James's jaw dropped as he stared at Lily on the platform at Hogsmeade station. "Oh my Merlin, Lily, I'm so sorry!" he said, and before he could think about it, he swooped her up in a hug.

Lily tensed against him. James noticed and, with a swooping feeling of horror at what he had done, started to release her. Before he could withdraw his arms, Lily reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. They held each other tightly. James, unsure what else to do, ran a hand up her back and she pressed her face into his chest. Her hands knotted on the back of his sweater and she began to shake with what James was sure were sobs.

He wanted to comfort her, to tell her everything would be okay, but he couldn't. Everything would not be okay, he knew. Not for a long time. But he tried to pour all of his love, every ounce of his affection for Lily into the embrace. As the two of them stood on the platform with their peers and classmates milling around them toward the carriages, all James could think to say, to whisper into Lily's ear was, "I'm here for you, Lily."

Gradually, Lily's shoulders ceased their quaking and she grew still and quiet. After a long moment, she pulled away from him. Her eyes, he was alarmed to see, looked dead as she looked first to his face and then down at his chest. "I cried all over you again," she observed listlessly.

James barely spared a glance at his tear-stained sweater. "Doesn't matter," he said, unable to keep the concern out of his voice.

Lily didn't seem to notice. She wiped her eyes and looked blankly around the platform for her friends. "I'll see you around, James," she said, still in that dull voice. Then, without meeting his eyes, she turned around and walked toward the carriages. James saw Dorcas and Alice leaning out of one and she climbed into it and shut the door the second before it took off, bumping and rattling toward the castle.

Sirius appeared at James's side, watching the progress of Lily's carriage. "Blimey, mate, what did you do?" he asked.

"Nothing," James muttered, still too alarmed to be offended by the accusation in his friend's voice. "She said her mum died."

There was a pause, and then Sirius swore quietly. "I didn't know she was that sick," he said.

"Neither did I," James said. Lily's carriage was almost out of sight.

Remus and Peter hurried over a second later. "James, we just saw Lily, and she looked…" Peter began.

"What the hell did you say to her, Prongs?" Remus demanded.

"Nothing!" James said, now coming back to himself enough to be annoyed by the implications. "Her mum died!"

Peter gave a small gasp and Remus grew even paler. "Bloody hell," Remus muttered. "Did she say what happened?"

James shook his head. "She didn't say much. I didn't want to ask any questions."

"Mary told me Lily's mum had some Muggle disease that affected her memory. But she said that Lily didn't like to talk about it so she didn't know much more," Sirius said.

James didn't say anything. He didn't confirm or add what he knew about Lily's mother's illness. He was thinking back on his conversation with Lily in the Room of Requirement, his heart sinking further every second as a suspicion formed in his mind. He allowed Sirius and the others to shepherd him into a carriage, but he was silent the entire way up to the castle, and when they reached the Great Hall for dinner, Lily wasn't even there.


Lily skipped dinner and went straight up to her dormitory. Mary, Dorcas, and Alice went with her, though Lily tried to tell them not to. "Really, you don't need to miss dinner on my account," she said, working hard to force some emotion into her voice. She hadn't realized how off she apparently sounded to other people until earlier that day when she met up with her friends on the train and they'd worked out what had happened over the holidays.

All four girls were halfway up the staircase to their dormitory and Dorcas threw out a hand to stop Mary and Alice from following Lily further. "Lily," Dorcas said firmly, and Lily turned to face her from one step above them, trying to arrange an appropriate expression on her face before she did so. "We want to keep you company, but we don't want to force our presence on you. Do you want us to come with you or do you need to be alone?"

Lily thought about that and she thought about the past few days at home. She, Petunia, and their father had been - consciously or unconsciously - avoiding each other ever since the morning they got the call. Lily had spent most of that time alone in her room, not speaking to anyone. She came out only for meals, which were eaten in silence.

She looked from Dorcas's resolved expression to Alice and Mary's concerned ones. In truth, the real reason she had been so eager to come back to Hogwarts right away was to escape that solitude and the oppressive silence in the house that had become a tomb. And she knew she didn't want to be alone.

"You can come with me," she said. Then, when Dorcas still looked unconvinced, she added, "Please come with me. I…I don't want to be by myself."

It should have horrified Lily, the way her voice shook over those last few words, but in a way it was more like relief. She had been trapped in a haze of grief, all other emotions stifled. "Funeral Fog," someone had called it, though she couldn't remember who. And as she looked between her three best friends, she felt for the first time in days the stirring of something other than sadness: gratitude.

Dorcas, strident as ever, lowered her arm and allowed Alice and Mary to follow Lily up the stairs, bring up the rear-guard herself.

Lily threw herself down onto her bed, kicking her shoes over the edge. Mary, who had been carrying Radagast's basket, let the cat out. He immediately jumped onto Lily's bed and began rubbing up against her side. She scratched his ears idly while her roommates settled themselves.

The dormitory grew quiet. Lily knew why; they were waiting for her to say something, to make the first move. And she wasn't sure what she wanted to say. She didn't know whether or not she wanted to talk to them about what happened. And with Dorcas there as a moderator, she knew that they wouldn't dare ask.

Eventually, she looked up, her decision made. All three witches were watching her carefully, thought they looked studiously away when they saw that Lily had noticed their attention.

Lily tried to hitch a smile onto her lips. "So, how were your holidays?" she asked as brightly as she could manage.

The three witches looked at her, their expressions ranging from incredulity to concern - this time, likely for her sanity.

"Dorcas, how did meeting Roger's parents go?" Lily prompted, hoping she would pick up the cue that Lily wanted to talk about other things.

She did. Dorcas's full lips twitched into a knowing smile that was quickly replaced by a genuine one. "It went quite well, actually," she said, then turned to the others and gave them meaningful looks. They tore their eyes away from Lily's face and looked instead at Dorcas. "And his little brother was there too, so I got to meet him as well. Richard, he's called. He's nine."

"And they liked you okay? They were nice?" Alice asked, and Lily let out a breath, relieved that her friends were obliging her by keeping the innocuous conversation going.

"Yes, they were very nice," Dorcas said, leaning back in her bed and resting her head in her arms. "I don't know what I was so nervous about on the train. They're just like Roger. His dad works for the Department of Magical Games and Sports and his mum is the ambassador to Switzerland for the Ministry. They invited me over on Boxing Day and she told me some of the most interesting stories."

"And gave you some really excellent chocolate, I'll bet. Do they bake cookies on Boxing Day?" Lily asked, settling on her bed. Radagast had curled up against her, purring. Dorcas nodded. "Godric, that sounds good right now: chocolate."

Dorcas beamed, apparently satisfied that Lily now sounded properly alive. And Lily did, surprisingly, feel more alive as she settled into the familiar dynamic of their dormitory.

Mary, who had been standing at the mirror tying her hair up in a ponytail, glanced at Lily through the reflection. "You know, I think I will go down and get something to eat," she said. "Maybe meet Sirius too. I'll be back in a bit." She left.

Lily nodded as Mary closed the door behind her; she'd felt guilty for making her friends miss dinner, but at least Mary had decided that Lily's need for distraction weren't greater than her own need for sustenance. Lily turned back to Dorcas. "So you've met the parents and went for a visit. Did you stay with them too?"

"No, it was just for the day," Dorcas answered and grinned mischievously. "But Roger did kiss me."

Alice sat up and gave Dorcas an almost-accusing look. "You didn't tell me that!" she accused, eyebrows furrowed. "You're on your way to being an honest lady!"

The sentiment didn't quite match the tone, but it sounded natural on Alice's tongue, and Dorcas was certainly used to her strident nature and knew better than to take offense. She simply shrugged and launched into another story from her holidays. After about fifteen minutes in which Alice and Lily questioned Dorcas about everything from where Roger lives (Cornwall) to whether he was a good kisser (he was), Mary reappeared.

Lily was about to comment that she couldn't possibly have had time to eat dinner when she saw what her friend was holding: chocolate. A lot of it. "Oh, Mary, you didn't!" she said, touched.

"I did," Mary said simply. She set the heaping tray down on the end of her bed and threw Lily an éclair, which Lily caught before it hit her bedspread. Radagast sniffed at it hopefully and Lily took a large bite. "You said you wanted chocolate, and a quick trip down to the kitchens was the least I could do."

"You know how to get to the kitchens?" Dorcas asked, taking a slice of a chocolate and raspberry tart from the tray.

Mary chuckled. "I've been dating Sirius Black for about eight months; of course I know how to get to the kitchens. Where do you think our second date was? And our third..." She sat down on her bed with a slice of cake and took a bite, not bothering to grab one of the four forks tucked into a napkin on the side of the tray.

Alice, who had stood up to choose an offering herself, asked, "And the house-elves didn't mind you being there? I mean, they were in the middle of the feast, weren't they?"

"They were right chuffed, actually. They love having students visit, the house-elves. And they didn't mind the timing. They were in the middle of getting the puddings ready anyway. I just nicked all this off the prep-line for the Slytherin table."

All four girls chuckled at that. "Those poor Slytherins," Alice said with mock concern. "Whatever will they do without their trifle?" She took a bite of the dish in question and closed her eyes in delight.

"They'll surely starve," Mary replied, matching Alice's tone.

Lily took another bite of her pastry, listening to her friends' conversation with waning interest. But before she could settle too far into the familiar, protective fog, she remembered something. "Alice," she said, and her roommates looked over at her. "Did you ever find out what happened to Frank? He's okay, isn't he?" She felt guilty, suddenly, for being so preoccupied with her own troubles that she'd completely forgotten Alice's.

For the first time, uncertainty flickered in Alice's eyes, but she hitched a smile up after a mere second's delay. "Yes, he's fine. I heard from him the night we got back to London. He was on a mission and got delayed."

Lily frowned. "But when you talked to Hestia she said he wasn't on a mission."

"Well, it, er, wasn't a mission for the aurors. It was…personal," Alice said. Lily thought she was definitely hiding something, but before she could press, Alice put down her now empty bowl and walked back to the tray on the end of Mary's bed to select another dish. "Have you lot thought any more about doing those extra Apparition practice sessions next month? I think I'd like to take my test as soon as I can."

"Do you think you've got the hang of it, then?" Dorcas asked, rolling over onto stomach and propping her chin in her hands. "I still can't manage it without any consistency. I think I'm not properly determined, or desperate, or whatever it is."

Alice nodded to Dorcas, though she sneaked another peek at Lily before answering. "I can't do it every time yet, but we haven't had too many lessons, have we? I think I'll be ready in time for the test in March. What about you, Lil?"

Lily, who had gone back to petting Radagast, wondering what Alice wasn't telling them about Frank, looked up at the mention of her name. "What? Oh, Apparition. Yeah, I think I'll be ready. Twycross said I have 'the most deliberate twirl he's ever seen.'"

Her friends laughed.

"And you're turning seventeen this month, right? So you'll be ready to try for your license in March?" Alice asked.

She nodded. "Yes. And you're seventeen already," she observed. Alice's birthday had been in December. "Dorcas, you won't be seventeen until…April?"

Dorcas nodded. "April the seventh. I'll have to take my test during the summer."

Mary pouted. "You lot are lucky. My birthday isn't until the nineteenth of July!"

"Well, we promise not to leave you out on our grand Apparition adventures this summer," Alice promised. "We'll take you Side-Along if we have to."

"If I'm not too much of a burden, you mean," Mary sniffed, but she was grinning when Lily looked over at her.

Alice rolled her eyes. "You complain now," she said. "But just you watch, you lot are still going to be young and beautiful when I'm old and white-haired. Being the oldest has its detriments too, you know."

Lily grinned as she listened to their banter. This, she thought, was exactly what she needed and exactly why had decided to come back to school. Distraction, normalcy, something to keep her mind off of her loss. She realized with a stab of regret that that may have been exactly why her father and sister had been so resistant to her leaving. Though, she reminded herself, they hadn't spent much time together in the last week, and at this point, Petunia and her dad were probably more used to Lily being away at school than at home.

She was shaken out of her reverie a moment later by the sound of her name once more. "What?" she asked, looking up. She hadn't been paying attention to their conversation.

"I was just saying," Mary went on, "That with Dorcas dating Roger, Alice being practically engaged to Frank, and me being with Sirius, that you're the only single witch left in the dorm. When are you going to go ahead and give Potter a go?"

Lily blanched and turned away. She looked down at her knees and started petting Radagast again. She hadn't had to think about James or her tangled feelings for him in weeks. She'd only remembered everything that had transpired between them an hour earlier when she'd run into him on the platform. She'd known as he held her what he wanted from her, but she didn't know if she had anything to offer him. Her heart was empty. Or maybe it was missing. Or maybe it had died. She didn't know what her heart was doing or how it felt because she had been carefully avoiding listening to it for weeks. Ever since the day she walked into that hospital room and saw her mother's empty, staring eyes.

To her horror, Lily felt tears well in her own eyes. The last thing she saw was her roommates exchanging anxious looks as she nudged Radagast to the side, slid under her covers, and pulled the curtains closed on her bed.


Lily skived off her lessons the next day, and the day after. Her roommates left her alone for the most part. Professor McGonagall came to visit her on Monday night to see how she was doing. The older witch reminded Lily than she was welcome to take as much time away from lessons as she needed, and encouraged her to reach out if she needed anything from the school or if she wanted to go home. Lily told her that she didn't need anything and that she didn't want to go home, and McGonagall didn't press further.

She stayed in bed again on Wednesday morning and didn't go down for breakfast. Dorcas brought up some toast and pumpkin juice after their Potions class and made Lily eat, but then left her alone again in the dormitory a few minutes later to go to Astronomy. Lily didn't mind. She'd known when she decided to go back to school that she wouldn't always have her friends around to babysit her. And though the witches were always willing to draw her out in conversation whenever they could, Lily could only take a few minutes at a time before she lost interest.

Lily spent Thursday morning in her bed again, crying off and on and reading The Journal of Amalia Coding whenever she got bored. But once she got about a quarter of the way into the book, the passages became more directly related to healing, which reminder her too much of those days she had spent in the hospital. She put the Journal down. Not knowing what else to do, she pulled her curtains closed and took a nap.

Some time later, she woke to the sound of a knock at the door. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and peeking through her curtain. Judging by the light streaming through the window, it was sometime in the afternoon. None of her roommates were in the dormitory. "Come in," Lily called sleepily.

The door cracked open. To Lily's great surprise, it was Professor Macdonald's eyes that peered into the room. "Miss Evans?" she asked when her eyes found Lily.

Lily hurriedly sat up, running her fingers through her tangled hair and pushing it behind her ears. She stood up and pulled on her dressing gown, then turned to face her Defense professor. Never, in all her time at Hogwarts, could she remember hearing of any professor who wasn't a Head of House visiting the dormitories, but there Professor Macdonald stood, looking quite comfortable in what, Lily reminder herself, may have once been her own dormitory.

Macdonald looked at her closely, no doubt taking in Lily's eyes, which were red from another crying fit, and her face, haggard from her fitful sleep. She didn't know what the professor saw, but Lily was willing to bet it wasn't good. Professor Macdonald took another step into the room, conjured an armchair with a wave of her wand, and sat down. She motioned for Lily to do the same and she did, sitting on her bed again.

"How are you holding up, Lily?" she asked.

"Fine," Lily said quietly.

Lily could tell that neither of them believed her.

Professor Macdonald watched Lily, studying her carefully in a way that Lily was starting to find familiar. "I was surprised when I heard you came back to school so soon. Most students in your position would take at least a week or two away, probably more."

Lily nodded, not sure what to say to that. "I wanted to come back," she said eventually. Her voice was hoarse from sleep and from crying.

Macdonald gave her a hard, piercing look; the same look she had given her when they met all those months ago after the incident with the boggart. "Do you really want to be here, or are you just trying to get away from your home?" she asked, blunt but not unkind.

Lily nodded, too shocked to try to deny the truth in the older witch's words. She was again thrown off guard by Macdonald's candor. Everyone else, even her father and Petunia, had been dancing around the truth ever since her mother's death, or even before, and it was unbearable. "When I was home, nobody talked about what happened. I knew we were supposed to, and my dad kept telling me and Petunia, my sister, that we could talk to her about everything…but we never did. And he never tried to talk to us. Tuney and I hardly ever talk even at the best of times, and…" She trailed off.

"And have you been talking to anyone here?" Professor Macdonald prompted.

"Yes," Lily said.

"About what happened?"

"No."

"Do you want to?"

Here Lily hesitated, considering. She had appreciated Dorcas's willingness to give her space, to talk only when she wanted to and to keep the conversation on other topics, but in a sense, she felt like she was using it as a crutch. Lily knew she was going to have to open up eventually. Dorcas and the others were just humoring her and they all knew it. It couldn't continue. "Yes," Lily finally decided, and she looked up into Professor Macdonald's clear, sharp eyes. "I want to talk about it."

Macdonald nodded. "Do you have anyone particular in mind to talk to?"

Lily thought about that for another minute. She could talk to her roommates, of course. Dorcas would be a great listener. Alice would make connections that Lily couldn't and would suggest practical advice. Mary would just care so damn much; almost enough to lift the burden from Lily's shoulders and onto her own. Lily briefly considered talking to James about it, but after the way their last conversation about her mother had ended, she didn't think that would do. James, her friends, they wouldn't understand; they had never experienced loss like this. Then Lily recalled something from her first meeting with Professor Macdonald. "You've lost someone, right? Your mentor in America?"

She nodded. "Heather Woods," Macdonald said. "She was an amazing witch and my first boss in the Auror Division of MACUSA. Very talented, very kind. But she knew how to light a fire under someone when they needed it, and I very much needed it when we first met." She chuckled. "Without Heather, I don't think I would have managed to stay in America, to finish training, or to have the career I've had. Heather's motto was: 'if I can do it, you can master it,' She'd had a hard life; she was born into a family of Muggles who rejected for because of what she was. The magical community where she lived wasn't welcoming either. They were suspicious of Muggleborns, they didn't understand where her powers had come from. A few even accused her of stealing them, as though that's possible. Faced with that hostility, she ended up moving across the country under an assumed identity when she was twenty. 'Heather' wasn't her real name, and I never found out what it was." Professor Macdonald stopped, staring unseeingly out the dormitory window. It was several minutes before she looked back at Lily. "Anyway, Heather ended up in New York City, as so many travelers in America do, be they magical or Muggle. There she joined MACUSA, became an auror, and was running the department by the time she was thirty-five. That was about when I arrived. She took me under her wing straight away; I think she identified with me, since I was an outsider in the ranks of new aurors: British, younger than all of the other trainees, since they don't come of age until eighteen in America, and full of the bitterness that only comes from heartbreak at a young age." She smiled to herself and shook her head.

"What happened to her?" Lily asked, and them immediately wished she hadn't. She knew how this story ended. But Professor Macdonald didn't look bothered by the question.

"She died," she said simply. "On a mission. I had been there for eight years, a fully-qualified auror for five. I wasn't assigned to that mission with her, but I was one of the aurors who responded after. It was horrible. I'll never forget it." Again, her eyes held a faraway look, and Lily knew she was thinking back to whatever she witnessed that day.

Lily knew all to well what that was like. "I feel like my mother died twice," she heard herself say, and then clamped her jaws shut in surprise. It was the first time she had spoken the thought, or even articulated it into words, and here she was blabbing to a witch she'd only met four months earlier. But Professor Macdonald didn't look shocked or confused. She just twirled her wand and conjured two familiar mugs out of the air. She caught them both and handed one to Lily. "Now we're getting somewhere," she said with an encouraging smile. She nodded for Lily to continue.

Lily took the mug and held it firmly, letting the warmth seep into her hands. "She'd had…do you know what a stroke is?" she asked, and Macdonald nodded.

"Well, she had one about a week before the holidays began. It wasn't bad, and she recovered. But then she had another one, and it was worse. By the time I reached London, she was…gone. It was like she was just a shell." Lily's throat tightened and tears prickled at her eyes, but she kept going, pausing only to pull a handkerchief out from her bedside table. She didn't know why the words that she hadn't been able to say to her closest friends were so easy to say to her professor, but she let them all spill out like water over a dam, "But we visited every day. My dad made us. I didn't see the point, but of course I couldn't tell him that. He hadn't accepted that she was gone. I'm not…not sure whether my sister had, really. But to me, she had already died, and I was trying to accept that. Visiting, having to pretend that everything was normal, just made it worse. But then, on Christmas…"

Her voice shook more than ever and fresh tears sprang up to make the well-worn path down her cheeks, though she didn't pause her story. "It was like she came back for a moment. She looked at me, she said my name. I tried to talk to her, but I'm not sure how much she heard. It was only for a moment, then she was gone again. She died that night, after we'd gone home. I never told my dad, Petunia, the doctors, or anyone what happened."

She looked down at her mug of coco and took a sip. It was just as good as she remembered.

"Tell me about her," Professor Macdonald said softly, watching Lily intently again.

And Lily did. She told her professor about the way her mum used to throw elaborate tea parties when Lily and Petunia were little; she'd bring out the good china - the set she'd gotten as a wedding gift. She'd have them write invitations for their stuffed animals, and she didn't scold them when they put far too much sugar in their tea. Lily told Professor Macdonald about her mother's songs and jokes, the way she refereed Petunia when she started in on Lily those last few years once they'd found out she was a witch. Se told her how involved her mum tried to be in Lily's schooling when she started Hogwarts, even though she couldn't really understand the material. And she told her about when they'd begun to notice that she was getting sick: the way she'd started to forget recipes that she had known her entire life. The tiny notes her mother left for herself around the house and even had to keep in her purse after a while. The way she fumbled over her friends' names when she met them around town, and eventually, her own family's names. Lily hadn't been there for most of it, but she noticed it whenever she was home. The changes in her mother's behavior, the changes in the way her father and Petunia looked at her. First there was concern, then stiffening resolve as he worked up the courage to acknowledge the growing problem. She was first diagnosed the summer between Lily's third and fourth year at Hogwarts. The doctors told them that the decline would be gradual at first, and then there would likely be a sudden drop-off. But he couldn't tell them when it would be. He'd said it might not be for another ten years, or it might be only two or three.

Professor Macdonald didn't speak a word as Lily spoke. She didn't interrupt whenever Lily dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, which she did several times before she was finished. Even after Lily grew silent, her teacher didn't speak; she allowed the silence to grow, and Lily took the empty time to think and to remember.

Neither of them broke the silence for several minutes, and for that Lily was grateful. She was just about to ask Professor Macdonald another question when the door opened. Mary and Alice came in, complaining loudly about their Herbology homework. They froze a couple of steps into the room as they saw Professor Macdonald.

"Oh! Hi Auntie— er, Professor Macdonald," Mary amended hastily.

"We're not in class, Mary, 'Auntie Diana' will do just fine," Macdonald said, smiling. "I hardly think it will corrupt Lily and Alice to start disrespecting my authority. Maybe refrain around some of the Slytherins, though."

All four of them smirked at that.

Alice was shooting Lily an inquisitive look, and Professor Macdonald noticed and said, "I was just taking a few minutes to talk to Lily about what we've been working on in class."

Lily knew the professor was trying to cover, to keep Lily from having to have a conversation with her friends that she might not be ready for, but Lily suddenly knew that she was ready. "And we were talking about my mum," she said with more conviction than she'd been able to feel or fake in weeks. Professor Macdonald glanced back at her but didn't say anything. Alice and Mary exchanged surprised looks. Before she could add anything else, however, Dorcas arrived. She too stopped in the doorway when she saw the Defense professor.

Professor Macdonald stood up and vanished her chair and the now-empty mugs. "If you'll excuse me, ladies, I have a lesson to prepare for. I'm covering hinkypunks with the third years."

"Good luck," Dorcas said, shuddering. She'd hated studying magical creatures.

Macdonald smiled and nodded at the younger witches, then slipped out the door.


Lily went down to breakfast the next morning with her roommates. The three witches kept close to Lily and glared at the students as they whispered to each other when they saw Lily. But Lily didn't mind the whispering. She'd known that rumors would fly around the school during those three days she'd spent cloistered in her dormitory. Her friends kept most of it at bay; nobody approached Lily or tried to bother her. Nobody asked her questions of even tried to strike up a conversation. Nobody, except…

"Walk away, Potter," Alice warned as they reached the Gryffindor table. "You don't have business with anyone here."

James, who had leaped up from his seat and practically ran toward them when he saw Lily come into the hall, stopped five paces away. His eyes sought Lily's but Alice moved to stand between them.

Lily chuckled, noting benignly that it was the first time she'd done so since the train ride to London. "It's alright, Alice," she said. "I can stand to talk to James."

Alice glanced over her shoulder at Lily, but was apparently relieved to see her smiling. She stepped to the side. "Sorry," she said. "Force of habit."

Lily winked and nodded at her. "I'll be fine, really. You lot can go sit. I'll find you before I leave."

She felt fine as her friends left and took seats at the table. She felt confident as she turned back to James, who was watching her warily. She had prepared for this, her next conversation with James, and she knew what she needed to do. "I'm fine, James," she said before he could even open his mouth to speak.

He blinked. "You're fine?" he repeated her, skeptical.

"Yes, James, fine," Lily emphasized. "I don't want to talk about what happened and I don't want to talk about me. I actually want to talk about you."

"Me?" James repeated, sounding even more confused.

"You," Lily confirmed. "Specifically, I want to thank you for everything you've done for me the past few months. I think we've had a lot of good talks that we haven't been able to have before. And I'm grateful for that." She put a hand on his shoulder. "It really means a lot to me to know that I have such a great friend like you."

Author's Note: Hopefully this will give you a few minutes of entertainment during your quarantines. Happy social-distancing, everyone!