Happy Halloween, kids.

Chapter Six

"You've been avoiding me."

Lily took a deep breath. "I can't be with you anymore, Michael," she said slowly.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm breaking up with you. You aren't a good person. You aren't a good boyfriend…you aren't a good anything! You hurt me. What kid of a boyfriend does that? I can't let you do that to me anymore!"

"How dare you! Bitch!" Michael raised his fist and before he knew it was on his back via a spell.

James pulled off his invisibility cloak and, wand in one hand, strolled over to Michael. "This scene is becoming all too familiar, is it not?" he said lightly. "I rather enjoy it." Michael made to get up, but James held him down with his foot. "Wouldn't do that if I were you," he said. "See, I haven't been feeling well as of late, and I may just snap at any moment. So I think it would be in your best interests, Bonehead, if you did not move and you apologized to Lily…right now."

Deciding it was time to cut his losses, Michael stopped glaring at James and looked at Lily. "Sorry," he muttered. James put more weight on Michael. "SORRY!" he shouted.

"Better…but still not good enough." James pointed his wand at Michael and the next thing any of them knew Michael was stuck to the ceiling. Chuckling, James said to him, "Don't worry, Michael! You'll come down in a day or so, provided that something didn't get lost in translation when we charmed Snape's food. If that's the case, you'll probably never come down…I would not want to be you right now."

With that, James put his hand on Lily's shoulder and together they left the dormitory.

"Is he really not going to come down?" Lily questioned quietly as she and James walked back to their dormitory.

"Does it really matter?" James countered. After a moment he chuckled to himself. "I honestly don't know if he'll come down. Snape was on the ceiling from breakfast well into the night. I'm not entirely sure if that charm is more powerful now seeing as I didn't put it on food, you know?"

Shaking her head, Lily said, "James, you probably shouldn't have done that much."

James shrugged. "Why the hell not? He deserves every second of discomfort I can afford to give him."

Lily stopped walking, standing directly in front of James. "Thank you, James," she said sincerely. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

---

Saturday afternoon found Lily and James in the village of Hogsmeade. After breakfast they had started on their journey. The pair shopped for the Hogwarts Halloween Carnival, ate a nice lunch which James paid for, sat for a round of butterbeer which Lily had paid for, and all around enjoyed each others company.

It was nearly five thirty when James and Lily descended into their common room. James strolled over to the far corner and placed many small items onto the floor. With a swish of the wand they were back to their original size.

"That was a fun day," Lily said with a fabulous smile. James nodded. "Would you like to start the menu tonight?"

"No actually," James said apologetically. "Sorry, but I have a…I have a previous engagement with Remus and Sirius and Peter Pettigrew."

"Okay," Lily said. "Tomorrow afternoon then. I should probably go visit with my dear ex-roommates anyway. What do you boys plan on doing?"

James sighed, running a hand through his already on end hair making it worse. He thought quickly and decided that humor was the way to go. "Well," he said, "We're going to sit up in the Astronomy Tower and we're going to bring yogurt and popcorn and pudding and all sorts of goodies. Siri is bringing the nail polish and Remy is bringing the hair curlers while Petey gathers some fashion magazines. I'm going down to get the snacks shortly after dinner."

"You know," Lily said, walking toward her room, "you could have just said you wanted to join the girls and me tonight in the Gryffindor girls' dorms."

---

It was pitch black. Out on the grounds, unbeknownst to everybody inside of the castle, a small rat scurried up to the wildest tree. In an instant the Whomping Willow froze. Out of nowhere, it seemed, a beautiful stag and a large shaggy dog appeared. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, they were gone.

Inside of the castle, Lily Evans was walking back to her room. Those who she believed to be her friends apparently were not as friendly as James Potter, nor were they as patient. It seems that in dating Michael, she had lost a lot more than just self respect. She had lost her best friends. However, maybe they weren't such good friends if they were giving up on her that easily.

No, Lily, said her mind. It isn't those girls who are bad friends. It's you. You let Michael interfere with your friendships. You can't expect everyone to be as forgiving as James is. You didn't even expect JAMES to be as forgiving as he is. "Papageno."

Lily locked herself in her room, changed into her pajamas, and was fast asleep before her head even hit the pillow.

---

It was nearly three in the morning. James and Sirius both nearly fell off of the ladder as they attempted to climb down it into the common room. James was limping horribly, one of his pant legs torn halfway off. Sirius had a gash across his left cheek and was bleeding badly from the stomach. His shirt was soaked in crimson.

James dashed to his room as fast as he could on his bad leg. I can NOT believe that this is the ONE time that I forget my wand…

Before Sirius knew it, his friend was at his side. Having fixed his own leg, he began working on Sirius. The spells he had to use were much more complicated than the ones that he used to heal Lily, but he was able to manage. When Sirius, Peter and himself had first become animagi they all learned a bit of healing magic, knowing how dangerous everything they were getting themselves into was.

"I can't believe Peter just ran away like that," Sirius said angrily, still trying to catch his breath from all of the twisted excitement.

"Come on, Padfoot," James said, cleaning the blood from the floor magically. "There was nothing he could have done but run. He's the smallest of us all. If I would have landed the wrong way I could have crushed him."

"Yeah…still, though…"

"Listen, it's nearly three," said James. "We were too close to getting caught on our way here, so why don't you take the sofa?" Sirius nodded. "We'll find Peter in the morning after you've cooled off a bit."

"G'night," Sirius muttered.

James returned to his room, tossing out an extra blanket for his best friend. With the night's events behind them, both boys ended up in a restless sleep.

Lily awoke around ten in the morning on Sunday. She stretched like a kitten and attempted to find her slippers which were a little ways under the bed. Once that was all squared away, she took a towel off of the rack and left her bedroom, ready for a shower.

James was still asleep, though his mind was still somehow racing. The sleep was light and unsatisfactory, so it didn't take much to shake him out of it. What did it was a high pitched scream from the common room.

James shot up and, because he was so jumpy, ran out into the room in only his boxers and a pair of socks. "What happened?!" he shouted, wand in hand and glasses askew.

"That's what I'd like to know," Sirius moaned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"You're all bloody!" Lily said. She had backed against the wall and was breathing heavily.

Sirius looked down at his shirt and grimaced. "Prongs, can I-"

"Go ahead," James said, knowing that he wanted to borrow clothes so that he could get back to Gryffindor, no questions asked.

Once he had left the two head students alone, James said, "You probably want to know what that's about…"

"Gee, do you think?!" Lily shouted.

"We weren't actually painting our toenails last night," James said. Lily looked as if she were about to explode. "We were out on the grounds," he said quickly. "I can't really tell you more than that right now-"

"Fine!" Lily said, throwing her hands in the air. She bent down and picked up her towel. "I'll trust you with my life, but you can't even tell me what you did last night? I'm going in the shower."

"Lily," James said. The bathroom door slammed in his face. "Lily!" he shouted. "It's not my secret to tell, Lily!"

The door swung open and James stood toe to toe with a very angry redhead. Though he was six foot one and she was only five foot five, he was scared to death of her. "Who's is it then?" she asked in a deadly whisper.