Lily stood in front of Professor McGonagall's desk, hands balled into fists at her side. Albus and Harper were with her, only because they had refused to let her enter the room alone.
"Miss Potter," McGonagall said. She was sitting on the other side of her desk, her long fingers tapping against the pile of parchment set in front of her. "I would like you to know that I do not believe you killed these people."
Lily blinked. "You don't?" Behind her, Albus sighed in relief.
"No." McGonagall opened one of her desk drawers and pulled out a small leather pouch. "The reason some of my colleagues, including a few Auror investigators from the Ministry, believe that you did is because of this."
Lily took the pouch from the Headmistress and tipped the contents out into her palm. It was a single hair scrunchie, striped in rainbow colors. A few pieces of red hair were tangled around it, and the edge was stained with blood.
"It was found at the site of the most recent murder. Katherine Walsh," McGonagall said softly.
Lily had to resist the urge to throw the scrunchie back in McGonagall's face. "And the Ministry is blaming me because… I'm the only redhead they can think of?"
"Actually, one of your classmates verified that the scrunchie was yours," McGonagall said. "He arrived while Aurors were cleaning up. Mr. Jackson Goldstein."
Lily shook her head. "I mean, it is mine," she admitted. "But I haven't seen it in weeks. I thought I'd lost it somewhere. Is there any chance it's been… wherever they found it, this whole time?"
"They found it next to Miss Walsh's body, in an alcove on the fourth floor," McGonagall said. "Given the lack of other evidence, the Ministry has allowed you to remain here at Hogwarts for the time being- on the conditions that you do not leave the school grounds, and I place a tracking spell on you."
"That's ridiculous." Albus stepped forward, resting his hand on Lily's shoulder. "Professor-"
"It's fine, Al." Lily shook her head and moved away from her brother.
Albus shook his head. "But Dad-"
"If it weren't for your father, Miss Potter would be looking at detainment in Azkaban," McGonagall said. "This was the compromise."
Lily caught her brother's eye and shook her head. Albus clenched his fists at his sides, but stopped protesting.
Professor McGonagall stepped out from behind her desk and waved her wand over Lily's head, murmuring a spell. Lily felt something cold and heavy settle over her shoulders.
"You may go," McGonagall said. "Do not leave the school grounds, or attempt to break curfew."
Lily nodded and followed Albus and Harper out of the office.
o-o-o-o-o
Half an hour later, Albus was still ranting. Lily was perched on the back of one of the sofas in the Slytherin Common Room. She had been uncharacteristically quiet ever since they had left McGonagall's office, and she was staring off into the corner of the room while Albus paced back and forth in front of her.
Eventually, Scorpius pushed himself off the couch and stepped in front of Albus as he turned around. Scorpius caught at his hands, and whispered something in his ear. Albus leaned his head against his boyfriend's shoulder.
Harper was sitting in an armchair nearby, writing a letter to her brother. She looked up and caught Lily's eye. "Please tell me you're not thinking about doing something stupid."
Lily shook her head. "Sorry, what?"
"She is," Albus said, lifting his head from Scorpius' shoulder. "I recognize that look."
"It's not stupid," Lily protested.
o-o-o-o-o
That night, Lily sat in the Gryffindor Common Room, scribbling away in a Muggle notebook.
"Lily?"
Lily slammed the cover of the book shut and turned around. Psyche Greengrass stood at the base of the girl's staircase, wearing a nightgown and bunny-rabbit slippers. The tops of her cheekbones here flushed red. "What are you still doing up?"
Lily tucked her notebook under her arm and stood. "Writing."
"Oh." Psyche nodded. "I just wanted to make sure you were all right."
Lily smiled at her friend. "I'm fine."
"Okay." Psyche turned around and climbed back up the girl's staircase. Lily waited until she was gone before darting across the Common Room to the wooden door set in between the girl's and boy's stairs.
She knocked as softly as possible. No one answered.
Lily reached for the knob, but it flared up in a burst of light and heat. She yanked her hand back, cursing under her breath.
The door swung open. Kenzie stood on the threshold. "What could you possibly need at this hour?"
Lily smiled angelically. "If I asked you really nicely…"
"No." Kenzie started to close the door, then caught sight of the look on Lily's face and sighed. "Fine."
Lily grinned and handed her friend a page torn from the Muggle notebook, covered in book titles. Kenzie crossed the Common Room and slipped out through the portrait hole.
Lily spent the rest of the night in the armchair, reading, and the next morning, she fell asleep at the breakfast table, her hair draped across Hugo's plate of eggs.
o-o-o-o-o
The next afternoon, Lily lingered in the Potions classroom after everyone else had left. She dragged her cauldron back out into the middle of the room, and poked her wand underneath it to light a fire.
"Lily, please tell me this isn't what it looks like."
Lily met Hugo's eyes as he entered the room. She shrugged. "I don't know. What does it look like?"
"It looks like you're trying to break McGonagall's tracking spell," Hugo said. "Can't you just leave it? Let the Aurors figure this out."
"Sorry," Lily said. "No can do."
Hugo ran his hand through his hair and dropped his bag next to the door. "I really can't talk you out of this?"
Lily didn't dignify that with a response.
"Okay then. What do you need?"
o-o-o-o-o
Lily ladled some of the potion into a spare flask, wrinkling her nose at the stench. It smelled like something had died in a dumpster.
"Here goes nothing," she said, and chugged it. A brief flare of light glowed over her skin, and she threw up into the cauldron.
"You good?" Hugo asked anxiously. Lily nodded and waved him away. "Did it work?"
"We'll find out." Lily wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Tonight."
o-o-o-o-o
Lily sat cross-legged on her bed, scribbling away in her notebook. On the other side of the room, Psyche was pacing back and forth. She was pale, Lily noticed, and her eyes were rimmed in red.
"Psyche?" Lily asked. "Are you sick?"
Psyche glanced up and shook her head. Her lips were pressed firmly together.
"Okay." Lily went back to writing, but she kept watching Psyche over the top of the pages. Psyche paced for another few minutes, then left the room. Lily listened for her footsteps on the stairs, but heard nothing.
She got up and opened the door. Psyche was gone.
Lily moved back to her bed and started throwing her writing supplies back into her trunk. She tucked her wand into her robes, and tied her long hair back.
Albus was leaning against the wall at the bottom of the girl's staircase. He handed her his schoolbag as she emerged.
"Are you sure you don't want my help?" he asked.
"No. Now get out of here, people are staring." Lily led the way back to the portrait hole.
"You hang out in the Slytherin Common Room all the time," Albus pointed out. "And don't I get a thank you, at least? It was a lot of work, convincing James to hand that over." He gestured to the schoolbag.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Thanks, Al. Now shoo."
Albus patted her shoulder lightly on his way out of the Common Room.
o-o-o-o-o
That night, Lily met Hugo and Kenzie in the dorm room.
"Where's Jackie?" Lily asked.
"Not coming. He said he didn't want to mess it up- I think he still feels bad about ratting you out to those Aurors."
"And Psyche never came back from dinner. I think she's in the infirmary." Lily fished the Marauders' Map out of her brother's schoolbag and touched her wand to it. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
The school unfolded over the paper, and Lily and Hugo bent over it. "Ready, Zi?"
Kenzie nodded. The three of them left through the portrait hole, Lily stopping only to tug out her father's old invisibility cloak and throw it over herself and Hugo.
Kenzie picked a direction and started walking, Lily and Hugo close behind. Eventually, Kenzie picked up the pace, leaving the other two to follow from a distance.
"Do we really think this will work?" Hugo asked. "What kind of extreme luck would it take-" He froze.
Lily scanned the Marauder's Map in a panic.
"Sorry, sorry." Hugo pointed out a dot on the map, labeled Psyche Greengrass. "It's just Psyche."
Lily nodded. Psyche was just around the corner from Kenzie, and Lily scanned the rest of the Map quickly, looking for any other movement. Outside of the Common Rooms and one or two patrolling teachers, the school was quiet.
A bad feeling twisted in her gut. "Wait-"
Up ahead, Kenzie screamed.
o-o-o-o-o
Lily dropped both the Map and the Invisibility Cloak and sprinted around the corner, pulling her wand out from under her robes. Moonlight spilled into the corridor through one of the high, arched windows. The silver glow illuminated Kenzie, standing in the center of the hall, and Psyche, who had her face buried in Kenzie's neck.
Suddenly, Lily understood.
She pointed her wand at Psyche and cried the first spell that came into her head. "Stupefy!"
The spell hit Psyche square in the face, but instead of collapsing, she released Kenzie and reeled back, absorbing the bulk of the spell.
Hugo cast the spell again, but it only glanced off her shoulder, sending her careening into the wall. She covered her face with her hands and cowered there. Lily moved to check on Kenzie, while Hugo kept up the barrage of spells.
Kenzie was breathing. There were two tiny dots, practically freckles, on the side of Kenzie's neck- Lily wouldn't have noticed them at all, if not for the two tracks of smeared blood against Kenzie's skin.
Against the wall, Psyche hissed and flew forward, moving past Hugo's spells. She froze in front of him, and glanced around at the three of them. Her face twisted in horror.
"I didn't know it was Kenzie," she said softly.
"That doesn't make it any better!" Lily pointed her wand at Psyche's heart as she stood up. "Hugo. Get McGonagall."
Hugo cast a worried look at Kenzie.
"Kenzie's fine."
Hugo nodded and disappeared into the shadows at the end of the corridor.
Psyche wrapped her arms around herself. Her pale blonde hair- the same color as Scorpius'- fell in front of her face. "I'm sorry, Lily."
Lily shook her head. "You killed people."
"I didn't want too!" Psyche was wringing her hands in front of her now. "I'm a vampire!"
Everything made a sick kind of sense now, Lily thought. The way Psyche's family moved around, the way her cheeks had flushed after the last murder, how pale she'd been earlier- even the hair scrunchie.
"Did you drop the scrunchie I lent you to frame me," Lily asked, keeping the tremor out of her voice, "or was that an accident, too?"
"It fell out of my hair," Psyche admitted. "I couldn't go back for it."
Lily tipped her head to the side. "You never learned to control your thirst, did you?"
Psyche shook her head. "Please, Lily," she whispered. "This will kill my parents."
Lily's wand hand wavered. Psyche had been her friend all year- they had walked to class together, eaten lunch together, done homework in the library and snuck down to the kitchens for midnight snacks.
And Psyche had killed people.
Lily lowered her hand.
"Go," she said.
Psyche stared at her.
"I'm serious," Lily said. "I'm going to tell them what you did. You've got maybe ten minutes to get out of Hogwarts. Don't go home, get out of the country if you can, and please learn some self-control."
Psyche nodded and turned to run.
"Psyche?" Lily called.
Psyche stopped at the end of the corridor and looked back.
Lily smiled. "Do me a favor and Stun me, please."
o-o-o-o-o
Lily woke up in the infirmary. There was sunlight splashed across her white blanket, and it was making her vision swim painfully. She groaned.
Someone dragged the curtains shut and pressed the edge of a glass to Lily's lips. She swallowed the potion without complaint. The world's edges firmed up a little, and Lily sat up, leaning back against the headboard.
Professor McGonagall was standing at the end of the bed. Next to her was Lily's father.
"Hugo told us what happened, Miss Potter," McGonagall said. "I never would have guessed…" She cleared her throat. "What you three did was irresponsible, reckless, beyond stupid, and admittedly exactly the sort of behavior I came to expect from your father during his time at school. And it doesn't hold a candle to what your brother and Mr. Malfoy did three years ago. Fifty points will be awarded to Gryffindor."
Lily shook her head. "Um… thank you, Professor."
A rare smile curled the corners of McGonagall's mouth. "I must say, Miss Potter. I remember looking in on a few of your Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons over the years. You are quite the accomplished dueler. It must have been terrible luck, Miss Greengrass managing to land a direct hit with a Stunning Spell."
Lily nodded in agreement. Professor McGonagall turned and swept out of the infirmary, leaving Lily alone with her father.
Harry smiled down at his daughter, but Lily could see the lines around his mouth and eyes. He'd been worried.
"Kenzie is all right," Harry said. "Albus and the others have been waiting outside the infirmary since this morning. Should I tell them it's alright to come in?"
Lily tilted her head to the side, and immediately regretted it. "You're not going to lecture me?"
Harry shook his head slowly. "No. When I was…" he sighed. "Thirteen, I think, I made a similar choice. It saved your aunt and uncle's lived in the end. And mine." Harry took Lily's hand. "You did the right thing."
o-o-o-o-o
Harry let Lily's friends into the infirmary, and Lily caught them all up on what had happened, keeping her voice low in case anyone was listening.
"Wow," Hugo said. "You could have given me a heads-up, you know. I was worried sick."
"Me too," Albus said. "Was the Stunning really necessary, Lil?"
"It would have looked weird otherwise," Lily said. "Don't say anything about this to anyone, alright?"
"Of course not," Scorpius said, and the others all agreed.
"Do you think you'll ever see her again?" Jackie asked. He was sitting near Lily, looking apologetic, but he kept glancing over at Kenzie's bed.
Lily thought about it, then shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "I think Psyche is long gone. But I guess you never know."
o-o-o-o-o
Psyche stood on the front steps of a hotel in New York, watching the traffic and listening to the pulses in the necks of pedestrians.
It would be so easy, she thought, to get the few pieces of clothing she'd picked up, disappear into the city streets, and hunt the way she had for the past ten years. No one in America was looking for her.
Yet.
Psyche remembered Lily, standing in the Hogwarts corridor, telling her to run and learn some self-control. She remembered how it had felt, when she had realized that she had almost killed one of the only friends she'd ever had.
Psyche turned around and climbed the stairs. She lingered for a moment at the door, counting the heartbeats in the street behind her.
Then she went inside.