Author's Note: First off, apologies a thousand times over for how long this has taken, and a thousand times more in advance for how long the rest will take. School is somehow more stressful and time-consuming than I remembered, which is saying something, really. As such, the main source of my free time will be weekends and those rare days when I am ahead in terms of homework.

As for notes pertaining to the story: realize please, that while the text says that this is a story "about Lily," it's also a story about the people around her, about Sirius, about Remus, about Mary, about Alice, about Julia, about Melanie, about Regulus, about James, etc. These people all have lives greater than the parts that intersect with that of our heroine/protagonist, and I will do my utmost to show all of you lovely people said existence. That said, the story will get very Lily centric for a bit, but I hope that it doesn't remain that way for too long.

Also, despite this being late, I'm afraid it might have come off a bit rushed. Blame Shae for that, you guys. It's her birthday and I decided that this is all I could really get her, because hey, being poor and having no free time sucks, you guys.

Reviews are that wonderful feeling you get after having cleaned and rearranged your room!

Octopus' Garden

Watch now as we return the land of buffets and pool games, of sunshine and sea breeze, leaving behind the murky waters of the world below. All aboard the HMS Evans for the second leg of her journey. She cuts through the water, her passengers laughing and chattering, unaware and uncaring of the contents of the waters below. They see the surface but not the depths, and for now, that's enough. For now, that's enough to keep them safe. For now, the depths aren't a danger. Watch.

Lily knew that inanimate objects couldn't feel pain. She knew that they were just things, that they didn't have feelings. That knowledge, however, didn't stop her from wishing that there was some form of cruciatus that she could use to show her alarm clock just how much she resented its shrill wail.

She groaned, rolled over, and buried her face in her pillow, trying her best to drown out the noise. Her efforts, however, were to no avail. Swearing, she slid out of bed, cursing the alarm clock, cursing the morning, but above all, cursing the Night-Lily who'd thought herself extra clever in placing the alarm clock in the furthest corner of the room that she could.

She briefly considered going back to bed, pulling the covers over her body, and sleeping for just a few more delicious minutes, but the sun was already pouring in through her window. Squinting her eyes in an effort to mitigate the worst of the pain, she shuffled into the bathroom, mood as foul as ever. She brushed her teeth before examining her hair in the mirror. It was something of a mess, sticking out in all the wrong places, but after years of waking up, she was used to that. She pulled at a couple of locks and sighed, rolling her eyes. Over the years, she'd gotten a fair number of compliments on her hair, but she suspected that there would have been many fewer had Mary not been around to tame her hair every morning.

The door creaked open, and Lily span to see who it was. In hindsight, it was an unnecessary motion as the only other occupant of the dormitory stepped inside, towel wrapped around his waist. She saw his eyes make an upward sweep from her toes on up until their eyes met and his cheeks flushed. There was an uncomfortable pause that lasted for about three seconds, silence and tension filling the room.

"I wouldn't happen to be wearing anything more than my knickers by any chance, would I?" Lily eventually asked.

"No, I can't say that you are," James replied weakly.

"Right. Brill." Lily sighed. "Well. Let's not make this a habit." She looked at James for a few seconds before narrowing her eyes. "Well?"

James looked startled, managing to sputter out "Well what?"

Lily sighed. "Well, are you going to go shower, or are you going to just stand there?"

"Oh- Oh, right. Yeah. You don't- You don't want to go put on clothes, then or something?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Why? Do you want me to put more clothes on?" She snickered at the mixture of shock and mortification that flashed across her dormmates face, and turned back to the mirror. "Didn't think so."

Somehow, teasing James Potter had put her into a much better mood than she had been just minutes ago. It wasn't even that she was happy that she'd made him blush and stutter, more that the encounter had lifted her mood, and the cheer had stuck around, even as the cause of it had not.

She was still chuckling as she headed down to breakfast. She grinned as she took her seat at the Gryffindor table, oblivious to the looks of shock and terror on the faces of her best friends. She pulled a plate of pancakes towards her, depositing three of them onto her plate.

"Mmph." She swallowed the mass of syrupy pastry. "Pancakes are good today."

Alice's face could only be described as ashen. "Lily?" she ventured timidly. "Lily, did something happen?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Julia asked that question yesterday and Mary called her crazy."

"Yes," Alice replied shakily, "But yesterday you were acting normal, and today you're not."

"Not normal?" Lily laughed unsarcastically. "I'm fine. I'm peachy-keen."

"That's just the point, though," Mary cut in, "You're... Well, you're cheerful, and it's the morning."

Julia nodded. "You aren't happy when you're normal."

"I'm not happy when I'm normal? What's that supposed to mean, Jules?" Lily pulled what she believed to be a highly insulted face.

Julia giggled. "Lily, you look like you just smelled spoiled milk."

"Whatever. What do you mean, I'm not happy when I'm normal?"

Mary shrugged. "You're not really a morning person, Lils. Seeing you anything less than grouchy in the morning is kind of a shock for us."

"Oh please," Lily scoffed, "You make me out to be some kind of terror."

"You are," Alice clarified, "I've kept track. This is the second time ever that I've seen you smile before breakfast, and the first time was first year's Christmas."

Lily rolled her eyes. "A girl can't just be happy once in a while without her friends questioning it?"

"Normal girls, yes, but not you, Lils," Mary noted drily. "I keep expecting to see, I dunno, some poor pig that Black charmed wings onto fluttering around, or something. What happened?"

Alice grinned, her fear gone and replaced with a desire to get to the bottom of her friend's unnatural good mood. "Did you see James starkers again, then?"

Lily choked, coughing twice before looking up again. She flushed, her face blending in rather seamlessly with her hair. "Excuse me? How did you make that leap from 'Lily is happy' to 'Lily saw James naked'?"

"You called him James!" Alice crowed, "And you're blushing!"

"So?" Lily protested, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Alice waggled her eyebrows. "So you never really told us yesterday. Is Potter fit?"

Lily groaned. "Fine. Yes. You caught me. He walked in in a towel again, but it's not like I looked. Happy?"

"Very," Alice said smugly.

Having said all that they wanted to, the four girls ate in silence for a few minutes before Lily broke the silence. "Now that you mention it though, he was pretty fit," she said thoughtfully, before returning to her pancakes. She finished them in two quick bites, before standing up and grinning. "See you after class!" she said.

Mary whistled slowly as Lily walked away. "See what I mean? Not boring at all, that Lils of ours."

Alice looked like she'd been hit by lightening. "She's evil!" the brunette gasped, "Evil, I tell you. Ooh, Operation Jily is so on. We need more information."

Mary rolled her eyes at the statement. "Al, didn't we just get proof that Lily, when asked, will tell us just about anything?"

"But we don't know that!" Alice exclaimed, "Maybe she's just trying to distract us from more important information! Like, maybe they snogged, and that's why she was grinning, or maybe he has a ridiculous tattoo, or maybe he has a third nip-"

"Alice," interrupted Mary sternly, "As much as I'd just love for you to finish that sentence, you're being ridiculous."

Alice pouted. "But what if-"

"Alice."

"Fine, fine," Alice grouched, "You don't have to help. Good enough?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "I guess I can't stop you from wasting your time, then. Just know that you're ridiculous, okay?"

"Yeah, but you love me anyway!" she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around her best friend. She grinned, and continued animatedly on about her plans for her own stealth missions.

"Yeah. Yeah I do, Al," Mary acknowledged quietly, grinning at the shorter girl's enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, Julia had finished her plate of eggs and had started working on Mary's, swiping mouthfuls from the other girl's plate. She smiled contentedly to herself; it was shaping up to be a good year; Julia was good at sensing those kinds of things. Her intuition had never failed her before. Of course, there was always a first time for everything, but really, what were the odds of this being that first time?

Lily walked into her Arithmancy class, performing the traditional "first class of the year" ritual of scoping out the competition. There were a couple of Slytherins in the far corner, the token Ravenclaws in the front row, and, somewhat surprisingly, two or three Hufflepuffs filling in the gaps. Lily smiled when she saw a familiar face – Remus Lupin sitting alone. She hurried over to him, and dropped her bags off in the seat next to his.

"Morning, Remus!"

He turned towards her, his eyes half drooping with sleep. "Morning," he yawned, "What's got you in such a chipper mood?"

Lily groaned. "Oh, don't you start too."

Remus chuckled drowsily. "Whatever you say, Lily," he murmured.

"What's up with you, then? It's just the second day back, you can't possibly be behind on sleep already. Even I got a full night's rest," Lily chided. It was true, she'd slept rather well, especially for Hogwart's standards. James' assistance had really helped with the production of the tiles, and having company had made doing her homework much more bearable.

Remus scowled. "Couldn't sleep."

"Well, that much was obvious. You look about ready to nod off. You get sick a lot, but this is the second day of class!"

A shrug. "Dorm-mates made it hard to sleep."

Lily tutted sympathetically. "That makes sense. It must be hard living with the Marauders."

"Excuse me!" Remus replied indignantly, "There is nothing wrong with the Marauders. 'Sides," he yawned, "Aren't you living with one of our number now too?"

Lily laughed. "Well, you've got me there. Can't say he keeps me up at night, though. He's a lot quieter than I'd have thought one of you lot could be."

"Big misconception really," Remus admitted. "We Marauders really value our sleep. James and Sirius need to get a minimum of eight hours a night, and Peter and I are pretty quiet anyway."

"Right. Except for last night, then."

"Come again?"

"You just said that one of them kept you up all night, didn't you?"

"He... Well, he didn't do it on purpose?"

Lily frowned quizzically. "Are you being intentionally obtuse, or are you just tired?"

Remus sighed. "Just tired, Lily. I'll, uh- I'll explain later."

Lily shrugged. She'd have pursued the topic, but Professor Abscissa walked through the door, and she'd spent far too many classes already underneath the muffliato, and she wasn't eager to turn slacking off into a habit. Besides, Remus was a good student, and she'd hate to distract him, especially when he was already so worn out; Arithmancy was a difficult enough class already without distracting conversations and sleep deprivation wearing away at one's concentration.

Still, she was curious as to what had happened to her friend. Remus was sickly, she knew that, he was ill, or was visiting sick relatives, with alarming frequency. However, he never tried to hide any of his illnesses, answering readily about whatever malady was befalling him at the time. Had Remus just said that he felt sick, or that he was under the weather, she'd have accepted that and moved on. The fact that he'd first blamed one of his dorm-mates on his lack of sleep and then not answered any further questions about it made Lily curious, and a curious Lily was a Lily who got answers.

And so she sat, split between her desire to learn about what had kept Remus up all night and her desire to not fail Arithmancy. She managed to curb her non-academic curiousity enough to take notes that, while not up to her normal diligent standard, were enough to get her through the night's homework. The bell rang, and Professor Abscissa closed her book with a sharp crack. "That's it for today then, class," she said, in her typical brusque fashion, "I'll see you all again next week. Homework is on the board." She waved her wand lazily, and the assignment slowly appeared in bright white letters on the chalkboard. Lily copied it down as quickly as she could, but when she turned to resume the interrogation of her friend, he'd disappeared.

"Blast," she muttered, hurrying out of the classroom to see where Remus had gone to.

She caught up to him just a couple of minutes later. "Remus!" she called across the hall, walking briskly to fall in step with him.

"Bugger," he said under his breath, "How do people keep doing that?"

"Come again?"

"Nothing."

"Remus..."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Fine. I was trying to avoid you so you wouldn't ask any more questions, but you caught up to me in a fashion not unlike the way somebody I was trying to avoid yesterday caught up to me." He paused thoughtfully for a second. "Maybe I should take up jogging. I'd get a bit more distance that way."

Lily stopped walking, taken aback at his candor. "Merlin, Remus, I'm sorry about that. I didn't think- I didn't mean to pry."

He sighed. "It's... It's not really that. I just don't know how to talk about it right now."

"You're not making much sense, Remus."

"It's- It's not really a conversation for the hallways of Hogwarts. Can we leave it at that for now?"

Ah. That made a little bit more sense. As much as Lily loved her school, it wasn't really a place where secrets were easily kept; the curse of living at school was that gossip spread like Fiendfyre: quickly, virulently, and once it took hold, it was impossible to get rid of. So this was something that Remus didn't want spread. She could respect that.

"Gotcha," she said, tapping one finger against the side of her nose, "If you want to talk about it though, you know where to find me."

"Right," Remus smiled wearily, "You're a good friend, Lily."

She grinned. "'Course I am. Don't keep me too curious for too long though, or I'll have to resort to the kind of magic that we're not supposed to know to get the information out of you."

He chuckled. "You know, I think as Head Girl, you're not really supposed to be making threats like that."

"Oh please, as if you'd turn me in," she scoffed.

"You have a point," conceded Remus.

"Well, I am always right," Lily admitted. "Let me know when you want to talk, okay? I've got to be off, free periods and homework and all that, yeah?"

"I'll let you know," Remus promised.

As Lily turned and walked away, heading off towards the library to get a head start on the set of Arithmancy problems she'd been set, Remus sighed. It was one thing to harbor secret desires for your best friend, it was another thing entirely to admit it, out loud, to somebody else. Somehow, the prospect of talking about it made the whole dilemma seem more real, more problematic, more pressing. As much as he recognized it's importance, he was not looking forward to his impending conversation with Lily.

Lily walked into the library and looked around without too much hope. Normally she'd spend her free periods with her friends, either studying for an upcoming class or else trying to persuade Alice to not go through with whatever hair brained scheme she had in mind at the time. Unfortunately, she was the only girl in her year who'd opted out of the Divination N.E.W.T. As was standard in times of political turmoil, Divination had become one of the most popular classes offered; many were under the impression that it could provide some insight into the future of the Wizarding World, and more importantly, offer some guidance as to how to survive the impending conflict.

Lily was not as convinced of the subject's efficacy, and had deigned to pursue the subject further, despite the EE that she'd received on her O.W.L., which left her as the only girl in her year who wasn't enrolled in the course. She rather suspected that Mary was only pursuing the "mystical and powerful art of Divination" to appease Mary, who had insisted that it was the most important subject that they could take, given the circumstances, but she had no confimration on that one way or another.

And so it came as no surprise to Lily Evans that when she walked through the double doors to the Hogwarts Library, it was, for the most part, utterly void of anyone she knew. Her eyes swept the room once, twice, before they found a familiar face, one that she'd missed the first time around. She quickly crossed the library, putting her books down with a gentle "thud."

"Hi Melanie," Lily whispered, "Mind if I sit down? All my friends are in Divination, and I prefer to have company if I'm trying to get work done."

Melanie looked up, startled, eyes wide. "Oh," she squeaked, "No. Not at all."

"Brill," the older girl beamed, "Scoot over a bit, then."

Melanie obliged, moving her chair over to allow Lily space to sit, before turning back to her book, burying her nose in Standard Book of Spells Grade 2. Lily pulled out her Arithmancy text, and began to go over the problems that she'd been set, immersing herself in the world of numbers and figures.

The pair worked in silence for about thirty-five minutes, during which Lily managed to complete a grand total of one half of one of the six problems that she'd been set. It was eventually Melanie who broke the silence by groaning loudly and burying her face in the desk. Lily glanced around the room, but no one seemed to have heard the short outburst. "What's wrong?" she asked quietly.

Melanie's head popped of her desk. "Sorry," she said, "I forgot you were there."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm glad my presence can scare you into submission. What's wrong?"

The blonde just glowered balefully at her textbook. "It's this stupid subject. I'm reading through this book and I don't understand any of it."

"Any of it? What do you mean?"

Melanie groaned. "I don't understand any of it. The descriptions of the charms make no sense, but I can't test them out to see what they do, because that'd be dangerous, and besides, it's not like I'd be able to do them even if I wanted to." She frowned. "How long until I can drop Charms?"

"Not until after Fifth-Year. Would you really drop it, though? I don't know anyone who's dropped Charms."

"Oh I don't know. I guess not. I just can't see myself ever voluntarily doing more charms."

"Fair enough. What's your favorite subject, then?"

Melanie looked around carefully to see if anyone was listening in, before admitting, "Care of Magical Creatures. Don't tell anyone though, it's not a 'respectable' class, my dad says."

Lily grinned. "Don't worry about it. Your secret's safe with me."

Melanie smiled. "Thanks."

"Not a problem. That's what the Head Girl's for, isn't it? Solving your problems and keeping your secrets safe?"

Melanie rolled her eyes. "If you were solving all my problems, you'd make me good at Charms, and tell my dad that working with unicorns is perfectly respectable."

Melanie's statements were met with chuckles from the Head Girl. "I don't know about that second one," she admitted, "But if you'd like, I could tutor you in Charms. We both seem to have this period free, and it'd be easy enough to find somewhere to practice."

"N- No! No, that's okay, I don't want to make you do that, I don't want to be a bother!" Melanie stammered, taken aback by the offer.

"Really, if it was too much trouble, I wouldn't be offering."

"Well," Melanie said uncertainly, "If you're sure?"

"Course I am. I'll see you next week, same time, same place? I've gotta run now, I'm off to lunch."

"Okay. Next week!"

Lily grinned at the shorter girl as she gathered up her books, stuffing the rather miserable progress of her Arithmancy work into her bag before leaving the library.

The first thing Lily noticed upon arriving in the Great Hall was that Remus was apparently still utterly exhausted, if the fact that he was asleep in his plate of chips was any indication. From the looks of things, Sirius and Peter were trying to see how many loaves of bread they could stack on their dozing friend's head; the tower currently stood six high. James, meanwhile, was doing his best to look disinterested, even disapproving of the whole thing, but his excitement was obvious when the seventh loaf of bread teetered slightly before settling into place.

So intently was Lily watching the group of boys that she barely registered when her friends sat down, hearing, but not listening to the last snippets of their conversation. "-And then she said that I have a secret admirer! Me! Isn't that romantic? I hope he's cute."

Mary answered in a typically sardonic fashion. "Alice, you think all boys are cute while you're snogging them. It's only after that they develop buck teeth or acne or a gut."

Alice stuck her tongue out. "At least I get boys to kiss me," she retorted.

Julia, meanwhile, was paying less attention to the subject of boys, and more to what Lily was looking at. "I noticed that too," she said dreamily. "It's not really his time of month, is it?"

The absurdity of the statement took a couple of seconds to reach Lily's brain, but once it did, she snorted with laughter. "Julia. Guys don't have cycles. He has no 'time of month.'"

Julia shook her head. "I know that. Daddy explained it to me. It's just that he gets sick, Remus, I mean, at the same time every month." She turned to Lily, cocking her head to the left, before continuing. "Haven't you noticed? He leaves for a couple of days, and comes back looking sick and weak. Maybe he's secretly a girl," she mused, "Or maybe the Monthly Red Cap made a mistake because of his hair. Maybe if he cut it, he'd stop getting sick so often."

And with that, Julia was back in her own world, somehow having interpreted the "Monthly Red Cap" that parents used to explain that 'time of the month' to their children literally, and was trying to devise the most elegant solution she could to save Remus from his case of mistaken identity.

Lily was similarly lost in thought, her mind tracing through the implications of what Julia had just revealed. She thought back as far as she could and yes, it fit, just as she'd thought it would. Julia's observations could be counted on to be both seemingly random, but also made with pin-point accuracy, and this time was no exception. When she thought about it, Remus had gotten ill with regularity once a month for as long as she'd known him. He'd always just chalked it up to a sickly disposition, a statement that was corroborated by his teachers, his family, and the Hospital Wing, and so nobody had ever really questioned it. What was more puzzling though, now that she thought about it, was that he always seemed to know when he'd be unwell before hand. He was careful to schedule things around his absences, shifting study sessions, trading patrol duties, asking for extensions on essays, making sure that nothing interfered with whatever was afflicting him so regularly.

What did it mean? She came to two conclusions. First, Remus was ill. She found it highly unlikely that he was secretly a woman, or that the Monthly Red Cap had, in fact, mistaken his identity, and she had no reason to disbelieve the mountain of evidence in front of her that pointed to his being chronically unwell. Secondly, whatever it was that was afflicting him was something that was either serious enough that he didn't want to burden her with it, or else only an inconvenience, and didn't feel the need to let her know.

Lily quickly ran through the list of all of the chronic periodic illnesses, magical or muggle, that she could think of, and came up with a sadly short list. Other than two or three magical afflictions that she'd only heard of in passing in DADA the year before, nothing came to mind. Casting one more look at the sleeping boy, she, with a considerable amount of effort, pushed the dilemma to the back of her mind, resolving to figure it out later, with the aid of the library.

Herbology was uneventful. Or, rather, it was as uneventful as a N.E.W.T. level Herbology class can be, which isn't very. Two students suffered rather nasty looking acid burns from a shiny looking leaf that attacked with what seemed to be a mind of its own, and there was a concerted flurry of panic when Peter ("It was an accident, Professor, I swear!") knocked over a pot that formerly housed a pair of mandrakes.

At least, Lily mused, no one had gotten seriouslyinjured, which was something you could say less often than you'd wish at Hogwarts.

In fact, the lesson had been useful for two reasons. First, Lily had learned that if Professor Molukka says that a plant should only be handled with dragon-hide gloves on, he really meant it. Second, the level of concentration needed to escape the greenhouse without injury had meant that she'd had no spare time to worry about Remus.

It wasn't until she had eaten dinner and returned to her common room to get a start on homework before Astronomy that she remembered her sick friend at all. It was not an example of her best timing. Arithmancy was really quite difficult enough without distractions, and for Lily, the prospect of an ailing friend was one of the worst distractions possible.

It was an hour later that she threw her Arithmancy text across the table with a groan; she wasn't getting anywhere. Total time spent on Arithmancy: nearly two hours. Total amount of Arithmancy completed: one problem. Out of six. This was ridiculous. Lily rummaged through her bag for the notes she'd taken during class, hoping to stumble upon some piece of wisdom that she'd been missing for the last hour.

She didn't find any such tidbit of information. What she did find was the letter she'd written to Narcissa the day before but hadn't had a chance to send. Reasoning that she was getting nowhere with Arithmancy, Lily decided to head to the Owlery to distract herself with a nice bout of letter sending. Clutching the note in one hand, she happily left behind the world of numbers and figures and headed out the dormitory and up the spiral staircases to the Owlery.

Glancing out a window, Lily noted that it was quickly darkening. By the looks of things, the sun had just recently set, which gave her about an hour before she had to be at Astronomy. She relaxed, letting herself slow down. It wasn't as late as she'd thought it was; time passes much more slowly when you're doing homework.

Upon reaching the Owlery, she was met with an unexpected sight. Regulus Black wasn't like how House stereotypes dictated he should be. He was quiet, he was well-spoken, he didn't participate in any of the forms of bullying that some of the more prominent members of his house did. He did, however, also exhibit some decidedly Slytherin-esque traits. Foremost among them was his lack of outward emotion; Regulus worked to actively surpress all visible symptoms of emotions.

This stone-facedness was what made the sight that greeted Lily all the more strange. Regulus Black, the boy known (or not known) for being quiet, reserved, for his dignity, was crying. He was sitting underneath a window, a folded piece of parchment clutched tightly in one hand while tears flowed freely from his eyes.

Lily walked towards him quickly and knelt to the ground beside him. She'd never really talked with Regulus before but she wasn't the type to let anybody sit alone while they were clearly distressed, no matter how close they felt.

"Are you okay?" she asked quietly, reaching one hand out to rest on his shoulder.

He jumped at the contact, his face whipping up to meet her gaze. "Where did you come from? Who sent you?"

"I just came up to send a letter. Are you okay?"

His eyes were wide, and they focused on Lily's face. "You're Lily Evans. You're the Head Girl."

"Yes," she confirmed, "That's me. Again, are you okay?"

"Did Dumbledore send you? Does he know about this?" Regulus almost sounded hopeful in a sick, desperate way.

Lily frowned. "Dumbledore hasn't said anything to me about anything. Is there something that he should have told me about?"

"Forget it," Regulus said quietly, "It doesn't matter. Thank you for your concern, but I'm fine. Just distressing news from home. Don't tell Sirius. He'd worry unnecessarily; it's nothing I can't work out." And with that, he stood up and walked around Lily and out the Owlery.

Lily stared at him as he walked out, unsure of how to proceed. Her gut told her to run after him and demand that she let him know what was going on, but she had no right to interfere in family business. She wasn't even particularly close to any of the Blacks other than Narcissa, and she wasn't even at Hogwarts anymore.

In the end, she decided that between Remus and Arithmancy, she had more than enough on her plate for the moment. Besides, Regulus had mentioned Dumbledore, and if something was seriously the matter, the Headmaster would let her know if he needed her help. In all the years she'd known him, she'd questioned his judgement only once, and even that single time didn't seem as valid as it had at the moment; James wasn't as awful of a Head Boy as she'd thought he would be.

And so, Lily selected a tawny barn owl from the rafters, calling him to her with a soft whistle. She tied the letter to the bird's leg, rubbing his head affectionately and whispering, "Narcissa Black. She might be near Lucius Malfoy, if that helps any" before watching the messenger fly into the night, hooting softly as it did.

Having completed her task, she returned to her dormitory to pick up her things and headed off for Astronomy. She made her way to the highest tower and happily greeted Julia. "Hi! Where're Mary and Alice?"

Julia shook her head. "Alice said it was too late to have class, so she decided that she didn't want to do Astronomy anymore."

Lily snickered. "Sounds like Alice. Mary just went along with it?"

Julia nodded. "She said that she didn't feel right about Alice being alone in the dormitory."

Lily's attention was caught by the arrival of the rest of the class. Lily noted with some consternation that Remus looked even worse than he did before, barely responding to the jokes being thrown around by the other Marauders.

"Julia," she whispered to her friend, "You said that it was the 'wrong time of the month' for Remus to be sick, right?"

"Yes," she replied, "He was sick ten days ago. He shouldn't be sick again for about three more weeks."

"Ten days? How did you know that? We weren't at school ten days ago."

"James' parents came to my house," Julia said matter-of-factly, as if that was adequate explanation.

"Er. Right. And?"

"And what?"

"James' parents came to your house. And that means what in terms of Remus being sick?"

"James' parents come to visit daddy once a month. At the same time of the month that Remus is sick!"

Lily blinked. "Julia, I'm sure that's just a coincidence."

"If you say so, Lily."

Lily was about to respond, but her attention was called to the beginning of the lesson. Professor Albedo instructed them to follow her lead, observing the moon and filling in its stages.

Lily dutifully obeyed; Astronomy wasn't necessarily difficult, it was more mind-numbing than anything else. The danger wasn't of miscasting a spell, but of falling asleep before finishing ones charts.

Full moon. Waning gibbous. Waning crescent. New moon. Waxing crescent. Waxing gibbous. Full moon. Rinse. Repeat.

It was tedious work, but it was a subject that Lily found interesting. While she was growing up, she'd been fascinated by the muggle space missions, and the reaches of space still held a certain fascination over her.

It wasn't until she'd been running over the charts for nearly forty five minutes in almost complete silence that the link hit her. She scanned over her chart again once, twice, to see if she'd made a mistake, but it didn't look like she had. Her heart thundered in her chest as she leaned over to ask Julia to verify her realization.

"Julia," she whispered, "What day exactly did Remus last get sick?"

Julia thought about it for a second, before responding. "Last Sunday."

Lily's heart skipped a beat. "So. That was the last full moon, then?"

Julia scanned her chart quickly. "Yes!"

"And then he'll be sick again... Third Monday from now?"

Julia nodded. "That sounds right."

The dates matched up, and Lily had found her first hypothesis. Looking at the information that she had in front of her, it was hard to form a counter-argument.

Lily Evans' closest male friend was a werewolf.

Author's Note: This doesn't count as a cliff-hanger. Right? Right. Because I decided to myself that I wouldn't be ending chapters on cliff-hangers. This, however, is not a cliff-hanger.

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