Lily seemed to pick up on occlumency much better than her future son. She did not have an affinity for it, but she was receptive to his teaching, which was promising.

He would brew her a headache relief potion for next time since she had resorted to a muggle pain reliever once they were finished.

Severus left the Evans' household an hour before supper would be ready. Lily wanted to join him, so they walked the short distance back to his home slowly. He glared at the Cambry children still at the playground, not that they noticed.

"Oi, Snape!"

Severus ignored the boy and he and Lily continued chatting without missing a step.

"Snape!" He hollered again, this time much closer and approaching fast.

Severus sighed and stopped, the young man nearly crashing into him.

"What do you want, Bauers?" Lily said with a frown.

"You-" He breathed heavily, pointing at Severus, "you saw it-it too. You should come with-with us."

"I'm not interested in going 'monster hunting' with a bunch of idiots." Severus said.

"Is he talking about that b-...thing?" Asked Lily.

Severus nodded once.

"Come on man, whatever you did scared it away. We need you." Bauers pleaded.

Severus rolled his eyes and continued walking home. "No, you need a psychiatrist."

The boy made an indignant sound. "Coward! Even Desiree is coming back out into the woods with us to make sure nobody else gets hurt from that thing!"

"It's a prank! You are all making fools of yourselves. And if it somehow is a real monster, you deserve to be killed by it for your own idiocy."

"That's why we want you to come with us! You stopped it before!"

Severus had a retort on his lips but Lily spoke first. "We should go with them, Sev."

He turned to her in surprise. "What? Earlier you didn't want to go anywhere near the woods."

"Yeah, but if they're already going...And there will be a whole group of us, so it should be fine. Besides, you were the one who wanted to go out there. May as well have some extra help finding what's been killing those creatures."

What was this? Lily suddenly remembered she was a Gryffindor? Well, there were people to 'protect' now. She knew he had the boggart so they would be looking for the 'other monster.' Worst case scenario, they could leave a muggle as a snack while they escaped...Lily would not be okay with that, they would basically be protecting these idiots.

Severus sighed in defeat. He still could not tell her no. "My mother is going to be cross."

"Yeah, my parents won't be too happy either." Lily concluded.

She and Severus followed Gary Bauers to his friends at the edge of the woods.

Armed with sporting equipment was six more teenagers. Desiree Hoover and Andrew Cambry, as well as Kim Gibbons and of course Jethro Park who was surprised to see Severus. There was also a set of twins Severus did not recognize.

"Right then, you saw the thing last?" Andrew Cambry accused Severus.

"That's what everyone keeps telling me." He replied.

"Which way did it go once you scared it off? Back towards that sha-"

A twin cut him off with a smack to the arm.

"It didn't go a direction, it disappeared like it was never there." Severus answered, unconcerned with their secrecy.

"It had to go somewhere!" Exclaimed Desiree Hoover.

"It was a prank, a distraction maybe. But someone did kill those creatures out here. Treat the situation like the murders they were, and the evidence should lead us to the real killer."

"It's been nearly a month since the killings, there's nothing left to follow but the nightmare." Said Park.

"Where were the bodies found?" Pressed Lily.

"Nearly on the other side of the woods." Kim Gibbons answered.

"Then that is where I will be heading. You lot can do as you please. I'm going to find the real culprit, not some fake evidence." Severus stated.

"Hold up!" Cambry bellowed over everyone as they started arguing. "Before we get ahead of ourselves, there's enough of us to go in groups of three. We should split up to cover the most ground."

There were murmurs of agreement amongst them.

"I'm going with Lance and Hugh." Hoover blurted.

That must be the twins.

"I'm going to the campsite and shack." Stated Park.

"Me too." Said Bauers. "I'm not convinced it was just an illusion."

"I'm going with Snape." Said Gibbons.

Gary Bauers looked offended. "You should come with us, Kimmy."

"Perhaps she's too smart to go with you, Bauers." Severus retorted.

"I should probably go with Park and Bauers." Lily said.

Severus frowned. "If you must…" She was clearly only going with them to make sure they didn't find any real trouble. Bloody Gryffindor.

"That leaves me with, Snape and Kim." Cambry finished. "Right then, let us be off."