Salt Lick

James lay on his side on his bed in his dormitory, his head buzzing with unorganized thoughts. He was thinking of the past year, Elle, Quidditch, Elle leaving, the upcoming match, homework, Janie, Elle, Janie.... James turned upwards and shoved a pillow under his back. He focused his thoughts sleepily on one thing.

He remembered Elle's warm grin, her way of fidgeting before tests, her walk, all the strawberry jam she piled on her toast. How she had screamed then disappeared. What had happened? Why did Dumbledore not do anything? Everyone had gone crazy after she'd left. Then the shock had worn off, and they stopped talking about her. They all thought about her though. At least he did. Then he'd saw a girl he'd never saw before. Something about her caught his eye for some crazy reason in the hall one day, but when he turned to look again, she wasn't there. It had taken forever to find her out, but he learned she was deaf and mute from some second years in Hufflepuff, and in sixth year. She sat at the same corner of the Hufflepuff table each morning, noon, and night at meals. And she piled her toast with enormous quantities of strawberry jam.

He'd finally found her in the library and she had jumped like a cornered doe. They had talked forever. Then afterwards, he had felt guilty. He felt like he was betraying Elle, forgetting her too easily. He willed his sleepy thoughts to the remember night not so long ago....

They were walking alone back to Hogwarts, still dressed in their Santa suits. Or in her case a Mrs. Santa suit. They were walking as slowly as they could. Both of them didn't want their time together to end. They joked around, and talked about life after Hogwarts, their families. James remembered what had happened next remarkably clearly considering how he couldn't think when it was happening. They sort of stopped and faced each other for no reason, he tapping the ground with the front of his shoe, she looking down at hers. Then they had looked up at the same time and found they were closer than they had expected. Then before he knew what he was doing he was leaning in closer. He had seen his eyes reflected in hers before he had shut his. He flinched remembering it. What was he thinking? He hadn't been thinking. He just dove in and kissed her. She had looked really flustered, and he felt even more flustered, then they had flusteredly walked back to the castle in silence, and with a quick bye walked different ways to their different destinations. She had gone towards her room, but he in an awkward, flusteredness had walked unconsciously in the opposite direction, which he had later found out was the kitchen. If his brain didn't know what he needed, his subcontious did. Then in the morning he couldn't talk to her about it because they were never alone, then she needed to change after a huge snowball fight, then she screamed and she was gone.

James grabbed his head with both hands and let out a noise that was in-between and groan and a yell. Sirius, who was a light sleeper, snapped up.

"Wassamatter?" he asked sleepily.

"Nothing," James rolled over, popped a salt cube from under his bed into his mouth, and went to sleep.

AN: Okay, we're going back in time again. Back to when Elle was still there. On the day in Hogsmeade they were all daring each other, the day of the Santa suits, etc.

Meg was not in a good temper, but then she never really was. She was at the library in Hogsmeade looking up French newspapers. The magical variety of course. She dropped a load of dusty newspapers on her desk in the corner she had been using for 3 hours. She sneezed and produced her wand. She tapped the paper here and there at the headlines, turning the French into English. It was mildly entertaining to watch. The letters would group together in a big tangle, and new letters would appear, then they'd arrange themselves into the other desired language.

Meg was getting tired and it was already dark out. She'd have to leave for the castle soon. She prodded a headline several times. Her magic was drifting off with her brain, and some words would only half-translate themselves. She poked the papers for what seemed like another 3 hours before she stopped suddenly. She stared down at the headline in front of her, blaring out the message: MASS MUGGLE-BORN KILLINGS AT BEAUXBATONS ACADAMY. Meg quickly translated the rest of it, and ran over to the magical copying machine. She coughed as the machine produced a large cloud of purple smoke. Fanning the air around her, Meg produced the copy of the article and shoved it in her bag. She was late for a Christmas party in the Hufflepuff common room, she would have to read it later.

Fate seemed to be against Meg the next morning. She overslept, couldn't read the article in the dorm because Jill wouldn't leave, was starved and had to eat before the tables cleared, the route back to the common room was full of boys who found out how to magic the mistletoe to trap girls in with them.... After threatening to use all three Unforgivable Curses at once on a red-faced boy in the hall who was magicking some mistletoe her way, she made her way down to the Hufflepuff corridor and into the common room. The Hufflepuffs were having a Christmas party. She left Jenna and Jill deeply offended after refusing crabbily to have them braid tinsel in her hair.

She could scarcely breath with anticipation as her shaking fingers produced the article. She eyes were a blur scanning the paper...but her brain was taking in everything. An attack on Beauxbatons Acadamy... 54 students were dead... 3 deatheater captured... a 15 year old girl had broken the law by horribly disfiguring an attacking deatheater with the complex Animorphus Curse... She had been pardoned due to its use as a defense in a life-threatening situation... the girl had been removed from Beauxbatons that night....

Meg's eye's widened with understanding. Everything had fallen into place.

The paper dropped from her hands. On the other side of the castle a spell was lifted. And 200 miles away a person in an odd looking cloak stiffened. Garish lips curled open in a smile, to reveal a set of yellow, misfigured, animal-like teeth.

(Back to the present)

Lily decided to sleep first and think over what Meg had said in the morning. She had fallen asleep fairly easily. (the Hufflepuff couches were very soft and squashy) She woke up before six and made her way out of the room not bothering to retrieve any new clothes from the dorm. There were only a few people in the Great Hall at that hour and she preferred it that way. Grabbing some toast she patted a large dollop of jam on a side and took a large bite.

Meg had said that she had gotten rid of Elle. The spell that had been put on her would only lift if someone who already didn't know found out. She had to assume Meg had read a newspaper that mentioned the subject and put two and two together. She surely wouldn't know about Wott though...

The toast wouldn't go down her throat. the hand holding her breakfast froze in mid-air.

"Hey," someone swung down opposite her.

Had she her voice she would have screamed. It was James Potter. She swallowed hard.

"Your up awfully early," said James grinning.

Lily felt a stab of annoyance. She didn't want to talk to him right now. The threat of Wott had suddenly brought her conversation with Dumbledore to mind. She mustn't make any personal relationships.

She grabbed the quill and paper he had at hand and scribbled furiously.

'I can't talk right now.'

She rose and walked away. Where could she go? The library? No, he knew she was always there. She silently decided on the owlry. It was a long walk, but she felt like one right about now.

She suddenly regretted snapping at James. She was so different than she used to be. Lily Evans would never have been as rude as Janie Downes had been. Elle Lohre wouldn't have either....

It was if with each disguise a new life had begun inside her. She found herself being different people with each new ruse. What had she turned into?

She aimed a furious kick at the stone wall. How she longed to just scream! She wanted to be Lily Evans again. She wanted her red hair back. She wanted her best friend Elle back. She wanted her life back and Wott gone!

Lily was winding down. One thing that she wanted and could get was salt. Not kitchen salt either. Salt from the salt lick. She would get it as soon as she could.

James had not had a great night of sleep. He rolled out of bed the next morning and had thrown on clothes before descending into the Great Hall for breakfast. The hall was nearly empty. He scanned the tables. His mood lightened slightly. Janie was sitting at her regular spot, holding a piece of toast. She was frozen in thought, her eyes, unmoving, ahead of her. They were so wide open they looked oddly protuberant. The overall effect looked quite comical.

He strode over to where she was and produced the paper and quill he had brought specifically in hopes of meeting her. He plopped down opposite her.

"Hey," he said, grinning.

She started, alarmed, in her seat. Her eyes were bigger than ever. A annoyed look passed over her face. She grabbed the paper, scribbled something, and stalked away.

James was taken aback. He looked down at the message. But he did not read it. He had frozen, staring at the handwriting. It had been scribbled in a hurry and did not look like what she normally wrote. It seemed...familiar.

It was as if a spell was holding his brain back from recognizing it, he knew he knew who it belonged to, but it was as if his brain was in protest of letting his conscious in on the information. It was odd, so odd. He grabbed the note, whatever was written on it, and went to the source of all answers: the library.

30 minutes later, James had seated himself at his favorite table in the library with a pile of books in front of him. These ranged from Ways of Mortifying Your Enemy: With Emphasis on Befuddling Brain Blockers to Spells of the Imperious: Incantations and Potions relating to the Imperious Curse. Something dodgy was going on under his nose. And something or someone was preventing him from knowing what he already knew, and James was determined to find out what it was.