Oh Haii everyone So I've been having a lot of fun with these themed drabbles and I really hope you enjoy this third one!

Oriel x

Light

Lily jerked awake for the fourth time. She stared around in surprise. Yep, still in Defence against the Dark Arts; still enjoying the lecture about the use of patronuses from Professor Trepid; still being bored out of her skull. Lily had discovered patronuses in second year, when doing some extra research in the library and had soon perfected her own, doe patronus. In fact, she rather liked it- its gentle eyes made her feel safe- and when she was on a particularly lonely prefect patrol, she would often cast it and let it walk beside her, illuminating the corridors with its soft light-

'Lils! Lily!,' came a voice from beside her. Lily jumped.

'Huh? Wha?' She turned to see Ailish watching her, laughter in her eyes.

'You fell asleep again, didn't you?' Ailish giggled, stretching her back out and getting up.

'Ughh,' replied Lily grumpily, 'How can she expect us to stay awake if she talks about patronuses solidly for three hours?' She paused, regarding her friend, 'Why are you standing up? Has the lesson finished?' she asked hopefully. Ailish snorted.

'No silly, we're actually doing the patronuses now!' she said, pulling her wand out from her robes and tossing her long, black hair over her shoulder. Lily jumped up grinning.

'Finally!' she sighed happily, 'Some practical work'

She looked around properly for the first time, to see the entire class on their feet: chatting; pulling out wands. Soon the air was filled with cries of 'Expecto Patronum' and thin vapours of white light. There was uproar as a particularly feisty, dog patronus, bounded around the room: leaving trails of light behind it. Lily grinned, following it to its source. Her face turned sour. She should have known. Sirius Black.

In fact the whole Marauder clan were there in the corner of the classroom, laughing loudly as Peter Pettigrew's head nearly exploded with concentration. He failed to produce anything more than vapour however, made all the worse by Remus' wolf patronus snapping at his heels. Potter, she noticed, had his wand held limply at his side. Probably thought he could do it without trying, the cocky git. A cheer rose from the Marauders as another, patronus joined the mix: what looked like a panther. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the person casting it was a girl. Her eyes narrowed even further as she saw the girl double over laughing, then reach up to ruffle James' hair.

The girl flipped her long, black hair over her shoulder, and the knot in Lily's stomach lessened somewhat as she saw it was Ailish. Ailish?

'AILISH?' she yelled over the racket, beckoning madly. She did not want to have to go over to the Marauders. Ailish however had other ideas and grinned, shaking her head and blushing slightly as Sirius grabbed her around the waist. Lily rolled her eyes in annoyance. She now had a choice. She could either stay over here like a loner, or she could go and stand with the marauders and endure Potter and Pals. What to do…

She sighed, and skirted around tables, deciding the Marauders presented a lesser of two evils. Besides, she like Ailish and Remus, and she could bear Peter. She ducked under a parrot patronus and stopped next to Ailish.

'Hello,' she muttered awkwardly to the group.

'Why Lily, DEAREST! How lovely of you to join us!' Sirius proclaimed loudly.

'Shutup Black,' she muttered. She felt out-of-place and very awkward. She also didn't like the way Daniela Cooper was eyeing her and James.

'No!' Sirius sang, 'Its just such an honour…'

'Sirius!' James said in a warning voice. That did it. If there was one thing Lily hated more than being teased, it was being protected and she didn't like the possessive tone in James' voice one little bit.

'Shut up Potter.' She snapped loudly, 'If I wanted your help I would have asked for it, instead of you coming in all high and mighty, trying to make me feel like a weirdo.' James looked completely taken aback at this outburst, and even Lily didn't quite understand her own reasoning behind it. However, once she had got started…

'You stand over here like you're king of bloody Hogwarts. Like you don't even need to try and do a patronus because you're just so damn good at everything and you'll get it first try, like always…'

'Lily…'

'I bet you think that just because you're better than me at transfiguration means you don't have to do any work at all. You think you're so impressive…'

'Lily, I…'

'I bet you think you're so much better than me! That I can't even do this spell because I'm so thick! Well I'll show you, James Potter, EXPECTO PATRONUM'

We both shouted the spell at the same time, the beams of light from our wands mingling in mid-air. Two large creatures erupted from our wand tips. I instantly felt relaxed as my doe turned to me, its large eyes calming me, as it picked up its feet without sound on the classroom floor. Then I became aware of gasps around me, and another creature's eyes following my movements. For a second I thought by some freak magical loophole, I had managed to create two patronuses at once; but then my eyes got used to the light and I realised that the creature watching me, and now turning back to its caster, was not a doe at all, but a stag. I gaped at it.

It turned slowly back to me, filling me with warmth as it looked me up and down with its eyes and then turned to my doe. I watched, mesmerised, as the stag and my doe moved elegantly towards each other, sizing each other up curiously. And then my stomach leapt as the stag went right up to my doe and nuzzled its face gently. I clenched my wand in my hand tightly, and trembled as my traitorous doe didn't back away, but NUZZLED RIGHT BACK! Because I knew whose stag that was, and I knew from my limited knowledge about patronuses, what this strange compatibility meant, and it terrified me. But what terrified me more was that, it didn't feel like something was being forced on me. I wasn't even Lily-Evans-default-angry! Watching mine and James' patronuses there felt…right.

I looked up and found myself staring into James' half shocked, half elated face. I needed to get out of there. I dropped my wand and the doe disappeared. I saw out of the corned of my eye the stag fade into nothingness. I looked around at the shocked faces of my classmates, and then into Ailish' look of confusion.

I ran: the light from the two patronuses embracing, still burnt on my retinas.