::blushes in embarrassment::  Okay, so every imaginary reader is throwing chairs at me because I haven't updated in almost literally FOREVER, but that's about to change, with at least four chapters…

She had overcome her frustration at James and his cronies for their outbursts, but she had to stop herself from hitting something several times, when she had managed to melt away the candle-lit, table-filled surroundings and replace them with the rough wood of a Puritan dwelling; or a clapboard meeting-house—and then the person she had cloaked in rough farmer's garments and a strong character made some crude twentieth-century remark that jerked her back to the present.
Professor Cauldwell was working them harder than before; the class had officially classified Lily as a workaholic. She stayed in the Potions dungeon after hours, stirring up Madam Pomfrey's medicines and improving on others. The Skele-Gro that had formerly knocked a person out with the pain now simply seemed to stab them all over with red-hot needles where the bone was missing.
Professor Dorvan, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, was lecturing intensively on vampires. She was inviting one of her acquaintances—a vampire, one that lived in the Forbidden Forest, to lecture the class and to do some practical training at midnight in the classroom sometime near Christmas vacation. He was going to be dosed with a potion to make him unharmful, but Professor Dumbledore insisted on two other teachers being in the room while the vampire was near the children.
Professor Trelawney was driving Lily insane. True, Lily had more patience than some, but for a large, ogling bat with a nose like a hedgehog and seventy-five strings of beads around her neck (Lily had been bored one day) to swoop down on her every few seconds and tell her that she was in great danger of being eaten alive by a sock was worse than usual.
Their costumes had been sent by both James' and Eva's parents; James was wearing a rather elegant rough navy cloak and the period tunic and breeches. He wasn't cutting his hair; they were intending to pull it back from his face. The Ravenclaw playing Elizabeth was dressed in a plain tan gown that felt like sackcloth underneath a mildly dirty apron and cap. Parris and the judges wore black and white clergy suits; the accused had costumes resembling Proctor's and Elizabeth's; but they weren't as elaborate. The accusing girls themselves had dark brown or deep red dresses with white aprons over them and the caps they all thought ridiculous on their heads. Lily wore a dress of the same style; but it was deep blue, and it trailed more than the gowns of the others. The neckline went down two inches; not more; the sleeves weren't as long on her dress. The details were small; but they gave her a 'fast' and 'loose' appearance.
There was one rehearsal where Lily was promising to make Proctor a perfect wife when Elizabeth was dead, and she had to kiss his hand.
"Oh, John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again!" She knelt down and kissed his palm—and instantly, when she touched it with her lips and raised her head to say her next line, something seemed to constrict around her throat, and she toppled backwards, croaking something.
When her voice returned a good two minutes later, the first thing she did was to push the cackling audience out of her mind and try to claw James' face apart; she didn't succeed. Lora had caught hold of her apron strings.
"You—you little—you—you!—"
"Me."
"What was that for, you pillock?"
People were still snickering madly, remembering the sight of her trying to say something and only croaking out frog-like sounds.
"It was funny!"
"That's it!" Lily stamped on the floor; almost shook the foundations. She raised her hand to slap him; the blood rushed to her face, and then, seeming to recover herself—she dropped her palm.
"I suppose it was."
He was, quite frankly, stunned. What he had been trying to do was to get her thrown out of the performance; hurt her as badly as she had hurt him—but she was harder to anger than anyone he had ever come across! She had about seventy-five people getting a kick out of her humiliation, and then, in a quiet, sedate voice, she agreed that his practical joke was amusing. James was honestly baffled.
He didn't know how to respond.
"Er—okay, then."
Lily pivoted to face Eva. "Eva, I'd like to call it quits for today."
Eva nodded. "Sure. That okay with everyone else?"
Lora laughed. "It's better than her tearing his eyes out, which she would if she stayed here any longer! I'd help her, as a matter of fact."
Taking off the white cap and apron, Lily threw them over to Lucius. "Here. Eva, you get the dress later on tonight." Without waiting for an answer, she swished out of the Great Hall, leaving silence behind her.
Outside the Great Hall, when Lily was turning onto a staircase, she felt a hand on her arm. Swirling around, she found herself face to face with Severus.
"I heard a sort of fight?"
Lily laughed. "James was being himself. Nothing really important happened."
"Good." He held out his arm, and she took it; they both started towards Gryffindor Tower.
"So; how's life been treating you?"
"If life is James Potter, then it's been using thumbscrews on me."
He winced. "Ouch. I'm sorry."
"Oh, don't bother. I'm all right. It's not as if—" she stopped—"as if I care enough about him for him to make me mad, is it?"
He tried to look into her eyes, but she kept them fixedly as a portrait of a knight on a fat pony.
"Lily?"
"What?"
"You don't, do you?"
Lily stopped and faced him. "Severus Snape, I could swear on my wish of Professor Trelawney choking on a pellet of ferret food that you didn't just say that, and if you did, that you know better."
He laughed. "I'm sorry. I guess I just thought—oh, I was being stupid. Never mind."
His companion smiled triumphantly. "I wasn't."
"Wasn't what?"
"Minding."
They had almost reached Gryffindor Tower by this time, and Lily stopped a corridor away from the portrait. She turned to Severus.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"Everything." She smiled brilliantly, leaned forward, and kissed him lightly on his cheek. Before he could jerk back into reality, she had vanished into the shadows.
James stopped with the practical jokes after that; more or less. He still loved giving smart remarks under his breath and yanking her seat out from under her at dinner, but the novelty of it had worn off, and he settled with simply ignoring her. Without knowing it, he was doing several persons a favor with that. Lily was turning to Sirius and Severus, mostly to vent, but also for help in controlling herself, which was harder than it had ever been. Still, the last thing she wanted to do was succumb to James' taunting, so she couldn't give in.
Meanwhile, Lily was doing better and better in her classes. Professor McGonagall had told her that she would take her on as an apprentice teacher after Hogwarts if she wanted to do so. Her grades were going steadily up, and the people in her classes found it normal to go to her with their questions instead of a teacher. Almost invariably, she was the one picked to demonstrate a rather dangerous spell, and she wouldn't have needed to study at all for the rest of her Hogwarts years and still be able to make over one hundred per cent. But, having the sort of obsession with her grades that she had, she threw herself into her books as if they were her liferaft in a storm.
Halloween was approaching; in fact, it was the night before Halloween when Lily was informed of the date. She had been so occupied, what with her books and the play and the personal annoyances in the form of a former friend, that she didn't let any other knowledge seep through. So Lora's announcement, one night after a practice, came as a rather large surprise.
"Lily, you know we're having that Hogsmeade visit tomorrow?"
Lily looked up. "We are?"
Lora sighed. "I take that as a no. We are."
"I see. What about it."
"Are you coming?"
Eva caught up with them. "I heard the word 'Hogsmeade'!"
Lora laughed. "I'm trying to see whether Lily feels like going or not. Lily, we're buying set materials there."
Looking up, Lily let her eyes smile. "We are?"
"Absolutely. We're also asking you, Snap-er, Severus, and James to do the sets."
"Oh, no." Lily stood up. "Oh, no. Absolutely not."
Eva grunted in frustration, while Lora took the "no" as a "yes".
"Wonderful. We'll meet you in front of the Three Broomsticks at one-thirty. Either bring the costume you've got or wear it. Preferably wear it. See you then!" She started for the Ravenclaw common room before Lily could say anything.
The next morning, Lily lined up along with the rest of the cast for the horseless carriages that were taking them to Hogsmeade; they could easily be told apart by their long, Puritan dresses for the girls and the coarse farmer's outfits and black suits for the boys. All of them were wearing cloaks, though, so they weren't as noticeable, and when they reached the village, which was bursting with people wearing anything from Hogwarts uniforms to fishing nets, they stood out even less. Eva led them straight to the small pub, as the wind was blowing the pink out of their cheeks.
James raised his hand. "Drinks on the set providers' son!"
Everyone cheered; they pushed four tables together, and when James came back with the butterbeers, everyone was ready to discuss what they came for.
Eva and Lora were the stage managers and directors; that is, they were good at bossing other people around, and what they thought needed to be done usually was correct. They had drawn sketches of the sets they thought would be acceptable, and everyone was poring over them.
Lora pointed to one. "See, that's Parris' attic, where the first act takes place. The last thing we want is for this to be too overdone; that kind of takes the attention away from you guys." She nodded towards the directors. "So we thought we'd have rafters or something, and then just one bed-stage right. We need one window on stage left, but we don't need curtains. We're going to have the door permanently upstage right." She waited for them to nod in agreement, which they did.
"I want to go out a bit more with Proctor's house. I want things like spice jars on shelves-just little things to make it look more like a home. We've got the table on stage left, and the fireplace upstage center. We need a small mantel, just like a plain piece of wood. It needs the pot for the rabbit stew, and then we can get a salt shaker from the kitchens; that's not so hard. Door; upstage right. As usual." She flipped the page.
"I don't want the courtroom to be outdone. This is where we really need to focus on the actors-this one's the most dramatic scene. All I think we need is boards for a background, and then a long table for the judges. And a seat for the accusing little brats." She smirked at the three Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaw and Slytherin, who were giving her friendly glares.
"Act four. I want to do it in the courtroom. It's pointless to make another room. So. Any questions or input?"
Everyone shook their heads. James took Serena's hand before answering. "I think you've got a pretty good set plan. What, say, do you think it'll cost?"
Lora looked at Eva, who started thumbing through a notebook.
"I think-if we manage this well and get as many things from our house as we can-one hundred twenty Galleons."
One of the Hufflepuffs spit out a mouthful of butterbeer all over the table at that, earning a few squeals and disgusted noises; James calmed the group down quickly, though.
"It's no big deal; you won't have to bother. My parents are paying for this. They don't care how high the cost is, they said, as long as it doesn't reach over one thousand five hundred."
There was a rather relieved sigh; for James, Lucius, and Eva were the only honestly rich children in the group. Breaking the silence that had settled on them, Lora jumped up, almost knocking over Serena's bottle of butterbeer. Lily wasn't quite sure it wasn't an accident.
"Let's go look at sets then, shall we?"
Her excitement was infectious. They made their way to a tiny store, the Theatre Accessories, squeezed in between the post office and the Hogsmeade branch of the Magical Menagerie. It was brightly lit inside, and when the students stepped onto the creaking wood floor, a small witch scurried out from behind the back rooms.
"Hello, dears! Anything you need?"
Lora stepped to the front with the plans. "We've got a production we're producing," she said importantly, "and we'd like to look at the options you have for backgrounds."
The wrinkly old lady peered over the papers, now with several butterbeer stains on them. She coughed.
"What's the time period, dears?"
Lora, still in a ridiculous pose she thought was grown-up and dignified, gave her answer. "The Crucible It's the Puritan time period—actually, 1692 to 1693. We need sets for a clapboard meeting house, an attic of a home, and the downstairs of another home."
The woman winked. "I think you'd better look around, dears. Straight through that door on the left, and then straight ahead."
Lily was starting to twitch every time she said 'dears', but she followed the cast through the door. They emerged in a magically enlarged room bearing quite a resemblance to the storage room of a theater; everything was classified according to centuries. After wandering for a while, they finally got to Saeculum 1700, written in fancy, old-fashioned script on a piece of parchment tacked to a wooden beam.
Eva moved forward. "Last thing we want is fancy. We'd better look for plain wood."
The Ravenclaw playing Elizabeth Proctor, Flora Expavesco, nodded. "I think I see something like rafters over there—" she pointed to a corner—"over behind the noblesse rose trellis."
They had found samples of the sets they wanted in little over an hour; they emerged with several samples of walls and ceilings, two kinds of windows, a miniature table and benches, a long, wooden table for the judges, two colors of wood for the door, and a bed. Lora was the one who stepped up to the counter and matched the samples they had unearthed to the different points in the plan; the rest of the cast sat on the floor, talking animatedly about the different, expensive sets they had seen.
"And then there was something for the Revolutionary War—did you see that? I wonder what play that was for."
"Did you see the golden cat? I bet that was for Antony and Cleopatra."
"There was also an Italian villa. I don't want to know what that must have cost!"
"I found several costumes in a different room from the Civil War era. Those were expensive."
"Ooh, what colors?"
"I saw an apple-green and a dark widow's dress—"
Lora waved James to come over to the counter, and immediately they stopped talking. Still, they were relieved when James stepped back with the grin still on his face.
Serena jumped up; she had come because she had insisted on being props manager.
"What's the grand total?"
"Hum? Oh, that. Nothing bad. Five hundred sixty Galleons, twenty Sickles."
Lily was extremely glad he could be so flippant about the costs; she definitely wouldn't want to have to cover the costs. The two hundred pounds her father had given her at the beginning of her school years were going for her education; and there wasn't much of it left; just enough to keep her at Hogwarts till her seventh year. There was enough for the last set of books, but she couldn't afford to be extravagant at all.
For a minute, she considered how nice it would be to be able to spend that much at one time, but then she wrinkled her nose at the prospect. She knew she would get bored eventually with the extravagant silks and satins surrounding her house, and with the expensive foods she would be able to buy. Actually, she was considering that she'd much rather have to work, rather than lie around all day.
"I'm never getting married," she thought. "I couldn't stand having a pillock of a husband tying me down to earth all the time—and I don't think there's one person in this dimension that could understand me."
One person came to mind, but then she brutally shoved the name out and padlocked the iron doors that kept him outside her conscious self.
When they returned to Hogwarts, Lily dragged her feet upstairs, in the direction of her dormitory. The Halloween feast was in the evening, and she wanted to stay up late. The feast promised to be interesting, considering the time the Marauders spent in Zonko's, and Lily didn't plan on falling asleep before anything interesting happened. Besides, most likely they would attack her with whatever it was, seeing the bad terms they were on, and Lily had better be wide awake if she wanted to dodge whatever it was.
What Lily considered 'resting' was sitting in the window seat with either a book or her drawing materials; this time, it was her book of pencilled portraits.
She started off with a pair of twinkling eyes, set underneath smiling, dark eyebrows. The almost Grecian nose bridged just where the stubborn but sometimes compassionate jawline started to slope downwards. The mouth was a bit thin, but it was smiling, and the dark hair was wildy flopping everywhere.
She stared down at the face for a few minutes, then, sharply drawing her breath in, she ripped it out of her book, crumpled it up, and threw it across the room, where it fell next to her bed, hidden by a fold of the curtains.
Lily sat in the windowseat, straight-backed and tense, eyes almost wide with fright, breathing shortly and rapidly. She stayed there until it was time to go downstairs; when she did leave, it was with a machine-like swiftness.
The feast was even better than usual; if that was at all possible. The bats that fluttered over the tables had lost their harsh squeaky sounds; they squawked more solemnly and softly, thereby sparing the students' eardrums. Professor Dumbledore had ordered butterbeer from the Three Broomsticks; the roast beef mounds set on the tables seven feet apart were decorated with orange and black tinted Hogwarts crests stuck into them with toothpicks and connected with draping, thin streamers. The orange and black icing that decorated the desserts was buttercream; a wonderful improvement over the usual powdered sugar icing.
Lily enjoyed the feast; she drew out more than usual and started talking animatedly to everyone around her, not even noticing that one of those people was one she was currently supposed to be extremely angry at. When she left the Great Hall for the Gryffindor common room, she heard James whisper to Remus; "What's wrong with her; did someone spike the butterbeer?"
"What, do you mind?"
"No, 'course not! I mean-well, I don't want her talking to me, but-well, having to be mean doesn't leave you time for much else."
"Well, then! Leave well enough alone, my friend."
"All right," she heard James sigh before she was engulfed by the crowd.
Everyone stayed up late that night; swapping old and new jokes and stories; whispering to each other about the new wizard down in Albania who was causing havoc among the Ministry and, in the case of the cast, rehearsing lines. It was around one when the common room was mostly emptied. The Marauders were still there, talking about something and eating Fudge Flies; Lily had retreated to her dormitory to retrieve Das Kartengeheimnis; she didn't trust herself with her pencils anymore.
When she stepped off the marble staircase she had descended without a sound, her sharpened hearing unconsciously caught her name. Curious, though mindful of the anger of hurt she might feel by listening, she made her way behind the sofa they were sitting on.
"I didn't think she'd be so outgoing. Almost like someone hexed her with a Cheering Charm or something."
"You mean you're disappointed?"
"Er-well-look here, Peter-"
"What?"
"She hurt me pretty badly, that night at our house. I hadn't done anything at all-I'd saved her from falling off of that owl window, for Pete's sake."
"So?"
"So the first thing she does is scream her head off at me!"
"I don't know why that should hurt you."
"Oh, I give up. I don't know why it did, but it did."
"You care that much about her to care if she insulted you?"
"Er-" James shrugged. "I suppose so, yes."
Lily was trying to conceal the start she gave from herself. It wasn't working too well.
"She matters that much to you?"
"I guess. I don't know. I mean-she's a nice person and all, if you're not around her when she's got a weapon and/or is in a bad mood-"
"But what?"
"But she's too-too out there."
"That made no sense whatsoever."
James sighed. "She's so flighty and carefree-she runs into danger and enjoys it…" His voice trailed off.
"Just like you, you mean."
"No!" He was positive on this point. "We just break stupid school rules-she doesn't care if she breaks laws!"
"What?" All four of his listeners were becoming intent on this; including Lily.
Immediately James withdrew into a sort of shell. "Never mind. It's her secret; I can't tell you."
Sirius sounded worried. "James, my friend, you're sick."
"I'd like to remind you that you were the one that suggested we sneak into the girls' dormitory in second year."
"Not that kind of sick. I meant-"
"Lovesick," Remus added.
James swung around at him and glared.
"If you think that I have even the tiniest hint of feelings towards that ungrateful little brat, you'd better think again. You know perfectly well that Cissa and I are closer than I've ever been to her. Cissa's understanding, quiet, sweet, smart, sympathizing-everything that the Evans girl isn't. You know that!"
Sirius nodded. "Good. Fine. Very good. I don't blame you one bit."
James squinted at Sirius. "There's something you're not telling me."
"Is there?"
"No; I've got a pair of scissors stuck in my forehead. Tell me."
Sirius raised his hands above his head. "The prisoner has confessed all. My secrets are your secrets."
"Huh?"
"I don't have any."
"Liar."
"Okay, so maybe I do," Sirius admitted. "But a person's allowed to have some privacy around here, isn't he?"
"No," the other three chorused.
Sirius closed his eyes. "I'm going to bed."
Lily didn't forget about what he had said; but she sincerely hoped he didn't mean what she had thought he had meant. She couldn't deal with all this-she wanted to be as normal as she could get-befriend and help outlaws, wreak an extremely large amount of havoc throughout the world-she didn't have time for a stupid love life!
However, she didn't have much time to reflect on her preferences of a perfect life; they were studying Bowtruckles in Defense Against the Dark Arts; a creature that Professor Dorvan had been extremely friendly with in the Forbidden Forest; they were tree-guardians, which normally leapt down upon woodcutters or tree-surgeons, gouging their eyes out with their long, sharp fingers.
In the Forbidden Forest, however, they would leap on any unsuspecting creature within their grasp, no matter if it tried to harm the tree or not. Professor Dorvan had had a colony of the small Bowtruckles living in her tree; and she had asked them to come to Hogwarts for a demonstration. They would only be pacified for a few minutes if offered a certain object, and the students were ransacking the library for a book that might hold the answer; as they were supposed to confront their visitors upon their arrival
The play was growing more demanding as Hufflepuff was slaughtered by Slytherin in the next Quidditch match and Christmas was moving steadily closer and closer. The tournament was on the twenty-first of December; it was taking place in northern Germany, and it wasn't helping that the workload was being piled upon them.
The N.E.W.T.s were being taken by the sixth years at the end of the school year, but the teachers evidently felt that the fifth year's O.W.L. scores hadn't been high enough, so they were pushing for extremely high grades on the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests.
The homework was keeping the cast of The Crucible up till midnight on days with less homework; Lily was the only one that could get to bed at any time and still wake up at six-thirty in the morning.
It was starting to rain heavily, and James wasn't at play practice that much; he was at Quidditch training. Often, he would come in in the middle of one of his scenes, splattered with mud and exhausted. Quickly he'd have to remove the Quidditch robes and usually the drenched shirt for his costume; they were working on moving so that their costumes looked natural on them, which was the reason for them.

One evening, Lily had returned from the confrontation in court, and she was sitting at a table in the common room, working on an essay for Professor McGonagall: What is the scientific basis of magic?
She was sitting in one of the armchairs, one foot tucked underneath her, bent over the roll of parchment.
The only thing that could be heard was the scratching of her quill.
She ignored the thumping footsteps coming down from the boys' dormitory, and only when James let himself down in an armchair with a loud wheeze and a "Bloody hell, I'm tired!" that she looked up.
"Oh, it's you."
He grinned. "None other."
"Pity."
"Isn't it, though?"
She bent her head back over her essay; she was ten inches over the required length, but she was intending to make it another three feet long. Pulling several other books onto the parchment to prevent it from curling up at the ends, she flipped a page in another book she had bought for herself to read.
James pulled his own Transfiguration book and supplies out; then leaned over to her essay. Lily let her free hand drop onto the table noisily, palm first, just missing his arm.
"Hey, you've got no call to hit me!"
"Are you trying to copy my essay?"
James shrugged. "Not exactly."
"Then stop pretending that you are."
"Hey—you've got more than you need. Be sharing!"
"I am not a sharing person."
"I didn't notice."
"That's pathetic."
"Oh, shut up."
"With pleasure." Her finger found the paragraph on the page she remembered seeing, and, looking up at the book every so often, she started rephrasing the statement.
He opened his own book, then grunted in frustration. "Lily?"
"Yes?"
"Do me a favor, will you?"
Lily looked up. "Am I obligated in any way to do you a favor?"
"No," he admitted.
"You've got your answer, then."
"So you'll do it?" he grinned hopefully.
Lily looked up into his face; which was a mistake. Half smiling and half frowning, she gave up, finishing her last word with a flourish and setting her quill aside.
"What do you need help with?"
"I don't have our essay topic."
Lily let her head fall back onto the back of the armchair. "I would comment."
"But what?"
"But it's painfully obvious."
He rolled his eyes and squinted over at her essay. By the time she had caught on, he was busily scribbling away on his own roll of parchment.
Five minutes passed that way; Lily was curled up in the armchair, somewhere between dozing and sleeping, and James was trying to unconspicuously look at her essay. She knew what he was doing, and he knew she knew what he was doing, and she knew that he knew that she knew what he was doing. All in all, he wouldn't have been allowed to copy if she had been fully awake, and he knew it.
Finally, he looked up. "Lily?"
She shook her head, trying to clear the sleep away from her brain. "Yes?"
"I'd like to talk to you."
"Umph." She resettled herself in the armchair, with the characteristic foot tucked underneath her. "I thought this was coming. Proceed."
He twisted his chair around to face her. "I want to talk about what happened at my house."
"I thought as much."
"I want you to tell me why you acted like that."
"Get used to disappointments."
"Lily."
"Okay, okay." She unbent. "What? You want me to reveal to you the complete psychological meanings behind each and every one of the flutters of my eyelids?"
"You could say that."
"You're treading on Lightning Sand here."
"Sorry."
"I guess I can live with that. But honestly, if someone who is admitted to be extremely dangerous by the Ministry of Magic announced to you his intention of murdering as many Muggles as he could come across, and your entire family is made up of Muggles, you should have known enough not to get in the way."
"Hey! I very probably saved your neck that time!"
"Excuse me?"
"I probably saved your neck."
"How would that be?"
He raised his eyebrows. "You honestly mean you don't know?"
"Know what?"
"Or else you don't realize."
"That is an insult." Lily pursed her lips, waiting for an explanation.
"How so?"
"For me not to realize what you have seen would make me out to be a complete imbecile. What were you going to say?"
He scowled at her. "I am not an idiot. I've got the second-highest grades in this school!"
"And mine are better than yours. That is beside the point—high marks are surpassingly easy to achieve. What really tests one's intelligence is reality. But proceed."
"Well, then." He rearranged himself in his armchair. "What would have happened is precisely this—that is, if I'd let you stay in Albania any longer. You, having the uncontrollable temper that happened to burst out at that time, would have very likely launched your fury at Vol—at Riddle, and he, in his turn, would have retaliated, in what manner I know not, but it would not have been pleasant." In quaint Sherlock Holmes style, he leaned back and pressed the tips of his fingers together, looking at her and waiting for her to confirm it.
To his surprise, she did no such thing.
"Never become a psychologist or a detective, James. Either you'll be prosecuted because you're hopelessly incompetent, or you'll lose your business because you're hopeless. Take your pick."
James sat up. "Excuse me?!"
Lily gave a short laugh. "My friend—you forget that I saved his fiancée. He is completely in my debt."
"But he's got a temper about as bad as yours—you can't deny that he's incapable of seeing red if someone defies him!"
The unconsciously superior look on Lily's face was maddening as she gave her answer.
"James, I have lost my temper against him before. Do I look like a walking corpse?"
"I suppose it would be rude to state the obvious, wouldn't it?"
She laughed. "I welcome rudeness. I only feel comfortable around people who aren't depressingly formal."
He smiled broadly. "You're not at all like anyone else I've met, are you?"
"You'd be the best judge of that."
"I know, I know." He sighed, relapsed into silence for a few minutes, and then looked straight at her face.
"Lily?"
She had been busy with the index of her Transfiguration book, but at his address she looked up. "Yes?"
"I don't know how you'll take this."
"I don't, either, considering I don't know what it is."
"You've got the gift of making me feel like an unquenchable idiot."
"Oh." She waved her hand deprecatingly. "That's not hard. And try dumping water on yourself."
"Huh?"
"Quench. To extinguish by means of water."
A sharp reply was on the tip of his tongue, but he quelled it, forcing it down into his throat. "As I was trying to say, I'd like to start over—a fresh leaf—I'd like for us to be friends as we were again." Almost pleadingly, he caught her gaze. "I hate fighting with you."
Lily smiled. "I think it would be better if we hated each other—especially now."
James frowned. "I don't understand."
Her pleasant smile widened. "It's just this. I don't know exactly how good you are at acting. If you're not all that good and you're only hating me onstage because you really did--well, it would be a pity to stop hating me before the tournament, wouldn't it?"
He sighed and fell back—he was having trouble concealing the hurt he felt at the rebuff of an honest attempt at reconciliation. "Your arguments simply make too much sense—I'm starting to detest them."
Her eyes were turning a hard, ice-green color as memories of her third year—of the last few weeks—of the cruelty he was capable of—and then of Eva whispering words clearly in her ear—the words that warned her not to be too friendly to him. The tears that had flowed during her third year and wouldn't leave her alone during her fourth; the memory of her mother's funeral invariably crept to mind—and the malice he had enjoyed exercising at the auditions; the spite and brutality that garlanded his face whenever he'd looked at her since sixth year began. When she raised her eyes, she knew instantly what her path led her to—the one that would harm her the least.
"James, you're not the kind of friend I'd ever choose. I don't know how many times we've fought and you've been unutterably cruel to me, and I'd prefer not to know. I've tried over and over—it never works out the way it does in fairy tales, with the enemies becoming the best of friends."
He shrugged. "They usually fall in love."
Sharply, her head flew up, searching for a meaning behind the words in his eyes; they were as impassive as a metal wall, and she found nothing.
"I don't care what the fairy tales say. What I do care about is me. I'm a hard-hearted, mercenary beast; I'd prefer if we weren't friends."
The word "Why?" fell from his lips; it seemed as if he didn't even care if she lived or died.
She tossed her head, giving out the first words that came to her lips. "Because you're too much of a mercenary thug, that's why."
He hadn't expected that; it was obvious. "Huh? I'm mercenary? Look at yourself!"
Lily looked down. "I'm wearing Hogwarts robes and a prefect badge. What about them?"
"Argh!" He pulled at his hair. "What do you mean by mercenary?"
"I mean," she explained coolly, "that you seem to choose only those for your permanent friends as have enough money to please you."
"What?"
Sighing, Lily started ticking off names on his fingers. "Serena—her father's the Minister of Magic. They're in control of a fortune large enough to buy all England. Eva and Vanessa—enough said. Sirius isn't the most wealthy of people, but his bank account would allow him to live on his own, comfortably, for about forty years. The same goes for Remus. And—"
"STOP!"
Lily raised an eyebrow. "Has Mr. Potter had enough?"
"It's a coincidence, all right! I don't choose my friends for their money!" With that, he stood up and stormed out of the common room, leaving Lily with an unusually pointed jaw; she had been trying to keep tears back.
"You know, you're right. I wonder you didn't realize that I know that."
She fell back, letting her eyes close. She was exhausted from the strain of being indescribably malicious and brutal towards someone she would give almost anything to have as a friend; her eyes had been clawing at her to tear for the past few minutes.

The next morning, Lora could tell something was wrong as Lily walked into breakfast; she didn't usually have such a determined and inward look to her face. It was almost as if she were a queen that had found out she had to be sacrificed in order for her country to continue existing; and she was facing what she had to confront with the fortitude of seven rulers. Lora wondered, of course, but she could tell Lily wasn't in the mood to talk.
She didn't speak to anyone, really, all day. Sirius tried to talk to her; to ask her what went on in the common room last night; for James was being close as an oyster. She didn't bother to respond; simply shook off his arm and vanished into the crowds that were swarming the corridors between classes.
Severus tried, too. He'd known her longer than Lora had; she was closer to him than to Sirius or James, so he made up his mind to try. In all honesty, she didn't mean to rebuff him so cruelly, but she was almost incapable of realizing how much she could hurt people with a ruthless "I don't want to speak to you."
She didn't come to the next Quidditch match; Gryffindor against Hufflepuff, but she was under the impression, from the extremely large party Sirius, Remus, and Peter were preparing in the common room beforehand, that they were quite sure of winning. Rather tired and strained from something she couldn't pin down, Lily remained in her dormitory with The Princess Bride (again), an open window with sunlight streaming in and a cold breeze flowing around the room, and a brain longing to be wiped clean of everything that was running across it. She had been reading about Pensieves in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and she was wishing for one quite badly.

Chapter One. The Bride.
The day Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette. Annette worked in Paris for the Duke and Duchess de Guiche, and it did not escape the Duke's notice that someone extraordinary was polishing the silver….
"I must be overtired," Buttercup managed. "The excitement and all."
"Rest, then," her mother cautioned. "Terrible things can happen when you're overtired. I was overtired the night your father proposed"…
"Your father has had his annual physical," the Count said. "I have the report."
"And?"
"Your father is dying."
"Drat!" said the Prince. "That means I shall have to get married!"…
"I am your Prince and you will marry me," Humperdinck said."
Buttercup whispered, "I am your loyal servant and I refuse."
"I am your Prince and you cannot refuse."
"I am your loyal servant and I just did."
"Refusal means death."
"Kill me then."
"I'm your Prince and I'm not so bad—how could you rather be dead and married to me? You can either marry me and be the richest woman in a thousand miles and give away turkeys at Christmas and provide me a son, or you can die in terrible pain in the very near future. Make up your mind."…

Lily was tempted to smile. Buttercup was one of the most annoying little gold-diggers she'd ever met…but then again, she was wiser and sadder than anyone she knew—her fiancé had died at sea—was murdered…
Suddenly, aided by the loud cheers floating to her ears from the open window and the Quidditch field, she shook herself free of the spell of the story and let her eyes rove around her room. They came to rest on a spark of deep blue light hitting the wall.
Following its source, she came to rest on the necklace she wore around her neck. The sunlight had been streaming through it to the wall…She put up a hand and touched it, running slim fingers over the cool surface and the golden talons holding it in place, shivering with a cold wind that was sweeping through the dormitory...
The next moment, she was kneeling beside her trunk, pulling out something she hadn't used since—since—she couldn't remember the last time she had used it; probably back in fifth year. Lily drew out the black velvet cloak, threw it around her shoulders, and took the necklace in her hand. She knocked it against a hematite ring she was wearing, and, taking a deep breath, stared into the deep, dark, midnight-blackness surrounding her with its swirling claws.
The landing was comparatively light; she fell onto one knee and picked herself up quickly. Lily cast a glance around her; no one was in sight; and what was more important—no battle was raging. A sigh of relief escaped her as she shook the glistening sands off of her cloak and made her way to the cave Tom was using for a dwelling.
She entered, knocking before she lifted up the rug hanging over the door. Peering inside, she found Tom in deep converse with Litharelen; though he looked up quickly at the sight of her.
"Lily!" Tom left his seat. "Did you—did you—" He raked the doorway in search of someone else. "Did you bring anyone?"
"No; I came alone." Lily let herself sink onto a chair. "Is something wrong?"
Tom nodded. "We—we want to move on to England—the Death Eaters and I, that is. We're in more danger here, and this is farther away from their homes. Not that I care much about them—but I would have to provide a decent alibi for them every time they left the continent. I'm ready to move on to England, our plans are set, we've got contacts inside the inner circle of the Ministry of Magic—the only thing that's wrong is that Lith won't let me go."
Litharelen, though her pearly silver complexion held no trace of redness, was obviously steaming.
"Of course I won't let him go! He's going to England to conquer innocents—to kill people that aren't like him or that don't like him. He's planning to establish a reign of terror—can you blame me if I don't want him to do that? Tom, sooner or later the Ministry'll get you—I know they will. There's no use telling yourself they won't. I don't want you doing this; can't you understand?"
Tom sighed loudly. "I am not planning to establish a reign of terror! You've got an overly imaginative mind, Lith—all we're trying to do is—is—" He stopped lamely, but Litharelen finished his sentence for him.
"Is establish yourself as the High Supreme Scowling Lord Wizard With Red Eyes. I know, I know. But tell me, just tell me, what's the attraction in that?"
Lily raised her eyebrows. She had a point. A very good point.
"Tom, why now, all of a sudden?"
Tom sighed. "Someone ratted us out to the Ministry—where we hold our meetings and where I live. I know you wouldn't—but I'm not so sure about your friend."
Lily tossed her head. "I'm not so sure he wouldn't do that, either. I won't bring him here anymore—fair deal?"
The faintest ghost of a smile crept across Tom's face. "Fair deal."
Smiling back at him, Lily looked around the cave. It had changed mightily in appearance since the first time she had seen it. Then, it was almost bare, with a cauldron hanging in the fireplace and several books and bottles on a lone shelf-a lamp, she remembered, was hanging from the ceiling. Now there were two chairs; plain, in the center of the cave; the cauldron was new and larger than the old one had been, and there was continually something bubbling in it.
The solitary shelf had become many; they were lining the ceiling, and the number of bottles and books had definitely increased. The bottles were mostly crystal or of the same type as Lily's own-the one he had given her last year. Each was filled with some sort of liquid.
Some were glutinous and thick; others were pale and pearly. Most of them, however, had a green tint or were a dark purple or red. There were some dotted here and there that were a golden color, or a light blue, but those were few and far between.
Lily caught Tom looking at her, and she glanced up at him.
"What's that?" She gestured to the liquid bubbling in the cauldron on the fire.
Tom grinned and was about to answer, but Litharelen came in first. "It's his immortality potion. One of them."
Lily was admiring the way Litharelen was hissing out the word 'one', but then she stopped at the sound of Tom's lighthearted, cold, high laugh.
"Lith, you take this too seriously. What's wrong with living forever?"
Litharelen was about to launch into a heated debate, but changed her mind quickly, pulling Lily out of the cave and into the bitingly cold wind. They walked over to the rocks by the shore, dived in, and treaded water for a while, until Litharelen cooled off. She had changed to the long, mermaid-like tail, and she was wearing a silver tunic blending beautifully with her hair.
"Lily, I don't know what's wrong with him. He has a sort of obsession with power, and nothing I do can turn him from it. I've tried all I know. I've done everything in my power besides burying him alive-but that wouldn't help at all. For all I know, he's immortal already."
Lily frowned. "Lith, he's too stubborn to be persuaded."
"I know, I know." The pale, almost frantic girl wiped the silver strands of hair out of her eyes. "I just don't know what to do, and--" She flung her eyes open, the dark, deep green eyes that held so much power. "I love him."
Lily knew there was more to that statement than simply the words Litharelen spoke. There was a ripple of something urgently sincere in her voice; something fervent, and something desperate.
"I know."
Both of them didn't speak for some time, and then Litharelen nodded towards the shore. "Care to return?"
Lily smiled. "I'll come."
Both of them set off for the coast, and while Lily was underwater, she could hear the faint sounds of a sea ballad; soft and streaming, yet light and forceful; churning in her ears.
When they climbed out of the water, Litharelen turned to Lily. "Thank you." She wrung the dewy water out of her hair. "I don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't been there."
"I didn't do anything."
Litharelen smiled the ghostly glimmer that was her characteristic. "You were there."
When Lily returned to the common room, she was glad she hadn't stayed longer. She could hear the rush of feet outside the portrait hole, and she didn't waste an instant of time before quickly flinging the curtains around her bed shut. Only then, sitting cross-legged on the mattress, did she examine her hair.
It was as she had expected; it was streaked with more silver than usual, and most probably would stay in her hair for several hours. Resigned and exhausted, Lily fell back onto her bed. It only took a moment before her eyes closed in slumber.
Abigail, her present half-friend in their dormitory, had noticed Lily's absence at the Quidditch match, and she had clambered the stairs in search of her friend. When she entered the dormitory, she instantly noticed the drawn curtains. Curiously, she moved forward.
It only took the work of a second to draw the curtains away from the bed. Abigail peeked inside, thinking Lily might be reading or asleep-then she drew back, stunned and shocked at the sight she had seen.
The almost auburn hair of the friend she knew so well was light-it was almost silver. Her naturally pale, partly pink complexion was a moonlit silver, and her lips were a silvery green. Her ears were pointed, and the necklace Abigail had only seen once or twice before was glowing with a spinning silver mist inside the midnight-blue stone. The dark, red eyelashes were blacker than ink, tinted with silver at the ends, where they tilted up.
Breathing unnaturally fast, Abigail left the room. Just outside, she tripped over her feet, but regained them more quickly than she ever had done before. Gasping, she sped into the common room, intending to blurt out everything she had seen.
She was halted in her intentions by Peter. More accurately, she ran into him, knocking them both to the ground. When Sirius and Remus helped both of them up, they noticed something strange.
"Abigail?"
Abigail stared up at Sirius. "It's Lily! She's some sort of creature-some monster! I saw-I saw-"
"Whoa!" Sirius held up a hand. "What about Lily?"
"She's-a-monster!"
James had meanwhile noticed the commotion. "What about Lily?"
Puffing and wheezing, Abigail related what she'd seen, but she didn't notice James slowly becoming pale.
It was only with quite a bit of effort that the Marauders prevented the whole common room from hearing her; as it was, only several people caught the words 'silver', 'pointy ears', and 'sick!'
Remus was gaping as Abigail finished; as were Peter and Sirius. James was thinking furiously.
"We need to go up there and see what's wrong."
"Peter, you nut, if she's some sort of elf or veela thing, she won't want us interfering."
"But she might attack us!"
"You prat. What makes you think she would?"
"Well-she's not human!"
"Neither am I," Remus stated matter-of-factly. "We'd best leave her to herself…" His voice trailed off.
James jumped in. He was still feeling more than a bit bitter towards Lily, and he saw this as his chance.
"Why-it can't hurt us to look at her, can it?"
Sirius turned to him. "Why do you say that?"
"Well, it can't."
Peter agreed hurriedly. "I think so, too."
Remus frowned. "I don't think-"
"Well, at least let the Gryffindors know. Then she won't have a reason to act so stupidly superior to us."
Abigail opened her eyes wide. "You mean that that was why she stopped talking to me so much?"
James nodded sagely. "I'll bet that's why!"
Lily was shaking sleep out of her eyes when she heard footsteps almost outside the door. Sitting up straight, she pulled several strands of hair in front of her eyes. They were still the same as they had been before she fell asleep-the same silver and auburn interwoven.
The voices and thumps outside were close enough for her to recognize the voices. James' was one of them. She drew a breath so sharply it almost made her dizzy-he wouldn't, would he?
Deciding not to leave it at chance, she almost leaped out of bed. There was nowhere to hide in the dormitory they wouldn't think of searching-and they were already on the corridor-they'd see her if she left the room. Desperately, knowing she'd be accused of helping the outlaw if everything came out, she dashed for the window of the dormitory, clinging to the stone walls above the opened stained glass.
As soon as the tip of her cloak vanished, the door burst open, and the five students piled into the room. Abigail made straight for the four-poster, then, as she opened it, drew back in horror.
"She's Disapparated!"
James snorted. "You can't Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts. Most likely she hid somewhere."
Lily blessed her stars for the foresight she had had in leaving the dormitory; though at this moment, she was no better off than the man in black in The Princess Bride, when he had been hanging seven hundred feet above the ocean, grabbing hold of the sheer rock face of the Cliffs of Insanity.
Still, she was hardly three feet away from the top of the tower; and there was a small circlet underneath the cone-shaped roof. Quickly, kicking off hard from the stone wall, she twisted herself up in the fashion of a hedgehog, landing breathless with her upper body on the safer side of the stone banister.
She remained there for several minutes, blessing her luck and the funny gymnastic trick she had seen a gymnast do once at a competition; she had then decided to learn how to do it.
Once, Abigail looked out of the window, but downwards, so that she missed Lily entirely. When the puzzled voices inside the room faded into the bustle of the common room, she opened the trapdoor that led to the corridor for the girls' dormitory.
She pulled the hood of her cloak over her glistening hair, and quickly, she made her way to the house-elves' corridor, opening and shutting the door; flitting through like a shadow.
The place Lily was making for was the prefect's bathroom-she stopped in front of the statue of Boris the Bewildered, and whispered "Lemon scent" so softly that she doubted the people in the pictures had heard her. The door opened quickly, and as soon as she slipped inside, she locked the door; then leaned against it, breathing hard.
Lily would never have guessed that James' bête-noire for her had gone this far-she had never dreamed that he would have tried to reveal her secret, the secret he had sworn to keep. He was in it too-at least, she had thought so, but after this evening, for all she knew, he could very well be the one turning Tom in to the Ministry of Magic. It was mind-boggling, the petty things people could do if they had suffered a grievance…
Human nature was cruel.