It's Friday and it's raining and Lily needs a cuddle. A big James hug, one of the squashy ones where he jiggles around and makes an inappropriate joke about something in the pocket of his robes. Some people are perfect for hugging and cuddling, and James does not seem like one of these people: he's tall and bony, all sharp angles and pointy elbows, and he's often muddy and damp, and he rarely stays still, and he draws on the arms of anyone who sits near him – but Lily, who once thought these things, now knows better. She knows that James is an excellent cuddler, because he's warm, all the time, even though he likes tramping around outside and flying in the dark. And he smells warm, too, sort of earthy. He's so tall that he can enfold her in his arms, swallow her up, and she can burrow her head into his chest, make herself a nest in his embrace.
(He does draw on her arms, but she doesn't mind so much anymore.)
It's Friday and it's raining and she needs James. She needs a laugh. A distraction. She needs to be somewhere else, because she's been swamped in Arithmancy revision for hours, and she hasn't understood much of it all term, and she doesn't understand it now, and she feels stupid, and bone-tired, and blue.
Exams are upon the seventh years, for those unlucky ones who have subjects which test in the autumn term as well as summer, which means cold grey days and cold black nights submerged in textbooks and tiredness. It's not even late, though the blackboard sky belies the hour, but Lily's thinking of bed. James, and bed, and a hot chocolate. In any order. The rain hammering on the roof of the tower room is making her drowsy, and numbers are turning to meaningless squiggles before her drooping eyes.
She yawns widely and stretches, stiff from hours hunched over the table, then reaches for another book, hoping it'll make things seem easier -
There's a something, suddenly, a slight movement behind her that she senses more than sees – her head snaps around, rather more alert, but there's no one there, just her school bag, lying on the floor.
Mary, next to her, frowns.
"What is it?"
"Nothing …" Lily gives herself a little shake. She's become too paranoid lately. "Thought I saw something."
Mary peers at the same spot. "What's that in your bag?" she asks curiously, pointing. Lily follows her gaze. She blinks, then scrambles to heave the bag into her lap.
Lying on the top of her things is a single yellow rose.
The petals leave a shimmering gold dust on her fingertips when she gingerly picks it up: it's been conjured, perfectly, and she bites her lip, curving into a smile. Her favourite flower: of course, he wouldn't have forgotten, he who never forgets anything.
"Is it from James?" Mary sighs, head on one side. "That's so sweet! I never saw him as a romantic."
Neither did Lily, who adores him, but still despairs of his idea of a perfect date ("I saidI'd let you have a go on my broom at some point. And stop laughing, you filthy wench.") and the fact that he likes sticking his smelly socks in her face. "That's so strange," she says, "it wasn't there ten minutes a-"
She breaks off, twisting in her chair again to survey the room. No James, but – she did sense movement. Is he there? Invisible? He knows she doesn't like it when he does that - half the time, she'll be talking to him, turn away for a second, and he'll have vanished when she turns back. She got very confused the first few times, before he told her about the existence of the Cloak.
"James!" she hisses to the empty space behind her chair. "James! Are you there?"
There's no reply. She debates reaching out and groping the air, but the others in the common room might think she's lost it, and she is Head Girl. Not the best impression to make.
"Lily?" Mary is watching her warily. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, yeah … I'm just trying to work out when he put it in my bag," Lily mutters. "You haven't seen him come in at all, have you?"
"No, but there's another one over there, if that helps."
Mary's right: there's a second yellow rose lying by the portrait hole. Lily hurries over and picks it up, holding one in each hand. She considers them, thinking.
She has a hunch that there may be another one in the corridor outside, but Arithmancy … the exam on Monday …
Oh, sod it, she thinks impulsively. It wasn't making any sense anyway.
She tells Mary she's going for a walk, and, roses in hand, heads out into the corridor. Her hunch is proven correct when she spots a third yellow rose, bright against the stone floor. It's cold and her heart's thudding a bit, adrenalin coursing through her. She feels childlike, excited, remembering Easter egg hunts and her dad's cryptic clues leading to birthday presents hidden around the house.
A fourth rose lies in the next corridor, a fifth on a windowsill a little way along. Lily wonders where she's going, but finds she doesn't much care: this trail could lead her outside, into the pouring rain, but as long as James is somewhere out there too, she wouldn't mind.
As she picks up the sixth, halfway down the staircase to the sixth floor, it occurs to her that he might be sending her somewhere awful as a joke.
Like the Slytherin common room, she thinks when she comes across the seventh, or Slughorn's quarters …
The eighth rose is elusive, until she turns a corner into the passage that holds a boys' bathroom, from which Peter appears, holding out the flower.
"You're to go straight ahead, then go through the tapestry of the banshee knitting a hat and down the stairs behind it," he recites carefully.
Lily takes the rose and eyes him. "Do you know where this is leading to?"
"No."
He's lying, she thinks. But he's a very good liar. They all are. Bastards.
"See you later," Peter says.
So he's roped the others into this. Lily sighs and follows the directions given. The collection of roses has built up now: they smell divine, but she imagines she looks rather odd, wandering the corridors with a small bouquet; she's already passed the Fat Friar, who gave her a very strange look.
The castle's chilly, and the rain is loud, echoing, in the stone-paved passage. She pulls her cardigan tightly around herself as she reaches the bottom of the stairs, pushing aside another tapestry, only to come face to face with -
"Evening," says Sirius pleasantly. He's twirling a rose between his fingers, lounging against the wall, as if he does this all the time. "Now, there's a catch with this one – you have to give me the password."
Lily purses her lips, hiding a smile. "Is it "please"?"
"Damn it."
He gives her the rose, along with a small, folded piece of parchment.
"I haven't read it," he says.
"Yes you have." Lily scans the note: a line, in James' writing. Q: What is the name of the best looking and most talented student in Hogwarts, who is definitely, unquestionably going to pass their exams?"Stumped me," says Sirius.
"Shhh. Where am I supposed to go now?" she asks, smiling properly now.
"To the library."
He's sending her through the whole bloody castle, isn't he?
"Good luck," Sirius tells her, with a wink.
She's not surprised at all to find Remus sitting outside the library. "Here," he says, passing her another rose, with another note. "And no, I don't know where it's leading."
"I'm fairly sure that's a lie," Lily says sternly: then she reads the note, and snorts.
A: James Potter."D'you know the statue of the humpbacked witch, on the third floor?"
"The one that leads to Honeydukes?" Lily sighs. "Yeah. Is that where I'm headed?"
"It would be a good idea," Remus affirms.
There's no one waiting at the statue, but a rose lies at its base, with a note attached to it.
Just kidding.Lily's laughing to herself now. This is ridiculous. She flips it over to find, on the other side, directions to Dumbledore's office on the second floor. Has he got Dumbledore in on this?
Yes, she discovers, is the answer to that. The Headmaster appears from behind the stone gargoyle shortly after she arrives, smiling in a very mysterious manner, a rose between his long fingers with yet another note.
"I imagine you're having a very interesting - if rather bewildering - evening," he says cheerfully. "I hope I can be of some help."
The note says: it's Lily Evans
and nothing else.
"I wish that were true, sir," she says, amused but weary.
"Oh dear." He leaves a thoughtful pause. "Perhaps you might be further enlightened by progressing to the History of Magic classroom?"
"On the first floor?"
"Indeed." His eyes twinkle. "Personally, I always find a good treasure hunt helps to clear my head when I have simply been working for too long."
"Nothing feels very clear right now," Lily says wryly.
"I'm sure it will become more so." He doffs his hat. "Good luck to you."
The History of Magic classroom is locked – entrusting anything to Professor Binns, she thinks, might have been foolish – but the – thirteenth? She's lost count – rose, and another note, are Spellotaped to the door.
It's hard to balance all the roses now: she juggles the steadily forming bouquet to unfold the note.
I really hope you read those in the right order.She runs through the contents of all the previous notes in her head, and grins.
The other side directs her to the staff room, on the ground floor. The knob's sent her from the top of the castle all the way down to the bottom: her legs are aching and she's exasperated but damn it, she is enjoying herself.
As he knew she would.
The whole thing feels thoroughly bizarre and like a very odd dream when the staff room door opens and Professor McGonagall comes out.
"Evening, Professor," Lily says cautiously. If McGonagall isn't involved with this, she surely will want to know what Lily's doing there with an armful of yellow roses.
"Good evening," McGonagall replies briskly. "I have been instructed –" her mouth is a very thin line, no doubt rather peeved at being instructed to do anything by one of her most troublesome students – "to give you this."
She produces the fourteenth rose.
"You should, I am told, proceed to the base of North Tower."
"North Tower?" Lily cries, momentarily forgetting who she's talking to. "That's right at the top! I've come from there!"
McGonagall looks like she sympathises entirely.
"I hope, for your sake, that this scheme, or whatever it is, has some benefit for you. I don't believe he would intentionally send you on a wild goose chase around the school for the fun of it –"
"Really?" says Lily. "Because that sounds to me exactly like something he'd do."
A small smile meets McGonagall's mouth.
"If that is the case," she says, lowering her voice, "then you have my permission to use – ah – discretionary methods to deal with him."
Lily laughs. "Thanks, Professor."
McGonagall sends her on her way with a heartfelt "good luck"; it's the third time someone's said that to her this evening, and she's really, really hoping she doesn't need it.
On the long journey back up to the seventh floor, she thinks of her bed on the same floor; she could go there, instead, take her books up with her, settle in and listen to the rain and do some much-needed revision.
But she doesn't want to. Some might think her foolish, but she trusts James. He's her boyfriend, and he's her friend, and she knows that this – whatever it turns out to be – will have been done with good intentions.
North Tower holds the Divination classroom, she knows, but she's never been there. She comes to a round room with a trapdoor in the ceiling and little else: no roses, no notes, no James.
"Hello?" she calls, feeling stupid. A moment passes, and then the trapdoor opens. A ladder materialises, descending, coming to rest at her feet.
It's a good thing she's a Gryffindor, she thinks, and starts to climb.
She finds herself in an attic-like room, long and low. It's dimly lit, and ever so cosy, with little squashy armchairs and a crackling fire and small lamps on tables, by which the rain on the window becomes tiny golden rivers, streaming down the pane.
And on the table in the middle of the room lies a yellow rose.
There's a little bit of parchment attached to it, which says:
Congratulations! You've found the treasure."Treasure?" Lily mutters to herself. "There's no treasure …"
"That would be me," says a voice from behind her. She doesn't jump - really, she was expecting something like this – but shakes her head, smiling, and turns around.
"Hello," says James, stepping out from underneath the Cloak. "I'm Treasure."
"What … what is all this?" She gestures at the roses, at the room. "I don't …"
James shrugs.
"I thought you could use a distraction."
And she laughs, and lets him envelope her in his arms, as if he knew she also needed a big James hug. He smells comforting, safe, and it hits her that she's never really felt that, not in years, but she does now. She's gone running around the castle this evening, abandoning her revision, chasing roses, knowing, the whole time, that he was doing something for her.
He might steal her toast in the mornings, he might have smelly feet, he might have been a real twat in the past, but one thing no one who knows James Potter can deny is that he always, always goes the extra mile. He has mad ideas and he goes to great lengths to carry them out. He's the boy she met on a train six years ago, whom she would have never, ever pictured herself dating – but she is, because he's also not that boy. She's known him as an immature, arrogant boy, and she's known him as a young, brilliant man.
She's been angry with him. Frustrated, annoyed. Disappointed. Exasperated. But she's been happy, comfortable, never bored …
… in love.
She's only read about love in books, those ones she hides under her mattress but James knows about anyway, somehow. She's read about racing hearts and pulses and fluttery feelings and excitement and passion, that kind of love, but she's seen love too, seen her parents, who still make each other laugh after twenty years. And she can see it being that way with James. It doesn't feel ridiculous at all, because she's learned him. She knows him.
She loves him.
All of this hits her as she breathes him in, and when he pulls away and grins down at her, she grins back giddily.
"Now," he says, "you have options. I know you think you need to revise, so –" he reaches behind a chair and produces several Arithmancy textbooks – "you can sit and read. Or I can test you, and for every question you get right, we'll have a snog."
"Right," says Lily. "And what's my prize?"
"Such a joker," he says fondly. "Or – you can forget the revision, 'cause you don't really need it, and we can do, er, something else."
Lily considers the options.
"Something else, I think."
She can revise tomorrow, after all.
James beams and tosses the books aside.
"I was hoping you'd say that."
