Tuesday May 16

- Lily -

"What are you wearing?" Lily said, laughing, her nervousness showing through. She stopped abruptly when Potter didn't join in with her giggles.

Potter glanced down at his navy dress robes. "Well, it's how I was taught to dance," Potter said, not quite meeting her eye. "It's all about getting in the mood – I mean, learning in what you'll be dancing in, you know?"

"Maybe I should change," Lily said uncertainly. She was starting to feel distinctly underdressed.

"No, you look lovely," James said quickly.

"In my uniform," Lily said drily.

"You always look lovely," James said sincerely, chancing an honest glance into her eyes. Lily didn't look away.

"Why can't you ever give a compliment like that in front of other people?" Lily said quietly. "You're always so cocky when people are watching. Why can't you just be real?"

"Probably for the same reason you can't ever just accept a compliment," James replied, his eyes still on hers.

"That's because there's always an ulterior motive," Lily said, beginning to feel annoyed.

They were both frowning now.

"Maybe this is a bad idea," Lily said, glancing back at the stairs to her dorm.

"No, look, forget I said anything," James said, taking a step toward her. "This isn't a bad idea. Just give it a chance. Don't you want to go to the ball?"

"I could just go and not dance," Lily said reasonably.

"Yes, but will you?" James said, just as reasonably. And Lily knew that she wouldn't. And so did James.

"Fine," Lily snapped. "But if you try anything, anything at all…"

"I know, I know. I lose that body part."

"Indeed," Lily said darkly. Then she hesitated. "So, should I change?"

"No," James said, sounding offhand. "It will probably be easier to start with if you can see your feet."

Lily got the impression he just wanted to stop her running away. Lily sighed. "Anything to make it easier."

Lily had not slept well. And despite James' promises, she was still very unsure about this whole thing. Why on earth had she agreed to dance lessons with James Potter? Lily might not be clumsy usually, but just like working magic, things tended to go wrong when she was stressed or distracted. And did she really trust James Potter to touch her, hold her, while they danced? No wonder she'd had trouble sleeping. And she'd had a very disturbing dream about their first dance lesson, too.

"So," James said, coming to stand alongside her. "I'll show you the basic step. Most steps are built from this one."

Lily watched as James stepped slowly through eight steps, repeating the sequence twice.

"Now, try it with me," James said. Lily swallowed. This time he went even slower, Lily stepping forward when he did, and promptly messing up the second step. James said nothing, simply finishing his eight and gesturing for Lily to join in from step one again. This time Lily got the first four steps right, though she was a lot slower than Potter and missed the next sequence. Again, he said nothing.

They continued to go through the steps, James saying nothing, and Lily self-correcting quickly, her tense muscles making it harder to keep up. Lily sighed loudly as she missed the same step for the second time in a row.

"Lily, it's okay, just relax. I'm not here to judge you," James said gently. "You're doing great for a first timer."

"Yeah right," Lily said, missing yet another step.

"No really, you're dong better than me when I started."

"And how old were you then?" Lily said, frowning at her feet as they disobeyed her.

"Fine, you're already better than Peter is now."

"I'm not sure that's a compliment."

"But that might have been a smile," James said, eyes on her face. Lily heard the smile in James' voice and looked up into his eyes. And almost fell over her own feet.

James put out a hand and caught her, easily swinging her around to face him.

"This is called the open position," he said smoothly, as though they'd both intended to move on. James had one hand on her waist, the other holding her right hand. There was still plenty of space between them, technically. "You put your other hand on my shoulder."

Lily swallowed. James was so close she could smell his cologne. It was a nice smell, not too strong, but quite…

"Lily?"

Lily blinked and quickly put her hand on James' shoulder, as instructed moments ago. She felt herself blush and looked down. She couldn't see if James was smiling at her or not. He stood very upright, very proper, keeping a good distance between them. But his arms were relaxed, his grip on her hand gentle but leading.

"So, we'll go through the basic step a few times…" James said, using a slight pressure on her hand to direct her into it. They stepped back and forth through the eight steps she'd already learned. It seemed easier with James leading, though Lily kept her eyes on her feet. She was a bit afraid to look up – what were her options? James' face? His chest? Over his shoulder? Too close for comfort.

Over the rest of the hour, James taught Lily two spins. By the end of the lesson, she was starting to enjoy herself. The spins were fun (with the added benefit of putting space between her and Potter) and the couple of times she thought she might fall, James had caught her without comment, easily leading her into the next step. He was a good dancer, and a good teacher, she admitted to herself grudgingly.

James led her through a final move, ending on a dip. Lily, unprepared for this, squealed. James pulled her up immediately.

"Sorry!" he said quickly. "That's just how the dance ends. I didn't mean anything by it!"

Lily was catching her breath. "No, that's alright. Just – warn me next time."

"Next time?" James said hopefully.

"Well, I doubt I'm ready to be seen in public yet."

"So that means I didn't screw up too badly?" James said, trying to catch her eye. Lily set to fixing her hair as an excuse to avoid looking at him.

"That makes one of us," she said.

"No, really Lily. You're doing well."

"Sure sure, James," Lily said, rolling her eyes dismissively. There was a pause. Lily glanced at him.

"What, no witty comeback?"

"You just called me James." He looked stunned. Lily's eyes widened. She'd been calling him James in her head all lesson, but that had just been a string of accidents. And now her tongue had slipped.

"We should do secrets," Lily said briskly, changing the subject, "before anyone comes down."

Lily walked away from Potter, sitting in her usual seat and crossing her legs.

"Right," Potter said, joining her but still looking a bit dazed. "Secrets."

"You first," Lily prompted, not in the mood to make herself any more vulnerable just yet.

"Right," Potter said again, looking at his hands. "So, yes, you once asked 'why are you always fiddling with something? Why can't you ever just be still?'"

Lily waited for the answer.

"Well, you remember last week I told you how I'm always a bit… uptight? About… I guess you called it my 'reputation'."

"I remember," Lily said.

"So I guess its just a coping mechanism," Potter said, tapping his fingers together. "I get stressed and I fidget. No real mystery, I suppose."

"Not your best secret," Lily said.

"No," James agreed. "You'll probably win again today. But the last one, the one related to this, was pretty big, so maybe I get some points, there?"

"That's not how it works," Lily said. "And are you letting me win?"

James shrugged, not quite meeting her eye, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

"Now why would I do that?"

"To keep me playing the game," Lily said. "So I keep meeting you here and revealing my secrets and-"

"And you keep getting your Potter-free days?" he finished for her. "Sounds like everyone wins to me."

Lily considered this.

"So, your secret?" James prompted.

Lily sighed. "I'm going to win today. Man, this is a mistake."

"Lily, you can trust me," James said, his face sincere. Lily looked away.

"You don't have any more easy questions, do you?" Lily said softly.

"Things you can tell me to make me leave you alone for the day?" James said. "I don't think so. These are fair trades."

"We did the dancing thing."

"I think we can agree that benefits both of us," James said. Lily sighed. He was right.

"Okay, but you need to wait until the end of my secret. No interrupting."

James nodded, his full attention once again on her. It was a bit like being in a spotlight. Lily steeled herself.

"Well, you once asked, 'why do you stand up for Snape?'"

James stiffened. Lily took a deep breath, looking anywhere but at his face.

"Sev- Snape was the one who first told me I was a witch. He was the one who told me about Hogwarts. It was our secret at first – I didn't even tell my parents until I got my letter. Snape was the one who told me all about this world, who told me I wasn't a freak. And I was a bit of a freak," Lily admitted to her slippers. "I didn't have any friends at school."

"But you're so amazing!" James burst out. Lily frowned at him.

"I said no interrupting." This was hard enough without Potter breaking in every two sentences. Lily hadn't realised how much backstory she'd have to tell to explain it all.

"Sorry," Potter said, looking remorseful.

"Anyway, I was a bit weird," Lily continued, now speaking to the fire in the fireplace. "I always kind of felt magic everywhere. Other people don't get that. And, just, maybe I wanted people to like me too much."

"I get that," James said softly.

"Yeah, the difference is, I grew out of it," Lily said, a bit more sharply than she intended. Then she plunged on. "And Severus helped me – When we came here we were both a bit different. I didn't expect to fit in, so I didn't. Those first few years, we just stuck with each other. Then… I guess I grew up. I found that people weren't avoiding me – I was avoiding them. And he grew up, and sunk deeper into the dark arts. So we just… grew apart."

"That's one word for it," Potter said. Lily scowled.

"Should I stop?"

"No," James said quickly. "Sorry, I promise I'll be silent." He pointed his wand at his throat and said, "Mutus."

Lily giggled a bit at the expression on his face. But her eyes dimmed as she returned to her story.

"When we… stopped being friends," (Lily glanced at James, but he made no attempt to speak), "I lost my best friend – the person who'd known me the longest, before I was a witch, before I was good at something. I'd always liked learning, but I was never really good at anything until I started learning magic."

Lily hesitated. She was revealing far more than she'd meant to. She cut to the end.

"So why do I stick up for him? I guess a part of me will always see him as the little misfit who mirrored me when no one else wanted anything to do with me. We were the same. We were 'safe' to each other. And without him, I felt… adrift. Anyway," Lily said, cutting herself off, "that was a while ago. I guess feelings like that take a while to fade."

James waited a long moment before unmuting himself.

"I'm sorry Lily," he said. "I didn't know any of that."

"No, and nor will anyone else," Lily said severely. "So don't you dare tell anyone." Lily was starting to feel shaky over how much she'd just revealed to James Potter. Even if, during the telling, it had been kind of good to say it out loud.

"Of course not!" James said. "It's our secret." He mimed zipping his lips. "But…" he added hesitantly. "I never realised you were… lonely."

"I'm not," Lily said quickly, disliking the pity in Potter's eyes. "And I wasn't. I had Sev. And now I have Greta. And Alice, and Mary. So don't you dare… feel sorry for me. You asked why I sometimes stick up for Snape. And I gave you my answer. And… a lot besides," Lily said, beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable. "So I win for today."

Lily stood up abruptly. James reached for her hand and Lily stepped backwards out of reach.

"Thank you," James said. "For trusting me with all of that."

"Yeah, well, don't get all gushy," Lily said, avoiding his eye. "I'm getting breakfast."

And with that, Lily strode out of the common room, sighing with relief as she found the corridor outside deserted. What was she thinking, telling Potter all of that? Stuff she didn't even put into words for herself? And what if he told anyone? She'd die of embarrassment.

How had Potter gotten under her skin to the point where she was comfortable talking to him at all, let alone about such deep and personal things? Because she had been comfortable at the time. Comfortable enough to press on through the tricky bits.

Lily leaned against the wall and sighed. She just needed to get a grip on herself, that was all. Potter was asking questions no one else asked, questions Lily had never tried to answer. So maybe there was some sort of psychology thing going on. Nothing more. And Lily would just have to be more careful with her answers from now on. Easy.

Lily walked down to breakfast in a daze.

.

.

Lily was still thinking about her secrets and Potter's dance lesson in Charms. Her concentration was so far off that she turned her ferret blue instead of making it dance.

"Since when do you mess up in Charms?" Greta asked in surprise. "I don't know if I want you to do my hair for the ball after all."

"That's fine," Lily said, "I might be too busy doing my own hair anyway."

Alice squealed in delight. "You're coming to the ball!"

Lily shrugged, hiding a smile at Alice's joy. "I thought I might look in on it."

Alice hugged her. "I'm so pleased."

Greta hugged her too then said, "What changed your mind?"

"I dunno, I guess I was just being silly." Lily didn't quite meet Greta's eye.

"Well, you can just hang out with us," Alice said. "We'll all go together."

"That's if Lily doesn't have a secret date," Greta said, batting her eyelids. "With James Potter."

Lily hit her in the arm. "Potter can go boil his head. I'll be hanging out with my friends."

"Sure sure," Greta said. "And only if Frank Longbottom hasn't asked Alice by then."

Alice blushed. Lily grinned.

"Oh really, Alice?" she said, now delighted herself.

"He hasn't said anything," Alice said quickly. "So don't jinx it."

Greta rolled her eyes. "He's crazy about you. If he doesn't ask you, I'll ask him for you."

"Greta!" Alice said, appalled, "you wouldn't dare!"

"You know she would," Lily said. "Maybe you need to ask him, Alice. It's only four days away."

.

.

- Remus -

Remus had spent some serious time over the weekend trying to solve the coded notes. All he had to show for it were several contradictory suspicions and a headache. He was now sure that Andy was right about there being a key word, but he couldn't see how the numbers and ancient runes fit into it. After painstaking hours, Remus had translated all of the runes, and none of them made any sense together.

Now Remus was heading back to the Room of Requirement. It was finally Tuesday and Emma was back from her Arithmancy Tournament. Remus had seen her at lunch in passing, and his heart had flip-flopped at the sight of her. He was getting a bit worried that the Marauders were right – a date was how these things started.

Still, Remus wasn't missing the opportunity to see Emma after four days. He'd made himself wait until James and Sirius had gone off to quidditch practice then ducked off with the invisibility cloak.

"Remus," Emma said, looking up when he entered. She stood up and waited awkwardly for Remus to claim his usual chair.

"How was the Tournament?" Remus said, wanting to break the awkward silence.

"Oh, good," Emma said, sitting down again as Remus did. "We won."

"Congratulations."

"Thanks. But the competition wasn't too tough, really."

"Still. You must have worked hard."

Emma shrugged but smiled.

"How was America?" Remus continued.

"We didn't get to see anything, really. The Tournament was in Ilvermorny, so, no need to venture out. Or be allowed to."

"Oh. I see."

"How were things here?" Emma asked.

"Much the same," Remus said, trying to think of something more interesting to say.

And they were back to awkward silence, both smiling a bit at the sight of the other, but with nothing to talk about.

"Still lugging that thing about with you?" Emma said, pointing to the cube-shaped bulge in Remus' book bag.

"Oh," Remus said, smiling awkwardly. He'd been carrying the ancient rune codex out of habit now, having decoded everything on Sunday – not that it had done him any good. Remus bit his lip as an idea – not a new idea, but one regularly discarded – came back to him.

"You do Ancient Runes," Remus said slowly to Emma. "And Arithmancy."

"I'm good with security spells too," Emma reminded him with a wink, "in case you're wanting to commit a crime."

Remus chuckled nervously. The Marauders might never forgive him for this. But he was sure Emmeline Vance could keep a secret, and he had no idea how to solve the codes without her. And, just as worryingly, no idea how important their hidden messages might be.

"Maybe not commit a crime," Remus said, "but perhaps brush on the semi-legal."

"Oh," said Emma, leaning forward in her seat eagerly. "Do tell."

"Well," Remus said, hesitating. "This is an absolute secret. You can't tell anyone at all. I shouldn't even be telling you."

"So do as you say, not as you do?" Emma said, amused.

"I'm only asking because I'm stuck," Remus confessed. "I don't know if I'm wasting my time, or if this is important, or what."

Emma was sitting up straight, eyes keen. Somewhat reluctantly, Remus took the two coded notes out of his inner pocket and handed them over. Emma took them, unfolded them, and studied the code with pursed lips.

"Hmmm," she said, eyes scanning the page. "A few clues to start with. The ancient runes here are completely meaningless. Judging by their placement, I'd guess they denote spaces."

"Spaces?"

"Between words," Emma said, not looking up. "And the numbers are placed after every third letter…" Emma took a moment, pointing to each number as she muttered to herself. "Yes," she declared. "They follow the same pattern, even in the second note: repeat. Not very original, but effective at confusing the eye. So we just ignore those entirely."

Remus blinked. How had Emma made so much progress so quickly?

Emma glanced up and saw Remus' stunned expression.

"I read a lot of mysteries," she said. "These are classic tricks when it comes to confusing a simpler code."

"I see."

"Now," Emma said, returning to the notes. "The shorter one holds more clues for us at first. Take the first word, ABC. A common three-letter starting word for a sentence is 'the'. So perhaps A equals T, B equals H and C equals E. ABC is repeated in a longer word further down – ABCPJ. It could be as simple as 'there' or it could be 'theft' or 'theory'…"

"Mmm hmmm," Remus said, amazed.

"That's if the first word even is 'the'," Emma added. "Though it's the first word in the other note, too. So I guess it could be a name."

"True," Remus said, glancing at the longer note.

"Though I feel like this one is a list," Emma said, also looking at the longer note. "It uses a lot fewer runes, so each new line must be a new entry in the list… And, back to the shorter one," Emma said, holding it up to the light, "I noticed that there are two two-letter words half way down – PV and PS. So P is probably A or I or O – for 'at' or 'in' or 'is' or 'on', or 'or' itself. A lot to work with for a short note," she concluded.

"So… you think you can crack the code?" Remus said hopefully.

Emma considered this, tilting her head. "Maybe. I'd say there's a keyword used – you give each letter in that word a letter of the alphabet – so our key word might start wit – but it might not. That might just be there to throw us off. If you'll let me duplicate these," she held up the two codes, "I'll see what I can do and get back to you tomorrow."

"Of course," Remus said, too quickly, excited to finally be getting some answers. Emma nodded and used her wand to duplicate the pages.

"Oh, but…" Remus sighed. "My patrol got swapped from next week to this week. So I won't be here until Thursday."

"Oh," Emma said, looking a bit disappointed herself. Then she re-hitched her smile. "No matter. That gives me more time to work on the codes."

.

.

.

Another copy of the codes, for anyone who wants a crack at using Emma's clues to solve them.

The code Andy stole from the private seventh year Slytherin common room:

ABC0#AFI9TB!1#JII8R

OF!NNP7SDI3J#AI6YCF4

KWR5LHC0DIJ9CV#I1NNP8MC

K2WSO7CIS3V

NI6FLP4DKC5S#NI0JCV9A

VA1EAW8CV

V2CMF7CA#J3IIR6V

.

A copy of the note Sirius stole from Lucius Malfoy:

ABC9#FPD1KHC8#PV#P2S#AB7CPJ3#AIY6CF