All Dorcas Meadowes wanted was an internship at the Ministry of Magic over the summer that was fast approaching. Once the internship was procured, she could make the necessary connections to transform it into a full-time junior assistant position for after her time at Hogwarts had ended. Her sensibilities dictated that all positions ought to be earned through sheer force of intellect, so the need for connections rankled, but more Ministers of Magic had come from Slytherin than any other house, and she wasn't stupid. There was a way things were done.
Joining the newspaper in her third year had been a stepping stone on her journey, a way to pad her CV and gain a portfolio of her writing. The friends she'd made along the way were fine and all, but they weren't the purpose. And just then, she was strongly considering murdering each one of them and starting afresh as they recklessly endangered the paper's very integrity. They were so very Gryffindor (even the Hufflepuff).
Lily knew Dorcas was strongly considering a massacre because their editor had just growled it to the table, and there was a madness in her tone that lent it the quality of a real threat.
The newspaper club had reconvened in their abandoned Runes-classroom-turned-office for a Sunday evening debrief. Naturally, Dorcas had been eager to hear any developments on the Grindylows story. She had not reacted well to the news.
"This is such a blatant violation of journalistic ethics, Lily Evans!" Dorcas said.
Once at the train station, Lily had met Dorcas's mother, Pauline, who'd looked far too young and fashionable to be a mum. Pauline had worn a drapey shirt that entirely concealed the existence of her breasts, pants that hung loose and were made of the softest looking silk imaginable, a bulky scarf that stretched past her knees, and a headdress to top it all off. Every piece was a different shade of lavender to offset her dark sin. Lily had stared open mouthed as Pauline shepherded her daughter and her mountain of belongings onto the Hogwarts Express, firmly directing the porters with the luggage, yet never losing her general amiability. She was gracious and kind and straight off the cover of Vogue, until Dorcas spit out her gum on the platform. Then, Pauline had intoned "Dorcas Meadowes" in the sternest voice imaginable, and Lily had marveled at how the resemblance to McGonagall hadn't been clear before.
So, when Dorcas said Lily's full name, stretched out like that, Lily knew she was in very big trouble. Dorcas couldn't compete with her mother when it came to fashion, but she could match her look for look in the authority department.
"Maybe, but it's also inspired!" Lily declared.
Lily had woken up joyous that morning, like it was her wedding day. Rather than chase breadcrumbs across the castle, never learning anything significant, she was taking real action in narrowing in on the Grindylows. She was following in the intrepid footsteps of admired reports. She was making Hogwarts history! It was amazing that birds hadn't collected around to help her dress, her cheerfulness matching that of a Disney princess.
All day, as Lily worked on her assignments and raced to her various clubs, she'd ridden the cloud of her victory. No one had referenced her relationship with Sirius, so she hadn't been forced to confront outside opinion until now. Dorcas could pitch any kind of fit she liked – throw an inkwell at Lily's head, upend the chairs, light the bloody place on fire – Lily was not giving up her victory high.
"You're going to get the paper shut down," Dorcas hissed.
"None of the professors have ever paid any attention to the articles we write, let alone how we go about writing them," Lily said.
"Except that one time, when Will trashed Professor Bukhari. That got some attention," Mei-Lin said evenly.
"He held every class back by ten minutes! Every class! What was I supposed to do? Have my whole schedule thrown off because of one numbers-obsessed professor?" Will demanded.
Dorcas did not let the segue temper her anger for a second. In fact, it seemed to increase her ire that no one was taking her seriously, and her dark cheeks grew ruddy as she fought back her frustration. Lily wanted to pat her hand in a sign of commiseration as she understood how insufferable her mates could be, but recognized that would not have the desired effect, and instead stayed fully seated and stared at her knuckles, like the lines that bisected them were endlessly fascinating.
"I forbid you to date Sirius Black," Dorcas said.
When Lily didn't stop staring at her knuckles, Dorcas reached across the trunk that served as their meeting table and clamped a hand over Lily's own, forcing Lily to acknowledge her. Trapped, Lily gave Dorcas her full attention and moved into her spiel on Nellie Bly and other great examples of investigative journalism throughout history. Undercover work was a practice that plucked Pulitzers from the sky and brought honor to the publications with the bravery to send their journalists undercover; it wasn't unethical.
"I'm with Lily on this," Will volunteered, as if his loyalty had ever been called into question. "My mum's done undercover stuff for The Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Prophet. It's like she always says, 'Sometimes, you have to come at a story sideways.'"
"Has you mum ever dated anyone she was investigating, during the investigation?" Dorcas challenged.
"Well, no."
"There you have it. It's –"
"But if she had dated anyone, I would have supported her because my mum was single and lonely for a long time, and she deserved to find some happiness. And I for one, am not one of those weak types with an Oedipal complex, who goes ballistic at the thought of his mum having a shag. I support her!" Will said.
Lily appreciated that Will was trying to back her up, truly she did, but she wasn't sure what to do with this oversharing, and neither, it seemed, did anyone else. At least it gave Mei-Lin a laugh, and she didn't quail before the unimpressed glare of their editor. Lily decided it was best she fight for herself.
"There's a difference between putting yourself in a situation under false pretenses, like getting admitted to a psychiatric institution and exploiting someone else's feelings," Dorcas reprimanded.
"Come on," Lily said, rolling her eyes. "It's not like Sirius has actual feelings for me. He's Sirius! Besides, I can't jerk him around anymore than Mary does. Fake dating me is going to be like a holiday for him!"
"You don't think, when this is all over, he's going to be hurt when he finds out you were only pretending to have feelings for him?" Dorcas said.
Dorcas knew just where to prod to make Lily's happy balloon deflate, but Lily wanted to cling to her high a little longer.
Moodily, Lily said, "How do you know I don't have feelings for him?"
"Please. As if you're not still completely lost over Potter," Dorcas laughed.
Squawking, Lily fell over herself to protest this very untrue statement. Like she'd told Sirius the night before, she did not like boys who did not like her back! That was just masochism, self-defeatism at the very least! Her mates ought to have the basic decency to nod in agreement, but they all listened to her rant in silence. The only sound came from Mei-Lin's bracelets, hidden beneath her oversized sweater and clanging together brassily with each shake of her wrist. Somehow, this clanging sounded like laughter; the bracelets were laughing at the idea she wasn't in love with James Potter. Berks, the lot of them, bracelets and mates.
"Just admit defeat, luv," Will suggested. "Lily's all in on this one. Besides, it'd hardly be better for her to go chuck him one day in. There's no way he'd let that go without an explanation, and then where'd we be?"
"I still don't like it," Dorcas said. Reluctantly, however, Dorcas allowed the meeting to progress to other paper business.
The end of the month was upon them, which meant they'd be distributing the March issue that week. As Lily contributed the least in terms of submissions, the responsibility for playing papergirl typically fell to her. She'd lurk outside the Dining Hall during meal times, begging or coercing passerby to part with their knuts, surprise unsuspecting first-years in the loo, and urge the professors to buy a few extra for their loved ones. When the end of the month coincided with a Hogsmeade weekend, Lily would bring an extra stack in her satchel to sell to the townsfolk. She could usually count on Aberforth at the Hog's Head to buy at least four copies.
Meanwhile, the new month also brought new assignments for Will and Mei-Lin. While the three of them worked out the details, Lily wondered whether she could transfigure her stable, four-legged chair into one with wheels, like they had in muggle offices, so she could spin about in circles while they chatted. She suspected it was beyond her skill level, but she scoured her Transfiguration text for clues anyway. James wouldn't have needed to look. He'd have just waved his wand and gone mad with 360-degree spins, until he grew too dizzy to continue. Lily hated him.
Lily tuned back into the conversation in time to hear the final assignments. To Will had been issued the challenge of interviewing Binns about the anniversary of his death. Getting Binns to corporealize enough for a conversation was impossible, but if anyone had the charm, it was Will. Mei-Lin, on the other hand, had been tasked with an experiment. She'd play a couple popular muggle sports and then, conclude which had burnt the most calories. There were several holes in the methodology that would make the experiment entirely unscientific – hello, an amateur swimmer was hardly going to burn the same calories as a hobbyist! – but Lily kept the complaint to herself. The sort that read the sports section would only care for pop science anyway.
The meeting was over, so everyone began packing up their things. Lily had nothing to carry besides her Transfiguration textbook, so she stood up and cracked her back, waiting for the others to finish their scramble to reassemble parchment and wands and robes. Dorcas took excessively long, and since she was heading in the opposite direction of the Ravenclaw dormitories anyway, Lily made to exit without a thought of waiting for her. A call of her full name, again, stopped her.
"Lily Evans! One last thing. Don't, and I mean don't, under any circumstances, have sex with him!" Dorcas said.
Lily promptly dropped her Transfiguration text on the floor and screamed, "Ewwwwwwww!"
It wasn't the typical female response to the prospect of a shag with Sirius Black. But then again, nothing about this situation was typical. Adventures never were.
Lily jogged down the Grand Staircase, skipping steps intermittently, not because they were traps, but simply because she was running late. She hadn't fallen asleep until late Sunday night – well, technically Monday morning – and she'd overslept as a result. Everyone would be at breakfast by now, and Lily would have to fight for a smidgen of marmalade. The elves always skimped on Mondays.
Hurrying past, Lily's trainers scuffed and squeaked against the stone floors, leaving marks in her wake, like she was a slug trailing mucus wherever she went. Filch would be thrilled. A portrait of a large man, deep in his cups and hunched over a kitchen table, opened a single eye accusingly at the noise she was making. Sir Arterton was always hungover on Mondays, and the rest of the weekday besides, so Lily hardly bothered to smile in his direction.
Everything about her was messy that morning. She hadn't showered, so her long hair hung uncombed, greasy, and flat; her socks didn't match; and her robes were on inside-out. The only concession to hygiene she'd managed was to brush her teeth because there were some things that simply couldn't be sacrificed in the name of breakfast. Right before she was set to enter the Great Hall, Lily realized the inside-out robe situation. Irritated, she stripped them off and set about putting herself to marginal rights. Trying to walk and put on robes was generally ill-advised, so Lily became a little lost in the billowing fabric, struggling to find the right hole for arms and head before she managed it.
Peeking out from the collar of her robes, right in the doorway, Lily froze. All eyes in the Great Hall were on her. (She checked, there wasn't someone infinitely more interesting, like Paul McCartney behind her.) Her struggles with her robes had certainly turned her into a spectacle, but not one that should have held more than passing interest, and these stares lasted much longer.
Lily figured her new relationship status had hit the Hogwarts masses. It was too bad. They could have sold a thousand papers if they'd broken the story as front-page news.
There was an indecent amount of pointing and murmuring that Lily might have predicted if she put her mind to it. This was the kind of social event that ought to upend the school. Mary and Sirius, so long paired, were no more. The most beautiful girl in school by many accounts, Mary, had been dumped and wordlessly at that. Lily had rocketed from the status of somewhat neurotic, hyper-involved Gryffindor to the girlfriend of a Marauder. Of course, the student body had long been prepared for just that, but they'd had a very different Marauder in mind.
Neither Mei-Lin nor Sirius were anywhere in sight, so Lily slid into the first available seat near the door. Lily reached immediately for the jar of marmalade, but sure enough, it was scraped bare. She couldn't help but glare at a third-year seated nearby, who had heaps of it on his toast. It was so orange and sweet-looking that Lily wanted to lick the jug clean. Bitterly, she settled for blackberry jam on her toast.
Someone had discarded the morning paper in their rush to leave the Great Hall, so Lily snatched it up eagerly, scanning the headlines for something interesting. There was a story about the Minister of Magic choosing not to attend the upcoming international convention on dragon reserves. Nearly every European government would be sending their highest representative, but the Minister was choosing to stay in London to focus on the death eater threat. There were a few stories toward the back on the Academy Awards that had aired that Saturday. Some movie about boxing, called Rocky, had won Best Picture. Lily had never heard of it. There wasn't so much as a mention about Indira Gandhi withdrawing the Indian state of emergency nine days earlier. Major muggle news rarely earned a follow-up.
Before Lily could get further than the second paragraph of the dragon reserves story, Marlene McKinnon dropped into the seat across from her, all smiles. Her hair was washed and styled into shiny, blonde curls that looked like they could spring back hard enough to knock a person out if pulled.
"Morning," Lily said from over her paper.
"Good morning," Marlene said. "Have a nice weekend?"
Lily snorted. "Well, thanks for diving right in, I guess. I did have a nice weekend, Marlene, as I'm sure you've heard."
"Oh, I've heard all sorts of things. All sorts of ludicrous things, which is why I wanted to hear it straight from you. Everyone knows how much you hate to lie, Lily. So…dish," Marlene said.
"At the party on Friday, I ended up spending a lot of time with Sirius. Things progressed naturally…as they do, and we snogged," Lily said.
"Mmhmm."
"And then, the next day, we talked and decided, it wouldn't be a bad idea to explore that a bit further."
"Meaning?"
"We're dating," Lily said.
Lily might have expected Marlene to launch into a thousand follow up questions or maybe to start grinning like an idiot, but she did neither. Instead, Marlene swiveled about in her chair to gesture down the table. Lily craned her neck, but she couldn't see who Marlene was signaling. It seemed like half the school was watching for the outcome of their conversation.
"I'm going to be honest, I did not predict this one," Marlene said.
"Do you mean in the Divination sense or the I-examined-your-personalities-and-didn't-consider-this-match sense?" Lily asked.
Marlene sighed, "Both."
"Don't feel too down about it. I don't think anyone did," Lily comforted, knowing how much Marlene valued her ability to spot out Hogwarts couples. She was uncannily good at it, like when she'd pegged quiet Rita Slughorn and class clown Franklin Berry.
"Say would you be willing to do me a small favor if I said I'd give you the juicy details in exchange?" Lily asked.
"Depends," Marlene said, but she leaned forward to hear the request.
Lily's smile turned devious. "I bet the Slytherin table has some leftover marmalade, and I would kill for some right now."
"Say no more!" Marlene said.
Breezily, she whisked over to the Slytherin table. There were so many advantages to being a pureblood who wasn't forever ducking into corners to avoid Severus Snape. Mission Marmalade was a success, and Marlene was back at the Gryffindor table a minute later. Without hesitation, Lily dumped the remains of the jug all over her toast, slathering it thickly, so that there wasn't a hint of white bread in sight.
She took one bite and nearly cried at the clashing taste of sweet and bitter. Wisely, Marlene waited until Lily's toast was nothing but crumbs and a butter slick on her plate before pressing for details. And true to her word, she told Marlene everything – or at least, everything that could be shared – as they made their way to Charms.
Mei-Lin was already sitting in her usual spot when Lily arrived. The sight of Marlene and Lily entering class together earned a raised eyebrow, so Lily rushed to fill her in on the marmalade deal and her hectic morning.
"And you didn't see Sirius at all?" Mei-Lin asked.
"Not yet," Lily replied.
Toward the end of their date in the kitchens, Sirius had told her about his completely bonkers insomnia, so she wouldn't be surprised if he'd slept in same as her, though she overslept because she was busy into the late hours of the night, while he longed to succumb to sleep. His nights followed a depressing pattern. Around eleven, his mates would put away the chess set, the cards, or the Zonko's paraphernalia and declare it was time for bed. In reality, they wouldn't fall asleep for another half hour at least as Sirius cajoled and harassed them to stay up for just a little longer with him. He said Peter could best be counted on to stay awake until midnight. After they'd all grown irritated and cast silencing charms around their beds, Sirius would find ways to fill the time: take a shower, read a book, revise, anything to stay awake for one more hour; because when he had run out of things to do, he would simply stare at the ceiling, longing for sleep that wouldn't come.
Alcohol, he said, became his best friend during these long hours. A few fingers of whiskey could put him to sleep by three in the morning, and, when he woke up hungover, a few more could put his headache to rights again. It was a never-ending cycle of inebriation, and Lily wondered at his ability to walk in a straight line. She could hardly remember a time she'd seen him truly and utterly drunk. Even at the Grindylows party, she didn't recall his behavior being that deviant, while she was blitzed out of mind and memory.
Not all the Marauders were missing from class. James, Remus, and Peter were all there in their usual seats. Peter and Remus sat in the very back of the class with Sirius and James paired up in the desks directly in front of them, making perfect targets for spitballs or other projectiles when Flitwick's charms talk grew dull.
Every time Lily glanced behind her, she caught half of James' gaze, like he was turning away from her that very moment. For someone who was trying to hide they were staring, he couldn't mask the intensity. Lily was half-convinced he was glaring at her.
Sirius did make it to class in the end, wandering in five minutes after Flitwick had given the order to read chapter 19. He looked pale, but that hardly meant much as the Blacks had always been ironically white. Lazily, he walked toward his normal seat beside James, only, instead of stopping, he kept walking right past his mates. Sirius arrived at the empty seat beside Wesley Morris, on the far side of the classroom, dropping into the desk and promptly falling asleep – or at least appearing to – with his head in his hands.
Half the class hadn't noticed the abrupt change in seating, but those that had were busy whispering about it. James half rose to his feet, one hand planted on his desk for leverage and the other rising in Sirius's direction, like he wanted to motion him over, but his hand clenched into a fist, and he sat back down without uttering a word. James spun about in his chair toward Remus and Peter, bent close, and contributed his own whispering to the mix.
Lily nudged Mei-Lin with her elbow, perhaps a bit too sharply as Mei-Lin hissed and rubbed the spot crossly. Busy discussing last night's assignment with Rita Slughorn, Flitwick didn't notice that the class had forgotten all about chapter 19.
"Sorry, just look at James…and Remus and Peter–," Lily tacked the others on because she didn't want to be too transparent. "–what do they look like right now, emotionally I mean?"
"Angry. Annoyed, for sure. Maybe a bit hurt," Mei-Lin said. It wasn't the first time she'd filled in the blanks for Lily.
Angry, annoyed, and hurt? Funny how that was exactly how Lily had felt towards James on Friday after the common room debacle. Lily dreaded that it was a Monday because she shared her first three classes with the lot of them – James, Sirius, and their mates –, and she didn't want to be anywhere near an angry, annoyed, and hurt James Potter. His tongue could turn wicked on friend or foe.
Much the same drama occurred in DADA the next period with Sirius snubbing his mates and sitting elsewhere, only this time elsewhere meant by Lily. She saw his shadow first as he loomed over her desk, drawing her attention away from her assignment (which was perfect rubbish and sure to earn a failing mark). He gestured at the seat beside her with a smile, and his intention was clear.
"You can't sit there. Mei-Lin sits there," Lily said immediately. After class, Mei-Lin would nearly strangle Lily in hugs of gratitude for her loyalty.
The DADA classroom was arranged in sets of paired desks. Sirius chose to sit in the desk closest to Lily, which left Scott MacDougal scrambling to find a new seat. It was probably the closest a professor had ever come to Sirius during class time unless they were awarding him a detention, as Lily and Mei-Lin sat at the very front. Professor Chester, introducing the day's subject, lost her train of thought at the sight of Sirius directly in front of her.
Napping through Charms had boosted Sirius's energy, and he spent all of DADA tossing notes and generally terrorizing Lily and Mei-Lin. None of the notes had any substance and only served to attract Chester's attention. Lily sat ramrod straight, not daring to look away from Chester for so much as a second, lest she start doling out detentions. To her left, Mei-Lin did the same, her normal class time doodles hidden beneath a stack of parchment and hands folded obediently.
Halfway through class, Lily finally chanced a glance around the room as Chester was writing instructions on the board and caught James in that same vehement stare.
"Mei-Lin, um, I think James is looking at me," Lily muttered.
Her voice carried as she'd never mastered the art of the whisper. The noise caused Chester to swivel around, so Mei-Lin didn't answer. Another crumpled note landed on her desk, this one featuring a raunchy joke about pudding. Lily knocked it off her desk into her open satchel, where it disappeared amid another twenty such notes Sirius had lobbed at her.
"Yes," Mei-Lin answered nearly five minutes later. "I know."
"Is he just looking, though? Or is he, I don't know, gazing? Peering? Glaring?" Lily said.
"Oh, definitely glaring."
Brill.
The class let out a whole four minutes early, which was cause for celebration. Students sprinted through the door, laughing and chatting away like they'd been promised classes were cancelled for a week. After a long, dull double-period, people spent those four-minutes blinking into the sun like baby birds newly introduced to the world.
Everyone rushing for the door at once caused a jam up, throwing the Gryffindor boys together for the first time that morning. Sirius, acting as if he hadn't ignored his closest friends all day, clapped a hand to Peter's back.
"Wormtail, mate, think I can copy your Defense assignment before Wednesday? I anticipate I'll have an acute case of I-don't-care-about-my-marks that will flare up this evening," Sirius said.
"Well, yeah, you always copy my work," Peter said, casting an awkward glance to his other friends.
"Good chap," Sirius said.
Enough space had cleared up that Sirius was able to squeeze through the door, ambling off in the opposite direction of the Great Hall and their awaiting lunch.
"Oi!" James called.
James stopped right in the middle of the doorway, leaving Lily and Mei-Lin trapped in the classroom as the Marauders' friendship drama played out. Mei-Lin tapped her foot in a clear signal to hurry the hell up, but James paid her no mind.
"Come to lunch!" James demanded, shouting to Sirius who had stopped at the first call.
"Yeah, come on, Sirius. Don't be stupid," Remus seconded.
"Can't," Sirius shrugged. "The sight of your ugly mug will turn my stomach. Bad for the digestion."
"Exactly what I meant by being stupid," Remus muttered.
Sirius didn't give into their beckoning and strode away whistling. None of the Marauders made a move to leave, so Lily politely tapped Remus on the shoulder, indicating that he'd barricaded her in the classroom. James didn't budge, but Remus stepped aside so that the girls could squeeze through and hurry on their way. From behind her, Lily caught the tail end of their conversation.
"Bloody sensitive, unforgiving bastard," James groaned. "This is ridiculous. It's not like I did anything to him. All I said was –"
Remus cut him off, "Sirius just doesn't know how to deal with conflict. Let him stew for a day, and then, he'll be back."
"Have you ever known Sirius to forgive someone in a day? Hell, have you ever known Sirius to forgive, period?
Lily missed the answer. Mondays were too busy to waste on senseless, mystery drama.
The rest of the day soared past as decisively as Lily's tennis serve, which she had the opportunity to practice for an hour that evening with Evangeline Presley. It was a beatific hour, during which she shed all the facts and assignments her professors had crammed into her skull, in favor of the muscle memory.
Afterwards, on their way back to the castle, Evangline showed Lily a rather nasty scab on her elbow, earned by tripping down the Astronomy Tower stairs. Lily loved to pick at scabs like a demon, and Evangeline let Lily run her fingers all over it, peeling at the edges but not quite ripping it off – it wasn't ready yet – with only a few disgusted comments.
It was probably for the best that Lily spent the last two and a half hours focused on tennis, with a mind as empty as a child's Halloween basket in November, because it meant she entirely forgot that she'd be foregoing dinner for another group project meeting with the Supreme Wanker. She couldn't decide which was worse: the company or the Transfiguration. Moodily, she trooped to the library.
Everyone but a few NEWT-crazed seventh-years were at dinner, so Lily had her pick of tables. Madame Pince was scouring the Herbology stacks for litter, snogging couples, and other disruptive forces, so Lily chose a table toward the Potions section as far from the bird-like matron as possible.
The table was settled beside the library's largest window. It was originally designed with wooden shutters to wrench closed in the event of storm or battle, but they'd since been replaced with glass, the wooden panels hanging open all hours of the day. Lily and the window were well-acquainted. She could hardly stand to finish a page of her reading (unless it was one of her chosen, pleasure reads) without staring longingly out a window, any window, and this window was particularly appealing because it looked out over the Quidditch Pitch. Lily wasn't much of a flyer, but she loved to watch the teams at practice. She thought people never appeared more alive than when they were whisking by on a broomstick, and the agonies of homework became all the more unbearable when she could watch her classmates at play.
James announced his arrival rather thoroughly by blocking her view of the window with his body and dumping all of his books on the table with enough force to send it shaking. His mood was black. The whole school was abuzz with gossip about how furious he looked, storming the halls like a category four hurricane. When Lily rowed with her mates, she drowned her feelings in gobs of chocolate and moped about in her room. James assaulted library tables.
No niceties, no warm-up, James moved straight into it, "So, you and Sirius are a real thing now?"
"Yes."
"Brilliant."
"I don't know why you care," Lily said, unable to keep her mouth shut and let the already stilted conversation die and fade into Transfiguration talk.
"You don't know why I care that my best mate is dating a girl who's categorically ill-suited for him?" James answered.
Lily's first, petty thought was that she loved to see him frazzled. Her second even more self-serving thought was that she hoped James wasn't telling Sirius they were an ill-suited couple. What if James convinced him, and he chucked her before her investigation even fully began?
So, Lily argued, "We're both Gryffindors. We're both politically aligned. He's smart. He's fit. Seems like a fine match to me."
"Oh, really? You don't mind that he's an unambitious lout? You?" James challenged.
"No, maybe I need someone who doesn't care about things to balance me out," Lily lied.
"Sure," James scoffed. "You're a human battering ram, Evans. You make as many enemies as friends, and he's the most sensitive prick in thirty leagues. The most oblivious person I've ever met dating the most calculating. A magical match."
"I'm not oblivious," Lily said, perfectly offended.
Sneering, mean, James leaned in, so they were only a breath apart. "You're so oblivious, Lily, you haven't even figured out the truth right in front of your face. He's using you."
Talk about having it backwards.
Needless to say, they didn't get much work done that day. They stayed in the library for three quarters of an hour, and at the end, all they had to show for it was two sentences of a thought on transfiguring a globe at the atomic level.
Lily would have preferred to eat some dinner.
Astronomy was the most dropped course when students reached third-year and gained control over their schedules. It had been true in 1842, and it was true in 1973. Every Gryffindor in her year had promptly dropped the class in favor of more exciting subjects, except for Lily and Marlene. Marlene stuck around because she loved Divination, and the two subjects naturally complemented each other. Lily stuck around because she loved space.
Lily remembered, like just about every muggleborn, sitting in front of the telly when Neil Armstrong took that first step onto the moon. Lily hadn't been able to tell whether the astronauts looked alien because of their bulky suits or the way they bounced in the moon's perverse gravity.
They were so reserved about their historic landing, and Lily had never been able to understand it. How had Aldrin and Armstrong even decided who got to take that first fateful step? In their place, Lily would have hogtied Armstrong in the loo and botched the whole mission just for the chance to be the first person in the history of the entire bloody universe to step foot on the moon. Then, she'd probably have done something completely unprofessional like roll around on its surface and weep into her big white gloves as the emotions caught up with her.
Space flight wasn't in the cards for Lily. Britain stubbornly refused to fund its own fleet of astronauts, despite the many letters Lily had written when she was 10-years-old, just begging them to reconsider sending her to space someday. It wasn't the appeal of adventure alone that held her interest, however, and Lily remained fascinated by space. That winter hols, she'd read every article in the local library on the Viking 1 landing – soil samples from Mars! - and had even ripped out a page from Life Magazine, featuring a picture of the spacecraft. She'd spirited it from the library beneath her coat, and it now hung on the wall of her dormitory.
On Tuesday night, trooping down the girls' staircase, Lily regretted not following the pack and dropping Astronomy from her roster. She was sure she could name several better ways to spend the hours from midnight to two in the morning. Sinatra insisted that her sixth-year students were developed enough to stay up into the wee hours of the morning, but Lily wanted to lodge a formal protest. She was still a baby and ought to be restricted to her common room come midnight! It was dark and would be only too easy to trip down the stairs to her doom, and the scabs wouldn't even be worth it.
The common room was almost completely barren as she passed through it, except for the usual night owls, including Sirius. They still hadn't cemented their new relationship by actually speaking to one other, outside the note-throwing incident, so Lily only nodded her head at him in passing. He didn't take the hint and clambered out of the Portrait Hole behind her.
"Sneaking around after curfew? They tell me I'm a bad influence, but I didn't know I worked this fast," Sirius said.
"Astronomy," Lily explained.
"Perfect! I'll walk you," Sirius offered. "Everyone's asleep, and I need to stretch my legs. I can't stand to hear James muttering to himself. He writes full novels in his sleep, I swear."
"Oh, are you speaking again?" Lily asked.
Sirius nodded, "I was just in a mood, and what is it mums always say? 'If you have nothing nice to say, better to say nothing at all?' Course, my mum never said that. She was more likely to say, 'if you have something nice to say, check yourself into Mungo's right quick, it's a brain tumor!'"
"Families," Lily said weakly.
"Don't start looking at me like that," Sirius warned.
Lily didn't have to guess at the look on her face. Dysfunctional families always hit too close to home, and if she thought he'd have let her, she'd have hugged him. Sympathy aside, Lily wanted to make excuses to hug him on a regular basis. Sirius wore the finest quality robes that she'd ever encountered. They were silky, gliding through her passing fingers like water, but still substantial enough to retain heat. At night, Lily would love nothing more than to ball his robes up and clutch them to her cheek as a counterpoint to the softness of her pillow.
"I am starved," Sirius announced.
"Dinner was only a few hours ago," Lily said.
"Lifetimes ago," Sirius corrected, "Though I actually ate at nine. Every day the blokes and I go to the kitchens for a nine o'clock snack. It's the most sacred of traditions."
"What'd you have tonight?"
"Coffee cake."
"Did you go yesterday?" Lily asked.
"Yeah, even I wasn't cross enough to skip the kitchen run," Sirius said.
Lily felt immensely relieved to hear that James and Sirius had mended their relationship over a plate of snacks. Moody Sirius was obnoxious and quiet. Cheerful Sirius, in comparison, was loquacious. She wanted him to spill his guts.
As they walked, Sirius regaled her with stories of over-eating in the kitchens and all the places Peter had resultantly puked in the castle. Lily swore she'd never be able to look at the fourth-floor alcove the same way again. They reached the foot of the Astronomy Tower a few minutes before the fourth-year class was to let out, so they sat on the foot of the steps with their legs stretched out, Sirius's extending far beyond her own.
Sirius didn't know much about space travel or muggles in general, so Lily regaled with him an explanation of NASA and the competition between the Americans and the Soviets. Like always, Lily grew cross when her pureblood classmate didn't know even the most basic information about the muggle world that existed three meters from his oblivious nose – she took special umbrage to explaining who Kennedy was and the fall-out of his assassination – but Sirius did her the favor of being interested at least.
They heard the fourth-years let out before they saw them. Tired voices bounced down the staircase, moaning about their essay due next week and pining after their beds. Lily stood up and stretched, uninterested in the emerging class, but Sirius stared straight up the staircase, like he was expecting someone.
"Right, so I guess I'll see you tomorrow," Lily said.
Sirius nodded and then, inexplicably, began stripping out of his robes. Like he might be nude beneath, Lily shielded her eyes, but she couldn't stop herself from peeking. She was curious by nature.
"It must be freezing at night up there. Take these," Sirius ordered, passing her the discarded robes.
Lily stood still as Sirius helped drape his bulkier robes over her own. They smelled strongly of whiskey, and extra fabric pooled at her feet. True to their purpose, they were warm, and she shivered in relief as her internal temperature adjusted.
"Thank you, I –"
Lily didn't get to finish her thought because Sirius shouted out a greeting to one of the last fourth-years exiting the Astronomy Tower. The younger boy froze up at the sight of Sirius. Lily had never paid much mind to the boy but there was no mistaking him; the dark hair, square jaw, and unforgiving slant of nose left no doubt that this was Regulus Black. He'd grown since his first-year sorting, and he now had a centimeter and some bulk on Lily, though he remained slighter than his older brother.
Uncaring that Regulus had stopped in the middle of the stairwell with no signs of joining them, Sirius continued, "Did you have a productive lesson, Rex? I hope you were paying attention. Nothing is more important than your education."
Regulus closed his eyes and took a few fortifying breaths. He couldn't stay blocking the staircase forever as several sixth-years had arrived for the midnight class, so Regulus moved aside. Grudgingly, he trudged the few remaining steps to reach Sirius.
"Fancy meeting you here. This is just perfect," Sirius said, still the only one of the trio who had spoken a word. "I wanted to introduce you to Lily. Lily, this is my baby brother, Regulus. Regulus, this is Lily, Lily Evans. I'm sure you've heard of her. There's hardly an extracurricular she's not a part of. Have you two met?"
"I don't think so," Lily said, which might not have been strictly true. She suspected she'd sold him a paper once.
She smiled kindly at Regulus, who did not return the gesture. His chin was raised, and Lily fell rather beneath his notice. While they stood there awkwardly, Sirius's left arm looped around her shoulders, bringing her solidly against his hip in a sideways hug of feather-soft fabric.
"Lily's my new girlfriend. We're just mad about each other. Isn't that right?" Sirius said, directing the final question to Lily, who hardly knew how to answer. Fortunately, Sirius didn't wait for her to respond before plowing forward, "Tell Regulus what your parents do, Lil."
"Um, well, my mother is dead, so she doesn't do much of anything," Lily said.
For the first time Regulus looked at her, "I'm sorry to hear that. Our father passed only a few months ago."
"I heard. My condolences," Lily said politely. There was an immediate and unspoken bond between kids who'd lost their parents, and Lily could feel it blossom between her and Regulus. Immediately, the corridor felt warmer as the flower of their connection brightened the dank corridor.
Sirius merely waved his hand. "Yes, yes, yes, but tell him what your father does."
"Um, he works at a paper mill. Just about all we have in Cokeworth is the paper mill. He's a foreman there, which is, well, it's management, but he's more like junior management. He still has to operate the equipment and work alongside all the other mill workers. He just also does some work in the office, setting schedules and coordinating hires," Lily explained. "Are you much interested in paper mills?"
If Regulus answered yes, Lily was prepared to give him a long lecture on the technology and process that went into producing paper. Her father worked at an integrated mill, which produced pulp and paper side by side. They'd receive shipments of logs and wood chips, which were then run through the machines. Cokeworth was a mostly abandoned town, devoid of industry, but the river had attracted the paper business, as water was essential to powering a mill. It stank up the whole town with the smell of sulphur, and Lily would always pinch her nose when she drove past on the way home from Hogwarts, unused to the smell that, within days, would seep into her clothes and the fine hairs of her nostrils, until she forgot she'd ever breathed fresh air in the first place.
Lily would have explained all of this, except Regulus didn't appear to care at all.
"This is pathetic," he said directly to Sirius.
Lily's jaw dropped.
Grinning happily, Sirius said, "Love to stay and chat, but you have to slither back to the Dungeons before curfew sets in. I've served enough detentions for the both of us."
Regulus said something positively obscene and stomped off, while Lily gaped after him. It was common wisdom that you shouldn't introduce your significant other to the family too early in the relationship because it could botch the whole thing up, make it too serious too soon, but Lily didn't think this was the kind of behavior that advice columnists were warning against.
"What was that?" Lily asked, staring after Regulus's retreating back.
"He's fourteen," Sirius said dismissively. "He's never had a girlfriend, and I think he's still embarrassed by the whole thing. It's my duty as a big brother to tease him mercilessly."
Figuring she had no business judging a fraught sibling relationship when her own with Petunia was so complicated, Lily nodded. From the top of the tower, Lily could hear Sinatra introducing the class. She would still rather have been perched in front of the fire, but with Sirius's robes, at least she was warm. The benefits of fake-dating were already accruing.
Lily gave Sirius a chaste kiss on the cheek and hurried up the stairs. Just before the staircase curved and Sirius would disappear from her line of sight, Lily whirled around to take one last look at him. He was walking away, but in the opposite direction of Gryffindor Tower. Lily hoped he managed to get some sleep soon; only one of them should have to suffer from lack of it.
March was a prolonged yawn after the long slog of Scottish winter; but, come 1 April, nature blinked its eyes wide open. Yellow sunshine poured through the open windows. Dandelions had sprouted overnight, so that bursts of color decorated the newly sharp green grass, and the trees coyly teased open the year's first blossoms, wet and fresh as a peach and twice as fragrant. In the few minutes between class times, students took the longest routes across the castle, the ones that required a stroll through open courtyards, where they could feel the breeze pick up the hem of their robes and watch as gaggles of pink-footed geese soared overhead, departing for their Icelandic breeding grounds. They'd block out the sun as they swarmed past, but only for a moment, and then, the sky would be hot and inviting all over again.
Lily peered surreptitiously from behind a corner, aware that she had to make a left into the busy and open Entrance Hall to make it to Transfiguration. It would put her in the direct line of fire for anyone inclined to drop a water balloon on her head or turn her hair blue. 1 April did not merely herald spring; it brought out the worst in the Marauders, who coopted April Fool's Day as their own. On this day, having so much as locked eyes with the Marauders sometime over the last six months made you a prime target, and Lily had never survived their April Fool's Day shenanigans unscathed.
Each year, they played the traditional pranks that left corridors smelling foul and students' uniforms destroyed. These were hardly rare for the Marauders, standing out only in quantity on 1 April. Then, they'd also supplement with some truly ambitious practical jokes. Last year, they'd managed to nick every student's wand in the castle, replacing them with fake wands from Zonko's. No one realized until the first classes of the day, when practical assessments went wildly awry. Third-year, they'd overtaken the kitchens. Students arrived to lunch to see scrumptious caramelized apples on the table, only to bite in and realize they were caramel-coated onions instead. Just about every plate on the table sported a similar surprise. In second-year, the showers had sprayed everyone with beetles instead of water. It was a miracle any of the female population had ever forgiven them for that one.
Far and away, their greatest victory had been in fourth-year. They'd planned it for months, brewing Polyjuice potion back behind the Quidditch locker rooms and stealing hair from their targets. Come the dawn of April and chaos had reigned. First, they transformed into the professors, giving detentions and failing marks and cancelling classes in a whirlwind of abused authority. When it wore out, they simply switched to the Slytherin sixth-years, and when that was over, the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, etc., etc. Everyone knew what was happening by lunch, and the whole day was filled with mindless confusion because there was no way of knowing whether you were talking to your best mate or Remus Lupin. There were cases where the imposter would meet up with the original, and friends would be challenged to pick the real from the copy, both protesting and begging their hapless mates to recognize them. Lily had spent twenty minutes talking to Peter Pettigrew, who had transformed into Dorcas, about how much she loathed James Potter for picking on Severus. The potion had worn out while they were still conversing, and Lily had nearly blown a fuse in anger as Peter rolled around on the floor laughing.
Trying to make it to class without incident, Lily reflected that she hated this stupid day. She was too exhausted to worry about the size of the target on her back – did dating Sirius give her a layer of protection or make her a likelier target than ever? The late Astronomy class had taken its toll, and Lily had overslept straight through Charms and DADA. She vaguely recalled Mei-Lin shaking her a few times before heading to breakfast, so Lily couldn't even feel angry about being abandoned. It was her own fault, and she was already mentally rearranging her schedule to accommodate the detentions she was sure to receive. Thankfully, she'd woken up in time for Transfiguration. McGonagall was particularly unforgiving about absences.
Against the odds, Lily made it to class without any April Fool's Day shenanigans. Before class began, Mei-Lin showed Lily her doodles from that morning and asked what she should draw next – cartoon talking bacon or sketches of a unicorn. Figuring they'd have one too many jokes that day, Lily chose the staid unicorn idea.
"Hey, I don't see Sirius or his mates," Lily said, glancing around the classroom. Class had just begun but there were six or seven empty seats, which McGonagall did not acknowledge.
"They haven't been in any classes all morning," Mei-Lin whispered.
Shivers of dread dripped down her spine. Their absence could not signal anything good. They were probably going to blow up the Quidditch pitch – no, James would never – the greenhouses, then. Something epic was brewing, and Lily was terrified. Mei-Lin nodded in agreement to her unspoken fear.
Several hours later, dinner arrived, but the Marauders prank was still impending. By this point, the entire student body was jittery. A strange look from a friend was enough to have third-years jumping to their feet and screeching accusations. Trust was at an all-time low.
An owl soared through the open window and headed straight for Lily. It wasn't uncommon for owls to deliver mail during dinner to students who had missed breakfast, but Lily had a bad feeling about the approaching owl. It was probably her detention slip from McGonagall. That or the owl was brainwashed by the Marauders and was going to shit in her hair. Students at the Ravenclaw table cowered as it passed overhead, so she wasn't the only one with suspicions.
The owl stopped in front of Lily, stick-thin leg extended for her to unwrap her letter. It wasn't a detention slip, but her monthly letter from Petunia. It was curt, perfunctory, except where Petunia talked about time spent with her boyfriend. There, her writing became suffused with a warm glow, and adjectives slipped into her prose.
When they were little girls, Petunia and Lily would always play make believe games. Lily liked nothing more than a sprawling adventure, wanting to play Nancy Drew or Titanic or the Gunpowder Plot, while Petunia preferred more domestic games, where she sipped daintily at her tea set and fell in love. Lily didn't mind these romantic games.
Lily would usually play Davy Jones of the Monkees, as Petunia was absolutely mad for the show from the Pilot episode on and managed to save up enough money to buy every one of their records. As Davy, Lily would pretend to visit Cokeworth, eating at the local chip shop or stopping at the corner store, where Petunia played the proprietor. The attraction would be instant, and Davy would fall head over heels for Petunia's straight blonde hair and refined laugh. Cue, a series of dates in which Lily would compliment Petunia endlessly, lip-sync to the Monkees' record, and propose marriage. In this way, Lily and Petunia staged at least fifty fake weddings. Sometimes Lily would kiss Petunia on the cheek at the end of the ceremony; other times, Petunia would kiss a pillow held between their faces, leaving a wet mark from her tongue.
Dripping between the lines of Petunia's letter was the same infatuation she'd once sported for Davy Jones, and Lily couldn't begrudge her sister a second of her enthusiasm. Maybe, just maybe, her heart gave a little squeeze of pain at the thought of Petunia replacing her, finding someone else to love and cherish, but Lily was an adult now, or just about. She didn't need Petunia to sing her to sleep or play surrogate mother any longer.
Her mood in a complete jumble, Lily polished off the last of her goblet of water and rose to leave the Great Hall. Exiting through the massive double-doors, Lily passed right by Professor McGonagall. She braced herself for what was to come – a lecture on the importance of attendance and a reminder of Lily's so-so DADA performance – but it didn't come. McGonagall smiled thinly at Lily and Mei-Lin before walking to the professors' table.
Lily was shocked. Amazed. Bamboozled. This was an Invasion of the Body Snatchers moment if she'd ever seen one. Craning around to stare at McGonagall's retreating back, Lily questioned aloud what had just happened and whether McGonagall might have introduced a new form of torture: detention withholding, where students wandered the halls in a state of anxiety, awaiting the inevitable drop of the axe.
Not listening at all, Mei-Lin shoved a hand over Lily's mouth and dragged her behind a suit of armor. Shocked, Lily hardly followed Mei-Lin's gestures. Mei-Lin pointed to right around the corner where Marlene was chatting with Iris Soto about why she hadn't been in DADA that morning. Uninterested in their conversation, Lily turned to Mei-Lin quizzically, mouth already open to question what the hell she was doing, but Mei-Lin quickly put a finger to Lily's lips. Lily, of course, bit it. She could hardly do anything else! And, Mei-Lin made a nasty hand gesture in retaliation before, again, pointing to Marlene.
Listening to the two girls once again, Lily realized what had made Mei-Lin go batty. They were talking about the Grindylows. Or rather, Marlene was talking about them, rather inconspicuously in fact.
"They call them kelp. You know, to keep up with the lake theme. So, kelp are the newest recruits in the couple months between when they're first tapped and when they take over as seventh-years. There's some hazing, but nothing too terrible," Marlene said. "Then, their leader is a play on the theme as well. The Most Esteemed and Righteous Master of Activities and Niceties, which is a complete mouthful, but it forms the acronym 'Merman,' and merpeople are the only creatures that can possibly tame a grindylow. Or at least, that's what I've heard. You know I don't pay attention in Care of Magical Creatures."
"I really can't tell if that's stupid or brilliant," Mei-Lin whispered.
"Somewhere in between?" Lily hazarded.
There was no way she was going to remember all the words in that acronym, so Lily quickly unearthed her notebook and began jotting everything down. The vernacular details were interesting, but Lily was particularly grateful for confirmation of her suspicions that new members were recruited in sixth-year, mixing with the seventh-years. Iris Soto showered Marlene with attention and questions about the Grindylows, which was probably what Marlene had wanted all along, but Marlene coquettishly refused to answer any more, hedging as if she might know their deepest secrets but couldn't possibly say.
Until now, Lily hadn't considered Marlene a proper suspect, but she reevaluated following these revelations. How would Marlene know secret points of order about the Grindylows if she wasn't one of their order? She could have been conscripted for her popularity. Heavens knew Marlene was on familiar terms with just about everyone in the school from second-to seventh-year.
The conversation moved on in the face of Marlene's coy answers, and Lily readied herself to leave. She didn't care about whether Nadia Kovalenko and Tristan Codrington were on the outs or more in love than ever, even if Marlene was fascinated by the subject. Just before she left, however, Iris said something that stopped her dead in her tracks.
"I can't believe Sirius and James are still on the outs. Have they ever rowed this long before?"
"Not that I can remember. It's been days now, and I'm sick of it," Marlene said.
"At least they're talking instead of skulking around each other," Isis said.
"Yes, but it's just in the air between them, even when they're having a laugh. Everything's a mess right now with Mare and then, those two. Dark times for Gryffindor," Marlene lamented.
Lily grabbed Mei-Lin by the shoulders. "You have to go out there! Find out what they're arguing about!"
"What? No!" Mei-Lin protested.
"Please, please, please!" Lily begged. "What if it's about me? I need to know."
Lily hadn't admitted her fear about their row until that moment. Even in her own mind, the speculation had been taboo. It was too narcissistic, but she couldn't escape the fear that she was at the root of their argument. The timeline fit too perfectly, and James' glares in class were certainly evidence in favor of her hypothesis. On the way to Astronomy, Sirius had told her that everything was sorted. She hoped it was and that Marlene was merely misinformed, but she couldn't risk it.
"Fine!" Mei-Lin said too loudly, yielding beneath Lily's pleading eyes.
Timidly, Mei-Lin made her way to where Marlene and Iris were gossiping. In front of others, Mei-Lin always transformed, shrank even deeper into her oversized robes and jumpers. There was something in her posture that screamed of an apology for daring to exist in other people's space. Sometimes when she walked and her footsteps clattered loudly, Mei-Lin would cringe, like she'd set off a fire alarm.
Worried that Mei-Lin's approach would draw the other girls' eyes in her direction, Lily pulled away from the corner. She'd settle for hearing their voices.
"Um, hello, McKinnon. Soto," Mei-Lin said in a low voice. "Are you talking about Sirius and James? I've noticed they've been acting strangely lately."
Lily stifled a groan at Mei-Lin's completely awkward line of question. There was a reason she was restricted to the Sports section.
"You and everyone else," Iris said, ignoring the awkwardness. Her voice was deeper than both Marlene's and Mei-Lin's. It was rich like the scent of a cinnamon candle.
"Do you have any idea what they're arguing about?" Mei-Lin asked.
"Well, no one can say for sure," Marlene said. "It depends on your timeline of events. See, I swear they were already bickering Friday at breakfast, but–"
"If it started Friday night, I think we all know what it's about," Iris said, laughing.
Lily couldn't resist a peek around the corner. Iris was looking conspiratorially toward Marlene, like she was expecting her to join in on the joke.
"Friday night?" Mei-Lin parroted.
Iris nodded. "Come on, Evans and Sirius? That must have killed James."
Eavesdropping only ever punished the listener, and Lily found her breathing grow desperate as she processed Iris's smug comments. She told herself that James was just arrogant and possessive, that he liked the idea of having a sycophantic admirer and was upset that she was no longer willing to play the part, but her feet were twitching and her flight instinct was activated. She felt attacked.
"They'll get over it. They're not going to let a girl come between them," Marlene said with confidence that Lily desperately coveted.
"It's not a girl. It's Lily Evans," Iris said. "She –"
Lily didn't wait to hear more. She gave into her impulse to run, dashing in the opposite direction toward the Slytherin dungeons. There was a half hour lag period between dinner and the Potions Society meeting, which Lily spent sitting on the cold floor, rationalizing everything she'd heard. By the time Slughorn unlocked the classroom, knocking her in the side with the door, she was perfectly calm.
James Potter was a prat, and she did not care about whatever nonsense he got up to in his friendships, even if the friend was her technical, though fake, boyfriend. In fact, if she felt any emotion, it was anger instead of panic. She'd dealt enough with Severus's obnoxious claims to ownership over her to be hostile towards the slightest signal a boy was growing possessive.
Speaking of Severus, Lily noticed he had bothered to show up to their meeting that week. He'd skipped the last one, which was highly unusual for him. So unusual that Lily half expected he was dying in the Hospital Wing with a bad case of Dragon Pox. The idea that he'd skived off to sleep or hang out with his "friends" was impossible. The only thing that brought Severus any peace was the chance to brew and experiment in his cauldron.
A perfect storm of realizations hit Lily in the middle of the Potions Society meeting, so that she couldn't even sort through which thought occurred to her first. Each realization built directly into the others, strengthening them.
The Marauders, Marlene, and many other students had missed class today. The Marauders hadn't performed their April Fool's Day prank. It wasn't the first suspicious disappearance of late, like Severus missing a Potions Society meeting. Severus had attended the Grindylows party.
Lily left the dungeons certain of two things. First, she needed to find out who had missed class that day beyond the Gryffindor boys. Second, if the Marauders hadn't returned from their mysterious disappearance, that left their dormitory wide-open for investigation.
Forty minutes later, Lily stood at the foot of the boys' staircase, flanked by Mei-Lin and Will. They'd had a quick debrief on Mei-Lin's interrogation of Isis and Marlene, but there'd been nothing significant said after Lily fled the scene. Isis claimed that James majorly fancied Lily, but Lily knew that was far from true, and she discarded the idea outright. Besides, Marlene seemed to think there was something else brewing between the boys, and the possibility of an invisible variable made far greater sense.
Forgetting about Isis and Marlene, Lily focused on her new, totally brilliant plan. It was simple: sneak into the Marauders' dormitory, root around for clues, and make the greatest breakthrough in Hogwarts history. Simple.
True to form, Mei-Lin had some concerns.
"But how do you know that they're not back already? Marlene was at dinner, and you said Sev was at the Society meeting," Mei-Lin said. Very logical that Mei-Lin.
"Yes, but they weren't at dinner, and Sirius told me just yesterday that they always go to the kitchens at nine. It's what –?" Lily checked her watch, "Half past nine, right now, which means they shouldn't be back for a while longer."
"Okay, but what about Hinkley and Niazi? Are they supposed to just not care that we're rooting around their dormitory?" Mei-Lin said.
There was a fair point, and Lily bounced on the balls of her feet as her brain raced into problem-solving mode. Khalid and Duane hadn't been missing all day, so there was no way to account for their whereabouts. They weren't best mates with the Marauders, but they were on good terms and would definitely spill the beans about an invasion of three-fourths of the newspaper staff.
"I think I have a plan," Will said, his mouth twisting up into a devious smile.
Will had to make a quick dash back to the Hufflepuff dormitories, but a short time later, he was ready and armed with a Dungbomb from his last trip to Hogsmeade. Athletic and speedy, Mei-Lin was given the crucial task of dropping the Dungbomb upstairs. The whole thing took about thirty-five seconds with Mei-Lin taking off from a sprinting position, disposing of the Dungbomb right outside the sixth-year boys' door, and then making a mad dash back, so that she wasn't caught out in the act.
Back downstairs, Lily and Will pretended everything was normal. They sat on the floor by the stairs – perhaps not completely inconspicuous – with a Witch's Weekly held between them. Returning from her mission, Mei-Lin veered left and threw herself bodily onto the ground. She stretched out, so that she lay on her stomach with her chin propped on her hands and pointed at a picture in the magazine. It was the pose that Duane and Khalid caught as they came stomping down the staircase, their curses rebounding.
"I'm going to McGonagall. I've had it!" Duane bellowed. "It's always something with those four. I just want to sleep and pass my classes."
"Get it together, mate. You'll regret it in the morning if you say something now," Khalid urged.
Duane stormed out of the portrait hole with Khalid at his heels, but before he was out of earshot, Duane agreed not to report anything. The two boys just needed a walk to cool off. Before the Fat Lady had swung fully closed, Lily and her friends were creeping up the stairs, wasting no time. The smell of the Dungbomb was foul, like an egg left to boil for days in the sun mixed with essence of skunk. Lily knew a charm to freshen the air, and she cast it about the corridor before they entered the dormitory.
"So, what exactly are we looking for?" Will asked, pulling the door to a gentle close.
"Anything suspicious."
"Helpful, Lily," Will deadpanned.
"Sorry…I suppose, I want to know whether they're all members. I suspect Peter isn't, but then again, he wasn't in class either, so what does that mean? Notes, itineraries. If we're blessed, a diary," Lily said.
"A calendar with 'Grindylows' written in big letters on the first of the month," Mei-Lin joked.
"Our silver bullet," Lily agreed.
The dormitory was much like Lily remembered it. Clean and uncluttered, with everything packed away in the boys' trunks or folded on the edge of one of the beds that formed a semi-circle around the edge of the room. This time, Lily paid more attention to her surroundings, noting the posters and clippings the boys had hung on the walls. There was one sliver of wall bedecked with pictures of Quidditch players mid-dive or blocking the posts with a well-placed headbutt, which Lily assumed belonged to James. Another bed was surrounded by hand-written reminders of things to do with sporadic clippings about dragon sightings. The bed on the far right was decorated with dozens of photos from the Doctor Who series. Two of the beds bore no decorations whatsoever. The last bed, which no doubt belonged to Sirius, showed the most variety: girls, motorbikes, girls on motorbikes, the Rolling Stones, girls with the Rolling Stones.
Lily went to Sirius's section of the room, intent on exploring his trunk. Knowing his penchant for neatness, she was careful as she explored not to disrupt things too terribly. He'd know someone had rooted about his things if she went about it like a whirling dervish of energy. Will had no such worries as he raided the Doctor Who bed, tearing the trunk apart in his search.
Unlike most students, Sirius sported several trunks. One stood tall, lengthwise, and opened up like a closet, revealing his pressed robes, jackets, hung trousers and other clothes. His shoes lay in an orderly line at the bottom. Another trunk was really nothing but a mini bar filled with brandy and scotch and all the other foul-tasting drinks that Sirius touted about in the pockets of his robes. The scent of his flask was nastier than the dampened smell of Dungbomb that still permeated the room.
Lily was just starting on the third trunk under his bed, which looked to hold his school supplies, when Mei-Lin announced that she'd found something.
Tucked beneath the pillow of one of the beds with bare walls, Mei-Lin had found a blank sheet of parchment. There was nothing odd about having spare parchment about, of course, but typically students didn't tuck it beneath their pillow at night. There was no odd-scrap-of-parchment fairy.
Lily sat up on her knees to take a look. She ran her fingers over the crinkled surface. There wasn't much to it.
"Maybe they write in invisible ink," Lily suggested. "We could throw some lemon juice on it."
"Pretty sure if they use invisible ink, it'll be the magical kind," Will called, his head hidden beneath one of the beds.
Curiously, Mei-Lin tapped her wand to the parchment. Words filled the page.
Mei-Lin read aloud, "Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs…demand you stop touching our property, you thieving tart!"
"That's those stupid nicknames they're always using!" Lily said.
"Thieving tart!" Mei-Lin didn't much care about the origins of the parchment or its uses, squawking at the insult. "I'm not stealing it. I'm looking at it. And I'm not a tart!" Mei-Lin told the parchment.
New words bloomed on the page.
"Messr. Moony is not impressed by your indignation, you ignoramus. Messr. Wormtail suggests your presence in the boys' dormitory is all the evidence he needs that you're a tart," Lily read.
"That's Peter, isn't it? That little git. Do you think they're writing these messages somewhere now?" Mei-Lin demanded.
"Dunno. Do you know anything about the Grindylows?" Lily asked the parchment, poking it with Mei-Lin's wand for good measure.
Messr. Padfoot believes a day-old flobberworm knows more than you about every conceivable subject. Messr. Prongs would like to ask how you've managed not to fall out a window to your death with so few brain cells to guide you through the world.
Lily giggled. "It's kind of funny, actually."
With a huff, Mei-Lin snatched the parchment from Lily's hand and returned it to its original hiding spot. They continued their search in silence for another five minutes, turning up all sorts of contraband from Zonko's, pornography, cigarettes, and more, but nothing that linked directly to the Grindylows.
Lily moved her attention to the small stand beside Sirius's bed. She was surprised to see he'd checked out a book from the library. It fell straight open to the last page he'd been reading because he'd marked it with a tassled bookmark. The text opened to a chapter on the proper performance of the Patronus charm. In the margins, Sirius had scrawled a series of suggestions – Lily could recognize his handwriting from the note passing days earlier – on what to recollect while casting and how to angle his wand. One of the notes read: Must master by Ides of March. Lily marveled at the coincidence; she too had been studying the Patronus Charm at the beginning of March.
Cackles from Will interrupted her reading. Lily turned to find him doubled over another textbook. This one Lily recognized from the year before; it was the Standard Book of Spells: Year 5. Wordlessly, Will opened to the title page. There, someone had doodled Lily's name over and over again. Some of the doodles had replaced the dot above the 'i' with a heart.
"What on earth?" Lily demanded.
"It's Potter's," Will said, still chuckling like mad.
Irritated, Lily tore the book from Will's hand, snapped it shut, and kicked it beneath the nearest bed. Out of sight, out of mind. He had ugly handwriting, Lily thought venomously.
Mei-Lin started verbally cataloguing everything she found for their benefit. There was nothing of interest before she mentioned she'd found a copy of The Fountain of Fair Fortune. It wasn't the short story version found in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, but rather a worn-copy of the play. Will leapt to his feet, flustered, saying that he'd found another copy of it as well. A thorough search of all the books in the room found that there were three copies in total. It seemed all of their discoveries were to be book-related that night.
Lily flipped through one of the scripts. Every one of the Luckless Knight's lines had been underlined with blue ink, and there were blocking notes, indicating when the actor playing the knight should stand or sit or cross the stage. Looking at the other scripts, Lily found the same was true for all of them, though for the witch Amata and the White Worm respectively.
"Are they staging a play?" Lily asked in utter bafflement.
"Maybe they thought it would be a funny joke for April Fool's," Will suggested.
"Only they didn't stage it," Lily countered.
The door flew open.
Lily screamed, clutching a hand to her chest. From the doorway, Duane and Khalid stared at them in bewilderment. They looked from Lily to the scripts in her hand to Mei-Lin crouched over Sirius's trunk to Will and back again.
"Now then," Lily greeted. The vowels stretched long and tangled, sounding closer to "Naw theen" as her Midlands accent strengthened. Duane was from Rutland, and his presence always sent her slipping into old patterns, old dialects.
It took Khalid a beat to respond. "Alright."
"You don't happen to know where Sirius is? My boyfriend. Sirius," Lily said. Their relationship was feeling like a pretty good alibi as the two Gryffindors loomed over her.
"No, but I think he's around somewhere. He and his mates set off a Dungbomb earlier," Duane said.
"Sounds like something they would do," Mei-Lin said, nodding too vehemently.
They all remained in an absolute stand-still. Any movement to leave, any indication to speak seemed hopeless. They were caught out and badly. Heat rose up Lily's neck, and she scratched at it. It made her the first person to move in the room and broke the trance that had befallen them.
"Have an eventful April Fool's?" Will asked, trying to break the tension.
In that moment, inspiration struck.
"It's actually great you guys are here because maybe you can help us," Lily said unexpectedly. She pretended not to feel Mei-Lin and Will's eyes staring her down in astonishment.
"Help you with what?" Duane asked.
"Our April Fool's prank, of course! Why else would we be in here? Don't you think it's about time someone got the Marauders back?" Lily asked gaily.
She was an absolute bloody genius. Her excuse worked like a charm, and Khalid and Duane entered the room fully, all smiles at the prospect. Spur of the moment, Lily explained that they hadn't been planning anything too creative, just short-sheeting the beds.
"And, we were going to charm their textbooks, so that the covers swap. That way, when they go to class tomorrow, they'll have all the wrong books," Will added in his own flash of brilliance, covering the fact that they'd been rooting through the trunks.
"They'll be furious that someone got them for once," Duane said. He smiled widely. "I'm totally in."
"Let's wreck them," Khalid agreed.
For the next half-hour, the five unlikely coconspirators did just that. No one was more enthusiastic than Duane, motivated by the promise of payback. As they went about their business, chattering and giggling away, Lily could barely keep a frown off her face. It had been a busy day of discoveries – kelp, MERMAN, absences, patronuses, and plays – but it didn't excite her.
After they finished booby-trapping the room, the three interlopers left for the safety of the common room, whispering about everything they'd learned as they went and celebrating their masterful navigation of the boys' interruption. Will was bursting with a million theories, Mei-Lin with a million next-steps, but Lily was lost, confused. She couldn't shake the gnawing nibbles of failure, knowing that none of this made a lick of bloody sense.
But then again, before every answer, you had to define the question. Lily now had several.
A/N: Sorry for the abrupt ending – my weakness. So…very little James. Don't kill me. Whole lotta James next chapter though! Just spilling over with James. And I'll post it sometime in May, too because I continue to feel guilty. Almost all the events in this chapter did not existence a month ago, but I wasn't happy with the pacing of some clues and what not, and ended up writing this in a fever haze over the course of two days, which is why James got pushed aside yet again.
Feeling pretty damn good about this story right now because I just finished chapter 12 today – needs massive reedits, but it's at least a draft. That chapter's been torturing me for nearly 4 whole months now, and I'm so glad to be past it. I think the writing's going to start flowing much more easily from here, and that can only bode well for my update schedule.
A thank you again to Corinaj, who is masterful in her deployment of commas when editing this.
I love a good review, so don't be stingy lol. And happy almost-here Monday!
