She was sitting in one of the armchairs, one foot tucked underneath her, bent over the roll of parchment.
The only thing that could be heard was the scratching of her quill.
She ignored the thumping footsteps coming down from the boys’ dormitory, and only when James let himself down in an armchair with a loud wheeze and a “Bloody hell, I’m tired!” that she looked up.
“Oh, it’s you.”
He grinned. “None other.”
”Pity.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
She bent her head back over her essay; she was ten inches over the required length, but she was intending to make it another three feet long. Pulling several other books onto the parchment to prevent it from curling up at the ends, she flipped a page in another book she had bought for herself to read.
James pulled his own Transfiguration book and supplies out; then leaned over to her essay. Lily let her free hand drop onto the table noisily, palm first, just missing his arm.
”Hey, you’ve got no call to hit me!”
“Are you trying to copy my essay?”
James shrugged. “Not exactly.”
“Then stop pretending that you are.”
“Hey—you’ve got more than you need. Be sharing!”
“I am not a sharing person.”
”I didn’t notice.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“With pleasure.” Her finger found the paragraph on the page she remembered seeing, and, looking up at the book every so often, she started rephrasing the statement.
He opened his own book, then grunted in frustration. “Lily?”
”Yes?”
“Do me a favor, will you?”
Lily looked up. “Am I obligated in any way to do you a favor?”
”No,” he admitted.
“You’ve got your answer, then.”
”So you’ll do it?” he grinned hopefully.
Lily looked up into his face; which was a mistake. Half smiling and half frowning, she gave up, finishing her last word with a flourish and setting her quill aside.
“What do you need help with?”
”I don’t have our essay topic.”
Lily let her head fall back onto the back of the armchair. “I would comment.”
”But what?”
”But it’s painfully obvious.”
He rolled his eyes and squinted over at her essay. By the time she had caught on, he was busily scribbling away on his own roll of parchment.
Five minutes passed that way; Lily was curled up in the armchair, somewhere between dozing and sleeping, and James was trying to unconspicuously look at her essay. She knew what he was doing, and he knew she knew what he was doing, and she knew that he knew that she knew what he was doing. All in all, he wouldn’t have been allowed to copy if she had been fully awake, and he knew it.
Finally, he looked up. “Lily?”
She shook her head, trying to clear the sleep away from her brain. “Yes?”
”I’d like to talk to you.”
“Umph.” She resettled herself in the armchair, with the characteristic foot tucked underneath her. “I thought this was coming. Proceed.”
He twisted his chair around to face her. “I want to talk about what happened at my house.”
”I thought as much.”
“I want you to tell me why you acted like that.”
“Get used to disappointments.”
“Lily.”
“Okay, okay.” She unbent. “What? You want me to reveal to you the complete psychological meanings behind each and every one of the flutters of my eyelids?”
“You could say that.”
”You’re treading on Lightning Sand here.”
”Sorry.”
“I guess I can live with that. But honestly, if someone who is admitted to be extremely dangerous by the Ministry of Magic announced to you his intention of murdering as many Muggles as he could come across, and your entire family is made up of Muggles, you should have known enough not to get in the way.”
“Hey! I very probably saved your neck that time!”
“Excuse me?”
“I probably saved your neck.”
“How would that be?”
He raised his eyebrows. “You honestly mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Or else you don’t realize.”
“That is an insult.” Lily pursed her lips, waiting for an explanation.
“How so?”
“For me not to realize what you have seen would make me out to be a complete imbecile. What were you going to say?”
He scowled at her. “I am not an idiot. I’ve got the second-highest grades in this school!”
“And mine are better than yours. That is beside the point—high marks are surpassingly easy to achieve. What really tests one’s intelligence is reality. But proceed.”
“Well, then.” He rearranged himself in his armchair. “What would have happened is precisely this—that is, if I’d let you stay in Albania any longer. You, having the uncontrollable temper that happened to burst out at that time, would have very likely launched your fury at Vol—at Riddle, and he, in his turn, would have retaliated, in what manner I know not, but it would not have been pleasant.” In quaint Sherlock Holmes style, he leaned back and pressed the tips of his fingers together, looking at her and waiting for her to confirm it.
To his surprise, she did no such thing.
“Never become a psychologist or a detective, James. Either you’ll be prosecuted because you’re hopelessly incompetent, or you’ll lose your business because you’re hopeless. Take your pick.”
James sat up. “Excuse me?!”
Lily gave a short laugh. “My friend—you forget that I saved his fiancée. He is completely in my debt.”
“But he’s got a temper about as bad as yours—you can’t deny that he’s incapable of seeing red if someone defies him!”
The unconsciously superior look on Lily’s face was maddening as she gave her answer.
“James, I have lost my temper against him before. Do I look like a walking corpse?”
“I suppose it would be rude to state the obvious, wouldn’t it?”
She laughed. “I welcome rudeness. I only feel comfortable around people who aren’t depressingly formal.”
He smiled broadly. “You’re not at all like anyone else I’ve met, are you?”
”You’d be the best judge of that.”
”I know, I know.” He sighed, relapsed into silence for a few minutes, and then looked straight at her face.
“Lily?”
She had been busy with the index of her Transfiguration book, but at his address she looked up. “Yes?”
“I don’t know how you’ll take this.”
”I don’t, either, considering I don’t know what it is.”
”You’ve got the gift of making me feel like an unquenchable idiot.”
”Oh.” She waved her hand deprecatingly. ”That’s not hard. And try dumping water on yourself.”
“Huh?”
“Quench. To extinguish by means of water.”
A sharp reply was on the tip of his tongue, but he quelled it, forcing it down into his throat. “As I was trying to say, I’d like to start over—a fresh leaf—I’d like for us to be friends as we were again.” Almost pleadingly, he caught her gaze. “I hate fighting with you.”
Lily smiled. “I think it would be better if we hated each other—especially now.”
James frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Her pleasant smile widened. “It’s just this. I don't know exactly how good you are at acting. If you're not all that good and you're only hating me onstage because you really did--well, it would be a pity to stop hating me before the tournament, wouldn't it?"
He sighed and fell back—he was having trouble concealing the hurt he felt at the rebuff of an honest attempt at reconciliation. “Your arguments simply make too much sense—I’m starting to detest them.”
Her eyes were turning a hard, ice-green color as memories of her third year—of the last few weeks—of the cruelty he was capable of—and then of Eva whispering words clearly in her ear—the words that warned her not to be too friendly to him. The tears that had flowed during her third year and wouldn’t leave her alone during her fourth; the memory of her mother’s funeral invariably crept to mind—and the malice he had enjoyed exercising at the auditions; the spite and brutality that garlanded his face whenever he’d looked at her since sixth year began. When she raised her eyes, she knew instantly what her path led her to—the one that would harm her the least.
“James, you’re not the kind of friend I’d ever choose. I don’t know how many times we’ve fought and you’ve been unutterably cruel to me, and I’d prefer not to know. I’ve tried over and over—it never works out the way it does in fairy tales, with the enemies becoming the best of friends.”
He shrugged. “They usually fall in love.”
Sharply, her head flew up, searching for a meaning behind the words in his eyes; they were as impassive as a metal wall, and she found nothing.
“I don’t care what the fairy tales say. What I do care about is me. I’m a hard-hearted, mercenary beast; I’d prefer if we weren’t friends.”
The word “Why?” fell from his lips; it seemed as if he didn’t even care if she lived or died.
She tossed her head, giving out the first words that came to her lips. “Because you’re too much of a mercenary thug, that’s why.”
He hadn’t expected that; it was obvious. “Huh? I’m mercenary? Look at yourself!”
Lily looked down. “I’m wearing Hogwarts robes and a prefect badge. What about them?”
“Argh!” He pulled at his hair. “What do you mean by mercenary?”
“I mean,” she explained coolly, “that you seem to choose only those for your permanent friends as have enough money to please you.”
“What?”
Sighing, Lily started ticking off names on his fingers. “Serena—her father’s the Minister of Magic. They’re in control of a fortune large enough to buy all England. Eva and Vanessa—enough said. Sirius isn’t the most wealthy of people, but his bank account would allow him to live on his own, comfortably, for about forty years. The same goes for Remus. And—“
”STOP!”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “Has Mr. Potter had enough?”
“It’s a coincidence, all right! I don’t choose my friends for their money!” With that, he stood up and stormed out of the common room, leaving Lily with an unusually pointed jaw; she had been trying to keep tears back.
“You know, you’re right. I wonder you didn’t realize that I know that.”
She fell back, letting her eyes close. She was exhausted from the strain of being indescribably malicious and brutal towards someone she would give almost anything to have as a friend; her eyes had been clawing at her to tear for the past few minutes.
The next morning, Lora could tell something was wrong as Lily walked into breakfast; she didn’t usually have such a determined and inward look to her face. It was almost as if she were a queen that had found out she had to be sacrificed in order for her country to continue existing; and she was facing what she had to confront with the fortitude of seven rulers. Lora wondered, of course, but she could tell Lily wasn’t in the mood to talk.
She didn’t speak to anyone, really, all day. Sirius tried to talk to her; to ask her what went on in the common room last night; for James was being close as an oyster. She didn’t bother to respond; simply shook off his arm and vanished into the crowds that were swarming the corridors between classes.
Severus tried, too. He’d known her longer than Lora had; she was closer to him than to Sirius or James, so he made up his mind to try. In all honesty, she didn’t mean to rebuff him so cruelly, but she was almost incapable of realizing how much she could hurt people with a ruthless “I don’t want to speak to you.”
She didn’t come to the next Quidditch match; Gryffindor against Hufflepuff, but she was under the impression, from the extremely large party Sirius, Remus, and Peter were preparing in the common room beforehand, that they were quite sure of winning. Rather tired and strained from something she couldn’t pin down, Lily remained in her dormitory with The Princess Bride (again), an open window with sunlight streaming in and a cold breeze flowing around the room, and a brain longing to be wiped clean of everything that was running across it. She had been reading about Pensieves in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and she was wishing for one quite badly.
Chapter One. The Bride.
The day Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette. Annette worked in Paris for the Duke and Duchess de Guiche, and it did not escape the Duke’s notice that someone extraordinary was polishing the silver….
“I must be overtired,” Buttercup managed. “The excitement and all.”
“Rest, then,” her mother cautioned. “Terrible things can happen when you’re overtired. I was overtired the night your father proposed”…
“Your father has had his annual physical,” the Count said. “I have the report.”
“And?”
”Your father is dying.”
”Drat!” said the Prince. “That means I shall have to get married!”…
“I am your Prince and you will marry me,” Humperdinck said.”
Buttercup whispered, “I am your loyal servant and I refuse.”
“I am your Prince and you cannot refuse.”
”I am your loyal servant and I just did.”
”Refusal means death.”
“Kill me then.”
“I’m your Prince and I’m not so bad—how could you rather be dead and married to me? You can either marry me and be the richest woman in a thousand miles and give away turkeys at Christmas and provide me a son, or you can die in terrible pain in the very near future. Make up your mind.”…
Lily was tempted to smile. Buttercup was one of the most annoying little gold-diggers she’d ever met…but then again, she was wiser and sadder than anyone she knew—her fiancé had died at sea—was murdered…
Suddenly, aided by the loud cheers floating to her ears from the open window and the Quidditch field, she shook herself free of the spell of the story and let her eyes rove around her room. They came to rest on a spark of deep blue light hitting the wall.
Following its source, she came to rest on the necklace she wore around her neck. The sunlight had been streaming through it to the wall…She put up a hand and touched it, running slim fingers over the cool surface and the golden talons holding it in place, shivering with a cold wind that was sweeping through the dormitory...
The next moment, she was kneeling beside her trunk, pulling out something she hadn’t used since—since—she couldn’t remember the last time she had used it; probably back in fifth year. Lily drew out the black velvet cloak, threw it around her shoulders, and took the necklace in her hand. She knocked it against a hematite ring she was wearing, and, taking a deep breath, stared into the deep, dark, midnight-blackness surrounding her with its swirling claws.
The landing was comparatively light; she fell onto one knee and picked herself up quickly. Lily cast a glance around her; no one was in sight; and what was more important—no battle was raging. A sigh of relief escaped her as she shook the glistening sands off of her cloak and made her way to the cave Tom was using for a dwelling.
She entered, knocking before she lifted up the rug hanging over the door. Peering inside, she found Tom in deep converse with Litharelen; though he looked up quickly at the sight of her.
“Lily!” Tom left his seat. “Did you—did you—“ He raked the doorway in search of someone else. “Did you bring anyone?”
”No; I came alone.” Lily let herself sink onto a chair. “Is something wrong?”
Tom nodded. “We—we want to move on to England—the Death Eaters and I, that is. We’re in more danger here, and this is farther away from their homes. Not that I care much about them—but I would have to provide a decent alibi for them every time they left the continent. I’m ready to move on to England, our plans are set, we’ve got contacts inside the inner circle of the Ministry of Magic—the only thing that’s wrong is that Lith won’t let me go.”
Litharelen, though her pearly silver complexion held no trace of redness, was obviously steaming.
“Of course I won’t let him go! He’s going to England to conquer innocents—to kill people that aren’t like him or that don’t like him. He’s planning to establish a reign of terror—can you blame me if I don’t want him to do that? Tom, sooner or later the Ministry’ll get you—I know they will. There’s no use telling yourself they won’t. I don’t want you doing this; can’t you understand?”
Tom sighed loudly. “I am not planning to establish a reign of terror! You’ve got an overly imaginative mind, Lith—all we’re trying to do is—is—“ He stopped lamely, but Litharelen finished his sentence for him.
“Is establish yourself as the High Supreme Scowling Lord Wizard With Red Eyes. I know, I know. But tell me, just tell me, what’s the attraction in that?”
Lily raised her eyebrows. She had a point. A very good point.
“Tom, why now, all of a sudden?”
Tom sighed. “Someone ratted us out to the Ministry—where we hold our meetings and where I live. I know you wouldn’t—but I’m not so sure about your friend.”
Lily tossed her head. “I’m not so sure he wouldn’t do that, either. I won’t bring him here anymore—fair deal?”
The faintest ghost of a smile crept across Tom’s face. “Fair deal.”
Smiling back at him, Lily looked around the cave. It had changed mightily in appearance since the first time she had seen it. Then, it was almost bare, with a cauldron hanging in the fireplace and several books and bottles on a lone shelf-a lamp, she remembered, was hanging from the ceiling. Now there were two chairs; plain, in the center of the cave; the cauldron was new and larger than the old one had been, and there was continually something bubbling in it.
The solitary shelf had become many; they were lining the ceiling, and the number of bottles and books had definitely increased. The bottles were mostly crystal or of the same type as Lily’s own-the one he had given her last year. Each was filled with some sort of liquid.
Some were glutinous and thick; others were pale and pearly. Most of them, however, had a green tint or were a dark purple or red. There were some dotted here and there that were a golden color, or a light blue, but those were few and far between.
Lily caught Tom looking at her, and she glanced up at him.
“What’s that?” She gestured to the liquid bubbling in the cauldron on the fire.
Tom grinned and was about to answer, but Litharelen came in first. “It’s his immortality potion. One of them.”
Lily was admiring the way Litharelen was hissing out the word ‘one’, but then she stopped at the sound of Tom’s lighthearted, cold, high laugh.
“Lith, you take this too seriously. What’s wrong with living forever?”
Litharelen was about to launch into a heated debate, but changed her mind quickly, pulling Lily out of the cave and into the bitingly cold wind. They walked over to the rocks by the shore, dived in, and treaded water for a while, until Litharelen cooled off. She had changed to the long, mermaid-like tail, and she was wearing a silver tunic blending beautifully with her hair.
“Lily, I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He has a sort of obsession with power, and nothing I do can turn him from it. I’ve tried all I know. I’ve done everything in my power besides burying him alive-but that wouldn’t help at all. For all I know, he’s immortal already.”
Lily frowned. “Lith, he’s too stubborn to be persuaded.”
“I know, I know.” The pale, almost frantic girl wiped the silver strands of hair out of her eyes. “I just don’t know what to do, and--” She flung her eyes open, the dark, deep green eyes that held so much power. “I love him.”
Lily knew there was more to that statement than simply the words Litharelen spoke. There was a ripple of something urgently sincere in her voice; something fervent, and something desperate.
“I know.”
Both of them didn’t speak for some time, and then Litharelen nodded towards the shore. “Care to return?”
Lily smiled. “I’ll come.”
Both of them set off for the coast, and while Lily was underwater, she could hear the faint sounds of a sea ballad; soft and streaming, yet light and forceful; churning in her ears.
When they climbed out of the water, Litharelen turned to Lily. “Thank you.” She wrung the dewy water out of her hair. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t been there.”
”I didn’t do anything.”
Litharelen smiled the ghostly glimmer that was her characteristic. “You were there.”
When Lily returned to the common room, she was glad she hadn’t stayed longer. She could hear the rush of feet outside the portrait hole, and she didn’t waste an instant of time before quickly flinging the curtains around her bed shut. Only then, sitting cross-legged on the mattress, did she examine her hair.
It was as she had expected; it was streaked with more silver than usual, and most probably would stay in her hair for several hours. Resigned and exhausted, Lily fell back onto her bed. It only took a moment before her eyes closed in slumber.
Abigail, her present half-friend in their dormitory, had noticed Lily’s absence at the Quidditch match, and she had clambered the stairs in search of her friend. When she entered the dormitory, she instantly noticed the drawn curtains. Curiously, she moved forward.
It only took the work of a second to draw the curtains away from the bed. Abigail peeked inside, thinking Lily might be reading or asleep-then she drew back, stunned and shocked at the sight she had seen.
The almost auburn hair of the friend she knew so well was light-it was almost silver. Her naturally pale, partly pink complexion was a moonlit silver, and her lips were a silvery green. Her ears were pointed, and the necklace Abigail had only seen once or twice before was glowing with a spinning silver mist inside the midnight-blue stone. The dark, red eyelashes were blacker than ink, tinted with silver at the ends, where they tilted up.
Breathing unnaturally fast, Abigail left the room. Just outside, she tripped over her feet, but regained them more quickly than she ever had done before. Gasping, she sped into the common room, intending to blurt out everything she had seen.
She was halted in her intentions by Peter. More accurately, she ran into him, knocking them both to the ground. When Sirius and Remus helped both of them up, they noticed something strange.
“Abigail?”
Abigail stared up at Sirius. “It’s Lily! She’s some sort of creature-some monster! I saw-I saw-“
“Whoa!” Sirius held up a hand. “What about Lily?”
”She’s-a-monster!”
James had meanwhile noticed the commotion. “What about Lily?”
Puffing and wheezing, Abigail related what she’d seen, but she didn’t notice James slowly becoming pale.
It was only with quite a bit of effort that the Marauders prevented the whole common room from hearing her; as it was, only several people caught the words ‘silver’, ‘pointy ears’, and ‘sick!’
Remus was gaping as Abigail finished; as were Peter and Sirius. James was thinking furiously.
“We need to go up there and see what’s wrong.”
”Peter, you nut, if she’s some sort of elf or veela thing, she won’t want us interfering.”
”But she might attack us!”
“You prat. What makes you think she would?”
”Well-she’s not human!”
“Neither am I,” Remus stated matter-of-factly. “We’d best leave her to herself…” His voice trailed off.
James jumped in. He was still feeling more than a bit bitter towards Lily, and he saw this as his chance.
"Why-it can’t hurt us to look at her, can it?”
Sirius turned to him. “Why do you say that?”
"Well, it can’t.”
Peter agreed hurriedly. “I think so, too.”
Remus frowned. “I don’t think-“
“Well, at least let the Gryffindors know. Then she won’t have a reason to act so stupidly superior to us.”
Abigail opened her eyes wide. “You mean that that was why she stopped talking to me so much?”
James nodded sagely. “I’ll bet that’s why!”
Lily was shaking sleep out of her eyes when she heard footsteps almost outside the door. Sitting up straight, she pulled several strands of hair in front of her eyes. They were still the same as they had been before she fell asleep-the same silver and auburn interwoven.
The voices and thumps outside were close enough for her to recognize the voices. James’ was one of them. She drew a breath so sharply it almost made her dizzy-he wouldn’t, would he?
Deciding not to leave it at chance, she almost leaped out of bed. There was nowhere to hide in the dormitory they wouldn’t think of searching-and they were already on the corridor-they’d see her if she left the room. Desperately, knowing she’d be accused of helping the outlaw if everything came out, she dashed for the window of the dormitory, clinging to the stone walls above the opened stained glass.
As soon as the tip of her cloak vanished, the door burst open, and the five students piled into the room. Abigail made straight for the four-poster, then, as she opened it, drew back in horror.
“She’s Disapparated!”
James snorted. “You can’t Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts. Most likely she hid somewhere.”
Lily blessed her stars for the foresight she had had in leaving the dormitory; though at this moment, she was no better off than the man in black in The Princess Bride, when he had been hanging seven hundred feet above the ocean, grabbing hold of the sheer rock face of the Cliffs of Insanity.
Still, she was hardly three feet away from the top of the tower; and there was a small circlet underneath the cone-shaped roof. Quickly, kicking off hard from the stone wall, she twisted herself up in the fashion of a hedgehog, landing breathless with her upper body on the safer side of the stone banister.
She remained there for several minutes, blessing her luck and the funny gymnastic trick she had seen a gymnast do once at a competition; she had then decided to learn how to do it.
Once, Abigail looked out of the window, but downwards, so that she missed Lily entirely. When the puzzled voices inside the room faded into the bustle of the common room, she opened the trapdoor that led to the corridor for the girls’ dormitory.
She pulled the hood of her cloak over her glistening hair, and quickly, she made her way to the house-elves’ corridor, opening and shutting the door; flitting through like a shadow.
The place Lily was making for was the prefect’s bathroom-she stopped in front of the statue of Boris the Bewildered, and whispered “Lemon scent” so softly that she doubted the people in the pictures had heard her. The door opened quickly, and as soon as she slipped inside, she locked the door; then leaned against it, breathing hard.
Lily would never have guessed that James’ bête-noire for her had gone this far-she had never dreamed that he would have tried to reveal her secret, the secret he had sworn to keep. He was in it too-at least, she had thought so, but after this evening, for all she knew, he could very well be the one turning Tom in to the Ministry of Magic. It was mind-boggling, the petty things people could do if they had suffered a grievance…
Human nature was cruel.
Sighing, Lily slipped off her wet and sweaty robes and cloak, filled the large swimming-pool-like bathtub to the brim, and dived in. The hot water woke her up agreeably, and she spent quite some time with her arms propped up on the side of the basin, crossed, and her head lying on them.
He wouldn’t. He simply couldn’t! She knew him too well. He couldn’t possibly do something like-like that. From what she knew of him, he-yes, he could. He was entirely capable of being a malicious, cold-hearted brute, and he knew it, and he exercised that capability all too frequently. But-but-she knew him better than that! He couldn’t simply turn someone over to the law like that-it wasn’t in his character! Yes, it was. He would. But-but-no! He-
Lily spent two hours with her head propped on her arms and her eyes half-closed, meditating on that. Her thoughts kept conflicting and sparring with each other, and she kept telling herself that he was completely adept at being untrue and spiteful and cruel to his friends-but then an undercurrent of something else kept jabbing at her, telling her that she knew she was wrong. If she only looked at the past and at the facts, she would never have doubted that he was returning to the Ministry of Magic this very evening to tell them all he knew about the encounter with Abigail-although she instinctively couldn’t paste the character of that James Potter onto the one she knew-the one she had encountered sometimes, when they were alone.
Lily didn’t sleep at all that night. Worrying and doubting and chiding herself, she tossed and turned underneath the covers until early in the morning-she had returned to her dormitory when the spell-like effects had worn off. Finally, she sat straight up in bed.
“I can’t sleep. This is stupid. I can’t go on like this; I’ll drive myself insane.” Throwing her feet out of bed, she picked up a bathrobe and flung it around her shoulders; slipping out of the dormitory, she left it for the common room.
Once down there, she met someone she hadn’t expected to meet. Of course it was possible-she was a Gryffindor, after all-but Serena Narcissa Sikora didn’t usually get out of bed at four in the morning.
She was sitting in front of the fire, huddled up, with her arms wrapped around her knees and her white-blond hair spread over her shoulders. Serena was staring into the dying flames, thinking about something-thinking hard.
Lily harrumphed loudly, making Serena jump. The girl whirled around, but when she saw who it was, she turned back to the fire.
“Oh, it’s you.”
“Expecting the Lord of the Universe, were you?”
“No.”
“Expecting James Potter, were you?”
Serena turned her head towards Lily. “Yes, as a matter of fact. How did you know? You’ve been spying on us, haven’t you?”
Lily scoffed. “As a matter of fiction, you two have been completely stand-offish toward each other, so you’re naturally waiting for him.”
”Wait.” Serena put a hand up to her forehead. “What?”
The redhead sighed. “Never mind.”
“Oh.”
“Sure.”
Out of nowhere, Serena ventured a question. “Why are you being so mean to James?”
Lily was rather taken aback. “Because it’s in my hard, cruel, vicious, spiteful nature.”
“He said as much.”
”To his divine comforter, is that it?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, that’s so!” Serena was starting to boil. “You’re simply jealous of both of us. You’re not capable of anything that has anything to do with anything pure and good, anything nice and sweet. We’re closer than you’ll ever be to anyone, and we’ve got you to thank for it.”
Lily shrugged. “Don’t invite me to the wedding. I’ll be busy.”
"What? What wedding?”
“Well, you’re practically engaged as is. Do stop acting like the inanely self-absorbed fool you are; it’s making me want to regurgitate the dinner I didn’t eat.”
“I am not a fool! You’re the one that’s being the worst jealous idiot I’ve ever encountered!”
Lily turned her eyes towards the ceiling. “Send the Oscar to my parents’ address, will you?”
Serena was finding it rather hard to come back with anything half as sarcastic as Lily, but she was trying.
“You’re simply jealous.”
"I think you’ve said that twice already.”
“Argh!” Serena stood up and walked over to Lily, towering over the amused girl by a good three feet.
“I don’t care what you say. Nothing you ever do or say will come between us, and if you try to break us up, you’ll fail miserably.”
”You’re assuming that I want to break you two apart.”
“Listen, you little fifteen-year-old. I love him. I love him, and he loves me. No matter how hard you try, you weaseling brat, you’ll never break that bond.”
”’Westley and I are bound by the bond of love, and you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you will never break it, not with a thousand swords.’ Go on.”
“I have nothing more to say to you.”
“Good. My ears were starting to hurt.”
Instead of degrading herself further by giving her an answer, Serena whirled around and swept off towards her dormitory with the air of a regal queen that had just tripped on her way to receive the crown at her coronation.
