"This is Lily we're talking about."
"Never mind. I shouldn't have asked. She's capable of anything. Remember what she did to James?"
The rest of the Gryffindors started to buzz excitedly about the events at the last Quidditch match, and Lily, hiding behind an open door, listened with a rather cold expression on her face.
She shook her head, which drooped a bit. "I really should stop with the smart comebacks. They do nothing for me." Debating on whether or not to give up her fun, she stepped into her dormitory, then stopped dead in her tracks.
The night before, she had removed her necklace and placed it under her pillow for safekeeping. It seemed that she needed to find a better, more secret place, for Serena was rolling the midnight-blue stone around in her palm. Discarded lay the gold chain on the floor, she had obviously kicked it half underneath the bed. Lily dashed into the room, and Serena jumped up, trying to hide the stone.
"Sikora, give that back right now."
"Give what back?"
"Don't play innocent with me. The necklace. Or at least, what's left of it. Hand it over."
Mulishly scowling, Serena threw the stone across the room and ran out.
Lily bit her lip as she dashed over to the stone. Strangely, it had not cracked, and it hadn't broken. She fitted it back into the gold claw-settings with ease and fastened it around her neck, boiling with anger.
"Serena's going to get herself killed one day. And I'll applaud whomever does it, if it isn't me. Which it probably will be." Tucking it under her robes, she bent down to retrieve her cloak from the floor. The necklace, though pushed under loose robes, managed to fall out and knock against the bedstead. With hardly any blackness at all, Lily immediately found herself on a rock in the Alendoren Cove again.
Lily drew several deep breaths and pulled her necklace out to examine it. It looked just the same as usual, but something had obviously happened to it.
"I'm going to kill Serena when I get back." She tucked it back under her robes, then, glancing up, her eyes fell onto two people sitting on the water's edge, one in the inch of sea, the other on the sand. Tom and Litharelen.
Lily tried to duck out of sight, still a bit edgy about Tom, but Litharelen saw her first.
"Lily! C'mon over here!"
Lily gripped the sides of the rock as hard as she could, then slipped off and started jogging through the pale tan and white sand, warm and fine. She reached Litharelen and Tom in no time, and she stood for a bit, nervously looking at Tom.
He realized soon that she wasn't any too comfortable and stood up as well, shaking the sand off of his robes. "Lily, you're scared of me?"
Lily stared at him. "Just a little."
"Was it because of what I did last time I saw you?"
"Oh, of course not. Last time we met, it was positively friendly. I do so love to be attacked by people with blazing red eyes who are formed from tea leaves."
He squinted a bit in the bright sunlight. "I told you-never mind. I didn't. I am now, though. I'm sorry."
"Don't ever do that again."
"I got out of control."
"I could tell."
Litharelen rolled over on her stomach, propping herself up with her hands, elbows in the sand. Her long, silvery tail splashed the water, which, Lily noticed, looked perfectly ordinary on the surface. "What did Tom do this time?"
"Oh-nothing, really. His eyes just went all red, and he started to get all angry, and to tell you the truth, I never want to come across him when he's angry, ever again."
Litharelen laughed. "I've never really seen him angry."
"Be thankful."
Tom coughed loudly. "So…Lily, how exactly did you land here this time? Was it on purpose?"
Lily, strangely wary of him, shook her head. "No. I just landed here. I have no idea why. As usual."
"Oh. I-" His voice turned off sharply, and Lily found herself back in her dormitory in milliseconds.
She picked herself up off of the floor and shook herself, sore all over. Squinting over her shoulder to make sure the dormitory was unoccupied, she then stood up, ran over to her trunk, and threw the necklace inside, vowing to herself never to let that happen to her again.
"I hate Serena! Oh, honestly, how I hate her! She totally ruined this, and cursed it for all I know."
The pre-Christmas days passed in a flash, and Lily found herself excitedly chattering with Eva and Vanessa about their anticipated gifts the morning before Christmas. They were in the twins' dormitory, curled up on Eva's bed.
"I do hope I'll get that package of clothing Mother promised me. I swear, one more day of holidays in these robes and I'll go crazy!"
"Vanessa, really. I doubt if they'll let you wear blue robes at Hogwarts."
"You're right…but they haven't forbidden it!"
"Yet."
"Oh, Lily, hush. What do you think your parents are giving you?"
Lily frowned. "I'm not sure. I haven't written them in forever; they're terribly busy and I didn't want to intrude. To tell you the truth, I'm hoping for the electric equipment for my foil."
"For your who? I mean, your what?"
"Body cords, metallic jacket, wires…the works. I'm hoping to go to a competition in London over Easter."
"Lily, you're odd."
"Thanks."
"Wasn't meant as a compliment. Anyway, what're you hoping for?"
"Hum. Besides the electric equipment?"
"Yeah, that stuff."
"Well-I'd like a few Agatha Christie novels…and I wouldn't mind the complete Sherlock Holmes collection. Short stories, novels, and all." Lily had recently shown a liking for mysteries, especially murder ones.
"You're strange. Why not go with that other mystery series-Nancy Drew? It's so much less violent and bloody."
"Ah, yes, but bloody and violent is life, and there's no use blocking out life."
"You have so much sense. Shut up."
Eva hurriedly interrupted. "So, any guesses from anyone as to what the human Barbie is getting from her Ken?"
Vanessa giggled; Lily started to cackle. "From her Ken. I like that one. I have no idea."
"I know. Everything that comes to mind is something too Valentines-Day-ey."
"Isn't it, though!"
They rearranged themselves on the bed, and Lily started to tell the girls about what she had found Serena doing that day in her dormitory. She hadn't found time till now.
Eva gasped. "But, Lily, she might have ruined it forever!"
"That's my worst fear."
"Well-do you think you could try to go to that A-place and ask Tom to fix it for you?"
"Albania or the Alendoren Cove?"
"Both."
"I knew that. But that's not such a bad idea. I might actually do that! Thanks!"
Eva smirked. "Very welcome. Do you have anything for him?"
Lily drew back, thinking hard. "Eva, I don't know him well enough."
"Well, you don't have to."
"Well, I don't quite know what he'd want."
"So? Well, you don't have to. Giving Sirius anything?"
Puzzled, Lily frowned. "Why should I?"
"Well…seeing that he's your friend…that sort of thing is natural, isn't it? I mean, come on, you've already got Lucius' and Serverus' presents wrapped, can't you give him a little thought? Or Remus, or Peter."
Lily sighed. "You're right. I don't have to be a banshee to people who're friends to someone I hate. Just to the people I hate."
"You don't have to do that either. It ruins your voice."
"You're still right. All right, come look at that joke shop catalog with me, will you?"
At around nine, Lily, Vanessa, and Eva found their last gifts and sent in owl-orders to Zonko's in Hogsmeade. They were lying on the bed, strangely tired from a day of doing absolutely nothing. Lily sat up, fast, startling everyone in the dormitory.
"Lily! What?"
"I've just had an idea. Come with me!" She flitted out of the dormitory door, and Eva and Vanessa, rubbing their eyes, followed.
They ran all the way to the entrance hall, which was lit only by the torches on the wall. The Great Hall was empty, and it was also rather chilly. Vanessa shivered.
"Lily, let's go back. This is crazy. What are we doing here, anyway?"
Lily laughed. She flung open the front doors and dashed out, into the snow.
"Lily! Are you mad? We can't go out there! It's freezing!"
They got an ecstatic laugh for an answer, and, running outside, they looked around wildly for their friend. "Lily, where are you?"
Another laugh made them look towards the side of the castle, where a black-cloaked figure was scaling the walls.
Lily had been lying on her bed in the dormitory, restless and energized. She wanted something to do, and, just for fun, she imagined what she would be doing if she had wings. She supposed she'd fly around the clouds, dipping and soaring-wait, wasn't the tallest tower in Hogwarts touching the clouds? It was. And if you went out and stood on top of that tree trunk near the lake, which was next to the walls-She had jumped up and raced for the door, ignoring the snow beating the windows. Dashing out of the entrance hall, she found the trunk and, with unexpected ease, lifted herself up, towards the sky.
She hardly heard the gasps of her friends and the "Come down, come down!" screams. Bathed in moonlight, she lightly stepped from one jutting brick to the other, from one turret to the next, on a planned path she had seen before her in the dormitory. The snow didn't make her slip; on the contrary, she found extra footholds on the rough ice lining the roofs.
By now, she was standing twenty feet above the ground and moving, moving upwards. She saw the dark crescent moon miles above her, though it seemed to be only ten yards away. Brushing off the years of laziness since she had climbed the trees in her backyard, she clung to one gargoyle and pushed off of the next. She hadn't used her hands and feet like this in forever and it felt wonderful. Free finally of silly rooms and walls, she leaned into the wind and felt herself blown along with it. Down on the ground, her friends were frightened to death and then some.
"What's she doing? She'll get herself killed!"
"She's too far away to hear us. I don't know what got into her!"
"She finally cracked. I told you she's dangerous!"
"Vanessa, stop. She's having fun. Look at her."
And, indeed, Lily was. She had never in her life fallen off anything she decided to climb, and this, this-this was beyond anything. The grounds were covered with white, white bordered with the black of the Forbidden Forest. The lake was stormy and wild, dashing white waves of foam against each other and exploding in a shower of droplets. Lily had never enjoyed the civilization of England much; she preferred the untouched land and trees to any row of houses. So now, caught in wonder between the magical beauty of the school and the excitement in the air, she could only laugh.
Below her, seventy feet below her, Eva and Vanessa clung to each other. From somewhere, they had heard a long, drawn-out howl and a short bark. Then, out of nowhere, the snow in front of them had sunk into itself, in the form of a jumble of footprints. Yet they saw no one and nothing.
And then, from thin air, four figures materialized in front of them. They recognized them from somewhere, yet they were strangely different. Pale faces, swishing, dark robes, drawn wands, and fanged teeth drew towards the sisters, and, in panic, they screamed.
Lily was stepping onto the roof of the North Tower by now, and faintly, she could hear her friends scream. Without the slightest bit of giddiness, she looked down.
Two blonde dots were clinging to the wall, while a clump of dark ones advanced on them. Vanessa screamed again, and Lily, summoning all of her present insanity and her power of voice, sent out a long, shrill, loud, frightening, ecstatic, enraged laugh out over the darkness.
Down on the ground, the four stopped. They froze in their tracks as the unhumanly sound swept over them, freezing their bones, and when it repeated itself, they fled towards the Forbidden Forest.
Swift as a sailor, Lily slipped down. It took her hardly two minutes, and she was no more out of breath than the twins were. Actually, she was less out of breath, for seeing her slide down from such a height at such a speed had taken their breath away.
"Who were they?"
Eva and Vanessa shook their heads, shivering. "Don't know. Don't want to know either. But Lily, that laugh was brilliant! Scary, yes, insane, yes, but brilliant! You-what're you doing?"
Lily had bent down to examine the ground. Her keen eyes, enhanced a bit by the magic of the necklace, had spotted a brown bit of something when she was twenty feet from the ground and sliding. She picked it up and unfolded it.
"What is that?"
Lily slowly shook her head. "I have no idea. It has Hogwarts drawn on it, though. And look here!" She pointed to a dot labeled "The Whomping Willow". "It has the secret passage on here!"
Eva scrambled over. "What? Where? What secret passage?"
Quickly Lily folded the paper back up. No matter how much she was fighting with James, she wasn't about to reveal his friend's secret to the world. "Nothing."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I know. I need to practice. Come on inside."
"Oh, good. Why this sudden desire for inside?"
"I want to see if any of those four were Gryffindors. We'll see them come inside the common room if they are."
Vanessa shook her head. "You can. I'm going to bed." She did, too, as soon as they stepped inside the common room. But Eva and Lily placed themselves behind a couch with a small hole in the back of it, through which they could watch the portrait hole. The clock stuck ten, then eleven. At eleven thirty, Eva fell asleep, despite all the chocolate she had been eating to stay awake. Lily, still strangely excited, wasn't in the least bit tired, and, after pushing Eva underneath the sofa, which had about a foot of room underneath, she propped her back against the back of the sofa, pulled out her drawing pad, and started to sketch.
At twelve, the mummy in its sarcophagus was coming along nicely, and she was starting to shade. She was getting very good at drawing; Serverus had given her a few lessons. Suddenly, she tensed and pressed her ear to the sofa.
Her ears, also enhanced by the necklace's magic, were picking up soft footsteps outside the portrait and a whispered, "Puritan hysteria". Quiet as the growing of grass, Lily set her sketchbook aside and put her eye to the hole in the sofa.
The portrait creaked, though nothing appeared in the doorway. For a long minute, Lily watched the opening and saw nothing. Then, out of nowhere, a voice resounded through the common room, a voice Lily was unfortunately all too familiar with.
"All clear. They're not watching."
"Are you sure?"
"There's no one there. Take this thing off!"
And, after closing the portrait, a figure materialized out of warm air, just as the four figures had done on the lawn. James spit out a mouthful of bright, blindingly white teeth with blood on the tips and removed his ragged and torn cloak. He wiped his sleeve across his face and Lily noted that the pale color came off onto his robes. He turned to the wall.
"All right, come out! No one's there; they'd have come out by now. Anyway, we don't want to take it off in the dormitory. Pettigrew tattles too much."
Another voice spoke. Lily knew this one well, too.
"You have a point. Peter, get off!" Sirius appeared, shaking something invisible off of his arm. "God's nightgown, you're the scariest little worm I've ever seen! Get out from under there!"
Remus emerged, scowling. "Peter, it wasn't as if we broke any laws, come on, we're not going to be sent to Azkaban for this!"
The invisible Peter whimpered. "But-but we broke a school rule!"
James snapped. "Peter, shut up. Give me my cloak!"
Whining and pouting, Peter threw off a silvery something, which he handed to James.
"Peter, I swear, if you keep this up, you're never going with us again!"
Peter cringed. "No--I promise-I'll stop. But don't you think-"
"PETER!"
Remus grabbed James' collar. "Shh! They'll hear you!"
James pulled his collar away. "Who 'they'?"
"Well, all of those nice sleeping students, for instance."
Lily smirked. She noiselessly stood up, startling all of the boys half out of their robes. "And the awake ones."
It had quite the effect she wished for. The boys all jumped, looked terribly guilty, Peter sank to the floor, Sirius tried to hide the silvery cloak Peter had thrown off, and Remus and James just sat there, openmouthed.
James was visibly shaking. "How-what-where-?"
Lily sighed, a long, drawn-out sigh, sounding innocent but fooling no one. "Oh, absolutely nothing. I didn't see anything. Not even that you own an Invisibility Cloak and were outside at midnight. I know nothing whatsoever of that."
James drew a deep breath. "You mean you won't tell?"
Politely puzzled, Lily looked up at him?"
"Tell what?"
"Oh, good. Thanks so much-"
Lily couldn't resist interrupting. "But, of course, cross-questioning by a teacher may make me reveal many things which I do not know, and-"
"Lily! Please!"
"Please what?"
"You cold-hearted little wretch!"
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. Thank you so much."
James shook his head. "We're going to have to modify her memory. Remus, you're best at this, come on!"
Remus just sat there, staring, and James sighed loudly. He picked up his own wand and pointed it at Lily, who just sat on the sofa, smiling disconcertingly up into his eyes.
"Geez, woman, stop looking at me like that! All right. Obliviate!"
A stream of glittering gold shot out of his wand, and swirled around Lily. It didn't hit her, though, and it didn't affect her.
Lily was seeing the room in a golden glow, and, on the alert for anything strange, she touched the elf-nymph necklace, which she had put back on that morning. It was growing hot, exerting energy, and the midnight-blue pendant was turning white. Clouds of smoke, gray-white smoke, were swirling around inside it, fast, making the outside start to burn with a smoldering fire. Her throat, where the necklace hung, did not start to blister, but instead turned slowly into a patch of creamy silver, the color of Litharelen's skin. The patch spread quickly, until every bit of her body was covered in silver, and then the gold around her faded.
James, Sirius, and Remus had slumped onto the floor along with Peter, staring at Lily. The former tousled red-head with a pale tan complexion and deep forest-green eyes had vanished, and in her place stood a creature none of them had ever seen before. She had silver skin, glowing with a beautiful pale moon color, pointed ears, deep green eyes criscrossed with silver thread, and deep burgundy hair streaked with silver strands. She didn't increase in size, but her attire changed, and on her figure appeared a long, silky white gown, flowing about her feet as if in a warm breeze. The necklace she wore had changed, too. The smoky gases had diminished, leaving behind a deep green, the perfect match of Lily's eyes, surrounded with silver talons and hung on a chain of the same metal. And the strangest thing was that Lily appeared unaware of her transformation-if this still was Lily.
It was, and Lily, sitting on the sofa, had no idea of what was going on. The only thing she knew was that the golden glow had gone away.
"James, you need to work on Memory Charms. That one obviously backfired."
He stared at her. "Well, of course it did, if you're wearing that piece of Dark Magic!"
She was the one to stare now. "What piece?"
"Um-nothing."
Lily stood up and advanced towards him. He sprang up and hid behind Sirius, leaving Lily behind, quite puzzled.
"Wh-what're you so scared of?"
A scream behind her interrupted anything anyone had been planning to say. Eva was letting out a piercing yelp that shattered everyone's eardrums.
"Eva, shut up!"
"Lily! Just look at yourself!"
Lily's bewildered gaze cleared into a look of fright, and she dashed upstairs to her dormitory, followed closely by Eva and the boys, who started after them a few seconds after.
They gathered in the exercise room, which, besides including mats, barres, and balance beams, had a whole wall covered in a mirror. Lily stared at herself and didn't say a word.
"Um-Lil?"
No sound.
"Lily?"
No sound.
"Are you all right?"
No sound.
"Lily, ANSWER ME PLEASE!"
No sound.
Eva turned to Sirius. "I don't know what happened. She's gone officially insane."
"That happened the day she was born."
"James, shut your mouth."
"Oh, good, you got her talking. Lil, are you all right?"
"Fine. Fine. I've just acquired silver skin, silver highlights, silver junk in my eyes, a dress I know I never owned, pointy ears, and-" she lifted her hands to her eyes-"silver nails. Am I all right? Mentally, I never have been, now I'm not physically." She turned away from the mirror, trying to hide the gleam of fright springing up in her eyes and masking it with annoyance. She didn't succeed.
"Lily, we know you're scared. I mean, so are we, but-"
"So I'm Lily now? Not Evans and not an electrocuted phoenix and not a rampaging cow and not an Orc?"
"Lily, please!"
"Please what?"
"Well-stop being sarcastic like that!"
Instead of answering, Lily advanced on him, eyes slitting in summoned anger and lips drawing back from pearly-white teeth. She raised her left hand as if to claw him, and, two seconds later, the door had slammed and Lily was hanging onto Sirius, shaking with laughter.
For days after that, James had been quite polite to her, and even Serena had curbed her tongue. The Gryffindors, the ones that had cursed at her and insulted her at every bend after the Quidditch match, were now reasonably polite. The funny thing was that Lily didn't care. She had no feeling left that would even let her hate the Gryffindors, or the school for that matter, so it was as one to her if they were cold and cruel or kind and welcoming. They had been terribly mean to her when she did care, so now, when all of a sudden all feeling was wiped away, she could stare in the faces of the insults and stamp on them, not bothering to do the easy thing and turn aside.
Her funny elf-nymph appearance had faded in seconds, almost as soon as James left the room. Now, she was as back to normal as she could get, besides the unavoidable fact that her necklace kept swirling with forest-green and grayish-white smoke every time she got passionately angry. Which happened a lot, these days.
Christmas had passed in a flash. The only thing she had received was a new package of books from her parents, along with a black shirt with "I'm only wearing black till they make something darker" written on it from Remus, who had noticed that whenever possible, Lily wore all of the dark things she could find. Eva and Vanessa had given her a package of records they got from their cousin, who worked at the Wizarding Wireless Network, and Sirius had given her two small teddy bear earrings with red-and-green scarves.
Lucius had sent her a huge box of all the joke items his parents would allow him to get at Hogsmeade, with an inscription on the cardboard box:
I thought this might come in handy, seeing that you'd love to blast Potter's head off and I'd love to help.
~Lucius.
Serverus, though, had given her something she valued most. She knew it couldn't have been cheap; seeing that it was made out of feathery light velvet and trimmed with brocade lace. It was a long black cloak, reaching down to her ankles but not trailing on the floor, surrounded with black lace, which scalloped in drooping vines around the edges. It was fastened in front with an ebony buckle, and when Lily wore this in the dark, the only way to ascertain her presence was if she made a sudden movement and dislodged something.
She went at once to Serverus after she had opened it, to ask him to take this back, that it was too good for her, but he told her flat out that if she gave it back, he'd let the cats in his dormitory have fun with it. He didn't want it back, so the only thing for her to do was thank him graciously, with glowing cheeks.
The Friday after Christmas, Lily was awakened at about two in the morning by a rustle outside her bedroom door. She was awake instantly and out of bed in the next second. Her nightgown, another gift from her parents, was dark and long, yet with a wide skirt that didn't hinder her running. Without losing an instant, she slipped into her cloak and was out of the door, flitting around like a noiseless bat in the dark.
Down in the common room, which glowed with a faint orange from the dying fire, Lily stopped, pressing herself against the wall. She had heard a whisper, and a silent reprimand, and a footstep. Her ears were picking up the slightest movement in the common room and beyond its walls even, and she was listening with bated breath to the conversation of two people that were climbing out of the portrait hole.
Just as it was swinging shut, she slipped out after the two, who, by their whispers, she judged to be Sirius and James. The halls were dark, completely dark, and as she flew down the dismal corridors, she blessed her stars for the short lifespan of torches.
She heard the footsteps, only three yards ahead of her, turn into an alcove, which almost hid the statue of a Grecian goddess in the gloom. A wand appeared, and Sirius' voice was muttering.
"Muidnessid."
The arm of the goddess, whom Lily recognized to be Artemis, reached out and opened the wall behind her. Lily bit her lip and, quivering on the spot from excitement, watched the brick door pull away to form a small cupboard. She watched excitedly as a hand appeared and pulled out a stack of books from the cupboard. On moving forward several inches, she caught sight of the cover on one of them. It was the Animagi book she'd seen James hurriedly pull out of sight last year when she went to the library to persuade him to go the Quidditch practices. With its leathery cover and gold Old English lettering, it was unmistakable, and comprehension started to dawn on Lily.
Mind on the alert, she followed the boys all the way outside, all the way across the gardens. Luckily for her, the moon was gone, and there was no light to be thrown on the snow. Nevertheless, if they had looked backwards, they might have seen her.
They paced along until they reached a rather formidable tree, one Lily had never been too close to. She now knew why. As soon as they drew within reach of the branches, it started to flail and thrash towards her and the boys; obviously being able to see through Invisibility Cloaks, which Lily guessed the boys must be wearing.
Then, James drew out from under the cloak and ran towards a long stick. With it, he pushed a knot on the side of the willow and instantly, it froze. James regained the safety of the cloak and Lily saw footsteps appear in the snow all the way to a small hole in the ground between two large roots of the Willow. The weeds rustled a bit at the entrance, and then all was still.
Lily didn't need an instant to make up her mind. She slid right in after them and found herself in a long, earthy hallway. Remembering the story Remus had told her about the Shrieking Shack, she guessed correctly that this was the passage he used. Silently and quickly, Lily flitted along the dark and dirty corridor, eyes, ears, and wits sharpened.
Abruptly, she came across crude steps carved into the earth in front of her. She picked her way up, doing her best not to dislodge any clods of dirt or rocks.
Her head came up in one of the rooms of the Shrieking Shack. Lily winced as she saw blood spots on several torn-up chairs and thought to herself that that explained Remus' cuts that he usually had after the full moon. Hearing voices come from the next chamber, she darted towards the doorway. Her lips curved in an enchanting smile as she saw the two boys sitting on an old four-poster, obviously a Hogwarts throwaway, flipping through large and heavy books, taking notes every once in a while.
She took care to remain in the shadows, and Sirius and James never noticed her entrance. Lily slipped behind the door and dissolved in the darkness.
James turned a page. "Sirius, does it tell you anywhere how this can go wrong?"
"I don't think so. I do have the first part down here-look. It tells you your options."
James leaned over. "Oh, neat. Good. Problem is, that Restricted Section book got taken out."
"I know. We'd better check Madam Pince's private office library for that."
"We'll do that tomorrow. I don't blame Dumbledore for removing it, though I wish he hadn't."
They went on for a while, then, when Sirius' watch shrilly whistled four o'clock, they stood up.
"Sirius, we'd better be going back. Minky lights the fires at five, and we should be in bed by then."
"It's four already? We need a Time-Turner."
Hidden in the shadows, Lily frowned. Time-Turner?
"Ministry keeps close watch over those-wait. I might ask Serena if her dad could get us one."
"Yeah, but then she'd want to know what we'd want it for."
James slumped. "Oh, right. Anyway, let's leave."
They packed their rolls of parchment and books in a compartment under the floorboards, screwed the ink bottles shut, and stowed them away. Picking up a silvery piece of cloth from the floor, they threw it around them and vanished. Lily saw them go, started after them, but then changed her mind. With a wicked but charming smile curving her cheeks, she moved the floorboards back and took out the book with the leathery cover and the gold writing. Stowing it away under her cloak, she vanished in the gloom of the corridor.
They emerged from the tree's secret passage and made their way back to the castle. Lily took a rather roundabout way back, slipping in and out of the shadows on the Forbidden Forest. In this way, she was at the portrait door thirty minutes after James and Sirius got there.
Not in the least out of breath, she halted her steps and put her ear against the portrait door, holding her hand over the Fat Lady's mouth and quenching a surprised question. Her suspicions didn't fail her; someone was in the common room. Two someones, by the sound of it.
"I think I heard someone, and that's all I can say."
"James, honestly, you think you heard? You mean we're sitting up for nothing?"
"Not nothing. If I'm right, I can prevent her from going to McGonagall first thing next morning."
"Her?"
"Yes. Her. I know it's Lily."
"And how do you know that?"
"Well-I don't know. I only know that I know."
"Sort of like lovers can sense each other's presence?"
"Sirius! Stop! She's only twelve, for Pete's sake! And besides, I have Serena."
"Tell me this: are you ever really happy when you're around Serena? Truly. Doesn't she make you feel inferior and wicked and-well, like a gullible fool?"
"How would you know how I might feel?"
"Because that's what you act like."
"Indeed I do not. Let us change the subject." His voice had gone terribly icy, but Sirius didn't notice, or if he did, he ignored it.
"But this one is so much more fun. Tell me the truth, which you haven't done since Serena came into the picture; do you really like Serena?"
Lily could picture James' horrified expression and the anger that wiped away the horror. "Of course I do! I don't know what I'd do without her!"
Sirius audibly shrugged. "Well, for one thing, you might be friendly with Lily and her friends. Come on! This fight thing is getting on everyone in the school's nerves, not to mention your own, I'll bet."
"If she wants to apologize, she can. I'll not hinder her."
"James, even you should know Lily's not that kind of person. At least, not since Serena appeared. She used to apologize if she felt she had to and if it would solve the problem, but now she-she's drawn inside herself. You don't mean to say you haven't noticed that, do you? Can't you at least tell by her expression?"
"What expression?"
"Oh, good, so you have noticed. Exactly. She never lets her thoughts show, she never tells anyone what she's thinking. Do you know, you did that to her?"
"Me?"
"Oh, yes, you. Of course, you. From the day that you started being mean to her, she started to become more withdrawn, more cold and hard."
"That's not my problem."
"It should be. She's turning so heartless and cold-and she doesn't enjoy it one bit."
"Well, what does that have to do with me?"
"You drove her to it. You would ridicule her if she showed the slightest bit of emotion-and I know I helped. I'm none too proud of that, either. But think, James, think!"
Lily, standing outside the portrait hole, had silent admiration in her heart. No one, absolutely no one, not even Eva, had analyzed her so well, and no one had hit on the truth. Except Sirius. She turned her thoughts onto herself, smiling when she came across the hardened qualities she found herself to possess. There was no denying, even though it reaped less friendliness, that this coldness was severely fun, the cruelty she could unleash at will terribly amusing.
She wished she could listen endlessly to the discourse, but small pattering feet coming up the hall made her withdraw into a dark alcove. Peering out, she saw the form of a familiar house-elf lighting the torches in the hall. Silently, she cursed Minky for coming at just that time, and just as she thought that, Minky turned into the Gryffindor common room through a small door in the brick that wasn't a door but a wall until Minky mumbled something.
The small elf stepped inside, and Lily pictured James' and Sirius' scowls as they noticed that the pattering feet weren't Lily's. Minky looked up once, grinned all over her green, chubby face, and set to work lighting the fire. As soon as Lily heard Sirius and James leave, she slid inside herself.
Minky was busy and didn't notice the fairy cloaked in black pressing herself against the wall and vanishing up the shadowy stairs to her dormitory. Lily, still with a normal heart rate but a smug smile on her lips at her luck at finding out James' and Sirius' secret without them knowing that she knew, thought coldly that, last year, she would have raced up here with heart beating and breath coming and going, if she hadn't been discovered first. Which she probably would have been.
Slipping out of her cloak and secretly blessing Serverus for giving it to her, she slid it underneath a pile of neatly folded clothes in her trunk, hurriedly placed her dark slippers underneath the bed, where their wet state would escape notice, and pulled the covers over her still, calm and collected form.
Lily never fell asleep that night, but she gave a good imitation of it, tossing and turning in a feigned slumber, crying out muffled and mumbled words without any sense. Words she knew were heard by the whispering forms outside her door, whisperings that had started only a quarter-hour after she climbed betwixt the sheets.
