Litharelen healed quickly, and in three weeks her arm was as good as new, as Lily had been looking up several healing charms. The long scar that ran between her eye and her ear was almost gone; one couldn’t tell that it had been there if a closer long look wasn’t taken. And Tom, though he did spend an awful lot of time with Litharelen, used up the rest of his time with several older wizards, among them Nott and Crabbe and Goyle, and others who had been fighting at that battle. They busied themselves among Tom’s seemingly inexhaustible library, searching for curses and things of that sort.
Lily spent most of the time there riding, acting as a scout. She had volunteered for this; she had heard Tom say that he needed someone to search for Ministry hideouts in the area, and Lily had told him she’d do it. He was reluctant at first, but finally gave in; he was becoming bit more protective of her ever since she had saved Litharelen. So she was usually to be found on top of Svordsja’s back, thundering over the sands.
She hadn’t found anything or anyone so far; no one seemed to be in the area for a radius of five miles, so these rides were quickly turning into enjoyable excursions. Lily ignored the fact that she could very well be killed or taken prisoner while she was working against the Ministry. She still didn’t know why she was helping Tom; it was like there was a sort of bond that made her do so. It was still dangerous for her to visit him; she hadn’t forgotten that he wanted her necklace badly, above all else, but all these dangers enveloped the Albanian coast in a mysterical atmosphere, one of fantasy and exotic tales and classic novels. Lily was living in a fantasy world come to life, and she was enjoying herself beyond anything she had ever imagined. It was as if she were a character in an adventure story; one that pushed excitement and danger and everything she’d ever dreamed of together, and the result was her life.
The students were getting even more excited as a month and a half of the Quidditch game went on. They would return every Sunday night with their pockets full of souvenirs and their mouths full of replays. One Tuesday night, after everyone had gone to bed except Lily, Amanda, Sirius, and James, the girls were pumping the boys for more about the match.
“So, what happened when they almost caught the Snitch?”
James grinned. “It was awesome. The Snitch was right next to the commentator box, and then both Seekers rush towards it-“ he stood up and began acting it out-“and then Rafer, that Italian Beater, sends this mean Bludger towards both of them, and they swerve. Missed it by an inch.” James plopped back down into his armchair. “Blasted Bludger.”
Lily laughed as Amanda stood up. “I’m exhausted. You keep on chatting; I’m going to bed. Coming, Lily?”
Lily shook her head lazily. “Too tired. You go; I’ll come once I can persuade my limbs to move.”
“I see.” Amanda nodded. “Which would involve-“
James, Sirius, and Lily cut her off. “Work.”
Amanda grinned. “You’ve been around Lily too much. I’ll see you three in the afternoon.”
Sirius looked puzzled. “Afternoon?”
“Sure.” Amanda shrugged. “I’ll probably sleep in.”
Frowning, James checked his watch. “Manda, it’s Sunday.”
“So?”
“Hum.” Lily frowned. “Amanda, do you know how much your grade will be influenced if you don’t attend a class? You might as well be failing with no chance of pulling up your grade, and wherever you wish to work will not be a possible job for you if your grades aren’t high, seeing that no one wishes to employ someone who has failed their fourth year-“
“SHUT UP!” All three others had joined in on this cry. Lily glared.
“-their fourth year, you will most likely be living on the goodwill of friends and be an embarrassment to those of us hardworking, smart,--“
Sirius turned to James. “What say we gag her?”
Amanda snorted. “Everyone in favor, say ‘Aye’.”
“Aye!”
“Aye!”
“--and all this will come of your refusing to do your duty and attend your class which it is your honor to be able to attend-“
James joined in, decidedly. “AYE!”
Amanda brushed a few sparks off of her robes as she turned for the dormitory stairs. “I’ll be going then.”
Lily and James nodded. “See you tomorrow at lunch, then.”
Sirius yawned twice. “I don’t know about you two, but seeing that it’s midnight, I’m hitting the sack.”
Lily raised amused eyebrows. “And since when do you own a punching bag that you hold boxing fights with in the middle of the night?”
James laughed as Sirius shrugged. “Been doing it ever since I was three. Excuse me, please. I need to hit something.” Yawning again, he left the common room.
Turning sharply to Lily, James hit her lightly on the shoulder. “Do you realize that we haven’t had a fight in over a month?”
Lily shrugged his hand away. “I know. You haven’t been here.”
“Which, in this case, is a good thing.”
“For you.”
“I know. You enjoy fights.”
“Um.”
“So…” James cast around for a good topic. “You wish you’d gotten tickets?”
“For what?”
“The Quidditch World Cup, brainless.”
“I do not, creature with a negative score on the amount of brain cells.”
“Lily?”
“Hum?”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
“All right.” He reached over to clap a hand over her mouth, but quicker than he could blink, she had his wrist in a death grip, twisting it away from her.
“OUCH!”
“I’m not shutting up, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I have. LET GO!”
“Never do that again.”
He winced for the thirtieth time. “All right!”
“Good.” She let go, and he pulled back, massaging his wrist. Soon, however, he stopped, looking up at her.
“Lily?”
“What is it now?”
“Teach me how to do that.”
“Why?”
“So you can’t do that to me, for one.”
“Which is exactly why I’m not going to.”
“Lil, please!”
“Maybe. Are you going to let me go to bed?”
“All right-hold it. I want to know something.”
“Oh, dear God.” Lily rolled her eyes. “What?”
“You’re frequently gone from Hogwarts. Why?”
Uh-oh. “Oh, am I?”
“You’re bluffing.”
“No, I’m stalling. There’s a difference.”
“Oh well. Where are you when you’re not here?”
“I’m not off with Severus, in case you were wondering that.”
“I wasn’t.” He shivered. “That would just be-well, wrong But seriously, you’re always quiet-and about a month ago, after we were gone to the Quidditch Cup, you had a sort of odd scar on your arm; looked like you ran into a thornbush or something.”
“Bingo.”
“You ran into a thornbush?”
“Genius.” This wasn’t a lie. Lily had received that scar when she had been riding through a small forest, and there was a clinging vine with thorns that seemed to have taking a liking to her.
“Uh-huh. Sure. Bluffing won’t work. There aren’t any at Hogwarts.”
Lily wrinkled her nose. “I’m starting to hate you.”
“Don’t. I’ve learned all this from you.”
“I hate myself.”
“Don’t. You’re not very easy to hate; you know that?”
“You didn’t think so last year.”
He waved that away. “I said it wasn’t easy. Not saying it can’t be done. But really, you are pretty easy to like, when you aren’t holding lethal weapons.”
“Um-thanks?”
“You’re welcome. That is—well, that was meant to be a compliment—I guess.”
Lily nodded. “I know. And I said ‘thanks’.”
“Welcome.” They sat in silence for a few minutes till James broke it. “Lil?”
“Um?”
“You still haven’t answered my question. Where’ve you been?”
Lily shook her head lazily, though her insides were quaking frantically as though she had swallowed a litter of Mandrakes that had decided to yank at the lining of her intestines. Yank hard. “Is that any of your concern?”
James wasn’t taking any stalling this time, Lily realized. “Lil, stop that. There’s something going on, and it isn’t some silly intrigue with a Slytherin.”
“Why do you care?”
“I care.”
“Uh-hum.” Lily settled back in her seat, determined not to reveal anything, though she knew it was going to be difficult.
“So? I’ve got all night.”
“You’re not going about this the right way.”
He frowned. “Lil, really. I’ve got a feeling that I’m the one with the advantage here. And I promise, I won’t spill what you might tell me to anyone.”
Lily couldn’t repress the small scornful laugh that burst out, and James scowled.
“Really! Whether you believe it or not, I can keep secrets!”
She had control of herself by now, so she only let out a small snort. “James Potter, you couldn’t keep a secret to save your life.”
“How do you know,” he challenged.
Lily just looked at him, and James wrinkled his nose. “Never mind.”
“I thought so.”
“You would. But, Lily, back to what I asked you at first.”
“What about it?”
He put a hand on her knee. “Lil, you can trust me with anything. I promise you, you’ll need someone to be there for you when whatever this is gets more serious. I’ll be there for you.”
Lily almost melted. His deep blue eyes were so trusting, and she felt drawn to something that pushed her to reveal what she knew, what she had experienced, what she had gone through and what she was hiding. She opened her mouth slightly; her lips just covered her teeth. And then—and then—Tom’s red, blazing eyes flashed in front of her gaze, and she drew back.
“Well then, you’ll just be waiting till that time does come, won’t you?”
She watched James draw back, disheartened and a bit hurt. Out of filmy, glazing eyes she saw him push his chair back and walk up to his dormitory, and when she was quite sure he had gone, she dropped her head onto her chest and closed her eyes.
Lily had been awake all night; her eyelids had refused to drop and her mind had been spinning around in circles, shouting at her and whirling and thumping the sides of her skull till she thought that her head would simply give under all the pressure and she’d be found dead in the morning with an extremely large hole on the side of her head. But when the next day dawned, her cranium was still as whole as it could get, being hers, and it was a school morning. Lily groaned as she stood up from the armchair and shook the long, now a darker red, hair back from her front and shoulders, wishing with all her might that Hogwarts served coffee at breakfast. Unfortunately, however, this was only given to seventh years and teachers, so Lily was out of luck. Still, she took herself downstairs to the Great Hall and slid into a chair, dumping as much of the chocolate syrup onto her breakfast as possible.
Eva entered, sitting down next to her. “Someone’s got an insane craving for chocolate.”
Lily shook her head. “For coffee. But Hogwarts doesn’t serve us coffee.”
“I noticed. So you’re turning to chocolate?”
Lily nodded as she numbly poured it into her milk glass.
“Lily!”
“What?”
“That’s disgusting! Stop it!”
“Stop what?” Lily looked down and saw that she’d covered a plate of eggs and toast, among other things, with liquid chocolate. She set the bottle back down. “Oh.”
“Lily, that’s nasty!”
“I know. But you’ll live.”
“You might not! Look at that—you’ll either be dead from so much sugar or you’ll be—you’ll be a—a—“ She stopped, stuck for a synonym, and just then Amanda appeared over her left shoulder and dropped a suggestion of her own onto the table.
“Like a Muggle cheerleader throwing a fit because her pom-poms got stuck in her curls.”
Eva smiled as she saw Lily’s listless look turn to a disgusted frown. She pushed her plate away and helped herself to Eva’s plate.
”Thanks.”
“Lily!”
Eva poked Amanda in the side. “It’s better than eating—“ she gestured over at Lily’s other plate, and for lack of a better word, gave the nicest description she could come up with—“that”
Lily didn’t hear her; James and Sirius had just entered the Hall. James looked over at her out of eyes with gray rings around them, questioning, almost, and she quickly pulled out a book, something rushing in her ears, something mixed with quite a bit of annoyance.
By the beginning of Potions, however, Lily was almost as usual, taking her pages of notes and giving somewhat annoying bits of advice; annoying because it was frustrating to be confronted with someone who obviously knew much more about the subject than the advisee did. Eva looked relieved; Amanda hadn’t noticed, and James and Sirius were too caught up with the problem of how to extinguish Sirius’ hair before Professor Cauldwell noticed that Sirius had bright blue flames on the side of his head.
In Anatomy, Professor Maar took his time entering the classroom, and when he did, the students were on the edge of their seats; they could see that he had brought an animal with him. He was carrying something wrapped in blankets, and it struggled every so often; it kicked as it was gently laid down on the desk. Quickly, without hesitation, Professor Maar drew aside the leather-like covering, and the small golden head of a baby unicorn poked jerkily out of the blankets.
The class gasped in unison and enjoyment. Lily, along with several others, edged closer to the edge of her seat, and when Professor Maar asked them to join him at the front of the room, she was one of the first ones out of her seat.
It was true; the unicorn bore a resemblance to Svordsja, but it wasn’t nearly as grand and stately. Not even when it was grown, Lily could tell, could it match the pentacorn in beauty and elegance. Having almost lived with Svordsja for the last few months, she was quickly becoming more than an expert on pentacorns, and as unicorns weren’t as different, her hand reached out for it.
Lily laid a cool hand on the forehead of the golden, struggling unicorn, just as Professor Maar was about to put it in a small cage on the floor near his desk. It quieted instantly under her touch, relaxed, and put its head down on the desk. Professor Maar shot a questioning glance at Lily, who looked up at him and quickly removed her hand.
“I—I’m sorry—“
He cut her off. “No—I don’t know many people that can calm a unicorn like that. Have you ever been in contact with one?”
Lily shook her head. “No, sir.” Well, she hadn’t, not directly, anyway.
“Hum.” He scratched his beard twice, then lifted the unicorn off of his desk with a clean, light movement. “We are going out onto the grounds today, as Professor Dumbledore does not wish to have live specimens of this sort inside Hogwarts. Miss Evans and—Mr. Potter, please take the unicorn.” The class filed out, walking out of the entrance hall speculating loudly as to what exactly Professor Maar was going to show them.
The day was rather windy; also a bit humid, and several of the girls were wiping their hair away from their foreheads, groaning, as they walked out into the sun. As Lily’s hair went down to the end of her spine by now, she was one of the first to do so; without the groaning, that is. They rounded a corner of the Forbidden Forest and came out onto a paddock, where several animals were roped to a post.
Unicorns. Five of them. Three pure, glistening, pearly white, and two younger, silvery-coated high-spirited animals. Professor Maar beckoned them forward.
“As you all know, we have been studying the intricate mass of veins beneath a unicorn’s horn. If you will please step forward and put your hands on the forehead, and try to discern the two main arteries, I will be much obliged—Miss Evans and Mr. Potter, over here with that baby, please.”
Lily gently pulled the golden mass of horn and spindly legs forward to stand in front of her teacher. “Yes, Professor?”
He frowned with just a hint of a smile in his eyes. “Tether him over here, please.” He gestured to a smaller pen. “He runs away frequently. Our gamekeeper’s had quite a bit of trouble with him so far.”
“Oh.” Lily knelt down, quickly slipping a piece of thin rope around the baby’s neck and around a wooden post, tying it gently but firmly. She laid her hand on the unicorn’s forehead again to quiet him down, and as she did so, she felt the small figure relax under her touch. Professor Maar was staring at her curiously.
“Miss Evans?”
She jumped up. “Yes, Professor?”
“Have you had any experience with horses, or any animal of this family?”
Lily shrugged. “Yes—I ride sometimes.” This was skating rather near thin ice, and she only hoped that Professor Maar wouldn’t hurl his hatchet and make her sink into the freezing water.
“You do? At Muggle stables, or—“ He let his sentence trail off.
She shook her head. “I have a friend who owns one. He lets me ride.”
“Oh.” Professor Maar seemed satisfied; at least, he turned away. But someone else wasn’t that satisfied with her explanation—and Lily heartily wished she’d never taught James Potter how to distrust her.
They entered lunch exhaustedly, not because of the exertions, which there hadn’t been, but because it was so humid outside. Lily had resorted to asking Professor Maar for a bit of rope, which was now holding her hair in a somewhat scraggly bun. But as they entered the Great Hall, with tables stacked full of ice-cold pumpkin juice and the usual delicious lunch, their discomfort was quickly forgotten. Lily slid into a seat next to Sirius and Rebecca Oxley, the new Quidditch Chaser.
“Hullo.”
Sirius looked up. “Afternoon. You look hot.”
“No, Sherlock, I’ve just been visiting the glaciers in Switzerland.”
“I take it that’s a yes.”
“You could say that,” Lily admitted. She turned to James. “What’d you think of the lesson today?”
She was a bit startled. Lily, naturally, had been expecting him to be stuffing his face, but he was staring at her, almost squinting, and he was frowning slightly.
“What?! Stop that! You’ve been staring at me like that all day! Will you leave off!”
He didn’t turn red; just shrugged and helped himself to the pitcher of pumpkin juice. “Yeah, fine, got it.”
He obviously hadn’t, though. That Thursday night in the common room, he finished his homework quickly, hurriedly, as usual, and then he pushed his chair back, watching Lily out of half-closed eyes as she meticulously calculated and sketched out a model of the star arrangement in the Farthwan wing of the Delvan galaxy. It was made up, of course, but they had been given a minor arrangement and a list of conditions and they were to give the position of several other stars from there. Finally, when they were the last two people there, and fed up with this, Lily threw her quill onto the floor, splattering her robes and homework with ink.
“Will you kindly tell me what you’re staring at! I’m getting sick and tired of all this!” She whirled around in her chair so that she was facing him, arms folded over her chest.
“I need to know what exactly is going on with you. It really could be bad.”
Lily gave something between a sigh and a groan. “Will you finally give up?”
“Lil, I know a bit too much to do that.”
She crossed her legs, challenging him with a hard expression on her face. “And what do you know?”
“Let’s see.” James ticked his items off on his fingers as he named them. “I know that you’re leaving Hogwarts by some method other than the train or Apparation, I know that wherever you’re going also has some type of horse that you ride, I know that it’s dangerous, and I know that it’s in this time zone or one close to ours. Anything else you’d care to add?”
Lily had to hold in a gasp, but it wasn’t easy. “And where did you—that is, where did you get the material for these ridiculous ideas?”
He shrugged. “You.”
“Excuse me?”
“What I said. From you.”
“So, I have told you that wherever I go is in this time zone, have I?”
“Not exactly.” He shrugged. “It’s just that whenever you’re gone, it’s at random times of the day, like three in the morning, seven a.m., or six at night. I figure you’d have to be going somewhere where the time isn’t as far off from here."
Lily shook her head. “You’ve got an extremely active imagination.”
He reached out again for her hand. “Lil, how much of what I told you is true?” His eyes, searching and trustworthy, fell upon hers and she sighed, slumping back.
“All of it. Happy now? Good. Go away.”
“Lil—“
“GO AWAY!”
“Lily.”
“What?” She was so frustrated now that she only hoped he’d leave quickly; and right now it seemed that either she’d have to give in to him, which was a bit out of the question, or give in to him, since he obviously wasn’t going to let her leave.
“Lily, tell me.” His voice, calm and collected, succeeded in frustrating her even more, and she was working terribly hard on not letting herself explode.
“Will you stop? Whatever you say I’m doing is seriously none of your business! It doesn’t concern you one iota, so just-just leave me be, all right?”
He looked at her, long and hard, and he finally nodded.
“All right-all right. Good night, then.” He picked his books up and left up the boys’ dormitory stairs. As soon as his footsteps melted into oblivion, Lily pulled out the necklace from underneath her robes, hit it gently on the arm of her chair, and sank into the blackness again…but something was different. Lily realized what it was as soon as she hit the sands. Someone had grasped her arm just as she was spinning out of Hogwarts, and that someone had landed in the Alendoren Cove with her.
