The school feast was delicious, as usual, but Lily was too busy being nervous and wondering if she was the only one that had seen Remus to notice anything else. It was quickly time for bed, and Lily wandered to her dormitory, surprisingly drowsy and not yet sleepy. She tried to go to sleep, but around one in the morning she gave up, threw on the cloak Serverus had given her, and drifted back downstairs into the common room.
She stopped in the shadow of the girls' dormitory stairway. The common room was already occupied, and Lily knew that the occupants wouldn't stick at performing several hundred Memory Charms on her if they discovered her.
"Did you get into Pince's library?"
Sirius shook his head. "The darned owl seals it every night. I couldn't."
"Don't you know how to pick locks?"
"I tried Alohomora, but that didn't work."
James rolled his eyes. "You idiot. We're going to have to go back again. And to think I trusted you."
"Wh—why?"
"You can pick the messed up lock the Muggle way even if Pince seals it. We need that book."
"So? I mean, does it have to be tonight?"
"Uh—well—if we want to do this anytime soon, yeah."
"Oh, all right. Changing subject now."
"What for?" James looked puzzled.
"Curiosity is a dangerous thing to have if it's in my hands. What did you and Lily say to each other after I left?"
"Me and who?"
"Lily."
"I've never spoken to her in my life."
"Liar."
"Oh, fine, all right—Sirius, I just don't want Serena to find out that I—"
"That you what?"
Lily pricked her ears, straining to hear every whispered bit.
"Erm—that I—"
"James, you chicken, no one's awake but us. That you what?"
James broke. "Sirius, this is going to sound terribly odd. I—"
"It probably is. Then again, I'm talking to you, so it won't be out of the ordinary."
"Shut up. See—the problem is—you know I like Serena, right?"
"Obvious, my dear Watson, quite obvious."
"And it's not exactly uncommon knowledge that Lily and Serena hate each other. Don't bother to respond to that one. And see—"
"You've said the word 'see' too many times."
"Only twice. But still—don't you see what I'm trying to say?"
"Thrice."
"Is that a no or a yes?"
"It's a 'quite frankly, I haven't the faintest idea.'"
"Oh." James frowned. "I stink at explaining."
"You stink, period."
"I do not!"
"Oh, calm down. What about Lily?"
James clenched his fists, looked about the common room, then turned back to Sirius, satisfied that they were alone.
"Sirius, she's an awesome person. She's brilliant and funny and nice to be around when she isn't mad—the only problem is, she's terribly ugly and has the worst smart mouth ever. And I've been thinking—if you combined Serena's looks and Lily's good side of her personality, they'd make the perfect girl—but the problem is—What?"
Sirius had been trying for some minutes to keep from laughing, and he finally burst out into a series of snorts. When he calmed down, he was still smirking broadly.
"James, this is getting stupid. You're only a third year, for Tommy the Basset Hound's sake. Stop this whole girl nonsense."
"Tommy the Basset Hound?"
"It's more original than 'for Pete's sake'. Come on, forget those two. You'll have plenty enough time for all that mess in a few years."
James sighed. "Oh, all right. But at least tell me how I'm to get both of them to be my friends at the same time."
"Impossible. And you're wrong."
"Huh? Wrong about what?"
"Remember when you were listing Lily's faults? Trust me, if she tried, she'd be beating the guys here off with a rawhide whip."
James raised his eyebrows. "Uh-huh. Right. I'm going to bed." He stood up, tucked the book he had been reading under his arm, and headed for the dormitory stairs.
"James, you idiot!"
James turned around. "What?"
"That's the girls' dormitory!"
"Huh?" James looked about him, then blushed a deep red. "Oops. Forgot."
"Forgot what? If you can forget that easily that you don't belong in the girls' dormitory, we need to have a talk."
"Talk?"
"James, either you're the most absent-minded idiot I've ever encountered or there are some things you haven't told me about."
"Sirius, shut up."

When both of them had left the common room, Lily curled up in the largest armchair there was, pulled out The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas from underneath the cushion and flipped to D'Artagnan's first encounter with the Cardinal's guards. Absorbed in the fight, she didn't notice a foot step right in front of her; a foot minus a person. She only looked up when the foot spoke.
"Lil?"
"Huh? I mean—hey! James, Remus or Sirius?"
The foot frowned. "Where did you pull those names from?"
She shrugged. "Number one, you've got access to just about the only Invisibility Cloak I know of; two, Peter's too scared to get out of bed because of the vitriol-throwers and ax-murderers we have wandering around Hogwarts."
"We do?"
"Oh, and I forget those ghosts that'll as soon kill you as look at you. Peter's wise to stay in bed."
"He's just a wuss. Lil, I need to talk to you."
"Who are you?"
"That's beside the point. I—"
"No, it's not. I might be spilling deep and dark secrets to the very person I want to hide them from. Take the cloak off, James Potter."
Looking rather sheepish, James emerged, balling the cloak up and sitting on it. He looked over at Lily and was surprised to see her trying to hold in peals of laughter.
"What? Did my hair just turn green or something?"
"James." Lily was having a hard time keeping a three-fourths straight face. "Look down."
James did so.
"Not at your feet, idiot."
"What—where—"
"The end of your spine."
James looked down again, then looked up at Lily, rolling his eyes. "Shut up."
"Stop sitting on that cloak. It really does make you look like you have no butt."
Glaring playfully, he pulled the silvery thing out from underneath him and turned to Lily. "Lil?"
"What?"
"Don't try to lie—you heard what I was telling Sirius?"
"When?"
"About an hour ago. You were standing in the dorm hallway."
"And you saw me when you 'accidentally' tried to go up there."
"Stop! It was an accident!"
"Uh-huh, yeah, sure, right."
"You don't believe me?"
"I believe you're speaking the truth just as I believe that you're going to ask me to hook you up with Professor Dumbledore."
"Oh."
"You were really going to ask me that?"
"WHAT?"
"Never mind. What did you want to say?"
"Oh—that. Well, I saw you on the landing, so I know you heard what I said."
"I did. Don't fool yourself by thinking I was hurt; I know what you said about me is true."
He stared at her as if in a new light. "Lily, you're not mad?"
"No."
"Any other girl would have torn my eyes out for that."
"I'm not that vain. And I recognize truth when I hear it."
"Well—did you hear what Sirius said?"
"I did, and I think he needs glasses."
At that, James laughed loudly, throwing his head back and making several people upstairs stir. "Lily, you're really something, you know that?"
"Something as in an Orc or an electrocuted phoenix?"
"Oh, forget that, won't you?"
"I have a very retentive memory."
"I noticed."
"Well. Back to the point. What did you want to tell me?"
He nodded, seemingly in a state of indecision, then squared his shoulders. "Lil, I need to tell you something."
"Shoot. I'm ready when you are."
"I'm not going to be an idiot and throw you over simply because of someone else. You've been a better friend to Remus than probably anyone else could have been, you know, last year, and I was stupid to forget how you stood by him."
"Do you want me to comment?"
"No. Let me finish."
"Go on." She settled herself in the armchair and draped the black cloak comfortably about her shoulders.
"I don't want to lose you as a friend. I think you're the best person I can talk to in this whole stinking school, and I'd be honored if thou wouldst condescend to the level of considering me as thy friend."
"Stop the medieval language. All right. But I warn you, you taught me some good jinxes and I haven't forgotten how to use them."
"I invented a new one over Easter break."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Lemme get my wand; it's a nifty little spell."
In the morning, Eva found Lily and James joking around in the common room, with Lily practicing the jinx James had just taught her and accepting a piece of gum he'd just offered. Frowning slightly, she pulled her friend to one side.
"Lily?"

"Morning!"
Eva frowned. "You're in a good mood. Listen, I need to ask you something."
"OK; go ahead."
"Not here," Eva hissed. She tugged at Lily's sleeve till Lily finally followed her out of the portrait hole and into an empty classroom.
"What?"
"It's about that Potter kid."
"James? Yeah, what about him?"
"Lily, you're on pretty good terms with him now, aren't you?"
"Uh-huh. So?" She blew a large bubble and snapped it loudly.
"Well, wasn't he rude and mean as can be earlier this year?"
"Well—yeah, but he said he was sorry."
Eva shook her head. "Lily, this is going too far. Do you know how many times he's acted this way and you've forgiven him?"
"Um—I haven't been counting. Don't tell me you have."
"I have, and out of respect for your pride, I won't mention the number. Lily, this is ridiculous. Why on earth are you still his friend?"
"I—I don't know." Lily looked down at her robes. "I just can't really stay mad at him for long."
"You need to. Guys like him use girls like you, and he's done a pretty thorough job so far. This needs to stop."
Lily bit her lip for a minute, then nodded her head shortly.
"All right. I'll try to stop."
"Try? Hon, you're going to do."
"All right then. I'll stop."
"Atta girl. All right then, that lecture's over. Go back in there and have fun being mean."
They both smiled at each other wickedly as they left the classroom.
As they went down to breakfast, Eva broke the comfortable silence.
"Lily, you do know that I wasn't trying to be mean to James back there, don't you? I just want you to be, well, you know, I just don't want you to get hurt again. You do understand, don't you?"
Lily stared. "Of course I understand! I just realized when you were talking to me back there what an idiot I was being. I'm far too easy on him and I don't plan to do that any more in future."
"Well, just what do you plan to do?"
"Nothing, really. I'm not going to be mean to him, but I don't plan to be friendly. That good?"
"Sounds safe—but, Lily, I don't want to be responsible if you two develop another fight."
"You're not responsible; I am, and I'll sign a contract to that effect if I have to."
"Don't bother. We're still friends?"
"We never haven't been."
"True."
With that, both of them slipped into their seats and dug into pancakes with maple syrup.
James was a bit puzzled, true, when Lily greeted him with her former coolness, but he was relieved when Serena walked in and didn't find him talking to Lily. Lily noted this out of the corner of a narrowed eye, and thought to herself that Eva was right; he was an inconstant fool.
Their classes passed easily, and Lily won twenty points for Gryffindor when she described the effects of the Catnip Bush on people. By the end of Charms, the last period for that day, there was a notice posted in the Great Hall, which several people were gathered around.

SPECIAL COURSE OFFERED

For third years and above, there will be the choice of Anatomy of Magical Creatures offered, beginning next year. This course will only be offered for four years, as the teacher shall be leaving us at the end of that time period. If you wish to sign up for this course, please see your Head of House. The deadline is the Friday before exams.

Sincerely,

Professor M. McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House

Lily's eyes opened wide. They dilated along with her pupils and started to sparkle. Eva noticed that look.
"You're signing up?"
"What do you take me for? Of course!"
"You do know you're going to be dissecting creatures, don't you?"
"Precisely my reason for signing up."
"All right." Privately, Eva thought; anything to get her mind off of James.
Lily never wasted a moment. She immediately went to the Transfiguration room and caught Professor McGonagall as she was tidying up papers on her desk. Fifteen minutes later, Lily walked out of the room with an extremely satisfied smile on her face.
Exams came all to quickly, but this year Lily only put three days of moderate studying into her schedule. When they got their marks back, Eva was ready to hit Lily, along with the rest of the third years, when they found out that Lily had gotten the highest marks in their year. Lily herself was a bit miffed to find that her average was only two points higher than James', but she nevertheless was excited enough to participate fully in the large party James and Sirius threw for the Gryffindors as an end-of-exams celebration. She could tell they had been to Hogsmeade by the large amounts of butterbeer and Honeydukes candy, but she kept her mouth shut.
It was boiling inside the castle, so everyone was delighted when the Hogwarts Express came to transport the students to King's Cross. Quickly, the train was packed and the engine heading south, bearing in its vitals a fair amount of noisy explosions and sparks issuing from Exploding Snap games. Everyone was taking advantage of the few hours they had before they would have to stop using magic, and the air was filled with laughter and bangs. Lily had joined in, though in Serverus' compartment. He had just asked her something she was considering seriously, and she had a mischievous spark in her eyes.

"Really?"
"Yeah; Lucius and I wanted to do that last year, but then they went over to someone else's place and the effect would have been ruined. This year works, though."
"There's only one problem there."
"What?"
"Do you have a sister or female cousin?"
"Er—no, why?"
"Can't go. My dad'd throw a fit."
"Oh, come on, we'll work around that. Say yes, please!"
"Er—I'm not sure. It would be a nice bit of excitement…I don't know." She shook her head. "I'm not sure."
"Well, in case you say yes, Lucius' mansion can hold seventy guests."
"Really? That many guest rooms? His ancestors must have liked throwing parties…Serverus, I'd love to, but there's the whole parent consent thing."
He waved that off. "Don't worry. I'll handle that. You'll do it?"
"Have I ever shirked from something that promises excitement or danger?"
"No, and sometimes I wish you would; you'll get killed if you keep that up."
"To die would be an awfully great adventure."
"Peter Pan."
"Exactly."
She smiled and opened her trunk, pulling out a set of Gobstones. Serverus' eyes lit up and he scooted some of his things on the floor over, giving them about a square yard of space to play on.
The train stopped before Lily was aware that two hours had passed, and they climbed onto the noisy platform. Just before she left to go through the barrier, Serverus slipped a note into her hand, with a whispered, "Read it when you're alone."
No one was at the Muggle station to meet her when the train pulled up and Lily walked through the barrier, and they had no Muggle money so they couldn't use a phone. Serverus waited around with her for about a half hour, then persuaded Lily to come to his place temporarily.
"It's only for about an hour, till my parents can figure out what's wrong here. And it can't hurt anyone."
Lily was indecisive. "I'm not sure. What if they arrive just as we leave?"
"You can say that till Doomsday comes. And, besides, do you really want to stay out here with an owl, a Hogwarts trunk, and all kinds of that stuff? The Muggle please-men'd arrest you for insanity."
Lily half-smiled. "Policemen. All right. But are you sure your parents'd be all right with my coming over?"
He shrugged. "It's not exactly my parents; more like Lucius'. But it's almost the same thing. They're still inside the barrier. Coming?"
Lily sighed and turned her trolley towards the barrier. "All right. But if my parents murder me for this, you're paying the medical bills."
"What's the point? You'd be dead already. And remember, the only thing to do with someone who's all dead is to go through her clothes for loose change."
"You start going through my clothes, Serverus Snape, and you'll wish you'd never seen me."
"All right. Come on--Lucius' waiting up there."
They wheeled their trolleys onto Platform nine and three-quarters to meet their friends' parents.
"Lily!"
He was speaking in a whisper.
"What?"
"Voice down! Don't, by any means, tell his parents that you're Muggle-born!"
"Why not?"
"Just don't!"
Walking over to Lucius' family, Lily analyzed them silently.
"Mr Malfoy--tall, same white-blond hair as his son...looks nice enough, not a person I'd want to cross." She smiled as she shook his outstretched hand.
"So this is Lucius' little friend? We've heard a lot about you. And you're welcome to stay with us as long as you want."
Lucius took her arm. "Lily, this is my mother." He turned her towards a beautiful lady, with long, ash-blonde hair, and pink cheeks that were not reflected on either her husband's or son's faces. She also smiled welcomingly.
"Lily? Welcome, dear. Your parents didn't turn up? Oh, dear...well, we'll have to contact them as best we can...well, until we do, dear, you'll be staying with us." She gave Lily an extra squeeze, smiled again, and took her husband's arm.
"Dear, I need to get home. Dahlia's hosting her party tonight and I promised to help with the decorations. We'll leave now." Mildly bossy, she pulled the group, which included Severus, away towards the barrier.
They got home quickly, using Floo powder at a nearby restaurant. When Lily found herself in the entrance hall of the Malfoy's mansion, she didn't know quite what to say.
The beautiful, grand stone walls were covered with dark green silk drapes and family portraits framed in ebony notched with silver. The winding stairways that led up to other rooms were ebony also; silver vines entwined the hansdomely carved banisters. The carpet was dark green velvet, and the candelabras hanging from the ceiling, the walls, and placed on the sideboards were silver snakes with emeralds placed as eyes. James would have been shocked to see this place and would have left. Lily felt right at home.
Lucius took her arm.
"C'mon. I'm showing you your room. This way." He led her up the right-hand curving stairway and stopped at the second landing.
This landing opened into a large hallway, with green velvet covering the floor and different designs notched in silver on the doors, framing the sides. Three doors away from the large window at the end of the hall, Lucius stopped and handed Lily her trunk. He pulled a door to his left open and pulled the trunk inside.
"This is your room...I'd say better no unpack till we're sure that you're gonna be staying here, but you can go ahead and take off the sweater." He left and closed the door quietly, leaving Lily to stare about her new residence.

It somehow reminded her of her Hogwarts dormitory; circular, with a four-poster across from the door and an large window. It was much more grand than anything at Hogwarts, though, much more greener and more silver; much darker than the school had been. Lily's eyes sparkled mischievously.
Lily grinned widely as she saw the beautiful view from the window; several handsome hedges shaped to form a sort of maze in snake-form. The lawns were darker than was usual, and they were bordered by a neatly kept sort of forest; not as dark or as dangerous as the Forbidden one at Hogwarts, but nevertheless a forest. Lily bit her bottom lip in excitement, closed the large window she had been staring out of, and threw open her trunk.
Sick and tired of the Hogwarts robes, she searched for something fitting for the warm but not hot atmosphere of the mansion. Wrinkling her nose, she found that the only things the house-elves had washed were the bluejeans and green shirt Eva had made her put on over the Easter holidays. Shaking her head and fumbling around for some darker, clean things, she finally had to resort to those clothes. Just as she was tying her hair back in a braid, Severus knocked at the door.
"Lily?"
"Hum? That is–who is it?"
Severus pushed the door open. "It's me. You all right?"
"Sure–why shouldn't I be?"
"No reason." He shut the door and moved into the room, sitting next to the gangly form on the bed. "Lily?"
"Mmm?" She had given up on the braid and was trying a braided bun, and for the first time in over a year, she was fussing with hairpins. Right now they were in her mouth, and her arms were aching from being held up over her head for so long.
"Remember what I told you at King's Cross?"
"Mmmph ummph. Thwat I phooldn't pell Wucius' pawents I'm a Wuggle."
"That you what?"
Lily removed the pins from her mouth. "That I shouldn't tell Lucius' parent's I'm a Muggle. Or Muggle-born, whatever. I was going to ask you about that, anyway. Why not?"
Severus shrugged, but it wasn't an "I don't care" shrug; more of a nervous twitch. "They–Lily, they don't especially like Muggles."
"I'm a witch."
"I know, but–well, I didn't especially like them either. To tell ya the truth, you're the only one I like."
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"
"Kinda sorta maybe I don't know. But I'd do all I can to keep them from finding out. See–well, one of their friends had a Muggle father, and the dad left his mom and kid when he found out that the mom was a witch. And them the mom died, and the kid grew up in an orphanage, and–well, the people there were terrible to him. So people like that are partly what makes Lucius' parents hate Muggles."
"Partly?"
"Well–yeah, they think Muggles are so inferior to them…and in a roundabout way they are–refusing to believe in anything they can't see–oh well. Promise you won't tell his parents?"
Lily had something else on her mind. "Severus?"
"Huh?"
"What was that orphan's name?"
"Oh–I'm not sure–see, they've been out of touch for a long time–they say he went to Albania or something to live with his mum's folks."
"I see." Lily fingered a loose strand of hair. "And what if Tom finds out I'm Muggle-born?"
She didn't say this aloud, but she thought it so loudly she wondered that Severus couldn't hear the echoes inside her head.
The evening quickly turned chilly, and, thanking and re-thanking Severus for the cloak he'd given her, Lily pulled it out of her trunk and spent a comfortable evening in the library, which was twice as large as the one at Hogwarts, twice as comfortable, and about twenty-six times more beautiful. The bookshelves, thousands upon thousands, weren't all ebony, but they were painted a beautiful midnight black with green velvet cushions on the shelves so that the old books that the Malfoy family owned wouldn't get banged up by the wooden shelf-edges.
The fire was in a fireplace seven feet wide and about six feet high; an elaborately carved mantlepiece of ebony splashed with silver and emeralds hung over it, supporting two large but delicate candelabras. The large couch was dark green with a silvery shine and carved legs. Fifteen feet long, it provided a comfortable place for about seven people to sprawl on. The rug in front of the fireplace, almost thirty feet square, was the house's traditional silver and green, with a pattern of serpents woven into the shimmering threads. Four other armchairs, made in the same fashion as the sofa, surrounded the average-sized table in the center and made a quaint little circle. And around the chairs the walls of the book-cases loomed high, lit at intervals of about five feet by a candelabra, on a stand about four feet in the air. It was a sort of welcoming atmosphere to Lily, but she knew Petunia would run screaming out of the mansion at the sight of all the 'scary snakies and the darkie places'.
The next morning, Mr. Malfoy got in touch with the Ministry of Magic and asked them to contact Lily's family for them, since repeated efforts of theirs had been fruitless. And around five, an answer came by owl, addressed to Lily.

Dear Miss Evans,

We have located your parents and are pleased to enclose a letter from them. You have their permission to stay at Mr. Malfoy's for the rest of the summer.

The enclosure read:

Lily, dear,

I know how worried you must have been when we didn't show up to pick you up. Truth is, it went straight clean out of my head. I might as well tell you this now–your mother's sick.  Not headache-sick, but double pneumonia sick. On top of that, she was visiting someone who had another guest: a lady with a daughter with typhoid and we don't know if she has that, too. Petunia's out of the house, and you're doing the same until your mother gets well. I love you, doll, and you've got free license to spend what ever you want in Diagon Alley or anywhere else. I'm enclosing the key to your vault.
I wish I could say all I want to, but it would scare you right out of your senses. Your mother is. Out of her senses, I mean. The whole delirious thing. Well–all I want to say is be good and don't come home on pain of death. Seriously.
I love you, and your mother would send her love if she knew I was writing to you,
Dad

Lily looked up from her letter, released her freely bleeding lip, and nodded slowly. Severus looked over, curiously.
"Lily, what is it?"
She handed him the letter wordlessly, not even bothering to wipe the trickle of blood away from her chin. Severus skimmed through it, reached into the bottom of the envelope, took out the small golden key, and turned to Lily.
"Burn?"
Lily, eyes strained and almost all white, nodded her head in small jerks. Severus pushed the letters and envelope into the fire and pulled out a tissue, wiping her face off. She didn't move, and he put an arm around the cold marble statue for comfort, but the only thing about her that moved when he did so was the long red hair that settled against the back of the couch.
A door behind them creaked, but neither of them looked up till Lucius' voice came from directly behind them.
"Severus, you nuts?"
Severus jumped up, pulling his arm away.
"Lucius, long story. Not now, though."
Lucius frowned. "All right, then, fine, if you don't want to tell me. But our parents're taking us out to eat at that Japanese restaurant in Fraeden Square. You two want to get ready?"
Severus leaned down to Lily and gently shook her shoulders. She snapped out of her trance with a start.
"Lily?"
She spoke in a dry, dead, hardened voice. "What?"
"You need to eat something. Come on; we're going out with Lucius' parents."
Like a baby, Lily allowed herself to be lifted and led out of the library.
He led her to her room, opened a closet, and pulled out a dark dress, rather formal, which he laid across knees.
"Lily, c'mon. You'll be all right. She isn't dead, is she? Well then. It'll be all right. Trust me." Hesitating a bit, he leaned over and gave her a quick hug, then quickly left the room.
Lily heard the door close, and, as if in a dream, she stood up and changed into the long dress. Black, it went up to her throat and down to her feet, trailing a bit. It reached down to her wrists, with bits of black lace scattered about her neck, wrists, and hem. Her hair had been slowly turning darker over the last year, and it was no longer a rusty orange, but a reddish-orange, and, combed and scattered about her shoulders, it would have made her beautiful. Except for one thing.
No woman, ever, had an expression on her face like Lily did then. In the space of fifteen minutes, the life had gone out of her face and she was left with a colorless, white face. Litharelen had a moonshine tinge to her skin, but Lily's face could have been shaded with Professor McGonagall's board chalk. The skin about her cheeks was drawn, and shadows under her eyes were prominent. Almost unnaturally, her eyebrows cut vivid lines in her forehead, and her lips were pale and cracked, bleeding in several places. The usually alive, deep, forest green mirrors that served her as eyes were now dead, almost black; the green tinge had vanished almost completely. Her eyes were, as usual, rimmed with the bristly dark lashes with a tilt to them at the ends, but, now more than ever contrasting so sharply with the red of her hair, they didn't accent her eyes; they imprisoned them behind bars.
She noticed vaguely that the dress she was wearing was terribly like a mourning dress, but she pushed that fact out of her mind, and went downstairs, sitting down across from where Severus and Lucius were standing, as far away from any sort of light as possible.
The boys had noticed her as she came down, but they were a bit too amazed to move. The black dress draped about her, giving her the look of a Greek statue, and her red locks draped around her, forming the only jewelry she needed. But, pretty as she could have been, she was the perfect image of pain, with her knuckles white as she clenched the folds of her dress in one hand and the paleness of her face. Almost ghostly, she half-impressed, half frightened the two boys as they stood next to the banister. Severus had just finished telling Lucius what happened, and both of them moved over quickly.
"Lily?"
"Ssht. She's not all right–not yet. Lily, anything we can do for you–"
She spoke as if from a dead person's throat, but politely. "No, thank you. I'm quite all right." She turned away, against the wall.
"You're not all right. Don't try that. But, Lily, as long as you need anyone, we're here for you."
Unwillingly, Severus gave a small gasp as Lily turned her face towards him. The bones of her skull were stretching through her cheeks, and she seemed several inches away from death. He could see the hollows in the bone where her eyes were and the bone that formed her jaw. But a rustling made him turn away.
"Severus? Lucius? Lily? We're ready. Are you coming?"
Severus lifted Lily to her feet and helped her towards Lucius' mother, clothed in a spring-blue, off-the-shoulder gown with a long dark blue cloak around her shoulders. Fair hair dressed up off of her shoulders and accented with a silver tiara, she appeared the very picture of all that was perfect. But she quickly took in Lily's state, recognized the mouthings "Her mother" from Lucius, and immediately sank to her knees and gathered the small twelve-year-old in a large hug. Lily felt something inside of her snap, and, though she didn't start to cry, she wrapped her arms around the comforting person that seemed to understand everything.