Beyond Hogwarts cont; Chapter Twenty Four

-=Beyond Hogwarts, cont.; Chapter Twenty Four=-

It was around one, just as she was finishing a bowl of soup, that a tousled, red-faced wizard about thirty-five years old burst into what was now her office.
   “James, have you started on it yet? I—“ His gaze fell on Lily, and his wordstream stopped suddenly. “Er—miss…”
   “Lily Potter,” she said, standing up and holding out her hand. “I’m stepping in for James at the Minstry’s request—he’s in the hospital.”
   “Oh.” The man ran a sweaty hand through his hair, his shoulders slumping. “I hadn’t heard…I’m sorry. Are—are you in charge of his job now?”
   “Temporarily,” Lily nodded. “Yes. Is there anything I can do for you?”
   “There’s a folder in there—or there should be,” he said, gesturing to the pile of papers on what was now Lily’s desk, “that concerns something James was working on—the heading’s Southern England mission. Please look at it—they’ve got to have an answer in less than nine days.”
   “Who is ‘they’?” Lily inquired, rifling through the stack.
   “The Department of Magical Law Enforcement; the Aurors.” Suddenly apologetic, the interrupter wiped his hand on the folds of worn grey robes and held it out to her. “I’m Clark Bode, by the way. Department of Mysteries.”
   “Nice to meet you,” Lily smiled, setting the papers down on the desk and shaking his hand. “I’m licensed to take over for James, so I’ll be the one to get the things back to you that you need.”
   Mr. Bode expelled a large draft of air hurriedly. “All right. Thank you. But I’ll need it soon.”
   “Less than nine days, you said,” she nodded. “I’ll work on it.”
   "All right, then.” Shoving his fingers through his hair again, he bustled towards the door, poking his head around to say “Thanks!” before exiting.
   Pushing the empty bowl of soup off of the desk and into the trash can, Lily pulled the folder Bode had mentioned out of the heap. Curious, she opened it, bracing herself to decode ten pages of thin, spidery ink blotches that didn’t really deserve the classification of ‘writing’.
   A frown appeared on her forehead as soon as she had finished reading the first paragraph. It was something of a history of Tom—though they called him Lord Voldemort—stating that he had lived in Albania, gathering forces, before moving to England. Detailing vividly the attacks he had made or had ordered to have had made, it pulled in the small battles in Albania with the Ministry as well as the names of every murdered person and every ruined building. James’ parents and house were listed, Lily observed with clenched teeth.
   The sixth and seventh pages were filled with the estimations of forces at ‘Lord Voldemort’s’ disposal and a renewed summary of proofs of his ruthlessness. Lily was quite aware of most of this—though the number of people loyal to him were considerably more than mentioned—but, on turning to the eighth page, she received a rather large jolt in the region between the left side of her ribs. Her eyes quickly flew over the page again, but it was no use: the writing remained the same.

   June 22nd, 1979
   To: The Department of the Division of Aurors
   The Department of Mysteries, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the Department of Magical Catastrophes, and the Department of International Magical Cooperation hereby officially request the cooperation of the newly formed Department of the Division of Aurors in a movement against the continual rising of the aforementioned and described Lord Voldemort.
   Our proposal is to send two thousand of our trained employees to southern England to combat Lord Voldemort in a final battle, a movement necessitated by the losses of scores of lives. As the previous pages will suggest, this is the only method of coping with the situation at hand. Lord Voldemort is quickly rising in power, and if we act immediately and quickly, we may be able to save the lives of thousands.
   We await your reply by July 3rd, 1979.
   Sincerely,
   Bartholemew McWinters, Head of the Department of Mysteries
   Bartemius Crouch, Sr., Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement
   John Merrewen, Head of the Department of Magical Catastrophes
   Bertram Syre, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation

   Slowly, Lily let the folder sink onto the desk, her lips parted.
   This couldn’t be up to her to decide. Not this. Send two thousand people to fight against someone who had been what she considered a friend for six, seven years—and despite everything he had said, although he had threatened to kill her husband and first child and had his men murder James’ parents, she unexplainably considered him a friend.
   Many people had written about a love that could never die, that could outlast storms and burial and happiness, and somehow, there was a tie connecting Tom to Lily, one of friendship, and one that Lily couldn’t explain. Neither its origin nor its steadfast qualities were clear to her, though she knew all too well that they existed. It was absolutely illogical, she knew, berating herself, but—but—
   He had murdered at least a hundred people by now. At least.
   Thousands had known the departed, and Sirius and James had told her dozens of stories of the latest funerals—the widowed fiancée of a Ministry employee placing what was intended to be her wedding wreath on his breast before the coffin was nailed shut, a seven-year-old boy standing alone in front of two freshly planted graves—those of his mother and his father—a man driven out of his mind at coming home and finding his wife, sister, and three children lying lifeless at the back door of the house…a Death Eater had found them just as they were seconds away from escaping. The mother still held a baby clasped in her arms, clothed in a tablecloth—the first thing she had been able to find.
   The list went on, and on, and on…the worst entries were those depicting people who hadn’t been there to die in the attacks—they were left alive, but their nearest were killed. Lily let her head sink into her hands, her head whirling.
   What could she do? She knew that if she gave her approval for the two thousand to be sent to fight, they’d certainly be killed. Even if the number were four thousand, or six—they wouldn’t stand a chance. The Death Eaters were trained to kill at sight, and the Ministry officials were completely prohibited from using any of the Unforgivable Curses. All they had at their disposal were smaller hexes that sixth years at Hogwarts could conjure and several that the Department of Mysteries had developed—ones that handcuffed wizards, broke wands, and temporarily blinded. But those would do hardly any good. Even if they were blinded, the Death Eaters would have enough sense to keep facing the same way—towards the Ministry troops. Enough havoc had been inflicted with a broken wand in Newquay to warn anyone off of the spell that snapped wands in half.
   And Lily couldn’t just send her signature that permitted a mass of people to travel with the sole intention of killing people—her friends, and not just Tom. Lucius wasn’t, not really, but—still; he had been with her when her mother died, and she had considered him a close friend up till a few months ago. Most of the Slytherins that she had known were Death Eaters now, something she knew from Severus—
   Severus.
   He was a Death Eater. Unwillingly, she knew, but still—he was forced to show that he was willing, otherwise…
   How many more were there like him? Desperate, frantic for an escape, and that denied to them by the scar on their left forearms. Severus had never joined the ranks of Voldemort to be able to kill—he had entered because he believed that she was there, trapped, almost, without the power to leave. And now he was in that situation, and she couldn’t help him—would certainly do more than harm to him if…
   At the end of the day, Lily had come no farther than she was at lunchtime. She didn’t know what to do—on one side, the lives of hundreds of innocent people—on the other, the deaths of those in the two thousand sent out and many of her formerly Slytherin friends.
   Tired, she picked up her coat and the folders of work she hadn’t finished, stuffed the quill in the overnight quill cleanser on her desk, and walked moodily out of the office, her hair a mess from the many times she had run cold fingers through it. With a sardonic smile, she remembered Mr. Bode’s habit, and wondered if it was catching.
   Lily stayed at her home only long enough to slide the papers into a compartment situated inside the clock in her bedroom and change her clothes from the Ministry robes to a long, black, short-sleeved dress and a cloak in the same colour. Picking up a few coins and dropping them in her pocket, she reached for the pot of Floo powder above the bedroom’s fireplace, not wanting to Apparate.
   “Diagon Alley,” she muttered listlessly, dropping the bright green powder into the flames and stepping inside.
   With a sliding bang, Lily emerged in the fireplace of the crowded Leaky Cauldron. Originally, she had intended to get something to drink, but the pub was too crowded, cheerful, and noisy for her to stand. Her head was splitting with the decision she was forced to make—and, seeing the state things were in now, she couldn’t ask James to do this for her. She wasn’t allowed to see him, let alone speak to him, and as far as she knew, he wasn’t even awake yet.
   Pushing the door to the street in the back open just enough to slide through it, Lily left the pub unnoticed. With a sigh, she let herself into Diagon Alley.
   Dusk was rapidly falling, and most of the smaller shops were in the process of closing, though Gringotts was still open. Flourish and Blotts was inviting customers in with the twinkling of torchlight and candles placed in the show windows, Gambol and Japes, the joke shop, was filled with eager teenage wizards and witches, and Quality Quidditch Supplies was brightly lit with the attempts at winning smiles directed at parents. Fortescue’s was as good as closed; the brightly coloured umbrellas had been folded in, and most of the white chairs outside were placed on the tables. One elderly witch was finishing up a bowl of something chocolate-looking, but her frustrated cat on a leash was trying to knock the chair over that it was tied to.
   Lily started down the street. Outwardly, she looked as if she had a purpose, but she hadn’t the faintest idea as to where she was going. She didn’t notice that a clump of wizards in the street had called out to her; her ears were shut to everything but a funny whizzing sound driving her almost to distraction.
   No, she thought frantically. They can’t make me decide this. They can’t. I don’t know what to do; I can’t do the right thing either way. I can’t not send them to fight Tom—I know him; he’ll have control of this country before we can blink. But if we fight—oh, help. Help. If we fight…
   A hissing noise to her right made Lily look up, and, with a start, she realized that she had wandered into Knockturn Alley. A figure entirely shadowed by his or her cloak had taken the lid off of a bubbling cauldron, and the steam flew into her face, making her cough.
   “Love Potions, dearie, stronger than ye could buy anywhere else!” the figure hissed in a high-pitched voice.
   “No, thanks,” Lily muttered, “if I ever need to be poisoned, I’ll let you know.”
   Turning right abruptly, she moved towards the fountain across from Borgin and Burkes, the one she had surprised Tom at months ago. Unknowingly fiddling with her hair, she stared down into the clear, dark water, the surface of which was reflecting large, dusky clouds, with not a hint of sky showing through them.
   She sat there for a good hour, thinking, and running her fingers through the water. Finally, frustrated with her present inability to think of any sort of solution, she stood up brusquely and stepped towards the pub she had last spoken to Tom in.
   The vague lighting was the same, and the only difference Lily noticed was the absence of broken glass on the floor and a slight change in customers. It wasn’t much quieter than the Leaky Cauldron was; at least there the people were cheerfully tipsy, if they were so at all, but here at least half of the population was blind drunk and the rest were well on their way to being so.
   Lily hardly noticed the foul smell, made up of sweat, someone’s regurgitated lunch, and spilled food and drink; shortly, she slid into a booth in a darkened corner. Dropping her head into her arms, she closed her eyes.
   A few minutes later, she was torn out of her reverie by a snappish “Well, if yeh came in here, yeh migh’ as well order somethin’!” from the waitress who had been standing at the table since a few seconds after Lily had sat down.
   Bemused as she was, Lily couldn’t help feeling disgusted at the large amount of chest the woman was flaunting; another few inches and the neckline of that dress would have reached to her navel.
   “The strongest thing you have,” she glared, half-surprised at herself and very relieved to see the humongous pair of buttocks flounce away. Shifting her gaze to the back wall, she started trying to blast holes in it with her glower.
   “Six Sickles,” the waitress demanded, setting down a mug filled with something that looked revolting in front of Lily. Collecting the money, she left for the next table, and Lily, eyeing the blackish mixture with a disgusted feeling in the back of her throat, lifted it to her lips.
   She had hardly swallowed twice before a hand knocked the mug from her grasp, sending it flying onto the floor, where its contents spilled all over the tiles. She started up, jolted considerably, wiping her mouth.
   “You should really have known better than to drink that.”
   Lily looked around, and her gaze landed on Severus Snape, who was clad in a dark cloak as well, a half-smile on his face.
   “You also should have known better than to order that, but that’s a different story.” He slid into the booth next to her. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”
   “Come to that, how’d you recognize me?” Lily asked, trying to fight a clogged feeling in her brain.
   “I didn’t at first…there are a lot of black-cloaked people around here who seclude themselves and draw their hoods firmly over their faces. There was just some hair poking out of the hood; that’s all.”
   “Oh,” Lily said dully. “The trouble that my hair creates…I’d like to shave it off.”
   “You’d regret it later on, and I doubt James would...”
   The buzzing sound in her ears started to grow louder, so loud as to drown his voice out, and a choking feeling crept into Lily’s throat. A faintly greenish tinge crept into her cheeks, and she drew her breath in abruptly, trying to force whatever it was back into her stomach.
   It probably wasn’t to Severus’ advantage that he recognized the symptoms, but he deftly scooped her up, carried her out the back door of the pub, and set her down on her feet, holding her hair out of her face and letting her bend over a grating.
   The choking feeling erupted in the form of that day’s lunch, and, stomach clenching together with a fierce twist, Lily felt her knees weaken as the ‘strongest stuff you have’ did its work.
   “Home, I’m assuming,” Severus said gently, picking her up again once she had finished and walking across the street to Borgin and Burkes, where he received a handful of Floo powder from Mr. Borgin. Throwing it in the fire that the co-owner conjured, he stepped into the flames, saying clearly, “Hedera Castellum!”
   With a small cloud of greyish dust, Severus appeared in the fireplace of the entrance hall in Lily and James’ home. Stepping out of the two-inch-high grate, he headed quickly for the staircase, where he was met head-on by Slenka, whose already large nose widened dramatically at the sight of her mistress looking about as limp as unbaked dough and unhealthily greenish.
   “She’s sick,” Severus said curtly. “I think she got most of the stuff out of her stomach, but don’t give her anything except water for the next few hours.”
   With a very anxious nod, the elf scampered up the steps ahead of him, turning abruptly into the bedroom, which Severus entered a few minutes later to find the sheets on the bed turned back, a nightgown pulled from the closet, and a glass of water sitting on the bedside table.
   With a curt nod of approval, he set Lily down gently on the bed, but on touching the mattress, her eyes fluttered open.
   “Severus?” she muttered. “What…?”
   “It’s the stuff you managed to get drunk on,” he said softly. “You’ll be all right in the morning.”
   “I did not get drunk,” she said peevishly. “If it is actually possible to get flaming drunk from two mouthfuls of the foulest stuff ever known to mankind, then I will eat James’ very old, very smelly, and very dirty sneakers.”
   “You had two sips?” he asked suspiciously.
   “Yes,” Lily snapped resentfully, her eyes closing again. “You knocked it out of my hand before I could drink any more.”
   “Well, then, it’s a very good thing I happened along,” he said cheerfully. “I suppose you’re just not used to the stuff they put in there.”
   “What, there was something else in that mug besides pure vinegar and puke?”
   “That is sick,” Severus grinned. “There’s some water next to the bed, in case you want any. I’ll stop by in the morning.”
   “I’ll be at work,” she said fretfully. “Go away.”
   Obeying quietly, he closed the door, leaving Slenka alone with Lily, whose stomach was starting to flip over by itself again, ignoring the fact that it was firmly attached to several other appendages, and that twisting her intestines into a knot was a bit painful.
   “Mmph,” she groaned, burying her face in the pillow. “Ow.”
   The next morning, as predicted, she felt better enough to spend the day behind her desk, and the sickening feeling in her stomach had faded to a gradual pinch. Remus visited her at lunch with the news that James was looking exactly the same as the two nights before, and a small attempt at cheering her up was made at two in the afternoon in the shape of a box of rosemary candles from Peter, Remus, and Sirius.
   Unfortunately, the more she tried to think about the problem she had been literally sick over the past night, nothing in the way of a solution came to mind. For the next five days, she wavered, sometimes almost certain to let Tom deal with whatever came to him, and then remembering Severus-and all the rest of the people she knew. Each evening, she returned home with an ear-drum-splitting headache, longing for sleep, but unable to do anything but toss around for hours. She had contemplated asking the Minstry to transfer this decision onto someone else’s head, but she knew that they would invariably choose to send the men into southern England, so that would be the same as if she had chosen to send them. And she couldn’t. She hadn’t seen Severus since the night he brought her home from Knockturn Alley, but she couldn’t forget the way he had carried her-as if she had been a crystal ornament that would shatter with a breath of wind.
   “Someone, please, help,” Lily muttered the evening of July second, lying on a divan with half of the pillows scattered around the room, her hair a mess, and the skin around her eyes taut and grey. She had progressed no further than she was on her first day taking over James’ job, and Mr. Bode had popped in several times that day, with the continual question of: “Have you got an answer yet?”
   With a small sigh, she buried her face in the last pillow still on the divan. Rolling onto her side, she clasped it to her face, trying to block out anything and everything zooming towards her.
   A few minutes passed, and she was almost asleep, when a gentle hand fell on her shoulder. Sitting up abruptly, she shook the hair out of her eyes.
   “Severus!”
   “Are you feeling better?” was his concerned reply.
   “Sure,” she muttered, gazing fixedly at a Turkish carpet hanging on the wall. “No reason not to be.”
   “You know, if I didn’t know you weren’t trying to lie, I’d tell you that you were a terrible liar. As it is, I’ll let it slide.”
   “Thank you,” Lily said honestly, looking up. “You are absolutely wonderful about knowing when to shut up.”
   “I have had loads of practice,” he informed her with a grin. “Between Potter and his friends threatening to curse me into bits if I say another words and the all-around benefits of hushing around Lord Voldemort, I’ve learned pretty quickly.”
   “Of course, you never did keep your mouth shut around James and the rest.”
   “I had no need to. They knew and know all too well the vague amount of curses I can command. Around them, I knew I didn’t have to be quiet.”
   Lily smiled, her first real one in about a week. Impulsively, she reached forward, clasping her arms around his neck and hugging him. Her voice half-stifled in his shoulder and cloak, she said something originally a ‘thank you’ but which sounded to Severus like “Nnnggnnnmmph.”
   Much less awkwardly than Sirius had done, he placed an arm around her shoulders. He didn’t quite know why he felt a bit less rigid doing that lately than he had been, say, just as Hogwarts let out, but…well, then again, he had carried her home from Knockturn Alley, and she hadn’t minded, which was somewhat of a confidence-booster. Pointedly overlooking the fact that she had been exceptionally sick to her stomach just before he had taken her home, he pulled the pillow out of her lap, the tassel on which she had been unconsciously shredding.
   “Lily,” he said quietly, suddenly serious, “if there’s anything you need to spit out, though…”
   Surprised, Lily pulled back and gazed at him, her eyes roving his face searchingly. Dark eyes met hers, and, making up her mind, she stood up, walking towards the window and leaning against the curtains, her fingers knotting themselves into the folds of cloth.
   “You know they’ve made me take over James’ job till he gets better, don’t you?”
   “I didn’t,” he said frankly, “but I do now.”
   “They’ve put me in charge of deciding whether or not to send two thousand men and women out to wherever Tom’s situated,” Lily said abruptly. “I’ve been going raving mad for a week now, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve got to have the report in tomorrow, which means I’ve got to make up my mind tonight. You found me in Knockturn Alley the day I found the folder with the mission on my desk.”
   Closing her eyes, Lily let her face fall into the curtains completely.
   Severus sat on the divan for a few moments, but, after only about half a minute of hesitation, he stood up, walked over to her, and took both of her hands in one of his, turning her face towards his with the other.
   “Lily, go ahead and do it. Send the men down to fight him; if you don’t, there won’t be any Ministry of Magic left to be able to consider anything like that. They-“ he paused-“well, we all know how much he hates your…er-James. Think of him, at least, and the rest of the Muggles and Muggle-born wizards in England-in the world, even, if Lord Voldemort goes ahead with what he’s been planning.” He looked away, dropping his hand from her chin. “He-you know he wouldn’t be satisfied with just England, and, well…”
   “Severus,” Lily said quietly, “what about you?”
   He looked up sharply. “If that’s the only reason you’re hesitating, don’t. I’m not worth half of most of the innocent people he’s intending to kill.” A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “I chose to join him, and with that I took whatever is going to come from what it.”
   She shook her head, but not as violently as she might have, and Severus was both relieved and filled with enough apprehension to be called dread at the motion.
   “The next person might be your sister,” he said in an undertone. “He’s killed your parents-in-law; he won’t stop at Petunia and her family. This could end the war before it starts outright.”
   “If the Ministry wins,” Lily replied grimly, “everyone that fought for Tom is going to be put into Azkaban, no questions asked. Bartemius Crouch would be more than happy to take control of that.”
   “We accepted that when we joined him,” Severus acquiesced quietly.
   Half-open-mouthed, Lily stared at him, aghast. He had almost literally offered her a newly sharpened knife with the invitation to stab him through the heart, knowing that it would kill him…and for something she knew he hardly cared about. Why should he worry about her family, her husband, her friends. They had never liked him, had never even deigned to be polite during most of their conversations with him. And now…
   “Severus-I-“
   “I’ve got to go,” he said quickly. “Five of us are meeting at Lucius’ tonight. If you’d like me to come back later…”
   “You’re always welcome here,” she whispered, squeezing his hand. “Always.”
   Nodding brusquely, he spun towards the door; his cloak was hanging in the entrance hall. Just before he touched the doorknob, however, he turned to her again.
   “Lily-if you don’t send the men, the Ministry’ll start asking why you chose not to. They-if they find out anything-“
   Leaving the room curtly, he let the door fall shut of its own accord, leaving Lily to support herself with the windowsill, her thoughts suddenly and unexpectedy decisive.
   For the next two hours, she busied herself with writing out her response. It was eleven o’clock before she had copied it onto two rolls of parchment, sending one to the Minister of Magic and keeping one to place with the rest of James’ files. With a sigh of relief, she watched a tawny owl with a thick envelope clamped in its beak flutter into the cloudy night.
   Returning to the desk in the library, she sat down wearily. It was the only thing she could do. She would more than probably regret it later, but just now, the only thing she was capable of feeling was liberation and a strong sense of exhaustion. And after Severus’ visit, she couldn’t have chosen anything else. If she had-
   No, Lily said sharply to herself, standing up. No. Don’t think of that now. It won’t do any good to anyone-besides, you can’t take it back if you begged. You can sleep now, at least, and possibly eat something.
   Right on cue, the house-elf’s broad nose poked into the library, followed closely by the large, green eyes and the almost-spotless dress Lily had managed to give her.
   “Miss would like some supper?”
   Standing up, Lily blew out the lamp. “Yes-bring a sandwich or something upstairs.”
   Knocking her nose to her knees, Slenka backed out of the library, disappearing into the kitchen just as Lily stepped into the hallway, heading for her bedroom.
   Quickly, she changed into a gold nightshift, pulling on the green dressing gown over it and fastening it tightly. Reaching for her earrings, she pulled them off, as well as one of her rings-the wedding ring never came off of her hand, no matter what.
   Opening her jewelry box, she dropped the ornaments inside, but when she withdrew her hand, it accidentally knocked against the side of the box, and the compartment hiding her engagement ring flew open.
   Lily started faintly, but then, almost unbidden by herself, her hand moved to press the lever to the second hidden compartment. With a rapidly increasing pulse, she pulled the beautiful, flashing piece of jewelry out of its hiding place.
   She hadn’t been to the Alendoren Cove in so long that the stone was slowly regaining its original midnight blue colour. A shadow of green and silver still persisted in the centre, though, and Lily noticed, almost for the first time, how clear the gem was. It was harder than a diamond and a thousand times more valuable, but it was made of an almost invisible material. Looking into it, she could easily see its centre, and as she gazed at the mist, she felt as if she were staring into an eternity of nothing, enlivened only by the revolving, smoky, silver apparition in its midst. It was almost like peering into another world contained by the outside of the jewel, for she could only see into it, not straight through. There was too much of something inside to be invisible, for her to be able to look through it, to ignore it.
   And, for a split second, she realized what it was.
   Power.
   The power to control, to dominate-to live through all eternity-contained inside the small stone. This was the only one still in existence still holding those fascinations-only the elf-nymphs of generations ago knew how to bottle immortality into a sphere just larger than a thumbnail. For that was the only quality the necklace contained-but in the hands of the rising Dark Lord, immortality went hand in hand with complete tyranny.
   Of course, she and James had often thought of destroying it, but that was almost literally impossible-only one of the strongest curses of all time could annihilate the jewel, and curses were only strong when hurled by a wizard monstrous in strength. At the peak of his strength, Albus Dumbledore might have been able to perform what it took to destroy it, but he was fading slowly-he was certainly no longer young; over a hundred and thirty years old. True, he was the only opponent that Lily knew Tom feared, but he wasn’t strong enough to destroy something that was resilient enough to contain immortality, not any more.
   Running the chain of the necklace through her fingers, Lily’s mind came back to dwell on the only currently living wizard stalwart enough to terminate the existence of the stone-Tom himself. The rising Lord Voldemort, the same that desired immortality almost above everything else. The one person that could not know of its existence.
   The attack on their home…someone had to know what was hiding in their home. How else would they have known to take the only necklaces bearing any resemblance to this one? But Tom didn’t know that she had it…otherwise, he’d certainly have come himself, without the feeble front of a Muggle burglar.
   Snapping the jewelry box shut, Lily started pacing the room, her hands twisting themselves into painful lumps. Someone must have suspected something about the necklace-they just hadn’t told Tom about it; had tried to operate on their own, in case their suspicions were completely false. In which case-if they tried again, they’d certainly do it when they knew for certain that no one was in the house, and she wouldn’t be able to stop them…
   Clenching her fingers tightly around the necklace, she lifted her chin. She would have to wear it; there was nothing else for it. She couldn’t keep it anywhere, hidden-what if someone found it despite any precautions? To take the risk of delivering it to someone else was unthinkable-first, she could never be sure how trustworthy that other person was, and, in the second place, that would be opening him or her up to murder if he or she was faithful and Tom found out that that person was keeping the necklace from him. It was almost direct murder.
   There was only one thing to do, Lily mused, resigned, as she reached for the clasp and fastened the chain around her neck. As the still-familiar feel of the gold touched her skin, a small smile spread across her lips, and she reached for the pendant.
   “Wait,” she whispered suddenly. “I-“
   There was something missing from the chain-something that had been hanging from it for years. Kneeling down, Lily flicked both sections of the jewelry box open again, drawing out a small bottle.
   It was the one she had received one Christmas in Albania. The one made of the crystallized liquid of the cove-sparkling with torchlight, the half-empty container glistened back at her.
   If you pour water inside here, it’ll immediately acquire all the qualities of a healing potion.
   Tom’s words from her fifth year’s Christmas came floating dimly back into her mind-and then, her eyes flew open with a sudden realization of how utterly stupid she was being.
   Almost throwing the dressing gown from her shoulders, she hurled the doors to her closet open, pulling out the first thing she touched-a white blouse and a pair of black dance pants. Sliding the nightgown off over her head, she started getting dressed with a frenzy equaling that of a particularly vicious hurricane.
   Slipping into a pair of black sneakers, Lily threw a green cloak around her shoulders, caught up the small bottle, tucking the necklace underneath the collar of the fencing blouse, and Disapparated.