chapter fourteen.

If James were diligent, he would have spent the evening coming up with ways to catch Voldemort. Even without knowing who Voldemort was, there were certain parts of planning he could have done, had he felt so inclined.

But he did not. He spent the evening on the sofa fending off worried and nosy inquiries from his mum. Which was just another thing to make him feel shitty, having to cut her out of things.

The only people who could help James through it were Sirius and Algernon, neither of whom had proven useful.

"Oh good," Sirius said when James told him what had happened. "Then we can get back to our list of things to do to Snape."

James sent him away after that, at which point Algernon zipped out from under the bed and hovered near James's shoulder.

James sank onto his bed. "I don't need to be mocked right now."

Algernon gave him one of his classic don't be stupid looks.

"You can talk," James said. "But apparently even my own kwami doesn't like me, so just…leave me alone."

"I hate talking," Algernon said. "But you're being an idiot about Ladybug."

"Suddenly you're the big expert on human relationships. You're a cat. A tiny, mostly mute cat. A tiny, mostly mute, superpower-granting—wait, no that's good—"

Algernon sent him another look.

"Yeah," James scoffed. "I'm definitely trusting you to read things better than me. I know Lily. I know Ladybug. And if she thinks everything is ruined—that I ruined everything—"

"She didn't say that."

"Funny, people don't usually say things are ruined when they're dead pleased with everything."

"Watching her for eight months doesn't mean you know her. People have problems they don't tell strangers about—"

"I'm not a stranger!"

"This is why I told Dumbledore I didn't want to do teenagers anymore. I can't take the drama."

"Drama—this is my life. Also, I like to think—well, I liked to think…it was a comedy."

Algernon stared at him with his yellow eyes. "You're so weird. It's why I picked you, but—"

"You think I'm weird?"

"Stop thinking about yourself. Stop making this all about you."

"I don't see how this isn't about me—"

Algernon growled. "This is why I don't talk. Listen, kid. You worried all year about whether Lily was okay, but then the second you thought she might fancy you back, you stopped thinking about her. Forget whether she fancies you. She's your partner. Does she seem all right?"

"She said things were ruined—"

"Not now—earlier. Before you couldn't hold back your hilarious inside joke on the roof."

"She—I mean…"

Before he'd accidentally revealed himself, Lily had been…at the bakery, that one time. Crying.

Oh.

"Why do you think she was crying with my mum?" James asked.

Algernon didn't say anything, just raised one tiny cat eyebrow.

Lily had been crying with James's mum, which was weird. Then she'd missed school and had to make up the exam, but that was just her being Ladybug. Also her being herself, which was to say, super busy. She was always running around to model gigs and superhero fights and barely had time to talk to James because she was always trying to get home on time—her sister was always on the verge of killing her, apparently—

"Oh my god." James's hands flew up to clutch at his hair. "Is her sister trying to murder her?"

Algernon smacked his forehead with his paw and swooped down under the bed. James scrambled to his knees and bent over, letting his head drop toward the floor so he could peer at Algernon's bowl.

"Is her sister going to murder her and then move to a new city and pretend she never had a sister?"

Algernon gave an annoyed meow.

James sat upright, straightening his glasses. "Well," he said. "You're just no help at all."

He ignored Algernon the rest of the night. Which was easy, since Algernon stayed resolutely in his bowl, loudly chewing on some bacon James had hurled under the bed.

Whatever. James didn't need his help anyway.

At least, not more help.

Because yeah, fine, maybe Lily wasn't entirely all right. She'd had a rough life. She never talked about her parents' car accident in the few magazine interviews she'd done, but that had probably been a brutal loss. And as a result, she was living with a sister that she had, he now remembered, called controlling—that Ladybug had said would sell her Miraculous to the highest bidder.

Lily had been spilling out about herself that day she'd walked him home because…because she'd needed someone to talk to. She'd even come to him as Ladybug just to get things off her chest.

But still. She'd said things were ruined now that they'd revealed themselves—or, fine, she'd said things had been balanced and now they weren't. But how else was he supposed to take that?

He tried not to look at her at all the next morning, just to spite Algernon. As it turned out, though, it was a difficult habit to break. He found his eyes drifting to her automatically, which meant he could see her slumping in her seat, and how her hair wasn't as glossy and perfect as it usually was, and all right, yes, that maybe there was something else going on.

He let himself watch her more after that. She didn't watch back. There were none of the stomach-flipping looks between them, where they both seemed to detach from everything else, stuck in a bubble outside reality for a second.

She was barely paying attention in class. At least Meadowes was at her side later on, nudging her into attention at the important parts of lectures.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked Algernon in the loo.

Algernon burrowed further into James's pocket by way of response.

"Useless," James muttered, and went back to class.

At lunch, he and his mates headed for the English classroom, which McGonagall had begrudgingly agreed to let them use. Or she had once they'd reassured her that Lily Evans and Dorcas Meadowes would be with them. That part had got them a very baffled look, then a deeply concerned one, and then a "I'm not going to ask."

"Extra credit," James said.

"Of course it is," McGonagall sighed.

Peter pulled out his laptop and began connecting it into the room's projection system. He and Remus had taken the news about Ladybug's identity well yesterday.

"Yes, I thought so," Remus had said, at the same time that Peter had gone, "Ohmygod."

James had said to Remus, "Right, where's your magic wand?"

Remus had continued to argue that he was not, in fact, a wizard, which just secretly proved to James how much of a lie that was.

Because it was kind of obvious that Lily was Ladybug, now that James knew. He could see it more, in the curve of her smile, and the slice of her wit, and the particular fluctuations in her laugh. James had watched Lily for months, but somehow Remus, of all the people in London, had pieced it together.

Lily entered the classroom with Meadowes in tow. Despite the exhaustion Lily had been wearing earlier, she'd now donned her Ladybug I know exactly what to do and how to solve this face.

He shouldn't have invited everyone else. He needed to be alone with Lily again, to get to the bottom of this, to make that confident attitude something more than an obvious façade.

"Hello." Meadowes assessed James and his mates where they stood clustered near McGonagall's desk. She looked at James last. "So you're the cat one."

"Er, yeah. That's me." There was a certain crook to her mouth that made James say, "You laughed a lot when she told you, didn't you?"

"Oh, yeah. Loads. Thanks for that."

"She gets a laugh," Sirius muttered. "I get an earful and a half."

For months, Sirius had been the only one in the know. Or so James had thought. But now, in the space of a week, the world had shifted so that James now stood in a room with a whole five other people who knew, including Ladybug herself.

He didn't know if that felt more like tragedy or comedy. Hopefully comedy, if the way Meadowes had laughed was any indicator.

"I couldn't believe it," Peter said to Lily. "When James told me about him, and then you…"

"That's because he was lying." Lily slid into a seat in the front row. "This is all a trick, actually."

James couldn't help himself. "To get a new team of teenagers to band together and stop Voldemort," he added with verbal flourish. "We're tired of the adults not stepping up."

Peter said, in a low voice, "What?"

"We want all of us to become teen superheroes," James said. "What color d'you want your costume to be?"

"Oh," Peter said. "Got it."

"Come on, Pettigrew." Sirius smacked the back of his hand against Peter's arm and went to a desk one away from Lily's.

Peter ducked his head and returned to pulling up the map. He'd emailed it to James late last night, but it had seemed wrong, somehow, for James to look at it without Lily there.

While Dorcas took up the seat on Lily's other side, Remus filled in the gap between Lily and Sirius. James hadn't told him or Peter about the weirdness with Lily. They probably would have been just as useless as the last time he'd asked for romantic advice.

"So," Remus said to Lily. "How have you liked being a superhero?"

Lily's eyes shot over to James. Then she seemed to realize what she'd done, her eyes widening slightly, and turned her head back to Remus.

"I wouldn't trade it for anything," she said. "Could do with better pay, though. Maybe some light supervision."

James found himself smiling, even though Meadowes was still staring at him intently. Hopefully that was her being weirded out that he was Chat, and not her being angry or annoyed with him on Lily's behalf.

Peter stepped back from the desk, gesturing at the screen. "I'm ready."

Remus might as well not have existed, Lily whipped her attention away from him so quickly.

"Brilliant," she said.

James gave him a nod to begin.

"So, er," Peter said. "I've no idea if this is going to help or not. I mean, I really hope it does, but—"

"It's fine, Pete. You did your best. Let's see it."

"Right then."

With a click of the mouse, the map appeared in front of them. The bright red dots hadn't changed since the last version, but Peter had added two translucent grey circles on top of them, light at the edges and darkening toward their centers. The circles overlapped in the middle, creating a sort of oblong shape containing nearly every attack.

Peter wrung his hands. "The dual cluster method was much more successful than the single cluster—"

He kept talking but James couldn't hear him over the sudden ringing in his ears.

If he'd gained anything from being Chat Noir, it was an intricate familiarity with the notable landmarks of central London. His mental map of the city these days had become nothing more than a complex quilt of intersecting former battlegrounds. No tourist attraction, no Tube station, no alley in those few square miles was a mystery to him.

He knew exactly which landmark fell into the center of the right circle.

He knew exactly which landmark fell into the center of the left circle.

And he knew exactly which villainous figure worked at city hall and lived at the ritzy hotel off Green Park.

His heart stumbled for a second as he made horrified eye contact with Lily.

"Of course," Lily breathed, her palms flat on the desk as she pushed herself out of her seat.

James shoved a hand into his hair, tugging until it hurt. "We thought we were idiots before—"

"It's so obvious—"

"What's obvious?" Meadowes asked.

"Riddle," Remus said calmly.

Sirius's chair screeched as he shoved it backwards while launching to his feet. "Bastard."

"What?" asked Peter, in a small voice. He peered at the map. "But he wouldn't—he's not… He's already the mayor. He's already rich."

"Greedy bastard," Sirius pronounced.

Meadowes said, very evenly, "I fucking hate him."

Lily's eyes had locked on James, and his on hers, and the other people in the room ceased to exist.

"All those times," she said, fists clenched at her sides, "that he criticized us for not catching Voldemort—for not catching him!"

"When he went on about Voldemort's anti-wealth agenda—"

"When he pointed fingers at low-income people and immigrants—"

"Throwing the blame everywhere else."

"Throwing the blame at us!"

"We should've known."

"Bastard."

Lily, like James, looked ready to hurl chairs at the wall.

He settled for kicking McGonagall's desk instead, while Lily threw herself back into her seat, arms crossed, a furious set to her mouth.

"What are you waiting for?" Sirius demanded of James. "Go take him down."

Much to James's pleasure, he shared a quick look with Lily that said everything they needed to communicate. That part, luckily, hadn't been totally ruined.

She made a frustrated noise. "We can't," she said. "We need to get the Moth Miraculous back, and he clearly doesn't wear it all the time or we'd have recognized it."

By which, of course, James knew she meant their kwamis would have recognized it. James didn't even know what the Moth Miraculous looked like—for all he knew, it was a butterfly hair clip.

He really, really hoped Riddle was forced to wear a butterfly hair clip.

"So we've got to catch him in the act." James shook his foot, his toes throbbing. "The next time there's a villain, we've got to ignore it and go find him instead."

Lily gave a sharp nod. "The only other way would be to search the hotel and city hall, and that would take ages. Plus, if we got caught searching, he'd slaughter us in the press."

"Or literally."

"And we only have until his next attack to figure it out." She laughed darkly. "Brilliant."

Remus folded his hands on his desk. "You don't necessarily have to make your move during the next attack. We can take the time to make more thorough plans, and act later."

Lily froze for a moment. Then she held a hand up in front of her, studiously examining her nails.

Riddle stopped mattering in an instant.

Whatever was going on with Lily, she didn't want to tell James, much less his mates.

"No," James said. "We've got to plan for the next akuma."

"Why?" Peter asked.

Meadowes crossed her arms. "Because."

"Because Meadowes has deemed it so." Sirius draped an arm over the back of his chair. "Wonderful. She's known about this for a day and is already making important decisions. Makes perfect sense, that."

"Look," James said. "It's…complicated."

He dared a glance at Lily. She was still looking at her hands, her fingers now curled into her palms. He watched as she tightened them, nearly into fists, and then flexed them open again.

He could bluster and lie through nearly anything, but he'd failed her—his mind had come up blank on this one.

Lily dropped her hands onto the desk. "It's because..." She exhaled. "It's because I'm grounded."

Meadowes's eyes threatened imminent death to Sirius.

"Oh!" said James, his mouth curling into a smile. "Yes. Because she's grounded. That's why."

"So?" said Sirius. "Just because they say you can't leave doesn't make it true. I should know."

"It's more complicated than that," Lily said tightly.

It really had to be—she wouldn't pull that card over nothing. Ladybug would have done anything short of maiming and murder to get to a battle. And possibly even the former.

She went on, "So I can make the next battles if they're during the school day, but the evening ones…I can only make one more. Because if I sneak out and my sister catches me…well, I don't know what she'll do, but I doubt I'd be able to show up to any fights after that."

Remus hummed. "And without Ladybug, there's no victory. I see. Exactly how long are you grounded for?"

Lily pressed her lips together. "Probably until end of term."

This was terrible news, really, James knew that…and yet his heart was dancing a samba because she didn't hate him! Probably. She wasn't tired of him, just grounded until her family moved.

Again, probably.

But still!

"Sirius makes a fair point," Remus said. "Being grounded doesn't mean you're chained to a chair. You could still leave the house, but with additional repercussions."

"Right," said Meadowes. "So that's settled—"

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "It is not."

"Sirius," Peter said carefully. "If Lily says we've got to do it soon, then she probably knows best. Don't you think?"

Remus's lips twitched. "Quite clearly he does not."

"The point is," James said, repressing a cheery smile, "that we've got to get thinking. Hopefully the next attack's during the school day so we have more time to come up with ideas…but we really have to plan like he'll attack as early as tomorrow."

Lily nodded. "We need to be ready to put our plan into action as soon as we can after he akumatizes the next victim. We've no way of knowing when that will be, but—"

"Don't we?" Meadowes jerked her head at Peter. "You're his assistant, yeah?"

"Ohmygod." Peter plopped down onto the edge of McGonagall's desk. "I'm Voldemort's assistant."

"Knew he was a bastard," Sirius muttered.

James nearly let off a desperate laugh. He'd thought he and Lily missing each other had been ridiculous, but Peter working for a super villain bordered on slapstick.

And actually, that was a bit of a comfort. This really sounded like a comedy now, and James could get behind that.

Remus leaned forward, glancing at Peter's phone on the desk. "I believe you have Voldemort's calendar synced on there, yes?"

Peter snatched up his phone and began frantically tapping and scrolling.

"Even if we don't know when he'll attack next," Lily said, "we can still plan to confront him after it shows up. The problem is, what do we do when we find him wearing the Miraculous?"

"Hold him down and rip it off him?" James offered.

"If it's just the three of us, probably, but this is Riddle. He's powerful and I bet a little paranoid. He might have plans ready in case we ever attack—for all we know, he's got a gun." She looked at Peter. "Does he have a gun?"

"Hm?" Peter lowered his phone. "Er, not sure."

Remus made a discontented noise. "Riddle doesn't seem the type to be unprepared for these situations."

Meadowes waved a hand. "You're never gonna know in advance what weapons he has," she said. "What you need is leverage. That's the only way you can count on forcing him to do anything."

James made a mental note to bring in a proper cake later. Meadowes had more than earned it, and biscuits wouldn't cut it for this level of excellence.

"Well reasoned," Remus said. "The question is, then, what does Riddle care about?"

James and Lily looked at one another.

"Er, money?" James tried.

"Power," said Lily.

"Terrible fashion."

Her lips twitched. "Butterflies and moths, apparently."

James grinned at her. "Evil laughter."

"We should get a gun," Meadowes said, ruining James's perfect moment. "He'd turn over the Miraculous if we threatened his life."

Predictably, Sirius perked up at this development. James tried to quell him with a look. He'd have tried to corral Meadowes, but that was Lily's job.

Lily grimaced. "He definitely values his own life, but we'd never kill him, and he knows we wouldn't."

"Of course not," James said. "We're not killing anyone."

"So send me in with a gun," Meadowes said. "I'm Black and he's a racist arse—he'll definitely be scared of me the second I show up."

Sirius assessed Dorcas approvingly.

"Don't even start," James told him. "We don't have a gun, we're not going to kill him, and if he does have a gun or something—well, if I get hurt, it's fine. Ladybug will fix it with magic when she de-evilizes the akuma later." He poked Peter. "Did you find anything on Riddle's calendar?"

Peter set down his phone and rubbed his palms on his thighs. "Well…maybe. I dunno. It could be something else, but…every time there's been an akuma attack when I've been around…he usually has a private meeting set up on his calendar. He doesn't have a lot of appointments I can't see the details of—barely any, really. I never thought about that connection—I've seen him during attacks, you know, a couple times, but I guess he can do that…" He looked between Lily and James, a worry line creasing his forehead. "There's a private appointment tomorrow night. At the hotel."

One day.

They'd fought him for eight long months—he'd gone up to a week between akumas before—and now they had one bloody day to figure out how to end it.

Then again, they'd identified him within a couple of weeks. So how hard could it be?

Lily's mouth twisted. "We'll have to do it tomorrow, then, whether we've got a plan or not."

She only had one shot. For reasons James didn't remotely understand, but he was confident they were good ones.

"Then maybe," he said, "we need to make sure there is an attack tomorrow night before you run away. 'Cause we only know he's got a private appointment, not that he's going to for sure make a villain."

"We can confirm there is a villain first," Remus told her. "Peter can be at the hotel watching for an attack, and then we can text you once we've learned it's worthwhile to run off."

Meadowes cleared her throat, eyes narrowed, apparently because she was weird about technology or something.

Lily studied the desk in front of her. "No," she said quietly. "That won't work, because…because Petunia took my phone on Saturday."

Her sister had taken her phone.

It didn't matter that his mum had given Lily his number—Lily literally couldn't have texted him over the weekend, even if she'd wanted to.

Her sister's cruelty should not have made him so giddy. Especially not when Lily was hanging her head as she said all this, her fingers clenched together again. He might've tried to hug her, both out of joy and empathy, if the others hadn't been there.

Curse his decision to draw them in.

Except how he and Lily would be nowhere without them. That part was great.

"Then we'll email," James said. "Problem solved."

Lily still wouldn't look up. "She also…took my laptop."

Meadowes was properly glaring at James now, her arms folded. But it wasn't his fault—how was he supposed to have known that Petunia would be so—

"Fucking ridiculous," he said. "You need that for school and things."

"Yes," Lily said. "I'm aware."

"So what if she's taken your phone?" said Sirius, and James briefly considered punching him until he added, "Get another one."

James could have hugged Sirius too, then. Everyone could have a hug, even Meadowes, because Lily hadn't chosen not to communicate with him, and because she hadn't chosen to give up being his partner, and also because this was all a bit fucking much to take in.

Lily raised her head slowly and blinked. "Oh," she said. "I could, couldn't I? I've got the money."

"We'll get you a phone later," Sirius said. "There, fixed. Let's go back to planning how to kill Riddle."

"We're not—Sirius." James slid him a look. "We'll get back to that. But yeah, Lily, we'll get you a phone this afternoon. That's easy enough."

Lily's cheeks tinged pink. "You don't have to—that's really not—it's stupid if I point out you've got class, isn't it?"

"Very," said Sirius. "Now, personally, I vote kill him because why not?"

As he'd done many times before, Remus began laying out the very pragmatic reasons they couldn't murder someone, starting with the problem of corpse disposal. Sirius always hated hearing about bodies dissolving in acid.

They spent the rest of the hour talking through what they could do, murder aside, but nothing concrete came of it. There were simply too many unknowns, and not nearly enough time to address them.

James participated with about ninety percent of his brain. Maybe eighty-five percent. The rest was occupied, as usual, with watching Lily.

She was grounded. She couldn't leave whenever she wanted or something worse would happen. Although what was worse beyond that…

Getting pulled out of Hogwarts. Losing her job. There were obviously things on the line.

Maybe it was about him, and maybe it wasn't, but she needed help. And they could give it to her.

James would buy her a new secret laptop, if she'd take it. How was she supposed to do her schoolwork without a computer? And without being able to stay at school or go to the library because she was stuck at home? It was unbelievable. Her sister really was a bitch and a half. No wonder Lily was always running home to her as late as possible—she had to contend with this fuckery all the time.

The relief that he personally hadn't ruined her entire life—that in fact someone else was very clearly responsible—was nearly all-encompassing.

Nearly.

He tried to make it good enough. She'd told him eventually, and it explained everything, and none of it was his fault…but there was a persistent pebble in his proverbial shoe that he simply couldn't shake out.

Namely that Lily hadn't trusted him with any of it.

His mind honed back in on the conversation when Sirius said, "I could stand guard outside his office—"

"No," said James. "No, you're absolutely not going to be there."

"We're catching him. I'm helping. Good discussion, mate, let's have it again sometime."

Meadowes nodded. "Good point, Black. I'll be there too."

"No," James said, his pitch spiking. "You can't—you two don't understand—"

"What James is trying to say," Lily said with what James thought of as restrained panic, "is that he'd turn you into leverage against us."

"Exactly, thank you. He's had villains take hostages before, and it's…well, it hasn't worked, but it was…"

"Awful," Lily said quietly.

James swallowed. There were a couple times they'd come too close to testing Lily's ability to bring back the dead with Miraculous Ladybug magic.

"Yeah," he said. "I get it, but don't—I know you want to help, Sirius. 'Course you do, you're my best mate, but this is…" He looked at Lily. "This is a superhero thing. I have a different partner for that."

That drew a hint of a smile out of Lily, one that got his heart doing backflips.

His mouth grinned stupidly. It was not situationally appropriate. And yet he could not seem to force it away, not even when he saw that Sirius's expression had darkened to something like mutinous, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

Lily got them all back on track after that, thinking through different ways things could play out in Riddle's hotel. Even after another ten minutes, though, they still had no real plan besides show up and hope for the best.

It wouldn't matter, though. He and Ladybug had always made up things as they went along, and it had always worked out for them.

When they'd taken down the map and erased the whiteboard, and everyone was getting up to go back to class, James touched Lily's arm.

"Hey," he said. "So, er. D'you have a second after school? I'll give you the phone."

"Oh, yeah." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "That's…great. Thanks. You really don't have to—"

"—buy you the newest iPhone? You're right, I don't. I might. We'll see, I get easily distracted by shiny things."

A sly smile flitted into existence, just briefly. "A cat through and through, I see."

If he'd been Chat at the moment, his ears would've twitched happily.

"Let's just hope," he said, "that our attack isn't a cat-astrophe."

There was that classic, flat Ladybug look for Chat. "We've got no plan to confront an evil villain," she said, "and you're expending mental energy coming up with puns."

"What can I say, I've got faith in us. We're a purr-fect team."

She groaned, and reached one hand up to where his cat ears would have been—but of course her fingers only skimmed over his unruly locks.

James sucked in a sharp breath.

His existence became nothing more than a roar of rushing blood, and the ever-so-slight shifts in his individual strands of hair.

She jerked her hand back, red flooding her face. "Sorry."

He shivered, his brain slowly kicking back into gear.

Except mostly it was now thinking that he was not going to get an erection from this.

He was not.

"It's fine," he managed, grabbing his school bag for a shield. "Gotta get to class."

"Yeah," she said, averting her eyes. "Same."

"I should've got you another phone," Dorcas said thoughtfully after their next class. "Can't believe I let Black come up with that one."

Lily tucked her notebook into her bag. "I can't believe they've just run off to buy me a bloody phone."

They had done, with an audacious wink from James before they strolled out the door.

"They have always seemed to take care of their own," said Dorcas. "And since you and Potter are…"

Lily cleared her throat. "We're not—it's not…I dunno."

"Whatever. The point is, Black knows what's what. He wants Voldemort gone, too."

"I think it had more to do with murdering Tom Riddle than helping me, but I'll take it."

Black had suggested the phone solution so quickly and neatly. Like it wasn't a big deal, suddenly skiving off class to purchase something for someone he'd barely spoken to all year.

He'd talked murder more than Lily would have liked, but James was on top of that.

In fact, James had been downright responsible during their lunchtime meeting. And a little off the wall, here and there, but mostly dedicated to catching Riddle. He and all his mates had been, and Dorcas had taken this all in stride, and they were all there to chip in, and yeah, they didn't have anything like an actual plan, but it was just…

Dorcas flashed a smile at her. It was silly, really, how such a small gesture could knock the specter of Lily's anxiety nearly flat.

She was going to have a phone. She was going to have contact with people, and she was going to arrest Tom fucking Riddle, and maybe, just maybe, things would go back to normal.

After James and Black wandered into Flitwick's class with no explanation other than "got lost," James's eyes immediately found hers. His mouth slipped into a goofy grin, pleased with himself, pleased with life, and that was so…him. So Chat. They had a slim chance of success and there he was, totally nonchalant about it, because he trusted himself, and he trusted her.

As well he should. They were an unbeatable team.

An unbeatable team that hadn't noticed each other's identities, or Riddle's, but there was magic involved there. That wasn't entirely on them.

After their last class, James lingered near his desk, clearly trying to look like he was paying attention to his mates' conversation. His eyes kept checking in on her, though.

"Text me," Dorcas said. "Don't sulk alone tonight."

"The bigger magic trick will be getting me to shut up."

"Perfect. Now go, your puppy is waiting for you."

"He's a cat, thank you."

Dorcas rolled her eyes and shoved Lily toward him. Lily mouthed a genuine thanks back at her and then turned to James. He ignored his friends at once, his body shifting to face her, that familiar smile back in place.

He was always so happy to see her.

She was not going to cry about that. That would have been ridiculous. Sure, she'd slept a grand total of perhaps four hours, and was on the verge of a complete life collapse, but she wasn't about to be emotionally undone by that one act.

Or at least, not in front of him.

"So," she said.

"So." His hands were deep in his pockets as he rocked up onto the balls of his feet, and then back down again. "Should we, er, go somewhere else?"

"This isn't a drug deal. You can give me the phone in public."

"I was hoping—I mean, if you've got a minute…that we could talk?"

"Oh, er, yeah." She might've said no, if he had looked less hopeful, if he hadn't just done her an enormous favor, if she weren't so unraveled every time she stood too near to him. "I mean, really just a minute, I can't be home later than that."

"Yeah, no, I got that. Come on."

She followed him out into the corridor, then stepped forward to walk at his side. While all the other students made for the front door, he guided her toward the back, through the throngs of chattering students.

"You all right?" he asked. "Earlier, you seemed…"

"I'm…" She shifted slightly closer to him to avoid walking into Wendy Wilde, keenly aware of the meager few centimeters that separated her body from his.

"Don't say fine."

"Of course I'm not bloody fine."

His elbow nudged hers. "Obviously."

She shouldn't have been surprised he knew that. Exhaustion had kept her from pretending to be all right most of the day. And he—he fancied her. He was her partner, so of course he was paying the slightest bit of attention. But still.

No one but Dorcas had been watching since January.

They'd passed through the sea of students heading out. Only a few students lingered in the corridors here, talking to each other or checking their phones.

James stepped into the atrium beside a flight of polished wooden stairs, and then into a small alcove beneath the landing. He had to duck his head slightly to enter, a few locks of hair bending where they brushed the ceiling.

She slipped in sideways to face him. There was no lamp above them, just the light from the stairwell casting half his face in shadow, and glinting off his dark eyes.

The din of departing students echoed down the corridor.

James was still waiting for an answer.

"I'm feeling," she finally said, "too many things at once."

"Oh, god," he said, the words bursting out of him. "Me too. Not as much as you, though. I mean, I imagine."

She let her body fall backward a few inches, until her shoulders lay flat against the wall, and heaved a deep breath. "I mean, first of all, it's Riddle," she said. "Tom fucking Riddle."

James let out a short, humorless laugh. "I know."

"He's the bloody mayor, and he's a super villain, and even with six minds on it, we've basically come up with no plan at all."

"That's not fair to the crumb of a plan we baked up earlier."

She raised an eyebrow. "Try that reassurance again, this time without the terrible bakery joke."

"I'm sorry," he said. "Would you prefer a hot crossed pun?"

That self-satisfied light in his eyes was all Chat.

"No," she said, her voice going a little hoarse.

"Are you sure? I can rise to the occasion."

"Chat—"

"I'm on a roll here, Lily. These are not crumby jokes."

Riddle was still a bastard, and so was Petunia, and so was the world in general, but that was all drowned out by the familiar swooping sensation in her stomach.

"James," she said, fighting very hard to keep a stupid smile off her face. "One minute. Remember."

"Right. Right." He pulled a small smartphone out of his back pocket and placed it in her waiting palm. "I don't have Meadowes's number or I'd have put it in there for you."

"Such a gentleman." She swiped to wake up the screen. He'd set the background as a dashing action shot of Ladybug and Chat Noir on top of Westminster Palace. "Correction: such a narcissist."

When she clicked on contacts, she found a few other numbers had already been added.

"Who's Padfoot?" she asked.

"Sirius. I've just always wanted us to have secret nicknames, but then I got a secret identity, and it seemed like two nicknames would be confusing."

"You're ridiculous," she said, unzipping a pocket to slide the phone in.

"No arguments here. Oh, and also." He let his bag strap slide down off his shoulder and into the crook of his elbow. Within seconds, he'd extracted a thin laptop the size of a large book. "Here."

She pushed it back toward him. "James—"

"Don't tell me it's too much because you need it, all right? For school. And sanity." He slung his bag back over his shoulder. "You can give it back later or whatever, but please take it for tonight. Or at least until you get yours back."

She did need it. And it wasn't charity—she could buy her own, if she only had the freedom to leave the house. Not to mention he would take it back. She'd fly up to his rooftop patio and leave it there if she had to.

"All right," she said. "Just for now."

"Good." He watched her slide it into her own bag, where she hid it between two textbooks, and then he glanced at his watch. "It's been more than a minute."

"I know," she said, a frisson of anticipation running through her.

He could have pressed her about her grounding at lunch, about why she couldn't just leave or why her sister felt compelled to trap her, but he hadn't. He'd tried to help shield her. She'd had to fess up, at least a bit, but he'd been on her side about it.

He'd always been on her side.

It should not have been an enormous admission, but it felt earthshattering to tell him, "I don't want to go home."

"Then come home with me," he said at once. "Or Meadowes, or Remus, or anyone, just don't…"

She smiled bitterly. "I can't."

He squeezed his eyes shut behind his glasses, bracing one hand on the wall beside him. "Lily," he said, in a low, uncertain voice.

"Yes?" she said.

"I know you don't…like you don't owe me anything or whatever, I get it, but could you—would you, I mean, I just don't get why you didn't…I mean you were only grounded yesterday, and you could've said so, and I…"

Her mouth clammed shut as she turned her head sideways.

"It's just," he went on, now looking at his shoes, "that like…you told me stuff before. When you were Ladybug, I mean, and we were at my house, and…I dunno."

Her face heated as her fingers plucked at her bag strap. "I dunno," she said. "It was…different. You didn't know it was me, so it was like…talking to a stranger."

He swallowed, and then gave a soft, short, "Oh."

"Not like that, I mean—I mean like it didn't count, I mean like…" She had to say something, she couldn't say nothing, but this was like pulling something up through her throat. "It's like how you could tell someone on the Tube your darkest secret and it wouldn't be the same as telling your mum because they don't care about you, and there's no—nothing's different after you've done it except you've got a weight off your chest. They listen and you walk away and it never matters that you told them."

His shoulders hunched up a bit, his face still toward the ground.

His glasses slid a fraction down his long nose.

"Well, I am here," he said, "and it does count, and I want it to count, yeah? 'Cause like—that first day, with Silvia Dodgson, you let me help you straight off and I'd—I hadn't done anything yet, and you had to tell me everything, and now… You were the one who said I did a decent enough job at helping people, and—and we're bloody partners." His eyes flicked up to hers. "I want to help."

At various points in time, she'd described her life as a hot mess and a raging bonfire and a complete shit show, but here she was, at the center of a storm, and he'd gone and stretched out a hand through all of it.

"You did help," she said, the words flooding up and out of her mouth. "I just—I didn't—this whole thing is so…embarrassing."

"Getting grounded isn't—you saw the wall of pictures of you in my room—my middle name is literally Oddjob—"

"No, but like…it's not that sort of embarrassing, it's—" She wet her lips and let the words spill out at last: "It's because I'm Ladybug."

His expression softened, not with pity, but with a tiny, funny quirk of his lips and a gentle exhale of breath that said I understand.

A door unlocked somewhere in her ribs.

"And Petunia's trapped me in," she said, her heart pounding furiously. "She's screwed my window shut and I think if I run off again—I think she'll actually lock me in altogether. And I'm bloody Ladybug and she's trapped me, not just with the window, but I can't leave, she'd ring the police if I did, and they wouldn't really come chase me down, not if I'd only been gone for twenty minutes, but there'd be a record of the call, and the paps would find it, and she can ruin my life and she knows it, and I'm supposed to be better than this but I—"

"Miss Evans. There you are."

Lily's mouth snapped shut, blood rushing to her face at the sight of McGonagall standing outside the alcove.

"Your sister is here," said McGonagall.

"No," said Lily, without meaning to.

"I can assure you, she is." McGonagall's lips thinned. "The pitch of her voice would make it difficult to pretend otherwise."

Lily's pulse thundered in her skull. Her sister didn't even trust her to come home on time—once Lily did break out of the house, Petunia would definitely lock her in, and probably put bars on the window to boot, this was insanity, this was inhumane—

James's hands came down solidly on her shoulders. She tilted her head back to look up at him.

"Just get through tonight, yeah?" he told her, eyes riveted on hers, and for a moment she didn't feel like she was drowning. "You don't have to be better—we've got this."

He'd said the same thing during their very first fight, back against Silvia Dodgson, back before either of them knew enough to promise anything.

He hadn't let her down yet.

She took a deep breath and nodded.

He cast a soft smile at her. "I'll text you puns."

"Oh god, don't—"

McGonagall cleared her throat. "You'd better come along, Miss Evans."

Lily sent a last look up at James, who slid his hands off her shoulders, and they both stepped out of the alcove.

His hand brushed along her arm. "I will, though."

Lily bit down on her bottom lip to keep from smiling, and then told him, "You'd better," before darting forward to McGonagall.

She didn't let herself look back until they'd reached the foot of the stairs, only to find him watching her, one hand ruffling up his fantastic hair.

Even if there was an akuma attack tomorrow night, it wouldn't all be over. Her life would not be set straight by Voldemort going to jail.

But at least the city would be safe.

And at least she had Chat Noir on her side.