portrait hole.
Just as it was swinging shut, she slipped out after the two, who, by their whispers, she judged to be Sirius and James. The halls were dark, completely dark, and as she flew down the dismal corridors, she blessed her stars for the short lifespan of torches.
She heard the footsteps, only three yards ahead of her, turn into an alcove, which almost hid the statue of a Grecian goddess in the gloom. A wand appeared, and Sirius' voice was muttering.
"Muidnessid."
The arm of the goddess, whom Lily recognized to be Artemis, reached out and opened the wall behind her. Lily bit her lip and, quivering on the spot from excitement, watched the brick door pull away to form a small cupboard. She watched excitedly as a hand appeared and pulled out a stack of books from the cupboard. On moving forward several inches, she caught sight of the cover on one of them. It was the Animagi book she'd seen James hurriedly pull out of sight last year when she went to the library to persuade him to go the Quidditch practices. With its leathery cover and gold Old English lettering, it was unmistakable, and comprehension started to dawn on Lily.
Mind on the alert, she followed the boys all the way outside, all the way across the gardens. Luckily for her, the moon was gone, and there was no light to be thrown on the snow. Nevertheless, if they had looked backwards, they might have seen her.
They paced along until they reached a rather formidable tree, one Lily had never been too close to. She now knew why. As soon as they drew within reach of the branches, it started to flail and thrash towards her and the boys; obviously being able to see through Invisibility Cloaks, which Lily guessed the boys must be wearing.
Then, James drew out from under the cloak and ran towards a long stick. With it, he pushed a knot on the side of the willow and instantly, it froze. James regained the safety of the cloak and Lily saw footsteps appear in the snow all the way to a small hole in the ground between two large roots of the Willow. The weeds rustled a bit at the entrance, and then all was still.
Lily didn't need an instant to make up her mind. She slid right in after them and found herself in a long, earthy hallway. Remembering the story Remus had told her about the Shrieking Shack, she guessed correctly that this was the passage he used. Silently and quickly, Lily flitted along the dark and dirty corridor, eyes, ears, and wits sharpened.
Abruptly, she came across crude steps carved into the earth in front of her. She picked her way up, doing her best not to dislodge any clods of dirt or rocks.
Her head came up in one of the rooms of the Shrieking Shack. Lily winced as she saw blood spots on several torn-up chairs and thought to herself that that explained Remus' cuts that he usually had after the full moon. Hearing voices come from the next chamber, she darted towards the doorway. Her lips curved in an enchanting smile as she saw the two boys sitting on an old four-poster, obviously a Hogwarts throwaway, flipping through large and heavy books, taking notes every once in a while.
She took care to remain in the shadows, and Sirius and James never noticed her entrance. Lily slipped behind the door and dissolved in the darkness.
James turned a page. "Sirius, does it tell you anywhere how this can go wrong?"
"I don't think so. I do have the first part down here-look. It tells you your options."
James leaned over. "Oh, neat. Good. Problem is, that Restricted Section book got taken out."
"I know. We'd better check Madam Pince's private office library for that."
"We'll do that tomorrow. I don't blame Dumbledore for removing it, though I wish he hadn't."
They went on for a while, then, when Sirius' watch shrilly whistled four o'clock, they stood up.
"Sirius, we'd better be going back. Minky lights the fires at five, and we should be in bed by then."
"It's four already? We need a Time-Turner."
Hidden in the shadows, Lily frowned. Time-Turner?
"Ministry keeps close watch over those-wait. I might ask Serena if her dad could get us one."
"Yeah, but then she'd want to know what we'd want it for."
James slumped. "Oh, right. Anyway, let's leave."
They packed their rolls of parchment and books in a compartment under the floorboards, screwed the ink bottles shut, and stowed them away. Picking up a silvery piece of cloth from the floor, they threw it around them and vanished. Lily saw them go, started after them, but then changed her mind. With a wicked but charming smile curving her cheeks, she moved the floorboards back and took out the book with the leathery cover and the gold writing. Stowing it away under her cloak, she vanished in the gloom of the corridor.
They emerged from the tree's secret passage and made their way back to the castle. Lily took a rather roundabout way back, slipping in and out of the shadows on the Forbidden Forest. In this way, she was at the portrait door thirty minutes after James and Sirius got there.
Not in the least out of breath, she halted her steps and put her ear against the portrait door, holding her hand over the Fat Lady's mouth and quenching a surprised question. Her suspicions didn't fail her; someone was in the common room. Two someones, by the sound of it.
"I think I heard someone, and that's all I can say."
"James, honestly, you think you heard? You mean we're sitting up for nothing?"
"Not nothing. If I'm right, I can prevent her from going to McGonagall first thing next morning."
"Her?"
"Yes. Her. I know it's Lily."
"And how do you know that?"
"Well-I don't know. I only know that I know."
"Sort of like lovers can sense each other's presence?"
"Sirius! Stop! She's only twelve, for Pete's sake! And besides, I have Serena."
"Tell me this: are you ever really happy when you're around Serena? Truly. Doesn't she make you feel inferior and wicked and-well, like a gullible fool?"
"How would you know how I might feel?"
"Because that's what you act like."
"Indeed I do not. Let us change the subject." His voice had gone terribly icy, but Sirius didn't notice, or if he did, he ignored it.
"But this one is so much more fun. Tell me the truth, which you haven't done since Serena came into the picture; do you really like Serena?"
Lily could picture James' horrified expression and the anger that wiped away the horror. "Of course I do! I don't know what I'd do without her!"
Sirius audibly shrugged. "Well, for one thing, you might be friendly with Lily and her friends. Come on! This fight thing is getting on everyone in the school's nerves, not to mention your own, I'll bet."
"If she wants to apologize, she can. I'll not hinder her."
"James, even you should know Lily's not that kind of person. At least, not since Serena appeared. She used to apologize if she felt she had to and if it would solve the problem, but now she-she's drawn inside herself. You don't mean to say you haven't noticed that, do you? Can't you at least tell by her expression?"
"What expression?"
"Oh, good, so you have noticed. Exactly. She never lets her thoughts show, she never tells anyone what she's thinking. Do you know, you did that to her?"
"Me?"
"Oh, yes, you. Of course, you. From the day that you started being mean to her, she started to become more withdrawn, more cold and hard."
"That's not my problem."
"It should be. She's turning so heartless and cold-and she doesn't enjoy it one bit."
"Well, what does that have to do with me?"
"You drove her to it. You would ridicule her if she showed the slightest bit of emotion-and I know I helped. I'm none too proud of that, either. But think, James, think!"
Lily, standing outside the portrait hole, had silent admiration in her heart. No one, absolutely no one, not even Eva, had analyzed her so well, and no one had hit on the truth. Except Sirius. She turned her thoughts onto herself, smiling when she came across the hardened qualities she found herself to possess. There was no denying, even though it reaped less friendliness, that this coldness was severely fun, the cruelty she could unleash at will terribly amusing.
She wished she could listen endlessly to the discourse, but small pattering feet coming up the hall made her withdraw into a dark alcove. Peering out, she saw the form of a familiar house-elf lighting the torches in the hall. Silently, she cursed Minky for coming at just that time, and just as she thought that, Minky turned into the Gryffindor common room through a small door in the brick that wasn't a door but a wall until Minky mumbled something.
The small elf stepped inside, and Lily pictured James' and Sirius' scowls as they noticed that the pattering feet weren't Lily's. Minky looked up once, grinned all over her green, chubby face, and set to work lighting the fire. As soon as Lily heard Sirius and James leave, she slid inside herself.
Minky was busy and didn't notice the fairy cloaked in black pressing herself against the wall and vanishing up the shadowy stairs to her dormitory. Lily, still with a normal heart rate but a smug smile on her lips at her luck at finding out James' and Sirius' secret without them knowing that she knew, thought coldly that, last year, she would have raced up here with heart beating and breath coming and going, if she hadn't been discovered first. Which she probably would have been.
Slipping out of her cloak and secretly blessing Serverus for giving it to her, she slid it underneath a pile of neatly folded clothes in her trunk, hurriedly placed her dark slippers underneath the bed, where their wet state would escape notice, and pulled the covers over her still, calm and collected form.
Lily never fell asleep that night, but she gave a good imitation of it, tossing and turning in a feigned slumber, crying out muffled and mumbled words without any sense. Words she knew were heard by the whispering forms outside her door, whisperings that had started only a quarter-hour after she climbed betwixt the sheets.
Lily had watched Serena shoot up in bed as if she had just been shot through the arm, and instantly, she threw on her fluttery dressing gown and tiptoed to the dormitory door, casting strange glances back at Lily, who had quieted her mumblings a bit so as to hear better. She met an invisible form at the door, who quitted his invisibility as soon as she reached him. Slamming her fist into her pillow, Lily saw him: James was playing with a piece of Serena's hair. She caught a few phrases: "Hogsmeade", "expulsion", and "I don't care about me, just so long as you're all right". That last was from James. Summoning her useful phrase: "Eavesdroppers often hear highly useful and instructive things", (from Gone with the Wind, Rhett Butler's observation-Lily loved that story) she lapsed into a more calm dozing appearance and only once in a while frowned and clenched her fists, mumbling.
"But, James dear, what if they find out?"
"Serena, I promise, you're safe. I'll tell them I goaded you into it. I'll tell them anything. Anything that'll keep you safe."
Serena dimpled. "Oh, I'm not worth that much."
He scoffed. "Of course you are."
She turned a crimson shade Lily knew was faked, since she could blush just that color without any trouble. "Oh-I don't think so. After all, you're so much of a gentleman you can't help but say this, and I-"
"Serena, I'm not a gentleman and never will be. I hope-oh, never mind."
Serena unleashed more of her charm, fluttering her eyelashes and biting her lips. "You hope what?"
"Nothing. I'll tell you sometime. Coming to Hogsmeade January twenty-fourth?"
"Oh, is there a visit?"
"Silly goose, it's been posted for a week now. Meet up with me in the Three Broomsticks?"
"Oh-that is-" she turned away, blushing again. "I mean-"
"You mean what? You mean I'm not good enough, is that what you mean, that you're ashamed to be seen in public with me, that you're interested in someone else?" The whisper was swiftly rising to a normal tone.
"Oh-oh no-James, I'm so sorry!" She laid her white hand on his arm, pleading with watery blue eyes. "Please-no, that isn't what I meant. I just didn't think you wanted me to-look at you. You're a fine Quidditch player, the hero of many matches, you're brilliant and smart and clever and witty and…"
Lily frowned. "Can't he see that all those words mean the same darned thing?"
"Oh, James, I'd rather die than desert you!" She hung on his robe, appealing with a distressed entreating tone in her voice. James melted.
That ended Lily's eavesdropping session. She was too disgusted to listen, and besides, Elspeth started to stir in her bed. With a quick hug, Serena sped back to her bed, leaving James to throw on his Invisibility Cloak and retreat to his own four-poster, which he did, speedily.
Over the next few days, Lily sorely wished to expose James' and Sirius' secret study of Animagi to the school, seeing that wherever she went, she seemed to come across James and Serena, and the sight just somehow made her sick. Sirius spoke truth when he said she was numb to all emotions; it was truth except for one. Disgust was still left in her, and she had mastered the face expression that went with all varying levels of it. And now she wished she were completely unfeeling.
"I swear, I'm walking around like a doll with a sassy tongue. And I'm not sure I don't like what I've become."
School started, and the students started to drift back in from the holidays. Startled, Lily recollected that she hadn't had one fainting spell since her last visit to the Alendoren Cove, and she was rather puzzled. She was thankful for it, though, as those fits would have become rather inconvenient during, say, her nighttime flits into the Shrieking Shack or her climb to the North Tower. She still wondered, when she looked back, what had made her do that crazy thing, but then she realized that she'd do it again if given the opportunity.
Abigail came back with bursting excitement, which was quite quenched when she saw the cool way Lily greeted her. A bit hurt, she withdrew into her circle of other third-year friends, convinced that Lily had been influenced by Serena to hate her. In all fairness, it must be said that Lily didn't know she was being cold and stand-offish; she thought she was acting just as usual. Nowadays, if anyone wanted a hug from her because her cat had just died, Lily was the wrong person to go to. She would smile uncertainly and say something disconcerting like:
"Well, can't you get another cat?"
Eva, though she could seem a bit flaky at times, was one of the best friends Lily could ever have had, and she was showing it now. Not like any of Lily's other friends, she would neither sympathize and encourage Lily to do any of the things her crazy impulses made her want to do or tell her straight out that what she was doing was wrong and that she needed to stop.
Whenever Lily would stare dreamily out of the windows and turn around fiercely with the light of battle in her eyes, Eva was there, with a questioning look that made Lily reconsider. The look would have infuriated her if she had been given it by any other person, but from Eva it was soothing and calming, and the wild ideas forming in Lily's head were abandoned as soon as her friend made her see how deranged and dangerous they were.
Like a true friend, Eva stuck to Lily's side, told her all of the meaningless bits of gossip she heard, and even many of her deepest secrets, knowing that her friend would feel trusted by the confidence and honored. Lily did feel that way, and she knew what Eva was doing and why, and she was grateful.
The first week and the second of classes passed in a flash. Lily could often be seen reading in the back if Professor Binns' or Professor McGonagall's classes, and not in her schoolbooks. Yet when called upon, she always had an answer pat, even though she hadn't been listening to the lecture at all.
It disconcerted her teachers to see her spouting knowledge, even though no one ever saw her study, and it made them feel her forehead anxiously at the end of classes. When they tried to do that, Lily usually squirmed away and passed out of the classroom like a shy ghost; leaving the teachers behind to wonder if she really was all right.
One afternoon, when she was looking exceptionally peaked and white, Professor Cauldwell asked to see her after class.
"Yes, Professor?"
"Miss Evans, the whole staff here is worried about you. Is the strain of skipping second year becoming too much for you?"
Lily stiffened. "Professor, I am quite all right."
"You are sure? You have been looking terribly sick lately."
Lily put her hand up to her white cheek and noticed with a shock that her face was cold, cold as marble.
"Oh-Professor-I assure you, I am quite all right. Please-please excuse me." She rushed out of the classroom and right into Eva's armful of books.
"Lily! Watch it-what happened in there?" She straightened up immediately when she caught sight of her friend, normally with such a pale tan complexion, and now she was pale as new-fallen snow, scared as if she had just been attacked by a banshee, and with dark green eyes blazing in fright.
For the first time in weeks, Lily was breathing fast, and her heart was beating unnaturally quickly. "Eva, look at me."
"I am. That's what I want to know."
"I don't know, that's what it is! That's exactly what it is! I'm turning into some sort of ghost-and I don't know why-Eva, I know you're a terribly good friend and you've been doing all you can over the past few days to help-but if you can, do something about this!"
Eva set her mouth in a thin line at the first outburst she had had from Lily in months. This was a sort of a good sign, though she didn't let on. "First things first. You're coming with me." She grasped Lily's hand in a painful grasp and marched towards Gryffindor Tower.
They whirled into the exercise room on the girls' side, and Eva slammed and locked the door. Then she faced Lily.
"Lil, hand me that necklace."
"This?" Lily plucked at her chain. "Why?"
"I think this may be the root of all the problems. Hand it over."
Lily closed her eyes, then snapped them back open. "What are you going to do with it?"
"Put it in a safe place. Come on."
With an expression that made the viewer think her heart was being wrenched, Lily slowly lifted the chain off and laid it in Eva's hand. Quickly, as if she were preventing herself from changing her mind, she sn atched her hand back and quickly buried her head in her arms. When, a few seconds later, she emerged, she felt terribly relieved and unburdened, as if over half of her burdens were gone.
Her paleness receded over the next few days, and Lily could have sworn that James was making time go by faster, because in no time at all it was the morning of the Hogsmeade visit.
This time, Lily had been asked by Sirius if she'd go shopping for a birthday present for his sister with him, and she had gratefully agreed. But when they walked into Zonko's together, Lily couldn't help but flinch at the sight she was greeted with.
Sirius noticed her disconcertion, though he had no idea of the cause. "What?"
Lily gulped. She nodded over her right shoulder. Sirius bent down to pick up a bag of Dungbombs, managing to peer around the shelves. He straightened up, thinking.
"Good grief, it's bad enough for them to make her life miserable at school, but at least they can refrain from doing that here!" James and Serena were looking through Making your Muggle enemies a life of living Halifax by Bathilda Snowsone. He quickly steered Lily towards the door, but that did no good, either, because he pushed her right into the chattering group of Ravenclaw girls, led by none other than Sheila herself. And to make matters infintely worse, she was the one Lily crashed into.
Sheila fell onto the cobblestoned street just outside the door, taking Lily with her. Quickly, before anyone could respond or scream or even move an inch, Sirius was by Lily's side and was pulling her down the street. But Sheila recovered very fast, which in this case was not so good for Lily.
She jumped up, not even bothering to wipe the slush off of her robes. Whipping out her wand, she screeched after Lily, a short, indignant yell that pulled all of her hate together.
"Evans!"
Lily whirled.
"Come here right now!"
Lily, ignoring the hand Sirius had laid on her arm, shook him off impatiently and, collected and dignified, advanced towards Sheila, down the street.
"You called, I believe?"
Sheila was a furious angry cat, sputtering and slitting her eyes. "Evans, I've had enough of you. You and your ways. You think you're so much better than all of us, and here you come, knocking into me and walking by as if I were-were a house-elf. You're not our queen, and it's time you learned that. You vile-you evil-you heartless-"
If Sheila was an irritated kitten, Lily was a ferocious tigress. She drew her lips back from her pearly teeth and verily hissed in anger. She hadn't been aroused like this since James had accused her that day in her dormitory, and the anger she had kept bottled up inside her since then burst out. She was even more aroused than she had been that day, not even bothering to try to control herself. Flaming and rabid, she advanced on the cowering girl in front of her, who had abandoned all aggressive attacks she dearly wanted to shout out.
Lily's eyes seemed to shoot fire as she drew closer to her aggressor, who refused to back up. It was probably the bravest and stupidest thing she had ever done, but she prohibited the notion of running to enter her brain, slamming the door on it and locking it in the basement. And, to all present, the two were seen in a new light. Lily, a violent redhead with an almost ungovernable temper advancing on an enraged blonde with a seemingly unbearable grievance, appeared to the onlookers as an infuriated queen who had a cowering subject betray her, and she was out after the subject's blood. Then, the vision vanished as the queen de-materialized in a clap of blue lightning.
Gasping and choking, Lily coughed out a mouthful of fine white sand as she raised her head from the painful position she had been flung in when she landed. Limping and not a little white, she made her agonizing way over to the sea, where she managed to dip her left side in the water.
Wincing but feeling a bit better, she turned her thoughts to how she had arrived here. The necklace! But--wait-Eva had taken that away from her.
Frowning, she felt her throat and drew her breath in suddenly when she found a thin chain and pendant beneath her fingers. She had no idea how it had come there, but all she knew was that she was injured and she couldn't get back to Hogsmeade. Not since Serena had played with the necklace had she been able to get back by her own will.
For at least an hour, she sat amongst the rocks, sand, and waves, hot even though it was January. Then, sick of lying there and not doing anything, she tried to stand, propping herself up against a handy piece of rock that had fallen from an overhead cliff several centuries ago.
The standing was fine, but as soon as she tried to walk on her own, her injured side buckled and she fell, hitting her head on hard rock. Refusing to black out, she kept her eyes focused on the glaring sand until her eyes could take it no longer nor her body the pain, and then she did faint.
