"But it's pretty close, isn't it?" He noticed her red cheeks and triumphantly grinned. "Told you so!"
Lily let her face drop into her hands. Oh, great. Why on earth did this tormenting devil ever have to be born? Why did he have to do this? Idiot, she reproached herself. Talkative, babbling, readable idiot. Choosing her words carefully, she looked back at James her eyes hard.
"James, whatever he told me, it was to be kept to myself. He trusted me, and I'm not about to spoil that. Can't you understand? If you can't, please try to."
Her seriousness made him reconsider the jibes he was ready to throw at her, and he averted to the topic he had intended to choose. Instead, he pulled a note out of his pocket.
"I found this when I was cleaning out the wastebaskets in the teachers' offices as a detention. This was in Madam Pomfrey's."
Lily took it from him, rather confused. But then her face grew dark with anger as she pulled another piece of parchment out of her bathrobe pocket and compared the torn edge on each. They fitted together perfectly.
Her face hard and impassive, Lily looked up at James. "And you're positive this isn't just another prank?"
"More than positive."
Lily glanced over it again. It had a few short lines on it, in bubbly, large handwriting.

That scared you, didn't it? You really should keep your letters better hidden, and your sister needs to learn to write better; her handwriting's too easy to imitate.

Underneath that were two S's, intertwined with each other in Old English script. There were only two people she could think of, offhand, who had those initials. And Severus certainly didn't write his notes with large, poufy hearts above the i's. Lily set her teeth.
"This was on the bottom of the letter that told me my father was dead."
James nodded. "I figured that."
"And it's from Serena."
His eyes didn't dilate at that. "I figured that, too." Looking up, he peered into her eyes. "He isn't, is he?"
Slowly, Lily shook her head.
"You didn't bother to tell me that he was alive?"
"You didn't give me a reason to."
"That's true. I'm sorry."
She slowly nodded her head. "It's all right. I just didn't give you a chance to."
"Yeah, but that was my fault."
Lily smiled. "All right, if you really want the blame, take it!"
He laughed. "We can share?"
"I don't do sharing very well." She stood up and moved forward, putting a light hand on his shoulder, Not expecting this, James looked up.
"Hum?"
"Thanks for telling me. I know–well, at least, I think you still like her, in spite of what you say."
James stared slowly at something within his mind, and Lily felt sure she could put a name to it. Or, rather, her. Then he shook his head violently.
"No. Serena's done with. After what she did to you, I'm done with her."
Lily smiled, a bit tired. "I'm still warning you, she doesn't give up that easily."
"But she'll have to." Then his eyes regained their sparkle. "And what did you tell Severus?"
Lily's eyes widened. "Not this again!"
He pushed her into her former chair again. "No, really. You told Eva, why not me?" He hated to prolong this, but he had to know the answer she'd given Snape.
Lily was getting slowly tired of this. Sighing, she gave up.
"If you tell anyone, anyone about this, your life will not be worth living. And you know it won't."
"I know. So, tell!"
She sighed again, but searched her memory obediently. "You were right. Partly," she amended. "He did ask me to be his girlfriend."
James was a bit anxious in case his nervousness was getting too obvious. "And what did you tell him?"
With a firm tread, Lily stamped every bubble of hope in the room flat. The explosion was almost deafening. "I told him that I was too young and didn't like him that much. There, happy?"
He didn't answer right away, so she repeated herself. "Happy?"
He pulled his face into a frown. "Not especially. But I can live with that. Say–" he looked at her curiously–"how come you don't like him? You've been really good friends since the beginning of last year; what happened?"
Lily squared her shoulders. "I don't especially like this conversation, but I didn't say I didn't like him. He's the best friend I could ever hope for, which is more than I could say for you, but I just don't like him outside of the friend barrier."
"Oh." James nodded slowly. "Is he still your friend?"
"I don't see that that's any of your business." She drew her ears back and raised an eyebrow defensively. "Now, if you do or if you don't mind, I'm going to bed." She untied the knot in her bathrobe's sash (it was getting a bit hot) and walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her. When James had jumped to his feet and left the room after her, she was gone.
He let his head sink slowly. It was to be expected, wasn't it? He couldn't have had the slightest hope that she would consider any offers of that sort from anyone, not someone like her. All the other girls he'd known were usually desperate for–yes, well, someone like him–smart and a Quidditch player–Lily didn't need anyone like that. She couldn't care less how many goals you scored or how many teachers you could make a fool out of–she looked deeper than that, if she even bothered to look. And it seemed that, in his case, she hadn't bothered to look. She didn't put up with any of his teasing or taunting, and the only things that he did that had made an impression on her were–well, bad.
Walking back to his dormitory a bit dejectedly, he heard a few soft crying sounds. He stopped, then, frowning a bit, he moved forward in the direction of Lily's dormitory.
Lily, who had vanished into the closest doorway in the semi-secret hall, saw James leave the room, a bit depressed, not bothering to lock the door

She had been counting on that, and, as soon as he vanished from sight and the sound of the closing door made a soft bang, she slipped back inside the room.
The first time she had been in there, she had noticed a small bump underneath one of the blankets that lined the walls, and she also remembered that she had seen no sign of further excursions to the Whomping Willow. Running her hands quickly over the walls, she found the bump again and pulled the blanket aside.
She saw only the stone wall, but that was to be expected. But it was stone wall with a handle on it. Lily pulled on it, but gave up after the first try, knowing that Sirius and James, if they wanted to keep something hidden, would use more than just a blanket and several secret corridors to hide it.
Flicking out her wand, she eyed the stone wall apprehensively. Guessing quickly, she chose the password that had opened up the old hiding place for the Animagi books, for she had a pretty shrewd suspicion that this room wasn't only used as a hideout for cutting class.
"Muidnessid!"
Coming out of the house-elf door, walking inside the dormitory softly, James saw with a quick glance that Lily's four-poster was empty, and the crying came from a different bed. The occupant sat up immediately when she saw him in the doorway.
"Serena? What–what's wrong?"
She dried her eyes hurriedly. "Oh–everything. Everything's wrong–now. Oh, go away!" She buried her head in her pillow, sobbing loudly.
If Lily had been there, she would have started laughing at that performance. She knew that Serena had seen her leave the room with James, and she knew that Serena was pretty good at producing crocodile tears. But Lily was not there, and James was.
He sort of had the idea that the only decent thing to do would be to try to comfort her, so he moved towards her tentatively, putting a hand on her arm.
"Are–are you all right?"
She shook her head violently, her blond hair curling on the pillow. "No. I haven't been since the first day of school this term. Oh–you're making it worse, please go away!"
He ignored that and pulled her against him, and, with a vicious, delighted smile he couldn't see, she buried her face in his shoulder, still sobbing brokenly.
On Lily's part, she was also smiling viciously as the stone wall opened up to reveal the books she had seen that other time, and, when she pushed the far side of the stone cabinet, her smile widened as she saw the hallway in whose shadow she had hidden as she watched James and Sirius pull books out of the wall to take to the Shrieking Shack. Lily closed it quickly, and, pulling the books onto her lap, she arranged herself in front of the half-dead fire that was breathing its last in the small room.
She knew and recognized four of the books, but one of them was new. It wasn't exactly a book, however; it was a binder with large sheaves of parchment stuffed inside. As Lily opened it up and leafed through the pages, she recognized Peter's handwriting, lots of Sirius', and quite a bit of James'. Mostly, she realized, the pieces of parchment that had Peter's handwriting on them were copies of selected pages from library books. She recognized a few passages on Animagi that she had looked up for homework last year, and she knew that they had had to return the book before Madam Pince got suspicious.
Lily quickly flipped through the pages, looking for notes and other things, and she finally came upon something she felt she could use. It was in James' handwriting and was a side-script, scribbled in the margin of a page.

Pince has Dangerous Transformations in her office. Bookshelf three, third from left it usually is. Check tomorrow.

Underneath that, Lily recognized Sirus' script.

Oh, I'm doing this? OK, OK, fine, but I'll need your cloak.

This was obviously a note written in class or the library. The next bit James had written.

All right, take it. But if you get it taken up, your life isn't going to be worth living.

Oh, really? What are you planning on doing?

I'll think of something. We've got to have it, otherwise we won't be able to become Animagi. And, after the work we put into it, that would really suck.

Lily smiled wickedly when she read that. Pulling the sheaf of parchment out of the binder, she folded it up and placed it in her coat pocket, then replaced everything else so that no one could tell there had been an intrusion. Quickly, she flitted up to bed, but stopped short when she saw two figures near Serena's bed, one kneeling beside it, one sitting in it. Lily drew back into the shadows.
They spoke so low that Lily couldn't understand a word, and the intensified hearing she had received from her visits to the Alendoren Cove had been fading slowly. So, at about two in the morning, Lily noticed with relief that James was getting ready to leave; her legs were getting tired of supporting her for so long, and, besides, she hadn't slept all night. Pressing herself into the shadows behind the door, he passed her without dreaming that she was there. Of course, the dark bathrobe and nightgown helped, too.
When Serena finally fell asleep, Lily judged it time to get into her own bed, and, at three, she dozed off herself.
The next morning, a Friday, was the day before the Easter holidays started. They were getting afternoons off from classes, so as to have time to pack their things. Throwing her Charms homework along with her Herbology summary into her bag, Lily quickly dressed and went downstairs to breakfast. There she was greeted with something she had expected; though obviously she was the only one.

Lily slid into a seat next to Amanda and Eva, who were both scowling their muscles stiff. Eva was attacking her scrambled eggs with a ferocity that must have dented the golden plate and fork. Amanda, on her part, was mumbling something to Remus, who was glaring at a pair next to him that he had hoped was dissolved forever. Serena was pretty enough, but she had the worst temper and the meanest disposition when she wasn't getting what she wanted. And she had loosed her temper on him only moments before, when James wasn't looking or listening (for once).
Though Lily hadn't understood a word of the conversation last night, she knew her supposition had been right when she caught sight of James and Serena, talking quietly but apparently oblivious of anyone else. Boys. Lily shook her head. You'd think they'd learn. Her thoughts were interrupted, however, by the arrival of the breakfast mail.
Alisande, who had been gone for about a week now, dropped a letter right next to Lily's plate. She was getting good at not letting letters fall into milk jugs. Peter's owl still hadn't learned. Ripping the letter open, Lily recognized her sister's handwriting.

Lily,

Yes, this letter is really from me. This is a warning. Dad has to go on a last-minute trip to Washington, D.C., and he wants me to tell you not to come home over Easter. He would take you, but the hotels are swamped, and he's leaving me at Vernon's. So there really would be not point in coming home.
Have you found out who wrote that letter yet? Some of your old friends have been asking about you. I told them, as usual, that you were off at boarding school, but I looked really stupid when I couldn't tell them where it was.
I'm sending you an Easter present from Dad. He said to share with your friends. But don't attack it till Easter, if it comes before then.
Bye and see you over the summer,

Petunia

Lily groaned. Another business trip. Why now? Why, why, why now? She'd have to put up with the reunited couple all through this class-free week. Mumbling under her breath, she got up and gathered her things together as the bell rang for first period.
All six of them–Remus, Sirius, James, Peter, Lily, and Serena–had first period Charms together today, and Lily wasn't looking forward to this at all. No one really was–no girl, that is. It wasn't to be denied that Remus was the only boy who was dissatisfied–even Peter was oddly excited.
Abigail and Lily applauded themselves silently as they left the classroom. They had made it through the whole period without throwing up, and that took some self-control. Herbology was next, and Lily had that period alone with James. She really wished he hadn't signed up for Anatomy; then she wouldn't have to spend four periods in a classroom with him and none of her other friends.
They were working in Greenhouse Three today, but after finishing the Flutterby bushes they were assigned, they were allowed to return to the castle, as it was still rather cold outside. The only good thing about the weather was that it had stopped hailing, and, at returning to the castle, Lily headed straight for Professor Dumbledore's office, shuddered at the still disturbingly ugly goblin guarding the entrance (Fizzing Whizzbee–that was the password Professor McGonagall gave it last time Lily had been to visit the headmaster), and handed Dumbledore her sister's note.
He nodded slowly after reading through it. "So you shall be staying here over the holidays?"
Lily nodded. "Yes, sir."
"All right." He stood up, folded the letter back up, and handed it to Lily. "I shall be sending a messenger to your father, however, making sure that this is not a hoax."
She nodded again. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
"All right. We shall inform you of the results. You have not found the writer of the other letter yet, have you?"
Lily stiffened. She didn't know what to say. Yes, on the one hand, she hated Serena terribly, but on the other hand, this would get her thrown out–and, yes, well–it would break at least one of her friends' hearts. Plus Serena was the daughter of the Minister of Magic, who probably wouldn't respond too favorably if his daughter would happen to be expelled. She made up her mind after an instant.
"No, sir."
Dumbledore glanced over her with that piercing glance that always made her fell as if he were peering into her mind, then nodded slowly.
"All right. You may go to lunch now–" He stopped as the lunch bell rang.
Lily smiled shortly. "Thank you, sir." She turned around and left the room, shutting the door softly.
Down in the Great Hall, Eva was waiting for her.
"James told me you had most of last period off. Where were you? I didn't have Care of Magical Creatures, because Kettleburn had a practical lesson in mind, so I looked for you, and couldn't find you."
Lily waved that away as she heaped her plate with fried chicken and a baked potato. She filled her cup with steaming cocoa before she answered.
"Dumbledore's office. I'm not going home over Easter."
Eva was puzzled. "Why not?"
"Dad's on a business trip to America. And he couldn't find a room for me and Petunia, so we're staying behind."
Wrinkling her nose, Eva reached for the cocoa pitcher. "And what about me? I signed up to go home. Should I write Mother and tell her I'm not leaving after all?"
"You can if you want to. But don't you want to go home?"
Eva shook her head violently. "Basil's home again. He was working over in Switzerland, with a bank, but he's home now over the holidays. I don't like his friends."

Lily broke some garlic bread in half and handed a piece to her friend. "Why not? What're they like?"
"Oh–" Eva shrugged and accepted the bread. "Mostly the kind like Peter." She dropped her voice. "I don't like people like that. They're too darned nervous and jumpy and stupid."
Peter turned around. "I just heard my name?"
"Yes." Lily nodded, ignoring Eva's vicious elbow, which was giving her several hard pokes in the side. "Eva's brother has several friends, and–" The elbow dug into her ribs even harder. "And one of them is named Peter. Stop poking me!" This last was directed at Eva.
Peter, obviously appeased, turned to his pumpkin juice and left Eva feeling rather in between stupid and angry.
By the time dessert came around, two people came in that Lily hadn't seen at lunch yet. She gave a loud snort as James tried to pull Serena into the seat next to her and succeeded, but kept her mouth shut, to Eva's surprise.
It was a bit sickening to sit beside Serena, who was meticulously picking out the desserts including the least amount of calories and listening to orders from her to go down to the kitchen and go get a measuring cup, so she wouldn't put too much cream on the blackberries. Needless to say, Serena might just as well have given an azalea bush those orders, but it got annoying after a while. Still, Lily made it through the meal without giving any blackmail threats, though she sorely wanted to.
Lily gratefully saw Serena leave the entrance hall Saturday morning, giving her boyfriend lots of hugs and tears, as she was leaving for the Easter holidays. She didn't know if she could put up with those empty, annoying death threats and false letters and the punches in the hallways any more than she had to, and she was wishing that someone would endow Serena with a more inventive mind, because she was getting extremely tired of the "I'm going to kill you, Evans," and then Lily got all excited, but the only thing Serena ended up doing was cursing her and tripping her in the hallway. It was getting very old.
Eva had communicated with her mother, and she was staying. Vanessa, however, almost had to be dragged along to the train station; she was not in the least excited about leaving. Her holidays would be filled with bangings from one end of the corridor, where Basil's friends were staying, and intense boredom, since her mother was going to be doing several volunteer things, expecting Vanessa to participate. Vanessa was not on speaking terms with Eva when she said goodbye to Lily.
Abigail was leaving, as were Miranda and Nigel, but Amanda, Elspeth, and Diana were staying, along with the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. And, standing together in front of the entrance hall, Lily, Eva, and Amanda waved at the deportees till the carriages were out of sight.
Soon, however, it was time for them to go back inside; the strong wind mixed with bits of ice had started back up, and they were taking shelter in the common room. Contentedly, they watched the fire flicker, giving off a warm glow, and the ice hitting the windowpanes. It was Saturday; they had all of nine days to relax, complain about Professor McGonagall, and finish the large workload they had been given over the holidays. Professor McGonagall insisted that since their O.W.L.s came up next year, the fourth years ought to be prepared, but Lily was the only one who took her side, and that privately. Sirius, Remus, Peter, Elspeth, and Diana were grousing.
Lily had found out in the meanwhile that Elspeth and Diana were actually pretty nice when Serena wasn't around.
Diana was rather talkative (she liked to make her earrings click), had was extremely good at cards but terrible at Gobstones, lived for the raspberry-flavored Honeydukes dark chocolate, and had three cats, a colony of tropical fish, and a small garter snake. She was trying to make her parents let her get an asp, since she liked the idea that Cleopatra had committed suicide using one of those friendly creatures, but they had said NO, firmly.
Elspeth was rather shy and quiet; her family bred horses, and she had one of her own; his name was Storm, and he was black all over, except on his forehead, where a tiny white lightning-bolt disrupted his dark coat. She liked everything that had to do with the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, just like Lily, and they had fun disputing one of Aristotle's ideas with some of the boys, namely this: Aristotle thought the woman was an incomplete form of man.
The girls were hotly denying this, while the boys were pointing out that Aristotle was a famous role model, and one shouldn't disbelieve him, also that his mother was a midwife, and he should know better than anyone. The girls retorted with 'well, he should have spent more time around his mother, then, because he obviously didn't know that females were more developed mentally than males, which was obviously the reason they were being so stupid right now.' The boys found nothing to say to that, and they shut up.
Still, they weren't exactly straining themselves; sitting on the carpet playing Gobstones and Exploding Snap while trying to persuade someone out of their group to go down to the kitchens and get some cocoa. So, when James walked in, with a load of parchment, an ink bottle, and a quill in his hands, spread his things on a table, and started writing something, they all stared at him, aghast.
Sirius was the first to speak. "Are you sick?"
"Hum?" James looked up and smiled airily. "Nope. I'm writing to Cissa."
John was staring at him as if he had just escaped from St. Mungo's. Walking over to him and putting a hand on his shoulder, he snatched up the roll of parchment James had been covering. John, with a disgusted and astonished look on his face, turned to the lazy friends sprawled in front of the fire.
"This idiot covered ten inches of parchment with this mess! Already! And he just said goodbye to her an hour ago!"
Remus rolled his eyes. "James, better be careful. You might end up—"he shuddered—"marrying her."
James went scarlet and snatched his letter back. "Oh, shut up. I like her is all."
Sirius nodded sarcastically. "Of course, you only like her. How on earth could we assume anything else? She acted as if you were her slave, she covered you with spit yelling at her that one night, you went right back out with her, you've been hanging on her every word since then, and the second she leaves, you start writing a length letter, that has, from what I can see through the parchment, at least seven 'I love you's' on there. Of course, you only like her."
James went scarlet again and covered his letter up. "Sirius, shut up!"
Sirius resignedly slid back down and closed his eyes. "As the groom wishes." He had to jump up hurriedly and duck behind several other armchairs, however, to escape the hexes issuing from James' wand. It was all quite amusing to the spectators, and especially when James accidentally hit Eva and Lily with one of his cat-tail jinxes, and they got fed up.

When Lily wiped her wand clean on her robes, blew a bit of dust off, and stuck it back into her pocket, James was sitting in an armchair, fastened to it with a large squelch of honey, with extra whiskers sprouting out of everywhere anyone would want to think of; his arms and legs were tied with velvet ribbon that had itching powder sprinkled on it, and he had several fins sticking out of the end of his spine and plastic combs with ribbons attached trying to tame the mess on top of his head that he claimed was hair.
James wasn't extremely excited about that, and they heard him mumbling to himself that 'that was the last time he'd ever teach that Lily kid how to hex people'. There was no denying, too, that Lily had done most of the jinxing. But she had good reason to; she didn't only have a regular tail, she had seven, and they were all in the most unlikely places; on top of her head, her stomach, on her tongue, her eyelids (both of them), and serving as two extra fingers.
They un-jinxed James about fifteen minutes later, when the laughing fits had worn off, and after he finished getting rid of all of the itching powder, he agreed that yes, it was very good stuff. He ended up being the one that asked Minky for the hot cocoa, and they were all delighted when Minky brought it up. Well—all except Lily—she knew that gleam in James' eyes. As did Sirius and Remus, but they didn't catch it. And she was quite thankful, a moment later, that she hadn't drunk any.
In the first place, it was nasty; in the second, it contained the same very good brand of itching powder. James was pleased to note that that had more effect than several dozen Tinrash Pfefferolus hexes, but he got rather edgy when he met Lily's glare
"Yes?" he asked innocently. Lily wasn't fooled. Neither was anyone else.
"I'm sure we all enjoyed that."
"Well, you didn't. You didn't even drink any."
"Oh." Lily stopped to consider. "You're right. But I'm going to attack you on behalf of everyone else, all right?"
"NO." James was firm.
The others didn't bother. Sirius simply waved his hand in some odd direction. "Lily, don't bother. We'll get him. He has to sleep sometime." Lily laughed at James' surprised start. Then, as if something had just crossed her mind randomly, which it had, she stood up and went over to James, who cowered visibly.
"I need to speak to you. ALONE." This last was directed at Peter, who was inching forward.
James looked puzzled and apprehensive as he pulled out his wand. Impatiently, Lily took her own wand out and threw it on the common room carpet, closer it him than to her, and a good five yards away from either of them.
"All right, fine; you're armed, I'm not. That okay?"
James kept his wand out, ignoring the cat-calls from Sirius. "What about?"
"I just said it was private. If I didn't, then I'm saying it now, and you should have understood. It has to do with something you told me in the other wing."
James looked confused for a second, but only a second. "Oh, all right. Where?"
"Where what?"
"If you said you wanted to speak to me alone, which you did, this isn't the best place to do it." He was right, too. The whole common room was listening.
"All right." She nodded and moved towards him, whispering. "Same place. I'm going to meet you there in five minutes. Now tell me something. Anything, I don't care what."
He didn't catch on quickly, but he did whisper a few mumbles sounding suspiciously like 'blah, blah, blah, are you getting tired of blah and is this good enough?' That was what Lily had been waiting for, and she instantly backed away.
"Excuse you? How dare you—never mind. I'm going. Goodbye." She turned on her heel and flounced off, heading for her dormitory. Once there, she took the key out of the lock, slammed the door as hard as she could, staying in the hallway, locked it, and put the key in her pocket. Slipping towards the house-elf door, she got to the room she had been in just two days ago. To her slight chagrin and annoyance, James was there before she was, sitting calmly in an armchair.
"You wanted to talk to me?"
"I did." Lily sat down in front of the fire, facing him. "It's about Severus."
His eyebrows went up. "And what does that have to do with me?"
Lily stood up. "It's about what I told you last time."
"And?"
"Have you spilled what I told you to anyone?"
James frowned. "Why on earth would I do that?"
Lily gave him a Look.
"Never mind."
"I thought so." She sat back down. "Well?"
He shook his head. "I haven't. You trusted me, didn't you?"
"I did."
"Well, I figured there'd be no point messing it up—after all, you're pretty nice to have around."
Her eyebrows were the ones that went up, skeptically. "How, nice to have around? When I'm helping you with your homework or when I'm asking your crush if she'd meet you somewhere?"
He made several emphatic 'no's. "Lil, no! I—no, it's just that you're nice to be around when you're not jinxing people."
She dropped back onto her heels. "That's always nice to hear. Besides—" she went a bit quieter than usual, and something about her changed, though James wasn't sure quite what. "Besides, I haven't thanked you for handing in your homework as mine that day last term, have I?"
He went brick red. "How did you know—I mean,--oh, god. Yeah, I did do that, but how you found out is beyond me."
"Sirius."

"Oh. Should have guessed."
"Well—thanks for that."
"No problem. You were working yourself to insanity, and then you didn't have your own work, so—" He shrugged. "Well,--is that all?"
Lily nodded. "I wanted to make sure you didn't blurt out anything while you were mad at me. I guess now I know you wouldn't have, but—"
"I know what you mean. I'd have done the same thing."
"So…" Lily had waited for this chance. "Are you happy with Serena?"
He smiled. "Yeah, I guess."
Lily nodded slowly. "I think I can tell that you really like her—only—"
"Only what?"
"I'm debating on whether to tell you this or not."
"Fire when ready."
"All right. But at your own risk." She settled herself on the rug. "James, I really doubt whether she's the kind of person you want to stay with. Remember when you broke up with her?"
"Yeah, so?" He was on the defensive now.
"She can get mean. And from what I've seen—"
"From what you've seen, what?"
Lily took a deep breath. She knew she risked being cursed, as he still had his wand.
"Well, from what I've seen, she doesn't seem to like you as much as you do."
"What do you mean?" His tone was icy stale.
She laid a light hand on his arm, ignoring the tensing of his muscles. "What did you get her for her birthday?"
"A necklace set and some earrings. Why?"
"What did she give you for yours?"
"She didn't. I never told her when it was."
"Don't you think she should have bothered to find out from someone else?"
That made James think awhile, and he dropped his head into his hands. "Why are you telling me this?"
Lily couldn't find an answer to that, so she passed it over. "As far as Eva, Amanda, Sirius, Peter, Remus, the Quidditch team and I can tell, she hasn't spent over two Sickles on you in all these months."
"So?"
"I think I've made my point clear. And then there is this—" She pulled a bit of parchment out of her robes, handing it to him.
"What is that?"
"Sirius found it on the floor in the common room."
He shook his head, so she read aloud.

Cissa, honey,

I don't know how to thank you for sending me those things. Your father would have gone up into the roof if he had found out that I had spent that much for jewelry—and Mr. Brownes gave me ten Galleons for the gold earrings with the red stones. I don't remember what he gave me for the other stuff, but I got that ring with it, and I'm wearing it to the next housewarming party Marsha's giving. Did you say your boyfriend gave them to you? He really has bad taste in jewelry; none of those things would have gone with my dress. Still, don't tell him that you value his gifts like that; he might start giving you really bad stuff, like one carat gold.
Dashing off to a party now, doll. Have a wonderful time!

Mother

 James looked up, a bit stunned, just as she did.
"But—wait—"
Lily shook her head. "She gave your presents to her mother. And without thinking twice about it, either."
"How do you know that?" he challenged.
"This is Serena. I know her better than you."
"HOW?" He was fighting to stay in control.
"It's an old trick. If you want to get to know someone, find out how he or she treats his or her inferiors, not his or her betters. And she considers me her inferior."
James was silent for a few moments, but he finally stopped gripping his head between his palms. "Lily?"
"Um?"
"You're sure you're not doing this as a sort of revenge act?"
Lily shook her head. "I'm not. I don't really know why I'm doing this, but I guess it's better this way than from her—well, at least you're a bit prepared now."
He dropped his head again, slouched, and frowned. "Lil, I know you meant well—and well, I do thank you for this. Not because of the information—it's not exactly what I wanted to hear—still, I guess this is what Sirius or Remus would have done." He looked straight at her. "Thanks."
She bowed her head, knitting her fingers in her lap. "I'm glad you said that."
"Why?"
"Well, this was rather risky to do."
"I know. That's another reason why I'm saying 'thanks'."
Brushing off her robes, Lily stood up. "Do you need a bit of time alone?"
"Yeah." He looked up again. "You're a really good friend to have, you know that?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes. When you're not mad."
"Yeah," he repeated. He didn't move for several minutes, so Lily started for the door. "Wait!"
She whirled. "What?"
He looked pretty depressed as he said this, and she felt herself feeling sorry for him. "Can I have a hug?"
Her surprised astonishment changed to a half-smile. "Of course."