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.
That scared you, didn't it? You really should keep your letters better hidden, and your sister needs to learn to write better; her handwriting's too easy to imitate.
Underneath that were two S's, intertwined with each other in Old English script. There were only two people she could think of, offhand, who had those initials. And Severus certainly didn't write his notes with large, poufy hearts above the i's. Lily set her teeth.
"This was on the bottom of the letter that told me my father was dead."
James nodded. "I figured that."
"And it's from Serena."
His eyes didn't dilate at that. "I figured that, too." Looking up, he peered into her eyes. "He isn't, is he?"
Slowly, Lily shook her head.
"You didn't bother to tell me that he was alive?"
"You didn't give me a reason to."
"That's true. I'm sorry."
She slowly nodded her head. "It's all right. I just didn't give you a chance to."
"Yeah, but that was my fault."
Lily smiled. "All right, if you really want the blame, take it!"
He laughed. "We can share?"
"I don't do sharing very well." She stood up and moved forward, putting a light hand on his shoulder, Not expecting this, James looked up.
"Hum?"
"Thanks for telling me. I know-well, at least, I think you still like her, in spite of what you say."
James stared slowly at something within his mind, and Lily felt sure she could put a name to it. Or, rather, her. Then he shook his head violently.
"No. Serena's done with. After what she did to you, I'm done with her."
Lily smiled, a bit tired. "I'm still warning you, she doesn't give up that easily."
"But she'll have to." Then his eyes regained their sparkle. "And what did you tell Severus?"
Lily's eyes widened. "Not this again!"
He pushed her into her former chair again. "No, really. You told Eva, why not me?" He hated to prolong this, but he had to know the answer she'd given Snape.
Lily was getting slowly tired of this. Sighing, she gave up.
"If you tell anyone, anyone about this, your life will not be worth living. And you know it won't."
"I know. So, tell!"
She sighed again, but searched her memory obediently. "You were right. Partly," she amended. "He did ask me to be his girlfriend."
James was a bit anxious in case his nervousness was getting too obvious. "And what did you tell him?"
With a firm tread, Lily stamped every bubble of hope in the room flat. The explosion was almost deafening. "I told him that I was too young and didn't like him that much. There, happy?"
He didn't answer right away, so she repeated herself. "Happy?"
He pulled his face into a frown. "Not especially. But I can live with that. Say-" he looked at her curiously-"how come you don't like him? You've been really good friends since the beginning of last year; what happened?"
Lily squared her shoulders. "I don't especially like this conversation, but I didn't say I didn't like him. He's the best friend I could ever hope for, which is more than I could say for you, but I just don't like him outside of the friend barrier."
"Oh." James nodded slowly. "Is he still your friend?"
"I don't see that that's any of your business." She drew her ears back and raised an eyebrow defensively. "Now, if you do or if you don't mind, I'm going to bed." She untied the knot in her bathrobe's sash (it was getting a bit hot) and walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her. When James had jumped to his feet and left the room after her, she was gone.
He let his head sink slowly. It was to be expected, wasn't it? He couldn't have had the slightest hope that she would consider any offers of that sort from anyone, not someone like her. All the other girls he'd known were usually desperate for-yes, well, someone like him-smart and a Quidditch player-Lily didn't need anyone like that. She couldn't care less how many goals you scored or how many teachers you could make a fool out of-she looked deeper than that, if she even bothered to look. And it seemed that, in his case, she hadn't bothered to look. She didn't put up with any of his teasing or taunting, and the only things that he did that had made an impression on her were-well, bad.
Walking back to his dormitory a bit dejectedly, he heard a few soft crying sounds. He stopped, then, frowning a bit, he moved forward in the direction of Lily's dormitory.
Lily, who had vanished into the closest doorway in the semi-secret hall, saw James leave the room, a bit depressed, not bothering to lock the door. She had been counting on that, and, as soon as he vanished from sight and the sound of the closing door made a soft bang, she slipped back inside the room.
The first time she had been in there, she had noticed a small bump underneath one of the blankets that lined the walls, and she also remembered that she had seen no sign of further excursions to the Whomping Willow. Running her hands quickly over the walls, she found the bump again and pulled the blanket aside.
She saw only the stone wall, but that was to be expected. But it was stone wall with a handle on it. Lily pulled on it, but gave up after the first try, knowing that Sirius and James, if they wanted to keep something hidden, would use more than just a blanket and several secret corridors to hide it.
Flicking out her wand, she eyed the stone wall apprehensively. Guessing quickly, she chose the password that had opened up the old hiding place for the Animagi books, for she had a pretty shrewd suspicion that this room wasn't only used as a hideout for cutting class.
"Muidnessid!"
Coming out of the house-elf door, walking inside the dormitory softly, James saw with a quick glance that Lily's four-poster was empty, and the crying came from a different bed. The occupant sat up immediately when she saw him in the doorway.
"Serena? What-what's wrong?"
She dried her eyes hurriedly. "Oh-everything. Everything's wrong-now. Oh, go away!" She buried her head in her pillow, sobbing loudly.
If Lily had been there, she would have started laughing at that performance. She knew that Serena had seen her leave the room with James, and she knew that Serena was pretty good at producing crocodile tears. But Lily was not there, and James was.
He sort of had the idea that the only decent thing to do would be to try to comfort her, so he moved towards her tentatively, putting a hand on her arm.
"Are-are you all right?"
She shook her head violently, her blond hair curling on the pillow. "No. I haven't been since the first day of school this term. Oh-you're making it worse, please go away!"
He ignored that and pulled her against him, and, with a vicious, delighted smile he couldn't see, she buried her face in his shoulder, still sobbing brokenly.
On Lily's part, she was also smiling viciously as the stone wall opened up to reveal the books she had seen that other time, and, when she pushed the far side of the stone cabinet, her smile widened as she saw the hallway in whose shadow she had hidden as she watched James and Sirius pull books out of the wall to take to the Shrieking Shack. Lily closed it quickly, and, pulling the books onto her lap, she arranged herself in front of the half-dead fire that was breathing its last in the small room.
She knew and recognized four of the books, but one of them was new. It wasn't exactly a book, however; it was a binder with large sheaves of parchment stuffed inside. As Lily opened it up and leafed through the pages, she recognized Peter's handwriting, lots of Sirius', and quite a bit of James'. Mostly, she realized, the pieces of parchment that had Peter's handwriting on them were copies of selected pages from library books. She recognized a few passages on Animagi that she had looked up for homework last year, and she knew that they had had to return the book before Madam Pince got suspicious.
Lily quickly flipped through the pages, looking for notes and other things, and she finally came upon something she felt she could use. It was in James' handwriting and was a side-script, scribbled in the margin of a page.
Pince has Dangerous Transformations in her office. Bookshelf three, third from left it usually is. Check tomorrow.
Underneath that, Lily recognized Sirus' script.
Oh, I'm doing this? OK, OK, fine, but I'll need your cloak.
This was obviously a note written in class or the library. The next bit James had written.
All right, take it. But if you get it taken up, your life isn't going to be worth living.
Oh, really? What are you planning on doing?
I'll think of something. We've got to have it, otherwise we won't be able to become Animagi. And, after the work we put into it, that would really suck.
Lily smiled wickedly when she read that. Pulling the sheaf of parchment out of the binder, she folded it up and placed it in her coat pocket, then replaced everything else so that no one could tell there had been an intrusion. Quickly, she flitted up to bed, but stopped short when she saw two figures near Serena's bed, one kneeling beside it, one sitting in it. Lily drew back into the shadows.
They spoke so low that Lily couldn't understand a word, and the intensified hearing she had received from her visits to the Alendoren Cove had been fading slowly. So, at about two in the morning, Lily noticed with relief that James was getting ready to leave; her legs were getting tired of supporting her for so long, and, besides, she hadn't slept all night. Pressing herself into the shadows behind the door, he passed her without dreaming that she was there. Of course, the dark bathrobe and nightgown helped, too.
When Serena finally fell asleep, Lily judged it time to get into her own bed, and, at three, she dozed off herself.
