Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. You can find the extended version in my profile - this one is under 3,000 words, and the original is nearly 6,000 - so if you aren't involved in the QLFC, please read that one first! And thanks to Lizzie for all her help.

Prompt: Gryffindor x Gryffindor friendship.

(setting) Prefects' bathroom

(word) mirror

(word) partner

Word count: 2,982

Lily had only been back at Hogwarts for four hours, and she was already exhausted.

The corridors were deserted— or at least she hoped they were, after all the effort she'd put into sending people to bed. Being Head Girl, it turned out, was much more difficult than being a Prefect; between helping lost First Years, reminding Prefects of their passwords, and catching her classmates in extremely compromising positions, it was no wonder her head ached by the end of the evening.

She clutched her towel tightly as she reached the statue of Boris the Bewildered, already anticipating how delicious the hot water from the tub in the Prefects' bathroom was going to feel on her throbbing feet. "Cinnamon spice," she groaned, and the door unlocked with a sharp click that had to be the best thing she had heard in days. The holidays had been tense, what with Petunia shooting passive-aggressive remarks at every opportunity, and she was glad to have a place to relax.

Closing her eyes as she stepped into the sweet-smelling air of the Prefect's bathroom, she leaned against the closed door and felt it lock behind her before opening her eyes—

And meeting Sirius Black's startled gaze.

Lily gasped and turned to exit the bathroom, but the door was locked. She pulled at it, pushed at it, and frantically hissed the password at it, but it didn't budge.

Black remained mute behind her.

Lily turned around slowly, half-hoping her tired mind had imagined him. But no; he rested in the foaming bath with water covering his chest, the rest of him hidden by suds. His hair was damp, and his grey eyes stared at her with uncharacteristic blankness.

It took Lily a moment to register that she was not the intruder here.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

Black, who usually had a witty comeback on the tip of his tongue, took a solid two seconds to reply.

"Taking a bath," he retorted, rather defensively for someone who wasn't supposed to there.

"This is the Prefects' bathroom!"

His smirk looked more like a grimace. "I'm aware."

Lily sighed. Of course Potter would give his friends the password. She tugged on the door again, but it didn't yield. "Did you do anything to the door?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at Black.

"No." He looked offended at her implication. "Well — not just now."

"What did you do?"

"Locking charm."

She pulled out her wand. "Please tell me you used Colloportus."

Silence.

"Tell me what spell you used, Black."

He told her.

"Why wouldn't you just use Colloportus?"

Black snorted. "Oh, sure, because no one knows the countercharm to that." He leaned his head back. "James'll come for me eventually. Don't get your knickers in a twist."

She shot him a glare, but he had already closed his eyes. "What makes you think Potter's going to come for you?" she demanded. "He'll probably assume you met up with one of your girlfriends and—" Her eyes narrowed. "Unless this is some sort of prank…"

"It's not. Relax, Evans," Black groaned from the water. "Stop being so infernally loud."

"I'm not being loud," she retorted, rather pettily.

As she looked at Black, who was still completely immobile in the water, she suddenly felt that something was wrong. She had never seen him like this: dreary, morose and decidedly guarded from her. The Sirius Black she knew would have jumped on the opportunity to tease her about this predicament, and — she realized suddenly — would never have called Potter 'James'. Black usually adhered to the nicknames their group of friends had assigned to each other.

"What's going on?"

He heaved a sigh, but his skin looked paler than usual. "I told you, Evans. Nothing's going on. We'll get out of this. Just… sit down, or something. I'm sorry you're locked in."

She sank down with her back to the door, arms coming to rest on her knees. "I meant what's going on with you."

His jaw clenched. "Nothing."

"You look sick."

He raised his head and gave her a grin that was missing its characteristic flare, as if to prove that he was fine. It wasn't convincing. "Did you mean to take a bath?"

"I just wanted to soak my feet."

He nodded his head towards the opposite end of the pool. "Go ahead, then."

Lily snorted. "Absolutely not."

"Suit yourself," Black said. "But we might be here for a while."

She was still racking her brains for a solution to the locked door. The spell Black had so brilliantly cast was meant to lock things from within; the lock was harder to break from the inside than the outside. She suddenly decided that she was too tired to be bothered with what was appropriate.

She kicked off her shoes and moved to the edge of the pool, sinking her feet into the hot water with a sigh. Across from her, he still hadn't moved a muscle. The foam must have been enchanted not to dissolve, because his body was, thankfully, still entirely hidden from her view.

"So," she said. "How were your holidays?"

Black groaned and opened his eyes. "An absolute disaster; thanks for asking. Yours?"

"All right," she said, even though they hadn't been. "Why a disaster?"

"I went home."

She frowned. "I heard you were living with Potter."

Black's grin faded. "For a bit, I was."

"And then you moved back home?"

His face had become guarded. "I got my own flat in June. I visited home for other reasons."

She could tell it was a weighty subject, so she dropped it. Everyone knew how dysfunctional the Black family was. She had thought that his living with Potter may have just been a matter of practicality, since they were already attached at the hip, but apparently there was more to the story. "So, any tips for dealing with Potter this year, then?" she asked. "Since you've lived with him. It must have been a nightmare."

He grinned, the dark cloud of the last subject forgotten. "Looking forward to working intimately with him during rounds?"

Lily snorted. "It's going to be an exhausting year. How I'll find the energy to keep him in line, I have no idea."

Black leaned his head back again. "I think you underestimate him, Evans. He's not the annoying kid you think he is — he's going to behave this year. Oh, and he's not after you anymore," he added as an afterthought. "So you'll be rid of that."

"Oh."

"Disappointed?" Black was smirking.

She scoffed and ignored the strange feeling in her chest. "Of course not."

"Don't worry, Evans. You can always regain his interest," he teased. "With that hair I bet you could get any man—"

He cut himself off with a wince of pain. He'd moved to make a gesture with his hand — a gesture she was happy he never got to complete — but the motion had rendered him temporarily incapacitated, and he slumped against the wall of the pool.

She was out of the water in an instant, ignoring the cold ache already coming back into her feet and making her way to his side of the pool. He held himself so stiffly that she realized he must be in agony.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," he grunted through clenched teeth, but followed it with a breathless curse.

"What is it?" she asked more forcefully, and Black reluctantly turned and exposed the most battered back she had ever seen.

It was as if someone had swung at him with a baseball bat. Bruises of various colors, swollen and almost too painful to look at, dotted his upper back and trailed down into the water. He kept his eyes downcast as he leaned with his elbows on the stone floor level with his face.

"Is this what you meant by 'disaster'?" Lily asked quietly.

Black turned in the water, hiding his back from her view and sinking deeper into the foam. He reached up and ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to look casual. "That's the sort of shit that happens when you go home after running away for a year."

"Your parents did this to you?"

Something about his expression was startlingly familiar: the defensiveness, the dark looks, the way he kept answering her questions as if there was a part of him that needed to talk about it even as he fought to keep it hidden— all of it reminded her of the thin, dark-haired boy from Spinner's End that she used to be friends with…

"My mum did it," Black said, lips pulled in a thin, mirthless smile. "Before she locked me in the cellar like a fucking prisoner for almost a whole day. I don't know what curse she used, but it hurts like bloody murder. I got out, though. They're idiots for thinking I wouldn't. I did it once; I could do it again."

Lily bit back the I'm sorry that pushed at her lips. "Do your friends know?"

"'Course they do. Moony did some wandwork on it — you should've seen it this morning."

"You should go to Madam Pomfrey."

"No," he said stubbornly. "I'm fine. I told you — Moony fixed it."

"You can't possibly go to class like this; you can barely move!"

"I can, and I bloody will."

She stuck her hand into the pocket of her robes. "You haven't healed properly. You need Essence of Dittany."

"We tried to steal some," Black grunted, "but there's a protective spell on the Hospital Wing's closet. Moony's going to try and wheedle it from Pomfrey tomorrow because she likes him."

Lily snorted. "Well, you're in luck. There wasn't any of it in her closet tonight." She extracted a small bottle from her pocket.

Black stared at her in surprise. "You have it?"

"Lovegood fell from a carriage and got a gash on his leg," she explained. "Madam Pomfrey gave it to me to give to him. Head Girl duties, and all that. Might as well use it while we're locked in here for Merlin knows how long."

He stared at her grudgingly.

"Are you really going to tell me you don't need it?"

He sighed and waded towards her, wincing. It was clear that the curse went deeper than the bruises; muscle and bone must have been affected for him to be in such deep pain.

Lily nearly yelped as he suddenly began to climb the steps leading out of the water, the foam parting to let him through.

Black laughed, and she realized that he was wearing swimming trunks.

"I'm not an idiot, Evans."

She tried to mask her embarrassment with a derisive sniff. "Says the one who locked us in the Prefects' bathroom."

"Touché."

He sat down stiffly in front of her, dripping and shivering slightly. She tossed him a towel, and he dried himself gingerly. He was fit — Quidditch did that to its players — and she smirked as she thought of the classmates would die of envy if they saw her now. But there was something about the awkwardness in his posture that made her suspect Black hadn't dated quite as much as he let on.

She pulled out her handkerchief and soaked it with Dittany before dabbing it on Black's skin. His back was a tapestry of red, purples and blues, and Lily shuddered to think what sort of Dark Magic Mrs. Black had inflicted upon her own son.

"Why did you go home?" she asked.

He began a shrug, and then stopped quickly. She couldn't see his face, but she imagined a grimace of pain. "It was my brother's birthday," he said. "I figured… he hasn't got long before my madwoman of a mother pushes him to join Voldemort. I guess I just wanted to get him alone, see if he'd listen to reason when he wasn't surrounded by Slytherins. I should've known it wasn't going to work. I just... I want Regulus to realize everything they're teaching him is prejudiced bullshit."

"Prejudice has a way of changing people," Lily said, rather more bitterly than she intended.

He turned his head and glanced at her. "You have a sister, don't you?"

Lily let out a short laugh. "Yes. But our relationship isn't much better than yours and Regulus'."

"What's her deal?"

Lily shrugged. The marks on his back were slowly fading into duller, older-looking bruises that seemed less painful. "She's angry — angry that I'm a witch, that I left her behind… I don't know. She's bitter. Prejudiced in her own way, and nothing anyone says can convince her I'm not doing it all to spite her. I—" she stopped short, suddenly afraid that her emotions might betray her. She hadn't cried about this in so long; it wouldn't do to relapse now, here, with Sirius Black, of all people. She cleared her throat. "I've gotten used to it."

There was silence, broken only by the dripping of some of the taps and Black's breathing, which was no longer so labored.

"Siblings," he snorted. "Ungrateful bastards, the lot of them."

She laughed, and suddenly she felt inexplicable warmth towards the rebellious boy whose antics normally annoyed her. Something about the sharing of secrets made her feel as if they were partners of sorts — in exhaustion, in sufferings, in a strange understanding of the deeply personal blow prejudice could have within one's closest family.

She finished with his back, and when he straightened up he didn't wince. He seized the towel and wrapped it around his torso like a protective shell.

"How long do you reckon it'll take Potter to find us?" she asked.

"Not long now." Black, and grinned suddenly. "I should make him think we're locked in here on purpose."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said he's over me?"

Black didn't answer, just shrugged and moved to lean against one of the walls. The foam in the pool had dissolved, leaving a smooth, mirror-like surface that reflected the light from the torches.

"What're you going to do after Hogwarts?" Black asked after a moment.

Lily hugged her legs to her chest. "I'm hoping to work in the Ministry," she said. "But with all the attacks on muggleborns, my mum's a bit reluctant to let me become too noticeable in magical circles."

Black snorted. "Good luck with that. Head Girl, top of the class..."

"Yeah, I know. I don't think hiding's the solution, either." She twisted a lock of hair around her finger. "There's a rumor that you and Potter were going to apply to become Aurors."

His expression became guarded again. "I don't know."

"It seems like something right up your alley," she said. "I don't want to feed your and Potter's egos… but you're both very talented."

"It's just…" He shifted restlessly where he sat. "If my brother does become a Death Eater…"

Realization spread over Lily's face. Of course Black wouldn't want to encounter his brother in a fight.

They both started at a loud knock on the door.

"Padfoot?" The voice was unmistakable.

"Yes, Prongs?" There was something cheeky about the way Black was grinning.

There was a hint of irritation in Potter's voice. "…care to explain?"

Black's grin had widened. "Explain what?"

"Are you in there with… Evans?"

The look in Black's eyes had turned positively wicked, and not for the first time, Lily wondered how Potter always seemed to know exactly where people were. "Potter," she called out, before the situation got out of hand. "Your idiot friend charmed the door to lock from the inside."

There was a pause. "Password won't work," Potter said.

"Maybe you should call Moony!" Black called, still smirking.

"I don't need bloody Moony." Potter sounded affronted. "Just give me a second."

"Take your time," Black said lazily. "We don't mind."

Lily glared at him and began to put her shoes back on. As Black stood up slowly, towel still around his shoulders, he looked at her seriously.

"You'd like Prongs, you know," he said, low enough so Potter couldn't hear. "Just give him a chance." Then he changed his tone, raising his voice. "You sure you can do that all by yourself, Prongs?"

There was a click, and the door swung open to reveal a pajama-clad James Potter, his hair more tousled than usual. He nodded towards Lily. "Hi Evans. Sorry about that."

Lily couldn't help being amused at his businesslike tone. "You're not the one that has to apologize," she said, shooting Black a glare that she meant more teasingly than in earnest.

Black smirked as he put on his robes over his swimming trunks. "What can I say? I enjoy being locked up with redheads."

"If only the redheads enjoyed being locked up with you," Lily replied, but she was smiling. There was something about Black's tone that was more friendly than flirty, and she found that she couldn't make herself feel irritated at him.

She had found a friend in the rebellious idiot, and as she left the bathroom (ignoring the way Potter's unruly hair made him look extremely handsome in the light of the corridor) and heard Black's barking laughter follow her out, she realized that she really didn't mind.