Beyond Hogwarts -Chapter Nineteen

-=Beyond Hogwarts; Chapter Nineteen=-

That was the last time Sirius could talk to her while they were riding-he wasn’t exactly an extremely shabby rider; at least he managed to stay on the horse’s back-but it wasn’t a shame to admit that Lily was far better than he. It wasn’t because her horse was better; it was some sort of unexplainable something-maybe the way she just let the horse run, hardly directing it, maybe the way she treated it, maybe her seat, maybe anything. All he knew as she raced across the country far ahead of him was that her red hair and the glittering silver belt and trim were the only things setting her apart from the stallion.
   As her charger’s hooves pounded the ground, Lily drew a long, deep breath as cold, rushing air drained through her lungs. Sirius was right; she had missed this-this-this sensation of speed, recklessness, whipping wind, and the far-off sound of thumps on grass and tall plants thrashing against the horse’s legs and her skirt.
   Something bubbled up in her chest, a feeling of glee, and the next thing she knew, Lily was laughing wildly into the emptiness of grass, flowers, crowing birds, and early butterflies. Fixing her eyes on the clouds ahead of her, she grinned, an idea striking her brain. Just ride, on and on, towards the clouds, and one day you’ll get there, her mind laughed. Her heels softly touching her horse’s sides, she urged it forward, always forward, never anywhere else. Flying, she thought as the sun appeared from its hiding place behind a haze of cloud, right in front of her. Rising with your chest trying to burst with delight, hilarity, merriment, passing through misty, watery, white bales of cotton…
   Her horse reared suddenly, almost falling over backwards in its energy. Shaking Lily out of her dream, with a last grasp at her wits, she compressed her knees tightly into the horse’s sides, then breathing out with a half-sigh once it landed.
   It turned sideways, refusing to go any further, and Lily, a hint bewildered, turned to her right. The trench she had fallen in before loomed up ahead of them, and this time, though it was daylight, it was Lily that hadn’t seen it.
   “Don’t tell me you’re scared,” she whispered in the steed’s perked ear. “Come on; it’s not half as wide as you think.”
   It shook its mane determinedly, almost as if it had understood her, and backed away from it. Lily sighed, this time in earnest.
   “All right, all right.” Clapping her hand on its neck, she allowed the charger to turn homewards. “All right. I sympathize.” But she turned tersely back to the sun that was about to reach its peak in the billowing sky. “But it’s asking a bit much if you want me to understand.”
   Sirius was standing underneath a bright pink, blooming tree when Lily returned; he had been scavenging around for apples and was handing them to James’ horse one by one, though flinching a bit when the teeth of the horse came so near his palm.
   “Hold your hand flat out, then he won’t bite you,” Lily threw out, dismounting gracefully.
   He grinned at her. “Thanks for the hint. You’re finished?”
   Lily sighed. “Finished, yes, satisfied: no.” She gestured towards the black mare, who was nosing around for fallen bits of apple. “She refused to go any further than the ditch where I fell before.”
   Sirius’ eyebrows raced themselves upwards. “You rode that far?”
   “Yeah,” she said matter-of-factly. “Anything wrong with that?”
   “Well, besides the fact that it’s about fifteen, twenty, thirty miles out in the middle of nowhere, nothing, but that was fast.”
   She shrugged. “I always ride fast. I couldn’t stand slowly.” Her eyes rested on the house, and her smile flickered back onto her face. “Up for lunch?”
   “You bet!” Sirius beamed. “What’re we having?”
   “I dunno,” Lily called over her shoulder. “I smell roasted chicken.”
   Sirius sniffed for a second, then frowned. “How?” he yelled, jogging after her.
   “What do you mean?”
   “I can’t smell a thing!”
   “Oh.” She knit her forehead, thinking, then cleared it as Sirius pushed the stable door open. “Doesn’t matter,” she evaded. “Just hope that we will have roasted chicken!”
   When they entered the kitchen, both laughing and Sirius carrying her train, they found Slenka scurrying around, sweeping last bits of flour into her hands and throwing the former into the trash, running wet dishcloths over the counter, and testing something that was baking in the oven with a knife.
   "Slenka!” Lily smiled, “anything we can do?”
   “No, miss,” the busy elf squeaked. “Slenka will be finished in minutes. Will miss want to eat in the dining room or the sitting room?”
   “Large living room, I think,” Lily said imperiously. “Those two cherry trees just outside the window are blooming riotously, and I want to sit there.” She took her train from Sirius’ hand. “Open the French doors in there for me, will you, while I get these shoes off?”
   Once upstairs, her hand flitted towards her jewelry box-she’d been thinking about doing this ever since she had dismounted. Whisking a silver arm-ring from the chest, she knotted part of the train around it and slipped the bracelet onto her wrist, keeping the train from tripping her up.
   Sirius noticed as soon as she entered the living room. “Inventive,” he approved, picking the last bunch of cherry blossoms and setting a large bouquet of them into a painted porcelain vase. “Any chance of James coming home for lunch?”
   “He might,” Sirius said off-handedly, waving her towards the scarlet velvet sofa. “Have a seat; Slenka’s almost ready.”
   Lily turned towards the indicated lounge, but before she had taken three steps, two strong arms grasped her around the waist from behind.
   She started violently, then looked down and almost screamed when she couldn’t see the arms of whoever was holding her. Wrestling violently, she elbowed whoever it was, hard, in the chest, getting a yelp that made her grin slightly. Regaining her mind, she turned to Sirius, who was, to her surprise, leaning against the wall casually, plucking petals from a flower and trying to suppress a grin.
   “What the-“
   Her questions were answered a instant later when her hand, brushing backwards in an effort to avoid being clasped by the whoever’s invisible grasp, berove him of what felt like a hood, and two merry, blue eyes surrounded by messy, black hair were gazing at her with an impish grin.
   “Good afternoon,” he said casually, kissing her. “Anything good for lunch?”
   Lily turned around, still with his arms around her waist. “Must you scare me like that? I thought you were my father come back to life or something of that kind.”
   “Eh.” James wrinkled his nose. “Okay, I’m not that much like him-for one thing, I’m mentally sane.” He cast an amused glance at Sirius. “Though, according to some, if I keep hanging around those three, I won’t be.” He kissed her again.
   She was smiling when he pulled back. “Good afternoon and happy lunch break to you, too. Take off your cloak, though; it’s unnerving to see your head floating in midair.”
   He obeyed, throwing the silvery Invisibility Cloak to the side, onto the back of an armchair, and swooped her up, into his arms, her clasped train brushing his knees. Laughing, Lily yelped once, then was set down onto the couch gently as Slenka carried a tray full of dishes into the room and pulled a mahogany cart heaped with food.
   “Ooh!” James grinned, taking the silverware tray from the elf. “Just what I needed!” He started placing plates and glasses on the table. “I got sick of sandwiches around eleven,” he explained to Sirius, who had plopped down next to him in an armchair, “and I kept dreaming of lunch.”
   “Dreams do come true,” Lily smiled. “Lift the cover off of that platter, the one next to Sirius.”
   “OOH!” he almost shouted. “Chicken pie!”
   “Have some rotisserie wings while you’re at it,” Sirius laughed, handing James the chicken and helping himself to some buttered, salted, and peppered peas. “Remus’ll be mad he missed out on this!”
   “We can invite him, you know,” Lily said, as if it should have been perfectly obvious.
   “Nope,” Sirus mumbled through a mouthful of peas and mashed potatoes. “He’s visiting an aunt up around where Hogwarts is.”
   “He’s ‘visiting an aunt’ or visiting an aunt?” Lily asked skeptically.
   James grinned. “This time it’s for real; she fell and broke her leg. Tripping over a dog, no less,” he mentioned with a smirk at Sirius.
   “Hey! I am not responsible for all the dogs in the world!” Sirius almost lectured. “That lady’s dog’s just too fat to move. I’ve seen him.”
   With a small meowl, a gray furball jumped up onto his lap, sniffing at his plate. Lily laughed.
   “Give her some chicken; she likes that.”
   “By the way,” James said through a full mouth, “did Nufflepeck send you the tickets yet?”
   “This morning,” she smiled. “I put them upstairs.”
   “Very good. What time do you have to be there?”
   “It starts at seven-thirty,” she mused, “and I believe we’ve got a six o’clock call.”
   “When do you want me to get there?” he asked, helping her to a hunk of the chicken pie.
   “Seven is fine.”
   “No,” he said decisively. “I’m taking you there. Haven’t seen you all day.”
   Sirius grinned. “He means he wants to see you change.”
   Scowling, James threw a bone at him. “I do not!”
   Realizing what he’d just said, he revised. “Okay, so maybe that wouldn’t be terrible, but that’s not my main point!”
   Both Lily and Sirius started to laugh; Lily with some difficulty; she still had food in her mouth.
   James left for work after lunch again, leaving Sirius with the choice of Apparating to his shared apartment or keeping Lily company. But Sirius had to leave, for a reason he didn’t explain even when asked, so Lily was left alone again, in the large, elegant, empty mansion, with no company except the train that could qualify as another person, it was so long.
   It wouldn’t have been bad at all if she could have just curled up with a book, but as soon as James had whispered, before he Disapparated, “Don’t worry about anything!”, last night came seeping back into her mind.
   Sighing, Lily returned to her seat on the windowsill, staring into the burst of pale pink and green outside the window. Vera, having been shooed out of the kitchen, had found refuge on her lap, and was currently amusing herself by trying to make herself noticeable to her mistress, but Lily hardly perceived the small clawing rituals the cat performed with her dress and hand.
   James hadn’t done that much, not enough to make Lucius do this to them. All right, so he’d started a rumour—but Lucius could have taken care of that easily enough; his reputation was held in the highest esteem anyway. Malice, she thought, grimacing, and malevolence, was the only reason for this. He never liked James, and this is his chance.
I don’t think he liked me much either, Lily mused, absently petting Vera. Severus liked me, that was all. He tolerated me as a close acquaintance, but…
   She kept thinking of the afternoon in Borgin and Burkes, just before she spoke to Tom in Knockturn Allley. Then, she was sure, he hated James, but that didn’t extend to her, not then, anyway. And he must have known, when he made James this proposition, that this would involve her somehow, no matter what he insisted.
   It all boils down to associating with both Slytherins and Gryffindors, Lily thought grimly. “Ow!”
   Vera was getting tired of a deficient massage underneath her chin, and she bit down on Lily’s hand, hard, digging her back claws into the girl’s leg at the same time.
   “I’ll take her off your hands for you, then!” a voice from behind her said calmly, and Lily started before recognizing him.
   “Severus, make your presence known once you step into a room, please!”
   “Sorry.” He dropped Vera onto the floor, nudging her underneath the sofa with the toe of his shoe. “You looked very pensive, is all.”
   “Family problems.” Lily scowled for a minute, but then caught sight of a bright swatch of gold, blue, and iridescense lying on a table next to the door. “Almost forgot! This is for you.”
   Swooping down on the coloured sheet, inked with gold, she flitted back over to Severus, pressing it into his hand. “It’s for the show tonight. You can come, can’t you?”
   “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said honestly. “That’s what I came by for, actually, to ask when it started.”
   “Seven-thirty,” she informed him. “I’d be there by seven, though, if you want a decent seat.”
   “Will remember. Anything I can do for you?”
   “Nope,” she sighed. “Unless you’d like to supply me with the gnarled staff in my closet upstairs. I’ve got to fit my wand inside before the performance.”
   “Which is in about six hours.”
   “Hey.” She pointed her wand at him. “You have no idea how temperamental that thing can get. I was teased for days because I couldn’t get my wand out of it.
   Six o’clock was hurtling across quickly, and just after Lily had finished washing her hair, something she had descended to out of boredom, James Apparated into their bedroom, swinging his wand jauntily and accidentally setting the curtains on fire.
   “PUT THAT OUT!” Lily shrieked, looking up from the tangled brush stuck inside her wet hair. “THOSE ARE MY CURTAINS!”
   “Calm down, lady!” Cavalierly, he pointed the wand over his shoulder, shooting a jet of water onto the smouldering velvet. “There. No harm done.”
   “Repair them,” she ordered, “and then I’ll believe that. If I come back and there’s one single scorch mark anywhere, your head is going to be on my dinner platter, hollowed out and surrounded with a layer of glass, serving as a lemonade goblet. I’m going to change.”
   James rolled his eyes as she vanished into the bathroom. “Could you be a LITTLE more protective?”
   “I could,” she shouted back, “but you wouldn’t like that. I’d put the melted glass onto your head while it was still attached and you were still alive.”
   “You would not!”
   “Try me,” she challenged, turning the faucet on, wetting her fingers and running them over a wrinkled ribbon. “I’m an excited wreck; there’s no telling what I’ll do.”
   “The term usually used is ‘nervous’,” James commented as he repaired the damage. “Why not use it; it’s a perfectly good letter formation; no use to waste it.”
   “Because it’s the wrong one,” Lily explained off-handedly, hurrying out of the bathroom in a sweatshirt and dance pants, her wet hair leaving the back of the sweatshirt and pants soaked. “I am not nervous; I’m excited. Thrilled. Animated. Energized. Whichever works for you. Are my curtains back to normal?”
   “Yeah; they are-the curtains I paid for are back to normal. Where are yours?”
   “Very funny. You have your tickets?”
   He reached inside his sleeve, feeling around for the paper pieces. “Yes. But you’re late, come on!”
   “Late?” Lily’s head snapped up, flicking water everywhere. “So I am! Grab my staff for me, will you?”
   She Disappparated hastily, leaving James to snatch up one of her warmer cloaks; it was promising to be cold that night.
   Lily Apparated into a whirlwind of people running here and there, looking for props and makeup kits, putting on costumes and fixing tears in the same, testing lights and trapdoors. Lily just barely missed being hit by a mass of hair being carried to the dressing room so it could be attached to Rapunzel’s head, and when she swung out of the way, someone else tripped over her feet and flew right into James.
   “Okay, remove head from clouds, then run!” James snapped, massaging his stomach. “I happen to LIKE having a stomach!”
   Lily sighed, taking his arm and rushing him upstairs to the dressing room. “C’mon; no fights before performance night. He’s the assistant stage manager; we need him.”
   “Why am I coming to the dressing rooms?” James inquired maliciously, following her.
   “Hate to disappoint you, but you’re going to be running around and yanking my three dresses from the wardrobe.” She stopped in front of the women’s changing room. “And tell Peter he’s not, by any means, to come backstage. We happen to like having an intact theatre.”
   “He is not that clumsy!” James shouted after her as she closed the door. “Just…coordinately challenged…”
   “Coordinately challenged, yeah, right,” Lily mumbled to herself, slipping into the dark green costume and buckling the bronze belt around her waist. “If Peter’s only coordinately challenged, why did it take two hours to fix up my kitchen after he entered it?”
   An hour and thirty-five minutes later, Lily was waiting in the wings for her cue. Her friends were in the audience; they’d come backstage to see her before the show, though Severus had waited till the former Gryffindors had left for the auditorium before he greeted her. She wished he wouldn’t do that; Lily firmly believed that it was his acceptance of their behavior towards him that kept firing up the intense dislike most of her friends had for the former Slytherin.
   “Hand me my staff,” she whispered to a backstage technician. “Over against the wall.”
   It was pressed into her hand, and, with a quick shuffling step, she hunched herself over the grapevined stick, stepping onstage as the narrator took another dive into his description of the scenes.
   “The old enchantress told the couple she had placed a spell on their house…”
   James sat in the balcony, grinning at the few strands of red hair falling onto Lily’s shoulders from underneath the grey wig. She was good, there was no doubt about it, and he was glad he’d given her the chance to do this and not started complaining about her thrown-over job.
   Tilting his head to the side, he grinned suddenly, nodding to Sirius.
   “You know, she’s gorgeous even with that stuffed animal on her head.”
   Sirius turned to him slowly, a half-frown on his face. “What?”
   “Can’t I comment on the fact that I think my wife looks nice?”
   “Your-“ He looked surprised for a moment, but then his face cleared. “Sorry; sixth year moment. Forgot we weren’t in Hogwarts anymore.”
   “Oh.” With that, James turned back to the stage, leaving Sirius to think.
   For that short moment Sirius had been in school again; it was sixth year, and they were in Eschwegen, himself on the balcony of the theatre, watching Lily perform. And, coincidentally, he had been thinking exactly the same thing he had when he was sixteen-
   She’s beautiful.
   And then James had to butt in; ruin the fantasy. The one of Lily still being unmarried and unclaimed, the way she was in sixth year and through most of seventh.
   What did she find so attractive in James Potter? He’d been intolerable to her for years, yet she practically leaped into his arms when he asked her to marry him. And why-why was it so hard for him to believe that she was married? Around him, she hardly acted any differently than she had at Hogwarts…
   Head out of the sun, idiot, Sirius mumbled inaudibly. No use thinking.
   On the other side of the theatre, another pair of eyes were fixed on the witch, their owner languorously thinking something along the lines of what Sirius was.
   She wouldn’t let me say anything of that sort to her; she’s married. God, I hate that word-and especially when it’s got her name involved with Potter’s. I hate watching him around her; he acts like a slobbering puppy. What made her say yes to him; he’d been insufferable to her for about six years!
   I can’t figure her out; I’ve never been able to do that. I guess that’s partly what’s so…so…so intrigueing about her; no one really knows her or what she’s capable of.
   He sighed. She’s certainly capable of making me do anything she’d command-Merlin, I’ve already proven that admirably by joining Lord Voldemort. I hate this, and damned be myself if I don’t want to wring that puppy’s neck.
   Lily withdrew from the stage, whacking the floor with a twist of her cloak. Sighing quietly as soon as she had retreated from the view of the audience, she picked up a pitcher of water, duplicates of which were stored at every entrance for the actors. Wiping her mouth carefully after taking a drink, she set the pitcher back down onto the small table, hoping she hadn’t wrecked any part of the elaborate, triangular-themed makeup on her face.
   “Phew. Breathe…breathe in…toy boat, toy boat, toy boyt, to boot-“ Lily broke off. “Aargh; stupid tongue-twisters.” She flipped her staff open, making sure her wand was still inside; it was. The transformation scene was the next one she was in, and the last thing she needed was to be stuck onstage with no wand and a scene that couldn’t continue.
   Absently, she felt a tap on the shoulder while watching the play from the wings.
   “I don’t have time now to look for microphones!” she almost snapped; those apparatti were most adept at losing themselves, and half of rehearsals were spent looking for them. Of course, they were magical microphones-the Sonorus charm would magnify voices much too loudly, and the microphones’ volume could be controlled.
   “I trust you haven’t forgotten about me?” a drawling voice asked lazily. Lily stiffened, turning her head slightly.
   “What’re you doing here?”
   “Simply reminding you of the bargain your husband and I struck. He’s not at his house, and I had an idea of where you were.” His eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t fooling with the price increasing a hundred Galleons per day.”
   “Yes. We’ve had a day to think, o gracious Master,” Lily whispered sardonically. “I’m about to go onstage. Let’s say I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
   Lucius leaned against the black walls, his cloak hanging in loose folds around his shoulders. With a lounging gesture, he slipped a thin pirouette wafer out of his robes, placing it between his lips.
   “So that’s what you use when you’re too high-class for a toothpick,” Lily grinned wryly. “Very elegant.”
   Lucius pulled one corner of his mouth into something between a grin and a smirk, pulled out a case of the wafers and handed them to her.
   “I’ll leave these with you.”
   He Disapparated without saying another syllable, and Lily was left standing alone with a silver container lying on her palm and a frowning brain.
   “And he had to come and tell me this during a performance-why?”
   “Lily!” someone hissed at her. “Your cue!”
   “Oh, right,” she mumbled. Here goes, then, she thought, stepping out from the wings.
   From the balcony, James frowned, watching her perform. He’d seen her act much more…more convincingly…not that anything was terribly noticeable to anyone else, which it wasn’t. Sirius was watching her as intently as if he was under a hypnotizing spell and/or Lily had taken that moment to take off her dress. It was just something James knew, after being married to her for two years. Something had happened before her last entrance in the first act, and it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill theatre mess-up such as losing a box of props or the lighting camera replacements.
   James cornered Lily after the performance, just as she had dipped her face into a basin of water and was using sand to scrub the stage makeup off of her face. Tapping her on the shoulder, he waited for her to whirl around.
   Dripping wet, she swung her hair behind her back, smiling at him. “Hallo. Like the play?”
   “Sure…you were good.”
   Lily frowned. “That doesn’t sound awfully enthusiastic. What’s wrong?”
   “That’s what I intended to ask you,” he said, sitting down on the sink. “I could tell something was wrong while you were onstage.”
   She scowled. “Is it completely impossible to keep just one thing to myself?”
   “It’s called a marriage, dear, something that’s largely based on sharing stuff and trust.”
   Lily groaned, reaching for a towel and scrubbing the rest of the lavender and black off of her face. “I can’t help but think that this would be so much easier for me if we divorced and you just kept me as a mistress: purely animal attraction and no annoying confessions.”
   Laughing, James took the towel from her, tossing it into a basket of dirty handkerchiefs and the like. “I thought it was my superior intellect that kept you attached to me.”
   “If all I was after was intelligence,” Lily informed him, fastening the clasp on her cloak, “I’d still be undecided as to whom I’d marry.” Mischievously, she winked at him over her shoulder. “Severus is still better than you are at Potions.”
   She Disapparated quickly, leaving James to follow her, and both of them reappeared in the kitchen of their house.
   “Nice maneuver,” James smirked, as soon as he caught sight of her again, “the whole trying-to-make-me-want-to-punch-Snape’s-lights-out thing, but I still hold to my question.”
   “What was wrong, you mean?” Lily sighed. “All right.”
   “I wait expectantly and with great suspense lurking on the edges of my nostrils,” James reported. “Is it an interesting bedtime story?”
   “Supposedly. What say we adjourn to the library? There aren’t any decent seats in the kitchen.”
   “No Egyptian divans with Turkish tasseled silk pillows, you mean.”
   “Well, yes. I happen to like those pillows.”
   After changing out of their clothes and an updating session in the library lasting about ten minutes, James was sitting on the edge of his chair, head in his hands. He had just downed seven glasses of wine, too, so that wasn’t helping a sudden and most uncomfortable headache.
   “Let me get this straight. Added onto the fact that you’ve got him trying to convict you to a term in Azkaban, he’s trying to squeeze a hundred Galleons out of us per day that I don’t take an oath not to reveal his shady activities to the Ministry, which I know nothing about beyond rumor?”
   “Yes, something like that,” Lily admitted. “And if you don’t take that oath, he’ll arrange to have me sent to Azkaban.”
   “Not that that’s not a side issue,” James sighed, “but right now, that’s beside the point. I know the consequences. Have any bright ideas?”
   Lily shook her head, shifting in her armchair. “At the moment, no, but I’m trying. Return the favor, please.”
   For about five minutes, there was silence, while Lily was pulling her memories of herself and Lucius over her fingers, trying to pull something productive out of them, and James was trying to squash his skull between his hands, trying to get rid of his headache and completely ignoring Lily’s last request.
   Narrowing her eyes, Lily finally looked up. “In the words of Hercule Poirot: ‘Bien. I have thought.’”
   “Oh, good.” James looked relieved. “Anything beneficial to us come out of that process?”
   “Maybe.” Lily stood, the green dressing gown trailing behind her as she started to pace. “I just couldn’t quite figure out why on earth Lucius wanted to tell me that during my performance—surely he could have thought of some more opportune time to talk to me.”
   “So why did he Apparate into the theatre, thereby almost making you miss you cue?”
   “I told you, I’ve been thinking about that,” Lily berated him snappily. “And I’ve finally decided.” With an impish grin on her face, she pulled the silver case Lucius had tossed to her out of her dressing gown.
   “I think he meant to give me this all along—I only gave him a halfway decent excuse to when I brought up the fact that this was a high-class version of a toothpick.”
   James raised his eyebrows. “He Apparated into the theatre to give you a box of candy? Valentine’s Day was a few months ago, last time I checked, and he’s got a wife.”
   “No!” Lily retorted, throwing the case at him. “Open it and feel around the sides.”
   Still a bit incredulous, James obeyed, taking one of the wafers out and placing it on the table. But, as his fingers hit a smooth, protruding spot in the silver, his expression changed.
   “What on earth…?” Quickly, he pulled out his wand, scanning the inside of it. “There’s something…”
   “I figure you might want to pass judgement on it before I tell you what I think it is,” Lily said calmly, sitting down on a divan, “but, assessing the feel of the case, the funny soft spot at one corner of it, and that thing you just felt, I think I know what Lucius did to it.”
   “It’s a Tracking Charm,” James frowned, “along with an Auditio hex, meaning he can hear whatever we’re saying.” Setting the case down on the table, he stood up, pointing his wand towards it. “Well, that’ll be fixed—hang on—“
   “No!”
   Lily had leaped up from the divan and flung herself across the room, tearing his wand out of his hand. “No! You idiot, make sure those aren’t the only charms on there! Lucius isn’t that stupid!”
   “Oh.” A bit abashed, he held his hand out for his wand, but Lily withheld it.
   “Let me—I’m better at Charms than you are. Stand back.” She pointed her own wand at the small silver object. “Acclaro tuus dirus!”
   A small wisp of smoke materialized and started rising from the cover, rapidly changing its tint: from grey to a pale blue, then to a transparent, glowing red, and then a dark golden color stained with orange. The smoke refused to rise towards the ceiling and disperse; it formed itself into a round, perfect sphere, revolving slowly about a foot and a half above the wafer case.
   “Do you know how to decipher the colors?” Lily asked, quietly.
   “Absolutely not,” James admitted without a tinge of shame. “I do not frequently read books on How to interpret the reflections of light through smoke in my spare time.”
   “Once in a while, it might help if you did,” Lily told him off-handedly. “Is that blue more aquamarine or royal?”
   James sighed. “Lily, what’s the point of this?”
   “If you read books on How to interpret the reflections of light through smoke in your spare time, you would know,” Lily grinned. “Is it more aquamarine or royal?”
   Bending down close to the sphere, James frowned. “Aquamarine.”
   “You were right,” she smiled, “it does have a Tracking Hex on it. Is the red more scarlet or burgundy?”
   “Scarlet. And not for the first time do I admire you amazing memory and thank the deities that I didn’t spend as much time as you must have done to acquire all of these facts.”
   Lily rolled her eyes. “If you’d stop making fun of me, you’d learn that if you had tried to take the charms off of the case, you’d currently be blasted all over our living room.”
   “Ah.” James did a double take. “WHAT??”
   "I told you Lucius was no fool,” Lily reminded him, amused. “Now, aren’t you glad you’ve got me?”
   “Terribly,” he muttered, glaring at the case. “Bloody bastard, he is.”
   “Bastard, no; but if you’ll tell me whether the yellow is golden or not, we’ll find out whether he meant for you to be blown apart bloodily or not.”
   “Knowing Malfoy, very bloodily,” James said darkly. “It’s golden with splashes of orange; that tell you anything?”
   “That’s the Audito hex,” Lily told him. “Are those all the colors you can find?”
   “Yeah. I need something else to drink.”
   “Either butterbeer or hot chocolate,” she said absently, making the smoky globe dissolve, “and nothing with any significant amounts of intoxicants in it.”
   “Okay, then.” He disappeared, shutting the door.
   “And no hydrochloric acid!”
   A faint “Damn!” could be heard from the hallway, and Lily smirked.
   “That headache is going to be gone by tomorrow morning. No need to poison yourself.”
   “I know,” James groaned, re-entering the room with two bottles of butterbeer, “but that’s not helping my situation.”
   Lily kissed his forehead, taking one of the bottles from him. “As soon as I can get these hexes off, I’ll see what I can do.”
   “Hey!” James jumped up. “I don’t want you plastered all over this room, either!”
   “In that respect, we’re unanimous. Don’t worry. I wasn’t top of our year for nothing.”
   With a foreboding, ominous look on his face, James sank back into the chair. “If you get blown up, Lucius is getting sued for everything he has, including his birth certificate. If he has one,” he amended. “I still say he’s a bloody bastard.”
   Lily smiled, shaking her head. Lifting her wand, she stepped over to the case on the table, her brow crinkled a bit, she trying to remember a certain two pages in a library book from the Restricted Section entitled Dangerous Charms and their Countereffects. There had also been a small disclaimer on the first page, entitled Caution: Most of these spells are illegal. Do not use without express permission from the current wizard community’s government.
   “Great,” Lily remembered herself thinking as she first read that sentence. “Write a book telling people how exactly to perform illegal hexes, then tell them they’re not allowed to use them. Fat lot of good that’s going to do.” She’d been thinking especially of the four Marauders and the Slytherins while looking at that warning.
   But never had she thought she’d actually be performing one of those countercurses herself.
   “Lil, don’t do anything illegal,” James’ voice instructed, “you don’t want to be sent to Azkaban as a result of trying to escape from being sent to Azkaban.”
   “I am not trying to escape prison,” she said, rather skittishly. “I’m trying to take a curse off of what used to be a cigar case, though you’ve got interesting timing. And the countercurses I’m thinking of aren’t illegal; it’s only the curses themselves. Well, unless you count the one that’s a retraction of the Revival spell, because it’s got several nasty side effects.”
   “What, black boils all over your rearend?” James yawned, downing her bottle of butterbeer.
   “I was thinking more in the area of death, actually, but that’s beside the point.” Lily tossed her hair behind her back impatiently; it was trying to work its way into her mouth. “Get out of the room for me, will you?”
   “Why?” His voice was suddenly apprehensive.
   “As much as I may believe I’m in love with you,” Lily said dryly, “I wouldn’t want any parts of your mangled body all over my clothing and face. It wouldn’t do you any good to stay here, because I’m warning you: it’s very possible I’m going to screw this up.”
   “Is not,” James insisted loyally. “You were top of our year all over the stinking planet; you’re not going to mess up.”
   “I’m trying to downsize my ego; found that helps sometimes. Do me a favor and help me do so.”
   “As long as I can stay inside. Fair deal?”
   “Sure,” she shrugged. “If I screw up, Slenka’s going to be the one trying to get blood stains out of your clothing, not me. Now hush.”
   Taking a short breath, she lifted her wand again, and James, sitting behind her, clenched his teeth.
   “Aboleo indago medicates; abigo penetro infinitas. Aboleo…indagio...medicates.”
   There was silence for a few seconds, at the end of which, when nothing happened, James blew out a large whoof.
   “I don’t believe I took this long to think of the fact that we could have just chucked that thing into the Pacific or something.”
   “I left that part out,” Lily whispered, “that’s what the orange flecks in the golden mist were. I can’t part with it; it follows me around if I leave it anywhere. I can’t let it out of range of the parts that pick my voice up-well, ours.”
   “Well-“
   “Hush!”