Worry constricted Lily's throat as she waved to her parents. The Hogwarts Express gathered speed and their smiling faces were left behind, as the station blurred together. Tuney hadn't wanted to come, declaring she had better things to do on her last day of summer break.

Lily had tried, really tried this time to get Tuney to see her off, because no one knew what would happen. She couldn't explain it to her Muggle family, not the brewing conflict, nor the fact that because they weren't magical now a portion of the wizarding world shunned her, treated her as having filthy blood.

No, they couldn't know. Lily feared that they'd somehow find out, and keep her home. She didn't think she could stand it if she had to go to, well, normal school, away from her friends and magic.

But a small part of her worried, that her protective enchantments she'd placed over their home weren't enough to keep them from harm. Never one to break rules, Lily was terrified the Ministry would find out she'd done underage magic.

Apparently they'd overlooked it, whether it was because they had bigger fish to fry at the moment or because the Ministry was now completely infiltrated and in ruins Lily didn't know.

Lugging her heavy trunk with her, Lily heard Barley, her barn owl, screech in protest. Apparently he wasn't too happy with the jerky movements. "Sorry," Lily told him, trying to pull her trunk more smoothly.

Looking into all the compartments she passed, and silently cursing her friends' liking of sitting in the back of the train, Lily slowly made her way down the train's hallway.

She was starting to think it was a bad idea to stuff her trunk full of books when the bane of her existence suddenly made his appearance in front of her.

"Evans," said James Potter with an easy smile.

Lily sighed, ready for him to offer to carry her bags, or offer to go out to Hogsmeade with her. She was prepared to argue her way out, when she realized she'd been pulling her trunks the Muggle way. A summer with her family could make her forget that she could do magic for every little thing now that she was back in the wizarding world. "Locomotor," she muttered, pointing her wand at her trunk. She guided it up into the air.

"Excuse me," she said, walking past James without a second glance, her trunk hovering high above both their heads.

She didn't have to walk much longer before she found the compartment where the other seventh-year Gryffindors were. She slid the door open to the compartment.

"Lily!" Marlene McKinnon hugged her before she could even react. Her wand hand jerked and the trunk hit the window, which sent Barley into a fit.

Marlene finally let go of Lily and she was gasping for air. "Save the emotional scenes 'till I get in!" she warned, trying a second time to enter the compartment. She waved her wand and straightened her trunk, sending it neatly into the luggage compartment.

"Bit magic-happy, aren't you?" Hestia Jones commented.

Lily shrugged. "A summer with Muggles can do that to you," Mary McDonald answered for her. Lily smiled at Mary, who was never one for big hugs or speeches.

Mary was reading from her Defense Against the Dark Arts book, her eyebrows knitted together in concentration. "I've never been able to cast a corporeal Patronus," she mumbled, looking at a page in her book.

"Lily can," Marlene said casually. Lily prayed against all hope that maybe they hadn't heard, but all eyes turned to her. Everyone's eyes had gone wide, and Marlene was smirking at her.

"Go on," Hestia urged. Lily closed her eyes, pictured her Hogwarts letter, the yellowed parchment with a violently purple seal, resting on her mother's favorite checkered blue tablecloth.

"Expecto Patronum." She opened her eyes and there was a little bird, twittering away as it flew in a lazy circle around the room. It sang once, a long, trilling note, and turned back towards Lily to perch on her finger. Lily smiled at it, looking into its silvery beady eyes. She'd never figured out what kind of bird it was, but it vaguely reminded her of summer picnics and spring blossoms, like she'd heard its song when she was little but couldn't remember now.

It turned, hopped off her finger and dissolved. Lily had let her happy thoughts dissolve into melancholy for a childhood lost. She looked around the train compartment. "It's beautiful," Mary said, her voice hushed.

"What d'you reckon my Patronus would be?" Hestia wondered aloud.

"I dunno, maybe a flobberworm," Marlene said teasingly. Hestia gave her a friendly punch in the arm, which turned into a real fistfight, and the regular chaos of the seventh year girls resumed. Lily sat away from the group, checking her Muggle watch anxiously.

Twenty minutes into the train ride, she was to arrive at the prefects' carriage. She bit her lip nervously, a habit she was trying to break, and felt in her pocket for her badge. Ever since Lily had gotten it in the mail she'd been terrified of losing it, which would make her seem unworthy of being Head Girl. Not that Lily often lost things, of course, but she thought she was entitled to a few irrational worries.

Five minutes before she was due in the prefects' carriage, Lily stood up. No one questioned her leaving as she slid the door open. Since fifth year, Lily Evans had been going religiously to every prefect event or meeting. Lily assumed they'd think she was just another prefect going to the meeting. She hadn't told them yet, and it was churning her stomach to think that as representative of Gryffindor for the whole school, she was not acting with the courage that defined her House.

The halls were mostly empty, and voices floated from either side of the halls, laughing echoing in the compartments. Lily sucked her breath in when she saw a too-familiar face, Severus, peering sourly into the hall. He followed her with his eyes until Lily was past her carriage, and when Lily glanced quickly back, his gaze hadn't moved. Lily felt her cheeks burn as she whipped her head back around, embarrassed that she'd let him see how much his attitude was affecting her. She'd been a little skittish since the night before, when she'd gotten a letter in Severus' handwriting, (she couldn't forget it no matter how hard she tried), with only one word scrawled on it: careful.

Her frazzled nerves had made this letter bother her more than it should have, her dreams last night had been mostly made of nightmares, visions of letters and warnings and dead friends. They'd left her tossing and turning all night, and Lily had woken up with a pounding headache, frizzy hair, and bags under her eyes, tangled in her sheets.

She opened the door to the prefect's carriage with more energy than was really necessary and surveyed the scene. Remus Lupin was sitting calmly, reading a book, and people were chattering, going about their business. Lily took another step into the compartment, a nervous hand clutching her Head Girl badge in her pocket.

"Hello," she said as evenly as she could manage.

A Hufflepuff prefect abruptly stopped the story she was animatedly telling her friend, and stopped to goggle at Lily. Many other prefects dropped their bags of candy, and some, namely the Slytherins, didn't bother, and only sneered at her, but the shocked silence that had started at the front of the compartment rippled across the prefects, who all were looking towards the entrance of the prefects' carriage.

Only Remus Lupin hadn't reacted, still leafing through his book after a quick upward glance. Lily swallowed. They couldn't know yet, could they? As far as they were aware, she was only another prefect coming to their usual meeting—there really was no need for them to stare.

Just as Lily thought her quaking knees were going to give way, another voice sounded from behind her. "Alright," he said, and Lily snapped her head around to join all the other people in the room in looking at James Potter like confused fish.

He was the last person anyone expected to see in the prefects' carriage, unless he was trying to pull off another one of his legendary Marauder's pranks, which was the same inevitable conclusion Lily arrived to, along with the others who had begun a small murmur of dissent.

"Potter, this is the prefects'—" Lily began heatedly.

He stopped her with a self-confident grin that somehow halted her protests in their tracks. "I know, love."

It took her a moment to focus on the small object that James was brandishing as an armor against Lily's anger, and when she did see the shiny bit of metal wedged between his thumb and pointer finger, a squeak escape Lily, despite all her composure.

James Potter strode past her and into the prefects' carriage. "I," he announced grandly, "am the Head Boy."