Lily sat In the Common Room that night, separated from the others through choice and through necessity. She had spread her books out over a table in the corner of the room to give the impression that she really needed to work, and was simply busy, but she honestly thought that if she had to be in close proximity to another human being, she would break something, possibly an arm.

The isolation gave her time to think, and to sort out her muddled up brain. She had agreed to scope out James for Iris. She couldn't do that tonight anyway, because he was at Quidditch practice.

She had to get through three essays and a labelled sketch of a Snarfang Bush for the start of next week. She could do a bit of those but wasn't it better to wait until her brain wasn't so incredibly scattered? She would only be doing herself a disservice to work on the essays while in such a distracted state of mind.

The only other thing weighing on her mind was The Plan, which she felt had grown to deserve capital letters. By extension, her disagreement with James was on her mind, because she really wanted him on board.

Although, thinking about it, why did she need anyone else?

Sneaking about was surely best done solo, without someone to have to whisper instructions to. She would be quieter, quicker and more subtle alone.

Mary was out on the Quidditch pitch with the team so she didn't have her usual worry about her safety. This seemed like the perfect night for a trial run. There was no way of knowing whether the Slytherins were out, never mind whether they were about to attack anyone, but it might be good to simply ease into it, that way, by the time she was doing the actual following, she would be more prepared.

Once Lily Evans had made up her mind about something, there were very few things capable of stopping her. She stood up, gathered all her books and started to sort them into a pile.

"Is that you done for the night?" Sirius called over, and when she looked, she was everyone else in the group was looking at him threateningly. Obviously there had been some kind of agreement to let her stew for a bit, and Sirius had gone against it.

She nodded tiredly, not making any eye contact and without a word she headed up to the dormitory, grabbed her cloak and, patting her side to check for a wand, she left the room.

She strode purposefully across the room, not even glancing over at where her friends were gathered.

"Where are you going, Lily?" Jac asked, with a kind of weary irritation in her tone.

This was no time for the truth, she reasoned, comforting herself with the fact that consummate liar like herself would take a long time to convert fully to honesty.

"Out… One of the Ravenclaw prefects asked me to swap patrols."

Remus probably knew that wasn't true, you had to tell the Head Boy or Girl about all swaps and there was supposed to be a big procedure, but he said nothing. Whether he believed her, or just knew she desperately wanted out, she couldn't tell but she was, in that moment, very grateful for his silence.

This had been a bad idea.

It was thirty minutes since she had left the Common Room, and she was cold and grumpy, her legs were cramping from crouching behind this stupid statue for so long, and she hadn't so much as heard one person walking by. She had made her way down through the castle, feeling so full of hope and purpose, but that had quickly faded and now, here she was, stalking Slytherins. It was not one of her highest points in life. She was in the tunnel that connected the Entrance Hall to the door that led to the Dungeons, where she was fairly sure the Slytherin common room was. She had waited her so many times for Severus, sometimes she would come running down the stairs before breakfast to find him, and would wait right in this tunnel. Severus had told her not to come any further down. She used to think that it was because people from other Houses couldn't go there, as if there was some magical barrier that would bounce her back. Despite her general curiosity and her excitement about all things magical, she had never tested if there was such a barrier. She had believed in Severus, and never set a foot across the threshold.

From her perch, she could see the edge of the Entrance Hall, and she couldn't deny that a part of her wanted to head out the door and go to the Quidditch pitch. Not to see James obviously, but this cold, damp place and the thought of her only company being Slytherins made her long for the warmth and camaraderie of her own house.

She lasted about an hour longer before she reached the point of giving up. It wasn't even curfew, though only a few minutes off, when she unfolded her legs and climbed out from behind the statue, wincing at the soreness of her muscles. It was right at that moment, as if they had timed it around her willpower, that she heard, for the first time in ages, a group of people, marked out by the sound of their footsteps and the light of their wand. They were only seconds away, rounding the corner just as Lily squeezed herself back into the shadows of the statue. They walked slowly, their voices just loud enough to hear their conversation, and confirm their identity.

"…going to be about a week, I think, before the colour fades."

"Well, his parents are up to see him, aren't they?"

"No, they're coming tomorrow I think. I don't see why, myself, it's not as if he's ill, it's just a bit of Potion backfire."

"Just because your mother wouldn't cut a holiday short if you'd lost a limb, Avery, is no reason to-"

"Oh, shut up!" The voice belonging to Avery snapped. Lily could tell that the voice that had spoken right before Avery was Severus, and there were at least two more of the voices, but she couldn't have put faces to them, not without looking, and looking was out of the question.

"Alright, touchy subject!" an unidentified voice interjected. "Let's get on. Mulciber thinks he's the bloody team leader and I'll be damned if I'm going to let him claim all the credit." The footsteps sped up. They were almost at Lily's hiding place and she was beginning to doubt its security. She was basically pinned down, and couldn't even reach her wand.

This was what all that rash Gryffindor bravery got you, charging headfirst into situations that were probably going to end with some brutal attack when she was found.

Her fatalistic panic was cut short when the topic turned to another Gryffindor, the last one she wanted to hear about at that moment.

"Was it Potter?" Avery asked.

"I don't have any proof." Severus answered, which that usual tone that suggested he both knew ten times more than he was saying, and suspected you knew ten times less.

"Yes, but did you see it?"

"I saw what happened, yes."

"Then, can't you tell Slughorn?"

She could almost feel the scathing look that she knew Severus would be giving Avery right now.

"We're not infants, this isn't a game, and we're not playing 'Let's-Get-Potter-Into-Trouble'. We have… more important goals. We have higher targets."

"I still think you ought to tell someone. It's a serious thing, Mulciber could have died if the fire had caught… he could get expelled."

"And what good would that do? Potter is a schoolboy, caught up with games of Quidditch and transfiguration homework, he's going to leave soon and realise that being Dumbledore's pet doesn't do you much good in the real world. I don't intend to help him with that realisation."

"So you're protecting him? Aw, gone soft, Snape? What did he promise you that you can have Evans on the weekends?"

There was a scuffle and Lily desperately wanted to jump out while they were arguing and hex them all. Reminding herself that she had a long-term plan, she stayed, and tried to hear the low murmur that Severus' voice had become.

"Don't you dare, haven't I proven-" He stopped himself, taking a breath. When he spoke again, it was in a cold, emotionless voice. Lily knew from experience that this was the voice he used when he was full of emotion. He had always had this odd ability to shut off emotion, where Lily generally had to shout to get it out.

"Potter is insignificant; I don't want distractions of some schoolboy trying to get even with me for telling the teacher on him… He's clever, you'd be a fool not to admit it, and he could cause us a lot of problems IF HE figures out the plan. If we succeed, he'll be doubly against us, and if we can keep him quiet until it's too late, more's the better. By keeping him here and unpunished, we keep him quiet. And that can only be a good thing."

It looked like she wasn't the only one with a plan.

"Well, what about the Mudblood?"

Ah, she had known they would get round to her eventually. It was always lovely to be thought of.

"What about her?"" Severus asked with an edge in his voice that hadn't even been there when he was talking about Potter. Had she really sunk so low in his estimations? Reminding herself not to care, she almost held her breath as they passed her spot, their slow march resuming.

"She's clever, for a Mudblood. What if she figures it out?"

"She won't."

"Why? I know she's all caught up in Potter but she might notice her friend s-"

"Shut up!" another voice snapped, and Lily heard the rumbling of another group, further away in the entrance hall.

She could probably have guessed by the hissing whispers that passed among the group who was passing by, but it was made doubly clear by the loud laughter and discussion going on.

"Cheer up James!"

"Yeah, it was only first practice… and no one died!"

"I think we were alright!"

Then, a pause, and James answered in an exasperated moan.

"You fell off your bloody broom…TWICE!"

The gales of laughter that came from the rest of the team carried them up the stairs and soon Lily was left in the silence of the Slytherins. Only moments later, with Lily trying to ignore the shooting pain in her squashed foot, did they finally move on and was Lily free to start truly thinking about what she had heard.

She waited a few minutes more, letting a few harried Seventh year Slytherins pass her, obviously having been kicked out of the library. She didn't really want to explain her circumstances to anyone and thought that it would probably just be better to wait for it to quieten down.

Once it had, she stumbled out of the space that had begun to feel like a prison, a tiny, oddly-shaped prison. Then, without waiting, she ran for the entrance hall and the stairs up to safety. This turned out to have been another bad idea, as her feet didn't appreciate the rude awakening and refused to cooperate. She was dragging herself through the castle, hoping it would wear off before she reached the Tower, when she realised that someone was standing, utterly frozen, at the end of the corridor. Her first reaction was to go for her wand, but she saw that it was a girl so small she could only have been a first year and took pity.

"Are you okay?"

The girl said nothing and Lily approached, walking slowly as if she were dealing with a frightened rabbit caught in a trap.

"It's okay. Are you lost?"

The girl nodded, and her eyes filled with tears. Lily just wanted to hug the girl, but sensed that the action might scare her more, she knelt down and spoke to her quietly.

"It's okay, everyone gets lost sometimes. I got lost yesterday, ended up in a cupboard full of singing teapots."

The girl giggled weakly and rubbed at her face with one hand. Her tie was yellow so she knew that the girl was a Hufflepuff.

"Are you trying to get to your Common Room?"

"I-I" The girl spoke in the sort of high-pitched, shaking vice that people tend to use immediately before bursting into tears. "My brother sent me a letter, and asked me to come and v-v-visit him. He said it's important, and our mum's sick and I'm scared he m-might have s-some bad news!" The end was barely audible, but Lily's heart still went out to the girl.

"What house is your brother in?"

"Ravenclaw."

"Right, c'mon! I can't get into the Ravenclaw common room, because I'm a Gryffindor, but there's a Ravenclaw prefect on patrol tonight, why don't we go down and find them, I know where they'll be and they can help you get there?"

"You're not going to give m-me a – detention?" she whispered, her eyes growing round.

"Nah, we've all done it, just don't make a habit of it… and don't tell anyone you got away with it, right?"

She had a feeling that the next day, the Hufflepuff first years would be gathered round this girl in awe as she recounted the gripping tale, but Lily didn't quite have the heart to do anything to stop it.

The girl introduced herself, through hiccupping, as Jenny Jones, and Lily introduced herself back. By the time, they had found the prefect on patrol, who had been sitting in an alcove reading and occasionally sending bursts of light from their wand to light up the corridor, Jenny was looking at Lily like she was the Queen.

She explained to the Ravenclaw, who huffed a bit, then set off down the corridor with Jenny. As they rounded the corner, Jenny looked back and Lily gave her a little wave,

She had gotten caught sneaking out in first year, and it had been the old caretaker, Mr Zeller who had found her, and it had been horrible enough to make Lily never want to be the sort of prefect that might strike fear into people's hearts the way Mr Zeller had terrified Lily.

That incident had actually been part of a bet, which she was pleased to say she had won. Melinda Davies, a Hufflepuff who had moved to Canada with her parents in their third year, had been so mean to Lily, and bet her she wouldn't go out after curfew. This had wounded Lily greatly and had led to her, against Severus' strongest advice, heading out in the cold night air and turning up at the agreed meeting point, the Hufflepuff Common Room, by the kitchens with a smug smile and a demand for the sickle she was owed. It had been on her return that she had been caught, and though Melinda later tried to say that getting caught meant she hadn't done it properly, no one could have wrestled that sickle from Lily's hand. So, even if Jenny hadn't had what sounded like a fairly genuine reason for being out, Lily would have let her go. She understood the strong-headed pride that came from breaking a rule, even if she didn't quite revel in it like some others did.

Despite the fact that it was after curfew, the Common Room was still buzzing with energy when Lily finally returned. There was a wavering moment when she entered when she thought about heading straight to her room, nose in the air, but she couldn't really be bothered holding the same level of indignation towards James as she used to. She had thought he had changed, but throwing things in to the cauldrons of people who said mean things about you was the kind of completely immature stuff she had expected of pre-friend James.

She was disappointed, and reminded, though she forced it away, of the boy who she used to now, the bully who tormented her best friend and would do anything to have a crowd gather around him.

She didn't like thinking that she was friends with someone like that.

She was just tired of it.

It was with that same weary sense of upset that she made her way through the various clusters of tables and chairs, to where James and the majority of the Gryffindor Quidditch team had settled, around the others who didn't seem to have moved since she had left.

"How was practise?" she asked Mary, who was lying, looking as physically tired as Lily felt emotionally.

"Fine… tiring… terrible."

"Well, you can't say that you don't have range!"

"It was just… a typical first practise back… everyone's a bit rusty, too much food, and too few hours being tormented by James…" She wrinkled her nose at James and stuck out her tongue. He was watching and smiled apologetically at Mary, his eyes darting warily to Lily.

"Yeah, I heard. Who fell off their broom twice?"

Sirius laughed and James pointed at one of the other players, who looked a little abashed, but vaguely proud as well.

"How did you know about that?"

"I have my sources."

"Seriously" James asked. "Were you at the practise?"

"No, I was crouching behind a statue near the Entrance Hall." She had wanted their help with The Plan, and it would always be helpful to have someone knowing where she was, in case she was murdered and they tried to hide her body. Between her tone and the ridiculousness of the idea, everyone simply laughed, and, after a few moments more, most of the Quidditch players headed off to their dormitories, two of them being enlisted to carry a worn-out Mary up the stairs.

She was left, fortunately, with the exact group of people that she wanted to involve in her Plan.

Jac and Karen were perhaps less well-versed in the secret corridors and navigation of the castle, but they were her friends and she didn't want to leave them out. Besides that, if it came down to a duel, Jac and Karen would probably be invaluable. She smiled weakly, a sort of apology for being a bit mental earlier, and was reminded of something that one of the voices had said.

"…she's all wrapped up in Potter, but what if she notices her friend a-"

Who were they talking about, and what was there to notice?

She was particularly worried for Karen. She didn't like to stereotype all Slytherins as Death Eaters, and she was sure Marcus wasn't one of them, but the fact remained that she was half-blood daring to date a pureblood. Jac's family were closer to blood traitor status, but they were all purebloods, and she was somehow getting the vague idea that blood was important to these people.

Deciding that it was best to speak first, she took a deep breath.

"How did you know about the Quidditch practise?" James asked just as she had been working up an appropriately dazzling opening line of her appeal.

"I already told you. Statue, just off the entrance Hall." She said flippantly, really hoping to get back to her topic of choice.

"Fine… be like that!" he huffed and she saw him roll his eyes a little.

"What? I'm telling you the truth. Remember I told you earlier, by the Lake…" she paused, completely unable to remember if she actually had told him about the Plan. She couldn't remember at what point he had charged up the hill. It was, she thought, probably best to simply start from the beginning and make sure they were all clear.

It really was a wonderful feeling, telling the truth. Lily wondered why more people didn't do it. When she had finished, getting around to the 'hiding-in-the-hallway' thing, she looked at James.

"See, I actually did hear you. You sounded a bit fed up, and they were all trying to console you."

"Why didn't you come and get me?"

"Well, there were four or five Slytherins in between me and the Entrance Hall, so I thought popping off for a chat might undermine the secretive portion of the strategy."

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the questions started.

"What? Are you okay?"

"Did they hurt you?

"Who was it?"

"No, I was hiding, they were just standing in the corridor, talking, and they didn't know I was there, so I didn't want to ruin it. I was perfectly safe and not at all beaten up or hexed."

They all looked a bit doubtful. Then, Peter spoke up.

"What were they talking about?"

"Well, they have some kind of plan, too, but probably less benign than mine. I imagine it includes less statue-crouching too." She paused, aware that she sounded at best a little paranoid. "They were talking about Mulciber and how Severus knew it was you that did it, and he…" she didn't really want to say the next bit.

"He… what?"

"He stopped them from retaliating. Avery kept saying that they sound at least tell Slughorn on you, but he wouldn't."

The silence that fell was punctured by a frustrated James.

"I didn't do anything to Mulciber's sodding cauldron!"

Lily didn't know why he was denying it. If it had been a year ago, she would have thought that he was denying it because she had reacted with anything other than starry-eyed admiration and he was trying to cover it up. But then, a year ago, James wouldn't have denied it. In fact, even if he hadn't done it, he would have crowed about how he'd buy whoever did it a box of chocolates. So why was he denying it now?

Putting that fraught issue from her mind, she focussed back in on what had been said by the Slytherins.

"He said that you were better off not being punished, because then you'd just ignore them, which is what they want. He seemed to think that if you were punished, you'd go after them as revenge? Strange…" she gave James a faux-bemused look, and continued.

"And then Avery asked if he was getting soft because he was protecting you, and asked if you'd-" she stopped, flushing bright red as she remembered that this was where her name had entered the conversation, in a very personal way. "…Umm… if you'd made a deal with him, or something… and then they asked about me, and what if I figured it out, what if I noticed one of my friends… and then they stopped talking because of you lot coming back from the pitch…" She trailed off. "Oh yeah, and they said…" She really wasn't sure if this bit ought to be shared.

"They said that if they succeeded, in whatever their plan was, you'd hate them twice as much."