In the Way

By Dimantrien

"There are two freedoms, the false where one is free to do what he likes, and the true where he is free to do what he ought."

~Charles Kingsley

Chapter 3: Public Spectacles and Detention

The clock on Lily's bedside table read 10:00. After she had gone back to the Gryffindor tower from her trip to the lake, she warmed up a bit by the common room fire and gone back to the Great Hall to eat a quick dinner. When she finally came up to her dorm room at around 8:30, she had found Chloe fast asleep at her writing desk, her head resting on her unfinished Transfiguration essay. Lily wondered where Nami was; her friend was supposed to go to McGonagall's office with Sirius at eight o'clock to discuss their detentions. Where on earth could that girl still be after two hours?

As if answering her question, Nami stumbled into the room, looking quite out of breath and disheveled. Her usually silky black hair was matted, there were a number of rips on her school robes, her face was wearing a scowl, and…she had gigantic bird feet, horribly reminding Lily of Big Bird from Sesame Street.

"What happened?" Lily asked with a gasp, scurrying over to Nami.

Nami's expression, if possible, became even sourer, and she simply answered, "Had a friendly little chat with Black." She walked over to her bed and sat down, waiting for Lily to fetch her own wand and transfigure her feet back to normal.

Well, that explains it, Lily thought, as she snatched her wand from the top of her trunk, scanned her memory for the particular curse that Sirius Black may have used, and promptly executed the exact countercurse. "When did you start fighting?"

Nami sighed in relief as she watched her talons turn back into toes. "I've been waging a war with that prat for five years now, but if you're talking about our most recent fight, it started at approximately fifteen minutes after eight," Nami replied, sarcasm and ire in her tone as she clearly went back through every moment of the incident.

Lily smiled sympathetically, then decided to go for a more encouraging approach. "In that case…if he did this to you, then what did you do to him?" she inquired to her Asian friend as she progressed to repairing the various tears in Nami's robes.

"Oh, I didn't get to do much. As much as I loathe him, I can't deny that he's brilliant at spellwork and curses," Nami admitted grudgingly. Her face broke into a gratified grin, however, as she said smugly, "I managed to turn his mouth and nose into what looked like an aardvark's snout, though, and he didn't know the countercurse to that one so he had to trot up to the hospital wing with his proboscis swinging all over the place."

Lily nodded, smiling briefly at the mental image of Sirius with a long snout. But then she remembered something else, and the humor of the moment dissipated as quickly as it had come. "Wait, did you say 8:15? If you'd just had a meeting with McGonagall at eight, then you must've started hurling curses at each other right outside her office door!"

Nami made a face. "He was the idiot who started it. You'd think he'd have the brains to at least get a 2-mile distance between him and McGonagall when he decides to go on a hex craze, but nooo, he had to let us both get worse detentions—something with the possibility of certain death—"

"What?" Lily almost-shouted.

"We were supposed to work on different sides of the castle, dusting statues on the fourth floor," Nami reiterated, "but McGonagall flew into a rage when we attempted to murder each other right outside her office—so she's making us go do something in the Forbidden Forest next Friday night…together." Nami shuddered, as if the prospect of doing a detention with Sirius Black overshadowed the fact that the Forbidden Forest was one of the most dangerous places in the magical world in Britain.

"It can't be that bad…you'd be able to fend yourselves off of any dangerous creatures that may cross your path…just try not to start a hexing match in the middle of the forest," Lily suggested, hoping to pacify her friend before she went into an all-out rant on the curse of Sirius Black being born into the earth.

Nami snorted indelicately. "Did I mention that they're going to confiscate our wands before we go in?"

This time Lily really did scream out "WHAT!" What hope would they have inside the forest if they didn't even have their wands? They'd be defenseless; they'd probably be torn apart by all the wild creatures there—

"I suppose McGonagall thinks that there would be a bigger chance of us having our wands and killing each other, than not having our wands and being eaten by werewolves or anything else of the sort…" Nami mused mirthlessly.

Lily decided to keep silent. After Nami had entertained that thought, the redhead changed her mind and knew it was entirely probable. In fact, it was very likely… "Well, try not to think about it too much. You've still got a week to enjoy life, right?" she joked.

"Very encouraging, Lil. Take his side," Nami said, pretending to be offended. "I'm off to take a shower…who knows what diseases I might have incurred while being within a five-foot radius of Black for almost two hours…"

Nami stood up and headed for the bathroom, leaving Lily to ponder whether or not she should share about her own encounter with one of the marauders. She shook her head and decided to turn in. She levitated Chloe to her own bed first; the girl usually slept like a rock and nothing would wake her unless her own body chose to do so.

As Lily tried to get into a more comfortable position in her bed, it suddenly occurred to her that not even her best friends knew the real her…that they were there for her actress side, who was a person who was near-perfect. They had never gotten to know the real Lily, who held nothing back when she lost her temper, who didn't want to be perfect, who was itching to be free from this façade that she had long ago put up. Who would never appear before them…because she had vowed not to.

She had vowed it because of certain reasons, but most of all she vowed it to herself. And Lily Evans never broke her promises…

How very wrong she was.

***** 

The next day, Saturday, was a fairly uneventful one so far, as the morning drew to a close. Lily and her two best friends were in the library, all with different purposes. Lily was trying to get ahead in Arithmancy, so she was currently divulging information from extremely thick books, taking down occasional notes in a roll of parchment. Chloe was finishing her Transfiguration essay from the night before, and Nami was looking up various books relating to curses and hexes.

"What'd you get, Nami?" Chloe asked absentmindedly as Nami returned to their table, her arms loaded with volumes ranging from Common Jinxes: Are they Really That Simple? to The Complete Guide to Curses: From Jelly Legs to Avada Kedavra.

"Research material," Nami said breathlessly, dropping the books unceremoniously onto the table as if they were red-hot rocks. Madame Pince glared at her, obviously not too keen with her preferred way of treating the librarian's beloved books.

Lily glanced up from her note-taking. "But we're not discussing hexes and curses yet in Defense against the Dark Arts," she pointed out, albeit a bit suspiciously.

"I didn't say it was schoolwork," Nami countered, cracking open What Makes Wizard Duels Go Bad. "I will find out every possible way to maim and injure Black before Friday, so that he would be physically incapacitated and will have to reschedule his detention for another day." She seemed quite contented with her plan, and set to poring over her book with as much fervency as Lily did when she was researching something for Charms.

"Oh, that's nice. You'd rather scour through the Forbidden Forest by yourself, then?" Lily asked, not quite pleased with her friend's selection of books.

Chloe dropped her quill. "Forbidden Forest? You never told me anything about that," she said with a frown.

Nami shrugged. "It was just yesterday, and you were asleep by then—"

"Well, get a move on, tell me all about it," Chloe interjected, abandoning all attempts of wrapping up her essay.

Lily, sensing where this was going, said hurriedly, "Er, I think I've got enough information on next week's lesson, I'll just see you guys later." She strode away from their table and out of the library, knowing that Nami would undoubtedly end her story-telling with a tirade on Sirius Black's negative aspects, and that Madame Pince would then kick both her and Chloe out of the library. She felt a tiny twinge of guilt for not dragging Chloe along with her, but then Chloe was the one who had insisted Nami on filling her in.

Thinking about a place to go while she waited for her friends to get out of the inevitable harangue that awaited them, she went down to the first floor and wandered around. After walking for a few minutes she noticed that she must have made a wrong turn; she recognized none of the paintings and tapestries on the walls, and there were no doors and windows lining the hall.

She continued walking, cursing her bad luck and her sudden loss of her sense of direction. Finally, after walking for what seemed like hours, she reached a door, which was directly in front of her and ended the corridor. She opened it and went through, hoping that when she did, she would be somewhere familiar.

She wasn't. What she entered wasn't even a room; it seemed as if somebody had just decided to plant a door in the middle of the corridor and once you got to the other side of it, you would just be in the same one-way passage, whose end you couldn't make out. She could decide to walk all the way back to where she came from, but she might feel stupid if she didn't walk on for just a bit and find another door or an intersection that would lead her back to one of the corridors she knew so well. So she walked on, in the narrow, windowless corridor, feeling as if this were some enchantment of the castle where the passage was never-ending. Just as she thought that she should turn back, she came to a fork, where the straight path she had been following ended in a wall, and two different paths leading to the left and right.

The absence of people in this place made her feel a bit creeped out, and she shivered, going with her instinct and choosing the left route. She strode only about a dozen steps when she reached an intersection. She looked around for landmarks, but there were none. Even the tapestries and paintings she had passed had run out, and she started to feel panicked, realizing she was lost. Lost in a maze of endless corridors in a magical castle with too many secrets and unsolvable mysteries.

She decided to head back from whence she came, but as she retraced her steps, she reached another intersection. She swore that it had only been a fork when she had passed through it! As she stood stock-still, positively terrified at the possibility of being stuck here and being lost forever, she felt a presence just about five yards behind her. But she sensed something bad about the presence and the first thing that came into her mind was, Run. Run, Lily.

And she did, sprinting through even more corridors, hurling through corners, left, right, straight, left again, left again… No matter where she went, that…that thing was always just a few paces behind her, pursuing, attempting to snatch her into its grip…

She was in a labyrinth. She finally figured it out. The blur of walls that she passed sometimes seemed familiar, as if she had gone round a certain bend before, as if she were going around in circles…

She couldn't take it anymore; she felt as if her feet were on fire. She tripped and fell, and the thing behind her advanced toward her sprawled figure. It laid a hand on her shoulder, and it was then that she screamed…

"Evans?"

Lily lowered her hands from her eyes, looking up at James Potter's looming face. His smirking face. Ugh, that seriously irritated her… She sat up and glanced at her surroundings…they weren't in a narrow corridor…the room they were in could probably hold about four hundred people…the ceiling was enchanted to look like the morning sky…

The Great Hall. She was in the Great Hall…

"W-what happened?" she said shakily, hating the way her voice sounded so weak.

James opened his mouth, then closed it again. His expression went from concerned to amused, and he smirked. "Ah, well…it was…nothing."

Lily immediately felt suspicion rising up in her. She stood up, giving James Potter the coldest glare she could manage (she hadn't done it for the longest time; she had almost forgotten what it was like to glower at a person). "I was in a freaking maze, I felt a…a monster chasing me down, I was scared out of my wits and suddenly I'm magically transported to the Great Hall…and you call it nothing? What the hell did you do, Potter?!" She was practically shouting now and James looked just this side of surprised. But then…was that a pleased look in his eyes?

"As I said, it was nothing… Not anything worth telling, anyway," he continued to say vaguely, now grinning at her as she rapidly lost composure.

"OUT WITH IT, POTTER!" Lily screamed. The absolute colossal nerve… No, it was too much; she had kept her temper bottled inside her long enough. She never did anything wrong to him and now he was using her as another of his prank victims…

James was looking quite smug, and Lily wanted more than anything to wipe it off his arrogant face. She had thought that he wasn't all that bad yesterday… The rain must have done something to her then that made her think of that impossibility…

"Well?" Lily said dangerously, positive that she was going to take a leaf out of Nami's book and hex the most hateful male she knew into oblivion…

James sighed, as if Lily's tone of voice was annoying rather than life-threatening. "Fine, if you really want to know… I was trying out a new spell, and the Great Hall is the only place I know of inside the castle that has a big enough space to accommodate it. I went out for a second to do something else; I assumed that the Slytherins would be the first to step inside the Hall because they're always early for lunch—you know how they stuff all that food in as if they were going to die the next day—"

"Get to the point," Lily snapped.

"Impatient, aren't we?" James remarked, rolling his eyes, before continuing. "Well, to make a long story short, you were the one who went in and got subjected to the spell first, which means that you would think you were in a labyrinth with no way out. You're to be trapped in your own head and in reality there's no maze at all, so anybody who would be looking at you will just think that you're running around in circles, screaming madly. It did look pretty funny," he added, smirking at Lily as he clearly recalled the way she'd been darting around, panicking.

Lily's eyes widened in appalled rage. "Funny? You thought that was amusing, Potter?! Is this how you play pranks on people, thinking that seeing them terrified is entertaining?! Well, let me enlighten you! You are nothing but an arrogant, overconfident prick who lets the fame get to his head! Your idea of having fun is to make other people miserable, which is nothing short of cruel! You deem yourself worthy to be worshipped by people, when all you are, is a supercilious, insensitive jerk!" She stopped to draw her breath, never taking off the look of death that she was giving him.

For a moment James looked completely shocked. Lily's face was flushed with anger, her lips were thin and twisted into a scowl, and her usually gentle emerald eyes were narrowed to slits and practically spitted sparks as she glowered at him. It was a complete change—this was massive compared to what he had provoked yesterday.

"Well, Potter? Do you have any other snide remarks to share?" Lily spat out disgustedly, still looking at him like he was the scum of the earth.

James snapped out of his stunned stupor and smirked at her, which irritated her even more. "Just one," he retorted in a mock-innocent tone. He tilted his head to the left, in the direction of the entrance to the Great Hall. "We've got company."

***** 

Lily's face went from red to white as she turned her head, seeing dozens of faces that flinched simultaneously as her eyes rested upon them.

James also contented himself with looking at their audience. It seemed as if the entire student body had come just in time to witness perfect Lily Evans explode, which wasn't something you saw everyday. And in their case, it was something they never had seen. He almost didn't care about the fact that Lily had insulted him in front of all that people and he hadn't bothered to formulate an equally scathing retort. This was what he had been trying to do in the last few days, and in the eyes of all the people watching it was proof that James Potter could do anything. He could perform N.E.W.T. level spells with ease, he could plan a prank so brilliantly that there would be no evidence that he was the one who pulled it (though he only bothered to do that once before, because he liked to take the credit for his efforts), he could hex people in the hallways and still have lots of fans worshipping the ground he walked on, and he could even make the most angelic person in Hogwarts lose her head completely… "Sorry, did you need anything?"

A disinterested-looking seventh year Slytherin (who was just saving face because he too had been caught staring at the enraged Lily, his mouth agape) said, "We came here to eat our lunch, although we knew not that an…argument was going to take place." He scanned the surrounding area distastefully. The five long tables that occupied the Great Hall were up against the walls, all the chairs were piled haphazardly in a corner, and no food was in sight.

"Oh, that," James said, looking at the Slytherin with equal disdain. He waved his wand and the tables flew to their proper places. Another wave, and the food appeared on the tables. Just as a few hungry Slytherins dashed in to get their hands on the lot, James lazily flicked his wand again and all the chairs shot out of the pile, flying around randomly to their places and hitting the Slytherins upside the head as they went. In all the confusion, Lily managed to slip past the mob unnoticed and went out onto the grounds where she could find solitude.

By the time the teachers filed into the Great Hall after an unusually long staff meeting, thereby making them late for lunch, everything was back to normal: the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were eating contentedly and chatting animatedly, and the Slytherins were howling in pain.

None of the latecomers noticed that a redheaded prefect was missing in action.

***** 

"Chloe, if that will not turn you off James Potter, then I don't know what will," Nami said, still feeling a little shaky after Lily's outburst.

Chloe shifted in her seat uncomfortably as she speared a roast potato with her fork. "Well, you never know. He might have just cast a Confundus Charm on Lily that made her go all berserk," she suggested. They had only gotten there (along with everyone else) when Lily was yelling at James about being an insufferable prick, and hadn't known the real reason why she had done so.

"Isn't that enough reason to hate him, then?" Nami shot back, starting to become exasperated at her friend's hopeless infatuation. She could be looking for Lily right now, instead of having this conversation…but she knew that Lily would want to be alone for awhile, though she wasn't exactly certain. After all, she had never seen her friend act that way before…she had never seen Lily be that upset before. The redhead always had a smile on her face, and she was nice to everybody, even to Sirius Black, who, in Nami's opinion, didn't deserve an inkling of respect. Well, she couldn't exactly argue with that, as it wasn't the redhead who got her hair transfigured into her worst nightmare…

Chloe, noticing that Nami was a little preoccupied with her thoughts, launched into a plausible theory on what James Potter had done, and why.  "I didn't say he did it on purpose. He might have accidentally—"

"Never mind," Nami interrupted, holding up a hand. "We have no time to be bickering like this. Let's just finish up lunch as fast as we can and then we'll go find Lily." She should be up for some company by then, she added silently, wondering where her friend could be.

"You're right," Chloe agreed, relieved that Nami was no longer in the mood to argue. "If it makes you feel better, I did think James was being a tad pricky, if he could set off Lily like that…" The blonde could see her friend shaking her head, as if ready to say "A tad? You are impossible, my friend…"

But she didn't, and Chloe was grateful for that. She did have her ethics, and what she believed in was that friends came first before boys. And Lily was definitely worth more than any crush. She just hoped that Lily wouldn't catch Nami's disease and turn into James Potter's worst enemy by being consumed with hate for him and having the reflex action of hexing him whenever he looked at her funny.

***** 

"What did you do, Prongs? What did you do?" Sirius moaned, being uncharacteristically fussy in his actions. They were currently eating lunch, and Sirius was emphasizing his point by waving a chicken leg in the air as he spoke.

James rolled his eyes in exasperation. "She accidentally walked in on the curse we were doing for a prank! Now, stop acting like…like a persnickety nit-picker, I'm seriously starting to worry about your mental health…" When Sirius did nothing to ease James's mind, he added, "You're just like my mum when she laments over her nails not being the same tones of pink when she gets a Muggle manicurist to do them and the nail polish is just a slight bit too thickly applied."

Sirius stopped whining and became all…serious (no pun intended). "Well, what curse did you pick that made you need the entire Great Hall to cast it on?"

"How can you walk in on a curse? Don't you have to cast it on somebody?" Peter asked through a mouthful of food, confused.

"It was the Labyrinth Curse, and you need to cast it on a large enough place, so whoever goes there will be subjected to its effects," James answered both questions impatiently. "Padfoot, you were the one who told me to do that, because you were the one who researched it and formulated the plan in your head in the first place! Stop asking rhetorical questions."

"I didn't exactly ask you to let Lily Evans be the first victim of it!" Sirius retorted. His face paled at a sudden realization. "Wait, if she finds out that it was my idea to do that prank, then she's going to kill me! Then I'll have two of the most popular girls in school after my head!"

Remus, who had remained quiet all this time, just eating his food in peace, groaned. "Seriously, Padfoot, will you act normal? Prongs isn't the only one who's worried about your state of mind…"

Sirius scowled at him. "I was just being overdramatic," he said.

"Well, being overdramatic doesn't suit you," Remus responded calmly.

"Fine! I was acting overdramatic! Can't you take a joke? Or can you not recognize sarcasm when you see it? And Prongs, if Lily does find out that it was all my idea, tell her that it wasn't intended for her and that it's your entire fault that you didn't do the countercurse right away." Sirius rubbed his temples, feigning annoyance at his friends' inquiries on the stability of his sensibility. "And I'm perfectly sane, thank you very much."

"It wasn't my fault that she strolled in uninvited! She wasn't even supposed to be there!" James protested.

"Yes, it was unexpected, but by the way she was screaming her lungs out at you, I'd assume that you didn't take the curse off her immediately," Remus replied.

James sighed, feeling his triumph at being successful in making Evans mad ebbing away with every accusation his friends made. "I'm sorry, okay?! If you want, I'll stop getting on her wick. I've proven my point already."

Remus shook his head. "You don't have to apologize to me, you have to apologize to Lily. She deserves it, James. But I don't see why you think she deserves to be a victim of a prank that we intended for the Slytherins." He stood up and left.

James stared after him.

"Now you've done it! Even Moony's mad at you!!! How are we supposed to keep him company during the full moon when he's angry?!" Sirius exclaimed, saying the last sentence in a much softer and barely audible tone.

"Sirius?" James said, sighing.

"What?" Sirius answered.

"Shut up!"

***** 

Lily buried her head in her hands as she sat down in the same spot that she had yesterday. Now she had done it. She had broken her temper, she had let out all the feelings that she had kept trapped inside her for so long… But why did she have to do it in front of a crowd? Why did she have to lose herself with so many people watching?

She sighed, blinking back the tears of frustration building up at the corners of her eyes. Damn that James Potter…

It was all for nothing. She had spent all those years being kind, being patient, giving the best that she could do…and it could all be ruined in a single moment. She had worked so hard for that perfect reputation, and now it was shattered by a single flaw… A single flaw that, no matter how hard she chased it away from her "acting" side, would never be hidden for long…

Everything was irreversible… She couldn't cast Memory Charms on practically all the students occupying Hogwarts just like that. They weren't even supposed to be there; she had checked her watch and it had only been 11:45 when she had her little outburst with Potter… Surely none of the students, save for a few die-hard food fans, would be that eager to eat lunch? All of it was very curious… But not as curious as Potter's sudden interest in making her life hell…

Ugh! Just thinking about his name made her feel like shouting again! She had never abhorred a person so strongly, in so little time, but her dreams, her ethics, her self-made promises were on the line here, and he had made it all crumble into dust with just a single well-placed enchantment. Lily hated making mistakes…but for a reason that she dared not share with anyone. But above her hate for her flaws, she hated the feeling of being lost, of having nowhere to turn, of being all alone in a place where she would be trapped in her own mind…

Like all the horrible dreams that she had all the time, that had grown in frequency these past few days…

No, don't dwell on that, it's not something you should think about, Lily ordered herself, shutting her eyes tightly and trying to block out the flashes of terrible images in her head. But she found herself being pulled into thinking of those dreams again, how her dream self relieved the worst moments in her life—

"Hey, Lily."

Lily's eyes flew open, and the images drifted back to the back of her mind. She had never been so grateful to hear Nami's voice. She turned around and looked up at her friend, who was standing and carrying a plate filled with fried chicken, buttered carrot-and-corn, and a bit of every food that was on the lunch menu that day. Nami plopped down next to Lily and handed her the plate. "Thanks."

"No problem," Nami said, smiling at her. "So…you feeling okay now?"

Lily nodded, feeling a bit embarrassed as it occurred to her that Nami probably was one of the many spectators of the scene she had made. "Much. Where's Chloe?"

Nami shrugged. "Don't know. We split up to find you faster. She's probably in the castle somewhere," she replied, gesturing at Hogwarts, which looked like a toy castle from their viewpoint.

"How did you find me?"

The Asian girl smirked. "It was easy. I was wandering around the Charms corridor when I bumped into Black. Well, it doesn't take two heads to figure out that he had something to do with what James did, so I threatened him to tell everything and even got him to show me that map he and his friends made that tells where people are in Hogwarts," she said happily.

Lily raised her eyebrows. "And he willingly complied?" she asked dubiously.

Nami twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "Let's just say that I…convinced him." She grinned at Lily. "How about we get off this rather distasteful topic of discussing Black and move on to greener pastures?"

"Like what?"

"Like…how James Potter and his little friends got the whole student body at the doorway of the Great Hall all at the same time!"

Lily scowled at her. "Yes, we've definitely moved on to greener pastures," she remarked sardonically.

"Oh, don't be such a grouch. This way, you can know the truth without any twists in it, and cover all the angles so that you can find out the perfect way to get revenge on James," Nami said matter-of-factly.

"Who said I was going to get back at him?" Lily challenged, knowing that Nami had no clue how she acted when she was angry, simply because she had never shown her angry side before.

Nami shrugged, smiling knowingly at the redhead. "By the way you were about to kill him just an hour ago—and maybe you would have if you didn't find out that you had an audience—who would believe that you won't take this lying down?"

Lily nodded. "Good point. I suppose I'll list down the best ways to murder James Potter later."

"That's the spirit. I'll gladly help you later, though I don't think Chloe will be too happy with what we're going to do," Nami commented, thinking about their blonde friend and wondering whether she found out that they were by the lake right now. "For now, let me just fill you in. This was James's and his friends' plan: Remus Lupin went down to the kitchens to fiddle a bit with the usual pumpkin juice at breakfast; he added some sort of potion into all of the Houses' shares to make them feel hungry at exactly 11:35 a.m., don't ask me how, or what potion it was. He made a special one for the Slytherins, of course, and their potion was to make them a bit earlier for lunch than the rest, which was around 11:30. James would go to the Great Hall, clear it up, and cast a Labyrinth Curse on it. Meanwhile, his three friends would split up and talk to a member of each House except Slytherin—to tell them that they were pretty hungry and suggest that maybe they should go over to the Great Hall since the teachers probably wouldn't mind them being a little early. This was their way of making sure that everyone would be on time to see the Slytherins running all around the Hall, screaming like babies, trapped in a nightmare that no one else could see. Apparently it would look very entertaining if it went as planned," she ended wryly.

"I left the library at 11:00…" Lily remembered vaguely as things started to click in place.

"Yes, and I don't know what on earth you were intending to do in the Great Hall at that time, but since you were the one who entered the Great Hall first, the spell was cast on you. I assume that James didn't take the curse off you at once, so you started yelling at him, and by the time the Slytherins got there, they figured out that James had planned something and it backfired, so they just stood back and watched. The same goes with the rest of us." Nami shrugged. "Don't worry about it so much. It'll all blow over sometime, even though it came as a shock to a lot of people. You should just occupy yourself with thinking about the most elegant way to disembowel James Potter…"

Lily smiled, her mood lifting slightly. She was glad with the way her friend had gone out of her way to make her feel better...and she was grateful for that. She was grateful to a lot of people who respected her and didn't hold nonexistent grudges against her.

But James Potter wasn't a lot of people. And he would be the only exception who would get a taste of the wrath that Lily Evans rarely showed anybody, if ever, at all.

She had a feeling that what she showed to the other students today wasn't going to be a one-time incident.