chapter two.

Lily ignored the calls and texts from the photographer in the square. Pierre hadn't been doing that great a job to begin with, and besides, now she had a good excuse to bail on the shoot early. If she was diligent, she'd have time for a cat nap before she had to tackle her mountain of homework. Or to fondly reminisce about how neatly she fit into Chat Noir's arms. Or, realistically, to try and fail to do homework while actually reminiscing.

She softly unlocked the front door, tip-toed inside, and pressed the door shut behind her. Being a superhero had helped with her stealth, she found, but Petunia must have developed echolocation.

She strode out of the living room. "You're home early."

Lily took a deep breath. "And yet you sound annoyed about it."

"I need to know where you're going to be."

"I'm not giving you access to my phone's location."

"These are dangerous times—"

"Oh, really? Has something happened? I've had my head stuck in a jar for months and have only just worked myself free—"

"Lily."

"It's fine, Petunia. I was just there for another akuma attack—"

"Again?" Petunia asked sharply.

"—and I was fine. I ran away because I'm not an idiot. I am freezing after wearing this dress outside, but never mind hypothermia, my number one concern should be pleasing you."

Petunia crossed her arms. "It's quite clear you don't care about my wellbeing. And after all I've done—"

Lily's heart wrenched. "Save your speech," she said, pushing past Petunia and heading for the stairs. "Or better yet, write it down in that stupidly curvy handwriting of yours, put it in one of your bloody pink envelopes, and set it all on fire."

She thundered up the stairs, clambered up the ladder, and pulled herself through the trap door to the attic. She bowed her head to avoid knocking into the ceiling, fetched a biscuit from her drawer stash, and collapsed onto her bed.

Mary, her tiny red kwami with black dots and a huge head, munched on the biscuit while floating over Lily.

"Oh, Lily, I think she's just worried about you."

"Psychotic stalker, is what she is."

"She wants you to be safe."

"She wants me under her control because she's a maniac."

"The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, isn't it?"

"I don't want to talk about her anymore. It's too infuriating."

Mary grinned. "Is this code for wanting to talk about a certain black cat?"

Lily grabbed her pillow from behind her and smashed it over her face. "I touched his nose!"

"Don't lose hope. You're being pretty clear about your intentions."

"Fat lot of good that's doing me."

"Will it help if I remind you he made those terrible cat puns?"

Lily flung the pillow off her face. "Why aren't they a turn off, Mary? They're so awful. I should be so thoroughly unattracted to him on the basis of those puns alone."

"He is very fit, according to the fansites."

"His suit shows too much. I'm a teenager. It's my hormones." Lily jerked upright. "Oh my god. Since we're more attuned to animals, do we go into heat in spring? Please tell me that's what's behind this being so bad lately."

Mary booped Lily's nose with her feet. "There's no such thing. This is all human. It's all you."

"You're no help at all."

"If I could make him less appealing to you, I would."

"I've got it so bad, Mary. It's unbearable. I don't think I'd be unattracted to him even if he only spoke in puns."

"He'd be too confident about them being funny?"

"Exactly." Lily sighed. "I've got to hold back. I've got to pull it together. I don't like being pathetic."

"You're not pathetic. Love is a good thing, remember?"

"Except when it's rejected and makes people vulnerable to akumas."

"That won't happen to you." Mary snuggled up to Lily's shoulder. "Now you should really take a nap. You earned it."

"All right," Lily said. "Maybe I'll wake up, literally and metaphorically, and realize his punny self is not worthy of my attention."

Her nap never manifested, though, not with Petunia around and in a mood. She pounded on Lily's door and demanded Lily come help clean the house, since she clearly had nothing better to do. Then there was the shopping to do, dinner to make, tidying up to do after.

By the time Lily actually started her homework, she would've liked to have been asleep. But there was no rest for Ladybug.

She arose bleary-eyed and half-slept through her classes. Dorcas jabbed her awake now and then, but Lily was exhausted enough that she accidentally said hi to Severus as she passed his desk. His face lit up, but she looked away, blushing furiously. How many times had she told herself she was never giving him another reason to think they'd be friends again, and then she made stupid slip ups like this.

She did keep up on his Ladybug and Chat Noir blog, but that was out of self-preservation.

During lunch she spotted Potter and his mates across the courtyard lawn, laughing hysterically, Remus actually doubled over in laughter.

"D'you know what's weird?" Lily told Dorcas over their packed lunches. "I saw Potter and Black at Trafalgar Square yesterday."

"Before or after the attack?"

"Before. I got away all right, and they must have, too. But I was in the middle of a shoot and I saw them there, up by the National Gallery entrance."

"Yes," Dorcas said, her voice going oddly flat. "A true mystery. Why oh why would James Potter end up in the same place as you."

"It's just, no Londoner hangs out with the tourists up there, right?"

"No. They do not."

"Maybe he was going to the museum."

Dorcas gave a hearty laugh.

"Maybe it's a shortcut for them to somewhere."

"You're being ridiculous."

"Well, you explain it, then."

"I'm not going to be part of this conversation anymore."

"On what grounds?"

"On the grounds of you're being ridiculous."

Lily shot her an annoyed look and took a bite of her sandwich. "I guess it doesn't matter. The shoot ended early, at least, so it was a good day."

She kept her fond recollections of how Chat Noir's lean body had pressed flush against hers, and how that had sent her heart skittering, to herself.

Severus passed by Potter's gang, or at least within shouting distance, but Potter barely seemed to notice. Severus seemed disgruntled, though—even more than usual. He was probably on the verge of sending some other poor person into an akuma-vulnerable state.

She really shouldn't have got started on the Chat Noir line of thought during lunch. They were distracting in the extreme—she couldn't think of anything else during her afternoon classes. On the upside, though, they did succeed at keeping her mostly awake.

Sleep tried to tempt her home after school, but eventually played second fiddle to staying after for a bit. Slughorn offered to make her copies of some exciting new chemistry articles, and she endured ten minutes of his company in exchange. It was worth it to keep in his good graces. He never questioned her when she suddenly had to leave in the middle of class.

She escaped from his classroom by lying about a photo shoot, and rushed down the corridor to safety before stopping to put the articles in her bag. While she tried to shove them in without wrinkling them too much, she heard soft voices from around the corner.

One was unmistakably Potter.

"It can happen to anyone," he said. "I've read up on it and no one's immune."

"I didn't have to say yes."

Bonnie Grogan, by the accent.

A choked up Bonnie Grogan. A sniffling Bonnie Grogan.

Lily mouthed a curse, stopped fiddling with her papers, and shamelessly eavesdropped.

"You were upset. No one thinks clearly when they're upset."

Bonnie blew her nose. "You've never been akumatized."

"Not yet," he said. "'S probably only a matter of time. Also, you know, I've got more hubris than is medically recommended—it's hard to bring me down."

Bonnie managed a weak laugh. She'd actually been one of the tougher villains to face. The week before, Severus had made crass remarks about her recent weight gain, and Lily and Chat Noir had had to stop her from turning everyone into Barbie-esque plastic dolls.

Lily's pathetic desperation had seeped out in that fight, too.

"Go save your boyfriend," Bonnie had taunted Ladybug after her mannequins pinned Chat Noir to a wall.

"Not her boyfriend," Chat Noir had said pleasantly.

Lily had found herself saying, "We'll come back to that later," and went on to save both Chat Noir and the day.

Around the corner, James continued, "The point is, Bonnie, that we can all agree on one thing, which is that Snape is a bigger prick than the Gherkin."

Bonnie laughed for real that time.

"Blame him," he said. "And Voldemort. None of it was your fault—you can't stop being upset when you're upset, you know? 'S just not possible."

Potter was consoling her. Potter. And doing a terrific job, by the sound of it. Lily was comforted, and she hadn't even been akumatized.

"Thanks, James."

"Anytime. I mean, don't get akumatized again just to get some of my company. I'll talk to you whether or not you've gone through a traumatic experience."

Bonnie blew her nose again. "I don't want to be that—that monster again."

"Of course not. I'd off Snape for you but I think I might get detention, so."

"Thanks anyway," she said. "Maybe Chat Noir will do it for us."

"Trust me," Potter said darkly. "I'm sure he's thought about it plenty."

Their shoes squeaked against the floor as they started walking.

"Are you all right to get home?" he asked.

Lily took that moment to remember exactly how terribly rude eavesdropping was, and realize that she had made a strategic miscalculation in staying put so long. She sneaked as far down the corridor as she could, but that wasn't very far at all before they came around the corner.

"Oh," said Bonnie.

Potter, for his part, made a squawking noise.

Lily was a model. She was a professional. She would keep her bloody cool at that moment.

Or so she told herself.

She sheepishly turned around. "Oh. Hey. I didn't think anyone was left here except Slughorn."

"Hello," said Potter, in an unusually low register. One of his hands shot up to settle in his hair. "Uh. Evans. Hello."

"Yes, you said that," Lily said. "And now I'm going to say goodbye. Goodbye!"

"Lily, wait—Bonnie, I'll, uh…you can leave, and I'll…"

If Potter thought he was going to give Lily shit for eavesdropping—well, she deserved it. She ground her foot onto the floor and spun back.

"Yeah?" she said.

Bonnie's eyes were shiny with tears as she rushed past Lily, her face bright red.

"Shit," Lily said under her breath, adjusting her bag strap on her shoulder.

"Yeah," said Potter. He couldn't seem to look at her quite properly, instead inspecting the floor, and then the ceiling. "Look, so, ah. About what you might've heard…"

"I won't tell anyone."

"No, I—I didn't think you would, honestly—but I thought she would like it if it seemed like I was going to tell you off and, I dunno, threaten you to keep quiet…"

"She probably would like that, yeah…but you don't have to tell me off. I know, all right? That was awful of me and I'm sorry."

"Great. Then I can tell her that you were, ah, terribly frightened."

Lily laughed. "Of you?"

He did manage a direct look at her then, albeit briefly. "I am terrifying, thank you."

"Sure," Lily said, and started to turn away from him. "If that's all, then."

There were so few situations at school where she could speak freely. Oddly, talking to Potter was one of them. He never seemed bothered by her cheek, and he definitely never reported it. Unlike in Slughorn's classroom, there was no need to play dutiful student here.

Potter's jaw moved, like he was going to say something, but then he sighed. "Yeah. You're dismissed."

She arched an eyebrow. "Dismissed, am I?"

"Er, yeah. I mean. Never mind."

Lily shook her head, almost smiling, and headed toward the main entrance. "Later, Potter."

His voice called out weakly from behind her: "Bye, eavesdropper."

She gave a laugh, a disbelieving, vaguely bemused thing, and exited the school.

The sun bore down on her. It was a perfect day to find a quiet corner in a park, stretch out on the grass, and take a nap.

If only her schedule permitted it. One of the downsides of being a superhero: always being behind. There'd be no sun-napping for her. Just work, and lots of it.

All right, and lots of thoughts of Chat. But only because she'd earned it.


Lily had never intended to become a model.

She'd never intended to become a superhero either, but only because it hadn't seemed within the realm of possibility, much like she never intended to walk on the sun or breathe underwater. She couldn't intend—or not intend—to do impossible things.

The modeling thing, much like the superhero thing, had simply fallen into her lap.

A year before Mary had arrived with the Ladybug Miraculous, the woman behind Lily in the Tesco queue asked if she'd ever done any modeling. Lily threw her head back in a laugh by way of response. The woman must have slipped her card into Lily's purse while Lily was paying, though, because it fell out when Lily later dumped her purse upside-down looking for her chapstick.

Lily binned the card immediately.

She had more important things to do, like convincing Petunia to send her to the same school as Severus. It was a remarkable place: It offered all sorts of extracurricular opportunities, small class sizes, and outstanding faculty. Severus could only afford to go because Riddle had basically adopted him, but Lily had no benefactor, only a miserly sister and brother-in-law.

It wasn't that she didn't have the money. Hogwarts had a hefty price tag, especially considering Lily's old school had cost nothing, but her share of her parents' trust would have covered it. Petunia just refused to release the funds.

"Your school was perfectly acceptable for me and Vernon. I don't understand why it's not good enough for you."

But mediocre teachers wouldn't get Lily into the best universities. And if her parents had ever made her promise anything, it was to go to the best university possible. To get an amazing education and to do something with it.

There were a few select scholarship seats available at Hogwarts, of course, but not nearly enough to go around. Not nearly enough that Lily could realistically get in that way.

Her reasoned arguments over dinner—this was what the money was for, this was what they would've wanted, this was Lily's money to spend eventually—never seemed to make it past Petunia's ears and into her brain.

"No," Petunia said, and that was that.

Lily stormed back up to her room—although room was perhaps too generous a word, room implied she could fit more than a bed and a squat dresser in there—and stomped on the floor a few times just for fun.

She needed money, but she was fourteen. There were no decent-paying jobs for fourteen-year-olds—

Except.

She dropped to her knees and rummaged through her bin. Gum wrappers, discarded notes—and there, the card.

Marlene McKinnon.

Marlene saved her. Marlene got her training and contracts and well-paying gigs. Petunia had no reason not to let Lily attend Hogwarts, not when Lily earned her tuition and then some.

It burned, to watch that extra money flow right into Petunia's coffers. To watch Petunia buy herself more pearls and dresses while Lily lived in a bloody attic.

But her fame and her money bought her a ticket to Hogwarts the next year. She got to join Severus.

Provided, of course, she kept to the rules.

Thanks to Marlene's brilliance, Lily's face was plastered around London. But being the face of anything meant keeping her nose clean. There could be no tabloid snaps of Lily shit-faced drunk in a pub, or sniffing drugs in a school bathroom, or publicly presenting herself as anything other than perfectly nice and societally acceptable. There could be nothing that would ever possibly taint the brands Lily represented.

Those rules alone she could have tolerated, but then her cow of a sister had to pile on top of it.

"You are representing our family among some of the most distinguished families in London," Petunia said. "If I receive one phone call about rude behavior—"

"I'm not rude—"

"I won't have you disgracing our family name—"

"It's not even your bloody name anymore, is it, though—"

"Lily."

Lily bit down hard on her tongue. "Yes, Petunia," she said. "I understand."

And she had understood. She'd understood perfectly.

But then Potter was just as smug and awful as Severus had warned her, and the only thing that saved Lily from immediately getting pulled out of school was Silvia Dodgson's akumatization.

Mary was waiting at home for Lily when she escaped the book barrage. Her kwami explained that someone had got hold of the Moth Miraculous, which permitted the user to grant someone temporary superpowers, and that Lily had been chosen to wield the Ladybug Miraculous. That all Lily had to do was agree, say two magic words, and she could run off to join her partner Miraculous in fighting evil.

She couldn't speak her mind at shoots or at home or at school. But as a superhero….

She yanked out her own earrings and replaced them with the Ladybug Miraculous pair.

"Mary, spots on!"

Battling villains gave Lily a chance to be herself. It kept her in terrific shape. And, of course, it put her in frequent, painfully close proximity to Chat Noir.

He was too over-the-top to bear. Or he should have been. But after meeting him, it had taken exactly two seconds for her to physically approve of him, and the first fifteen minutes they spent battling Silvia Dodgson for her to learn that Chat Noir was strategic, quick-witted, and absolutely there when she needed him.

At minute twenty, when Lily was beginning to despair of ever succeeding as a superhero when she couldn't stop one bloody teenager, Chat said, "Nah, we've got this. You're awesome. I'm awesome. Watch this."

He darted away from her and flung himself into the fight, snatching an encyclopedia out of the air along the way. He dodged a series of pelting books, used his staff to flip himself up and over Silvia while simultaneously dropping the encyclopedia on her head, and landed in a perfect somersault. Lily watched this brilliant maneuver with wide eyes, her heart stuttering for a moment, and then tied up the distracted Silvia with her yo-yo.

At the end of his somersault, he stood up with both arms in the air, like a gymnast, and said, "Nailed it! Did you see, Ladybug?"

Lily only caught the motion out of the corner of her eye, too busy with Silvia to give him her full attention—but he was always demanding it, wasn't he? Always so pleased with himself, but in a dorky, puppy-like way.

He'd believed in her. He'd supported her wholeheartedly after knowing her for less than an hour, and then they'd worked together without even having to lay out their plan in advance.

She'd been a goner ever since.

Mary refused to say anything about whether the Cat and Ladybug Miraculous holders usually paired off. How could they not, though, when they were fated to share such a strong bond? It seemed inevitable, at least to Lily.

She'd got increasingly worse at holding back her feelings. Weirdly, though, he never really acknowledged her flirting. And if he ever did seem to be flirting back, he never seemed to mean it.

It was just…rough.

She knew it was wrong to want someone to get akumatized, but those were the only times she got to see him. They worked in perfect synchronization, and they always won, and then they had to rush off to find a safe place to detransform before their Miraculouses gave out. There was never time for her to admit something like I love you.

She'd tried, once, but that had ended so horrifically that she never worked up the nerve again.

But maybe one day she would.

There was no indication that Voldemort would let up anytime soon, and there was no reason to think they wouldn't just keep battling him…

And for now, that was enough.

She'd make it enough.


A/N: If you want to learn the basics about the TV show, I shared a video and my thoughts on the series on my tumblr here: bit(period)ly(slash)2kfq5Nt