This chapter has absolutely nothing to do with leprechauns, or the color green. Feel free to hunt me down and pinch me for the oversight. Enjoy.

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There was a ghastly smell filling her nose, but Lily quickly found she had trouble moving in any direction, let alone away from it. There was movement all around her, her companions all coughing away a fair bit of dust as well as that foul odor mingling with it, but then her skin began to crawl and real panic lit in her core as she saw an eighth person. There were only eight of them, there shouldn't be an extra person moving when she was stuck!

It was vaguely human-shaped, and the smell was reeking right from it as it passed along between them all. Not attacking, at least nobody was screaming, but not helping either. Just gliding along with an odd rattling noise and befouling their senses.

Lily finally managed to wrench a hand free, and found it came out of a pants leg. A quick lumos spell had her eyes dazzling in the tiny space, and the illumination wasn't much better than it smelled.

She was in a large trunk filled to the brim with clothes no decent person would ever consider wearing with as much lace it contained. Potter was a few feet to her side, his glasses askew and at a very awkward angle as he found himself tangled up in old bed sheets. Alice and Frank were helping each other to their feet while picking glass out of their hands, they seemed to have landed in an ancient old display of cups and plates and broken the majority of them. Lupin and Sirius Black were in the farthest back corner where old pipes were visible and trying their best to get free without breaking one loose, while Pettigrew and Regulus Black had knocked over an old dresser, scattering the entire room in photographs, the bright fluorescent Weasley hair in all ages the brightest thing here. It was the ghoul that still held all attention though.

The skin seemed to be dripping right off of it, leaving foul puddles of the stuff over everything, including them now. There was one half of a dead rat clenched in one hand, and a chunk of the poor rodent in the gap in its teeth. The eyes were unintelligent though, and Lily easily recalled her lessons on ghouls at once. Harmless, household pests.

"Someone kill me now," the attic, it must be where they were, was too small for Lupin's voice not to carry. "I can't live with this stench while waiting for the next catastrophe in that book." He'd finally gotten his ankle twisted painfully enough he could extract his torso out of the pipes and crawl free.

"Cheer up Moony," Sirius Black returned cheerfully, as he had to very awkwardly and carefully dance on his toes to avoid the pipe between his legs while following him out. "Sure the place smells, but we're not back at Grimmauld! That's more of an improvement than we've yet had with this bloody book of Harry's."

"I'll take your bedroom over this place," his voice came out a bit muffled now as he spoke while plugging up his nose, eyes racking longingly over every surface for a chance at fresh air.

"Blasphemy," his friend scolded, while now scouring every inch of the place himself to find said book it seemed.

Everyone was now doing so in earnest, it wasn't just the werewolf who wanted away from this puke-inducing area. It seemed to have hidden itself away well this time though, and in exasperation Lily took another rank breath first to say the accio spell.

At first Lily just saw movement, the book being darker than the shadows shooting right up from behind the chest she'd been in nearly made her scream in fright before it landed in her hand. She frowned down at the ruddy thing, it just had to be black didn't it? You could barely see the violet five flickering by her wand light.

"Like a hand Evans?" Potter was at her shoulder and drawing his wand even as he spoke.

She frowned at him, but chose not to answer, he'd do as he would with or without her approval, as she cracked it open and flipped through the blank pages until she came across where the new chapter began. "The Woes of Mrs. Weasley."

"The woman has seven kids, I'd imagine her woes would fill a dozen books," Alice frowned in sympathy.

"Eight if you count Harry," Sirius Black added in, causing both her and Frank to startle a bit. It wasn't a large attic and there would be no whispered conversations here.

The ghoul suddenly seemed like the good news.

Harry wasn't the only one shocked at Dumbledore's strange behaviour, and that was really something given his start-of-term speeches. Lily couldn't imagine why he hadn't so much as looked at Harry during the trial, let alone completely dismissed his existence immediately after it.

"Well, he did ignore Arthur too, does that make it better?" Potter was apparently going to be reading over her shoulder while hefting his wand for light, and she scowled down at the pages. She'd rather go blind trying to read in the dark, couldn't Alice come over and offer to take his place?

'Well, better him than a Malfoy,' she supposed. It wasn't a generous trade, but as he loomed over her at least she wasn't afraid of him. Lucius hanging around in the Ministry however, after what he'd done to Harry, and off to have a private chat with the Minister over obvious bribery and gold! It was despicable how casually the Minister was cavorting!

Harry at least got a party out of the ordeal, the amount of those could probably be counted on one hand as festivities at Grimmauld Place were thrown for Harry's freedom from that looming problem.

"The best party that house has ever hosted!" Sirius Black cheered, even pumping his fist before it banged against the ceiling and he shook his fingers out.

Regulus couldn't help but agree with his brother's sentiment, mother's parties were always dreadfully dull. Hearing of the Weasley twins' and Ginny's dance really did sound amusing and he was half surprised the Marauder idiots weren't trying to recreate it here.

Such rabble wasn't to last though, as none of the Marauders seemed in the spirit for it. Even if they had reached a general plateau of not avoiding each other, they didn't yet seem up to going to the feat of interacting much either. Regulus wasn't going to complain about that, as Peter tugged on his sleeve and showed him a hilarious picture of who must be a young Charlie Weasley in a dragon onesie.

Sirius and Remus actually shuffled even further away from each other uncomfortably, as it was Hermione who reacted to seeing Harry's scar start to pain him, the whole of the Weasleys who were looking after Harry. Why was it was always Harry's friends, another family entirely instead of the one Harry should have, who had been mentioned in that house, and still didn't seem to be going out of their way to even watch him like Prongs would want? It was no wonder even this disgusting-smelling attic felt more comfortable to be in than Grimmauld Place, it's not like Harry had anyone there looking out for him apparently.

James finally looked away from the light making Evans's hair a waterfall of red and instead looked once more to Sirius in concern as he shut himself away in that house, with only his hippogriff for company. No Moony skulking around the place, apparently, to talk to him? Certainly no him or Wormtail to try cheering him up in there.

Sirius Black wasn't the most approachable bloke, Lily could certainly agree with that and didn't blame Harry one bit for sharing his feelings with his friends rather than his godfather, but she found herself peeking at Potter out of the corner of her eye and suddenly wishing that would change as he kept shuffling about, making the light move with him, eyeing his mate with clear worry.

Sirius was the only connection to this idiot Harry would ever have, and she certainly would have at least tried to help her boy with that if she had any feelings for either idiot herself. What the hell was she supposed to do though, make friends with Potter and Black for Harry's sake? That would be going with the operation of this future existing, something she was still not convinced would come to pass, not if she had anything to say about it.

So Potter wasn't as big a tosser as she always thought, he was at least a human idiotic teenager rather than the biggest waste of space to exist. That didn't mean she'd marry the bugger and have this kid and these would be her problems.

Lily was quite glad she was the one reading as Hermione attacked Sirius personally for his sanity once more, she kept calm and read in an even, refrained voice, not giving a hint away one way or the other how she felt about it. Certainly none of the boys present could have managed the same, as they'd all made their opinion on that quite clear. Yes, she'd rather wondered about it all herself only two books ago back when he'd supposedly been a mass murderer, but well, just because he hadn't done that crime didn't mean he was all there in the head either. Growing up in that house, it would be a miracle if he was all there, and now he was forced into it twenty-four seven while having to listen to the Order bring in reports? She may have gone a touch mad herself.

Alice smiled privately, still far enough away from Potter's light and standing half behind Frank no one saw or even seemed to notice the development. The boys were all being quite vocal about how sane Sirius Black was to be keeping himself right where he was by choice, obviously a madman wouldn't be able to rationalize that, even Frank and Regulus Black couldn't argue that. Lily wasn't doing as good a job as she thought she was keeping her indifference out of her tone.

The mood was so sour as she plowed through she nearly read right over the development of Ron and Hermione being made Prefects. Then she stopped and backpedaled to smile at just how, human, Harry's reaction to it all was.

Lily would guiltily admit before now she'd had trouble separating the two Potters but that was forever ruined by his chastising himself for his slightly petty thoughts, and even genuinely congratulating Ron whom didn't think he deserved it himself.

James Potter only reinforced the difference as he puffed up his chest behind her, knocking into her shoulder as he shouted loud enough for all of the hills beyond to hear. "Course Harry didn't get that badge, no son of mine would be caught dead with such a thing!"

"Just his friends, it fits rather well," Lupin drawled with an eye roll. He had not been wearing his own when all of this started, and honestly Lily forgot he was one half the time, he never made a fuss about it, certainly not regarding his friends.

James Potter flashed him a grin and Lily quickly brought the book up to her nose to hide her smile at the exchange, damn her. When had watching the idiot go from infuriating to laughable?

At least practically everyone important to the story all in that kitchen came as good distraction for everyone as yet another party was being thrown there. Why couldn't they have appeared during that? With food and a pleasant banner rather than the ghoul finishing off the rat, the tail now stuck between its teeth.

Alice felt a flash of white-hot anger as Mad-Eye Moody appeared and gave Harry the opposite of a treat, no matter what that old auror said. Showing him a picture of her and Frank, his own parents, all the dead from his past all at once. Every single person in that photo was either dead, or probably wishing they were for the torments they went through. It was quite the mood killer.

James Potter had been hovering over her shoulder for so long now, she'd almost been able to completely ignore he was there, until he reached over and yanked the book out of her hands in shock. "What blasphemy is this! Moony, you stop telling lies to my kid!"

"What? What do I say?" Lupin asked curiously, but Lily reached over and snagged the book back with a frown at him.

"Mind your manners Potter, or you'll find yourself sitting on that ghoul's lap until we're free of here." She promised. His mouth was still hanging open in shock as she read the news that Lupin had been a prefect, but James Potter had been made Head Boy, and then stopped herself, wondering who had gone mad in that school to allow such a thing.*

"That was mentioned ages ago you dimwits," Regulus Black scoffed at all the shocked faces. "Hagrid mentioned it the very first time he met Harry, you're the Head Girl Evans."

"How do you remember that?" Sirius dragged his eyes away from James to frown at his odd little brother. Admittedly, they'd been rather distracted at the time just adjusting to all this insanity and not everything had stuck.

"I pay attention," he shot back with an eye roll, causing Peter to snicker quietly. He'd been about to say the same thing as Regulus.

"Well, well what I said still stands," Potter finally brushed off his surprise and smiled invitingly at his crush once more. "Head Boy is far more of a responsible job than a ruddy old Prefect. What do you say Evans, shall we practice those long, alone hours patrolling the school when we get back? Just so we've got plenty of practice."

Lily gave him a withering look and took several steps away, out of arm's reach once more as she pleasantly went back to ignoring him.

James sighed but respected that, he'd been silently dancing in his head she'd allowed him so close this whole time and decided not to press his luck as he raised his wand even higher aloft so she could still see.

The party began dwindling down though, and everyone snapped back to attention with worry when Harry followed Molly out as if up to bed early. Her 'woes' hadn't exactly been made prominent through this exposition chapter, so some heartfelt talk was likely about to crop up instead.

What instead transpired was far more ghastly than even the ghoul could manage. Her worst fears of watching her family die in front of her, one right after the other, even Harry.

Nobody had any smart-aleck remarks for that, each of them had already lost something to this war in their own time, and these books had long proved they'd have even more to lose. Professor Lupin and the godfather swooped in to the rescue by banishing the boggart, but the damage was long done to them.

Lily read Harry's final thoughts with a kinship to everyone in this room. Voldemort had to be stopped before any more families were destroyed.

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I'm really proud of how this chapter works out metaphorically as well as literally. The chapter's mostly about the Weasley's, hence the location of where they store all their things, but also Harry feels really separated from everyone even in the midst of them, he might as well be up in the attic during the party.

*This actually isn't mentioned in the chapter, but I didn't react to it back when it was, so lets pretend Remus slipped that in yeah?