"What're you doing?"
"I made a mistake. Just realized that today." He handed it back to her after checking several books and a large map. "There."
"Wh–what'd you just do?"
"I have all the rest of the ingredients–and one of them on there I don't need. But there's another one I do. I've got the address down there and everything–all you need to do is get it. Should be fairly easy."
Lily read the new address. "I'll say! Only problem is, I live there."
"You do?"
"Yeah; look at this. 'Malfoy mansion, someplace in drawing room. Liquid Avada Kedavra potion'. I'm staying at the Malfoy's."
"That's a problem?"
"Well–no. Not really." Lily's eyes sparkled mischievously. "More of a challenge!"
Tom smiled. "That's my girl!"
Lily returned quickly to her room, strangely excited about what she intended and with a foreseen conscience twinge. Not even the thought of her mother could dispel what Tom had asked her to do–it was easy, snipping leaves off of plants, but these people she knew–they had done things for her, offered her a place to stay–
But, with the gift of acting she had received from her mother, she got ready for the task, knowing somehow without thinking what she was to do. She slipped into the emerald-green shirt her mother had sent her, along with the earrings that went with it. A gold ring with a stone of the same tint went on her right forefinger, and she slid into one of the new pairs of jeans. Lily pulled out a pair of tennis shoes, and then set herself to do something she hadn't done in about a year and a half. Raising an eyebrow, she pulled out the hair-ornament that served as a sheath for the small poniard.
Twisting and braiding her hair, curling under and running her fingers through the red locks, she managed to get the golden sheath fixed just exactly right, on the top and back of her head. Squinting critically at her reflection, she pulled down strands to cover her ears and frame her face.
Her lips were still a bit pale, and, with an improvised sort of paste she made from a pot of rouge in the next room and water, lightly daubed her lips with that. She ran her tongue around her teeth, smiled sweetly at her reflection, picked up the set of drawing pencils and the pad, and made her way downstairs to the living room she, Severus, and Lucius used.
Tucking one foot underneath her, she quickly started on a sketch of a head she knew quite well. Drawing with the help of a picture she had taken from a mantlepiece, the picture grew under her skilful hands to form Lucius' head. Lily checked her watch. He should be up in about a half-hour–Lily wrinkled her nose. She was ahead of schedule.
Flipping to another page, she started on a bust of Tom, and she was almost finished with it before she heard the graceful, antique grandfather clock outside in the entrance hall strike eight o'clock. When she heard lazy footsteps in the hallway, however, it seemed to take no time for her to hide Lucius' portrait behind a bookcase and turn back to his portrait. She was touching up a spark in his eye when he came to the door, a bit startled at the smile that adorned her lips.
"What's that?"
"What's wha–Oh, Lucius, hi." She made a deliberately clumsy attempt to cover up her sketch, and, grinning a bit, he took the book from her, turning to his own portrait.
"That's what? Er…well, it's pretty good."
She ducked her head, forcing the blood to go to her head and give her a pink blush. "Yes–well, Severus' been teaching me."
"Yeah–I remember–he said you'd be better than him pretty soon. Seems like you already are."
"Oh–" The blood rushed to her head again. "No–not really. But–" she continued, obviously wanting to get off of the subject, "is there any breakfast yet?"
It was intentionally a flimsy change of subject, and Lucius knew it. That is, he knew that she was trying to change the subject; he didn't know that she was faking whatever she appeared to be feeling. But he played along with what he thought was the game.
"I don't know–I'll go check." He left the room, and Lily, following him quietly, laughed to herself as he pulled out his wand in front of Severus' room and locked it. He hightailed it back downstairs and found a demure little figure, eyes downcast, but a bit flushed, shading the haunches of a rabbit.
"Nah–I guess we're up too early. The house-elves're still cleaning up from that party Mother had last night.
"Party?" she asked innocently, wide eyes fixed on the person in the doorway.
"Yeah–someone at the Ministry got promoted, and Mother offered to host a large one here. I think the last person left around five," he added, with a short, scornful laugh.
"Oh–I thought I heard something, but I wasn't sure…"
"Well, that was the night before you got that note about your–Never mind," he quickly added at seeing her smile droop. "Say–want to go for a walk outside? It's nice outside–warm, for a change."
"In opposition to the usual boiling hot? I'll come." Slipping her sketchbook off of her knees and onto the mantlepiece, she stood up and walked with Lucius towards the French windows that opened out onto the garden. They walked about a bit, talking of meaningless things, and finally, Lily deftly succeeded in turning the subject to Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"Yes–well, I suppose they teach us basics, but they're terrible when it comes to the real stuff."
"But, Lucius, isn't that the best magical education we could get?"
"Well, yes, but they're not informing us about the things that matter."
"Like what?" Lily was excited now; but she kept it hidden under disinterested eyelids.
"Oh–well, like the Unforgivable Curses. And poisons–only thing they're really preparing us for is if we decide to go and live in a grindylow-infested marsh."
"Oh–well, I suppose you're right."
"I am." He looked unconsciously pompous. "I'd show you what I mean if I didn't know that Mother and Father'd murder me for it."

"What?"
He stole a quick glance around him, then turned back to Lily, almost whispering. "We have our own stock of deadly poisons, and if I could get hold of them, you'd see that nothing you ever learned in that class would do you any good if you were encountered with them."
Several thoughts ran quickly through Lily's mind. Oppose his beliefs–or encourage them–She decided on opposing.
"I don't think so. Why, we're prepared for over half of the magical creatures we meet, and if you mean to say that our teachers don't know anything about what matters, then–"
"All right, fine; I'll show you." He was clearly a bit on the arrogant side, and if Lily had dared, she would have applauded herself. "Come; this way." He took her back through the French windows and through several doors until he arrived in a rather largeish room with the usual expensive furniture. "This is it.?"
Lily was honestly puzzled. "What is?"
"This room. Now watch." He pulled a bit of the green velvet carpet aside to reveal the dark mahogany floor.
"But, Lucius–" Lily had spotted where this was leading to, and she was on tenterhooks in case her 'innocent fool' act failed because she was too excited.
"Never mind the buts. Look here." He was feeling around on the floor for something; evidently he found it, for something clicked and he had a handle in his hand of the same polished mahogany as the floor. He thought he had concealed the place where it had been very well, which he would have had if Lily hadn't visited the Alendoren Cove before. The beams of her sight caught a small indentation in the wood, too small to be seen with regular vision, but deep enough for her to see. She gave a small gasp.
"Goodness, but that was smart! I couldn't ever have seen something like that!"
Lucius smiled. "Well, I didn't either. But watch!" He pulled the handle up, and, out of a clean, glistening floor without a mark in it, he pulled up a door six feet by four, two inches thick. Lily's eyes widened and she moved forward.
Bottles upon bottles of some sort of liquid were stored there, and boxes and chests of some unknown something. Lily tried to read the labels on all of them, but it wasn't necessary. Lucius dispelled that task by picking up the very bottle she was after.
Dark and ghostly, with an uncorked top, it glowed with a somewhat blue light. Lucius handed it to her.
"Liquid Avada Kedavra potion. So deadly you can't even imagine it."
Lily took it from him; to him, she was simply staring at it, in reality, she was scanning the bottle for any mark that would allow her to tell it apart from the others. Finding none, she contrived to run her nail along the cork, twice, making a crude sort of X.
"Lucius–but what's it good for? I really can't see–"
"It has some really neat properties. Like, a drop of it will kill you, same as the curse, but if you take just the right amount, it'll heal you if you've got a desperate wound or something like that.
Facts in her head quickly connected. This, then, along with all of the other things, would combine–they wouldn't just heal–they'd bring back to life. "Lucius, how much of this does one need for that?"
His answer came back with startling rapidity. "One mole."
"One what?"
"Mole. Six point oh two to the twenty-third power. One mole."
"Oh." Lily had forgotten. When she'd taken that Advanced Chemistry course, that had been in there–a mole of elements, it usually was. She'd calculated it when she was bored once–if someone had a mole of pennies, they'd be the richest person in the world and beyond, if that was possible.
"One mole of what?"
He shrugged. "A mole of a drop of that to the negative ten million trillionth or something like that. Never bothered to figure it out, though."
"Oh–I see. I don't blame you at all. Well–" she handed it back to him and he replaced it, closing the trapdoor and throwing the rug back over it–"you certainly showed me. I don't think I could defeat that with the stuff I learned at Hogwarts if I tried my best."
"You certainly couldn't," he agreed.
That night, Lily never bothered to even get her two-hour nap. As soon as all of the sounds in the house had ceased, she slipped into the clothes she had worn the past two nights and ran downstairs, thinking to herself, "I certainly overdid that Lucius thing. Now he's hovering around me like a moth around a lightbulb."
Nevertheless, after standing in the shadow of the entrance hall for a good twenty-three minutes to make sure the house was really asleep, she made her way into the drawing room, prised up the handle, and drew up the bottle.
This time, Lily had taken the precaution of slipping a test tube and cork into her bag, and so the transfer was the easiest thing in the world. She replaced everything just the way it had been, smoothed the carpet, pulled her necklace out, and, as silently as she could manage, hit it against the bookcase.
She landed rather farther away from Tom's cave than she had the other times, but that was foreseen. Dashing the fifty yards to the glow of white light issuing from the cave entrance, she approached it unnoticed by Tom. He was sitting at the cauldron, mumbling formulas and things to himself.

Meaning to surprise him, Lily quickly snuck up behind him, and, finding him immersed in the bubblings of the liquid in the cauldron, she was about to put her hand on his shoulder, but something he mumbled held him back.
"Damn, the girl is dumb. I don't know how many times I slipped up when I was explaining this junk to her–oh, man. I might be able to get outta this mess if her mum was a Muggle–could just explain to her that I wouldn't do this for her–oh, no, crap. I need her; that won't work. I could say that this won't work on Muggles…well, I wouldn't bother if her mum was one, anyway. But she's probably not…oh, darn…"
Lily had heard enough. She didn't know what exactly Tom would do if he knew she had overheard, so she left the cave. Outside, she ran over everything he had told her.
"The name of the book. If I could remember that–but why would he need the liquid Avada Kedavra to open the book? That's just it–he wouldn't–oh, man, this stinks. I wonder if that book was just a blind–I wonder if he only needs to perform a spell to get it open.

What on earth was the name of that thing, though–something with Traum in it. Dream. Traum–something–oh, this isn't getting me anywhere. Traumwünsche? Wishes of dreams–oh, no, that wasn't it–something Tom would love to have–what did he tell me the other day–"
She looked up. A fire was kindling in her eyes, a fire that slowly grew and consumed her. "Power," she whispered. "Power above all mortals. Macht. Traum–Traummacht. Power of dreams."
Then, as if on command, her eyes narrowed. She pulled the corked test tube out of her bag and held it up to the pale light of the moon. Quickly checking to see whether Tom was still at his cauldron, she moved to the shore. Picking another tube out of her bag, she filled that with the deadly poison and poured a bit of the dewy waters of the Alendoren Cove into the used tube. It might have been accident that she left a droplet of the poison in the dewy container; it might not have been, but the color of the replaced substance was the same color as the poison.
Stowing the container with the poison in it in a hole she burrowed in the sand, she covered it up and ran lightly to the cavern door, knocking softly on the wall.
"Tom?"
He immediately stopped his mutterings and turned around. "Lily! Did you get it?"
She nodded, pulling the dew out of her purse. "Happy birthday."
He grasped it greedily. "Oh–oh, goodness–Lily, you don't know what this means!"
I'll bet I do, she thought to herself. And I'll bet you don't know that I know.
"Tom, that's all right. And what about my mother?"
His face set in immovable lines as he stared at the cauldron. Lily could tell he was thinking of a plausible lie.
"Lily, there's something I–" His eyes widened. "RUN!"
She stood rooted to the spot, but when he dashed towards her and grabbed her cloak, she obeyed his order and dashed as far away as she could. Something under the cauldron had exploded, and it had sent the whole thing blasting into the air. If they had stayed where they were, they would have been blown to bits. As it was, they had managed to get four yards away from the mouth of the cave before it exploded and they were flung headfirst into a maze of boulders. A few minutes after the explosion, everything was quiet. Then Tom, bruised and burned, raised his head a bit triumphantly, looking at the remains of a Filibuster's firework that had landed next to him.
"Lily?"
No answer.
"Lily?"
Still no answer. He kept on calling and searching till he was hoarse, but he never found a sign of her and never heard a sound other than his own.
Nor could he. As Lily was flung through the air by the force of the explosion, she saw the great point of a boulder looming towards her as she fell. Realizing swiftly that she would be gored by it if she didn't do something, she pulled at the thing golden chain that was flapping wildly in the wind, held it down in front of her. She kept her arm a bit bent, so when the necklace hit the piece of cliff, it only rendered her arm a bit sore. And, three inches before she hit the boulder, she was flying back to her room, eyes closed in thankfulness, though her whole right arm and back were covered in burns
With the force of a tornado hitting a city, Lily slammed into her mattress, face downwards. After a few minutes, she raised her shaken head and dared to glance at her right arm. It wasn't as bad as it felt; only the back of it had been injured, and that not so badly, since she had been wearing long sleeves. Only seven small droplets of the burning potion had soaked far enough through her clothing so as to make a burn, and they were only second-degree ones. But her back was far worse. When she had been flung through the air, her shirt had come up and her cloak had flapped out of the way, leaving a clear patch of skin for the hot drops to fall on. Several third-degree burnt circles, about as large as her thumbnail, were dotted all over her lower back, and she could hardly lift herself up. Lily tried rolling over on her back, but she quickly had to change her position. Practically biting right through her lip, she managed to stand up and move towards her bathroom. In there, she drew quite a bit of cold water, dunked a washcloth in it, and shuddered as the chilly piece of material sent cold beads of water flowing down her hot and scorched back.
She didn't sleep at all; she stayed awake that whole night trying to ease the aching and to wash off the smoke scorched onto her bare skin. Her clothing had been relatively undamaged; in fact, the only thing that had been marred was the right sleeve of her black shirt. Nevertheless, as soon as the house-elf left after building the fire, she hurried to burn it, and even then she had to cover her face as the potion on the shirt started to give off sparks.
The morning wore on, and in between washing off scorch marks and burning her ruined clothing, she had time to think of just what she had lost. Not only had she lost her mother; she had lost her twice. For a few short, happy days, she had been in possession of a beautiful secret, a secret which would grant her heart's desire, and then–then–it was dashed. Flung on the floor with a careless gesture and allowed to shatter. And, as that thought seeped into her mind, the tautness of her complexion began to return, and the circles around her eyes.
By nine, Lily was still awake and drinking a pot of black coffee in the windowseat, and at nine oh five, Severus came in, with a sort of bright smile on his face and a cheery good morning on his lips.
"Lily! Morning! You're looking–looking–" He stopped for words. "Erm–ah…"
Lily cut his stammering off. "Terrible. I don't care. Say it; I've never been averse to the truth."
He shook his head. "Nah–you just look a bit sad."
"A bit?"
"All right, then, fine. A lot. And you've got good reason to. Come on. You all right?"
"Of course I'm not."
He nodded. "Stupid of me. I shouldn't have asked. Naturally you're not. But are you feeling better than you did?"
Slowly, thinking hard, Lily shook her head.
"No. Neither better–yes, I feel worse. Sadder, mostly. And a bit angry."
Lucius flung the door open, and Lily silently hoped he had forgotten yesterday's little act. "Morning, Lily, Severus."

Severus turned to the doorway. "Oh, hi. What're we doing today?"
"Mother wants to go to Madraiden Place; she and her friends are meeting at this German café, so we've got free license to go wherever. Where do you two want to go?"
Severus looked at Lily, who spoke rather hesitantly.
"I think–I think–I've never been to Madraiden Place, Firestream Lane, or Fraeden Square–not really. Only restaurants at night and things. Is there anything good there?"
Lucius nodded his head sort of diagonally. "Well–Madraiden Place is full of little cafés where lots of people like my mom hang out, lots of jewelry stores, there's a fancy dress robe place there, too. Designer, but I doubt you're interested in that."
"Oh." Lily nodded. "Kinda like the mall."
"The what?"
"Never mind."
"'K. Firestream Lane–they have a whole bunch of restaurants there and antique stores…they've got an extension of Zonko's near the end…umm…lots of furniture places and stuff like that. Mother loves it. Anyway, Fraeden Square is this circular place with a huge fountain in the middle of it, and around it you have the people with stands and booths and stuff. They sell lots of flowers and vegetables–pretty much like a marketplace. And Diagon Alley you know. Kid stuff."
Lily nodded. "I know. Do you–I don't know–Fraeden Square sounds better than all of the others–do you mind if we go there?"
Lucius and Severus looked at each other and nodded agreeably. "Sure. Get dressed in something cool, though; it's burning up outside."
Lily pulled on the blouse her mother had sent her, the necklace that went with it, and one of the pairs of bluejeans. Turning around to look at herself in the mirror, she gasped.
The blouse covered her back very well, but the seven black burnt marks on her arm were plainly evident. Lily could see at once that not one bit of makeup would help in that case. Sighing, she pulled the blouse over her head, took the jeans off, and donned a different black shirt, long black pants, and Severus' cloak. She could wear the cloak to the Square; it wasn't as if no one in the wizarding world wore one.
Glimpsing her sad picture in the mirror, she remembered the first time not too long ago when she had worn all black–just after she had received the news about her mother ailing. And then her mother had been alive.
Her mother had never been happy with her decision to stop with the beauty products, and, remembering that, Lily slowly took out a brush. With several scores of strokes, her hair was glittering and shiny, long and soft, as it hung down to mid-waist. Tying a black kerchief around it, she slipped into a pair of black sandals and went downstairs.
Severus and Lucius were waiting for her. Lucius reached inside the Floo Powder container.
"Mother already left. She gave us as much money to spend as we want to–she gave us some for you, too."
Severus was staring at her attire. "Lily, you sure that's a good choice of clothing for today?"
She shrugged. "It's good enough for me." Ignoring the critical looks the two boys gave her, she stepped forward into the flames, saying in a low, clear voice, "Fraeden Square."
Running through the boys' minds had been the same line of thought–"She's beautiful, you can tell, and her hair looks pretty; which is a change. She'd be perfect if only–if only her face didn't look quite so corpse-like."
When she emerged from the spinning whirlstorm of soot and ash, she had to stop herself from falling forward by a violent lunge. Shaking the black mess from her hair, she found herself in an empty fireplace in an alcove behind several booths; but in the center there was a large passageway; almost six feet wide, that led out onto a bright and sunny square.
Behind her, Lily heard several 'oof's and 'ugh's, and, whirling, she caught sight of her two friends sprawling almost on top of each other on the mosaic street. They scrambled up quickly, however, and, with grins, each of them took one of her arms and led her out into Fraeden Square.
It was beautiful; beautiful and bright and sunny. In the middle, as advertised, it did present a beautiful fountain, circular, about twenty feet in diameter and decorated with all sorts of creatures spouting fountains of water, all surrounding the figure of a magnificent stallion, with mane and tail flying wildly in the wind, and underneath his pounding hooves, water sprayed, giving the impression that he had just jumped into a sort of shallow pond.
It was stunning, however, and by the sides of it several small children played, throwing small coins into the basin and splashing each other with water. Others were sitting on the ground next to the fountain playing Gobstones, and whenever the nasty-smelling liquid got squirted into their faces, the fountain was always nearby to provide a wash. And surrounding this were many millions of tiny booths and stands, all filled with interesting items, some exotic, some homemade, many sweet, and some simply farmer's items.
This, however, was the place reminding her most of the marketplace she had visited in Germany, when her mother had been out of town and taken her with her. She had accompanied her father to a business meeting, and while in Wiesbaden she, Petunia, and Lily had gone across the river to Mainz, the town where Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press had lived.
They had printed pages of beautiful script in the replica of Gutenberg's old workshop, and had come out all inky. To wash off, her mother had suggested they go to the marketplace, and there they had soaked themselves and their clothes with the water in the fountain in the center of the square. A softer, longing look came to Lily's face as she shook Severus and Lucius away and wandered to a free part of the side of the fountain. There she sat down, facing the stallion, letting the cool splashing mists of the water cool her hot face off. Partly off in another world, she was startled to hear a voice behind her.
"Hello, stranger!"
James and Sirius had taken Floo powder to Fraeden Square, too; Sirius' mother had wanted him to get her a whole list of things from one of the booths. Sirius was busy, and James didn't feel like standing in line forever, so he started to wander around the square. Practically halfway around, his gaze fell on the back on someone he knew, someone with red hair. But it was more–well, more groomed than usual, and even though she was wearing all black, James knew Lily looked pretty good. When she started and whirled around, however, it took all of his self-control not to let his jaw drop.

Her hair, true, was brushed and tied back neatly, but–well, he could think of nothing more she resembled than a picture entitled, 'Walking Death' that he had seen in Severus' sketchbook once when he had been snooping. The roundness to her cheeks was gone, her lips were almost transparent, and her eyes had sunk into the hollows of the sockets. Looking at him out of caverns, the startled eyes of what he had once known as Lily stared back at him. It was all he could do to prevent himself form touching her cheek, wondering if the bone was really about to jut out of her skin. Pale, drawn, white, and frightening, a total contrast to the beautiful hair falling around her shoulders, she looked as much out of place as a package of floppy disks in the freezer.
"So–" He kicked the street nervously. "You're staying with Snape and Malfoy?"
Lily nodded her head. "Yes," came out of a clear, low, dead throat. James regretted even making her talk.
"Oh." At a bit of a loss as to what to say, he picked on the first thing that came to mind.
"I–I saw you in Diagon Alley a few days ago."
"I know."
He was startled. This wasn't the hot-tempered, fiery, full-of-life girl he had seen get off of the train at the end of the school year–this was a lackadaisical, listless, depressed woman. It surprised him to hear himself think that, but on reflecting, he knew that what he could see she was going through, whatever it was, was more than many adults had ever experienced.
Sighing, he let himself flop down on the side of the fountain, next to her. "So–you happy school's out?"
"Yes."
"Whatcha planning to do? Are you coming to Eva's at all this summer? Me and Sirius and Remus are there."
"Oh."
"Well, do you think you might be able to make it? You can go swimming there."
"Lucius has a pool."
"Oh. I see. But Eva talks about you all the time–" He broke off. Whenever Eva or anyone else mentioned Lily, Eva grew quiet all of a sudden and wouldn't talk about the letter she had gotten from her lately. Not even snoop attempts to dig into her things had worked; she kept it hidden too well.
"Well–we'd all like to see you."
"I wonder."
"We really would. It's probably ever so much nicer than Malfoy's place–all gloomy and black–"
She cut him off smoothly. "Lucius' family is very kind; letting me stay at their mansion."
What was wrong with her, he thought. All her responses were correct and all, but they were just too darned polite and stand-offish. What had happened to her over the past week?
"You couldn't think of coming for a visit?"
"I am happy where I am. Thank you for your concern."
She had ended the conversation so finally that James was relieved when Sirius waved at him to come over and he could leave without being rude, with only a quick, "See you sometime, then."
The days seemed to fly until her mother's funeral. It had been fixed to three weeks after Lily's birthday, which had gone totally unnoticed, at ten in the morning, in the Jewish graveyard in Mainz–Lily's mother's sister had married someone that had been Jewish, and she was buried in that cemetery. So they had thought it fitting for Lily's mother to be buried near her favorite sibling, and near people who were relatives–some grandparents twice removed, but still, relatives.
The morning of the funeral, Lily got ready mechanically. She had first reached for her black clothing, but upon reconsidering, she pulled the burgundy turtleneck her mother had bought her out of the closet. Fastening the earrings that went with it in her ears and her old garnet necklace around her neck, she gently opened her trunk.
There, on top of all of her other things, in a special box, lay the precious things her mother had left her. Hesitating at first, then boldly, she lifted the beautiful golden headdress out of its wrappings and fastened it to her hair, braiding and coiling and twisting it to form the image of a noblesse. Slowly, very slowly, she pulled the beautiful, golden-hilted poniard out and placed it in its sheath, remembering as if from far away a peculiar custom one of her mother's roles had required her to perform.
Clutching A Midsummer Night's Dream (Titania's roles had been highlighted), she flitted downstairs, seating herself in the entrance hall, waiting for Mrs. Malfoy to take her to the graveyard.
Mrs. Malfoy arrived shortly after. Her eyebrows mounted her forehead as she saw Lily's attire, when, after all, this was a funeral, but she quickly threw a pinch of the familiar green powder into the fire. Lily stepped inside, the steadying hand of her friend's mother on her back.
When they emerged from the inside of an interestingly built crypt, which held an almost forgotten fireplace inside, Lily almost fell forward onto the grass as Severus and Lucius tripped and smashed into her.
"Lucius! Severus! What, by Caesar's carcass, are you doing here?"
Even though they had mouthfuls of dust, they managed to choke out laughter.
"Caesar's what?"
Lily turned a bit red. "That was an impulse. I meant Merlin's beard."
"You said Caesar's carcass."
"What are you doing here?"
"Well–this is special for you, and if that's so, we're not about to miss it."
That speech, short and crude, nevertheless made Lily rush to the two boys and hug them tightly, whispering out a choked, "Thank you!"
A bit embarrassed, she let go of the boys, to their relief; that had shocked them quite a bit. Head up, Lily walked toward the beautiful teak casket lying next to the freshly dug grave. She glanced around at the guests and then had to lean on a nearby gravestone.
Everyone she even halfway valued was there. Of course, her father and Petunia, Eva, Vanessa, Amanda–even Abigail and the snoring twins from her old dormitory–Heather and Anne. Most of last year's class–and Miranda, Anya, John, Nigel, Ashley, Jacqueline, Joseph–the whole Gryffindor Quidditch team–and the Slytherin one–Frank Crichlow, Clive Allen, Stephen Gregson, Roderick Alton, Edgar Hatcher, Cathryn Clarik–Lily could have cried. Some of them she knew she wouldn't see again; they had left Hogwarts–Stephen Gregson had graduated early, and this was wonderful. And practically fifty parents and–oh.
Her gaze had fallen on a group of five, standing close to the Gryffindor team. Lily's face drew together in a pained gaze, to keep from crying.