A/N I've stolen another creature from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and all the specifics in here not found in that back are from my own imagination, so if there's something glaringly inaccurate, I apologise. The same goes for muggle clothing at the time… I'm afraid I'm not nearly dedicated enough to research clothing from Lily and James's time, so you'll either have to bear with me or let me know what's wrong so I can change it. Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: Most of it's not mine, and if it's yours I apologise for stealing it... unless you're J K Rowling, the theft was completely unintentional. If you are her... um, I'm sorry?

Chapter Ten

Lily and James made their relationship known. It wasn't as if they had a choice, what with Sirius shouting it to the world. There were varied reactions. James's fan club just glared at Lily, and Lily's glared at James. That was about as far as that went; neither group was stupid enough to take on the strongest student witch and wizard in the school. The teachers, however, reacted differently. McGonagall, when she heard the news, laughed. When she saw James's arm around Lily, she stopped in the middle of the hallway, her books dropped to the floor, and she stood gaping. It was very amusing, but Lily nonetheless helped her pick up her books. Professor Dumbledore just smiled, and Filch glared more than ever. Hagrid winked suggestively at the two, making Lily again thankful for her charm.

On Tuesday, the seventh years had Herbology, where they learned of the importance of removing the salt from the ground. Then they began to do so. It was tedious and time-consuming. The actual process involved a charm directed at the earth, which would remove 99 of all the salt within one metre of its range. It meant that the frozen soil had to be sorted into a grid pattern of circles with a metre radius, and the circles and the area between them had to be put under the charm. Wednesday night and Thursday night detentions were just two hours of salt removing, and were, needless to say, very boring. But by then, most of the salt was removed, and they ought to have only one more lesson on removing the salt before they could go back to normal classes.

Classes on Friday were normal, except Lily and James were on edge all day, wondering what their detention would be about. Dumbledore had said that it would be similar in type to their last detention, but would they be going into the forest again? Of course, last time had not been wasted (the love potion had been a huge success). What would happen this time?

They came to Filch's office at ten to eight, ten minutes early, as usual. Filch arrived five minutes later.

"So, it's the famous couple." Filch said sourly. "Well, not so famous that you can't get detentions! Such a pity the headmaster's such a liberal… a good beating always got the message through." He smiled nastily. "But come. It's back into the Forbidden Forest for you." Filch's face was angry for the most part, but at his last sentence he smiled maliciously.

"Oh, I'm beginning to get used to it by now," James said airily.

"Why yes, it's becoming quite welcoming!" Lily said. They smiled at each other, and Filch glared at them. He seemed to want to give them another detention, but couldn't find a valid pretext in their words, so he settled for stomping off ahead. Lily and James hurried after him; they could get detentions for lagging.

Once more, Filch handed them over to Hagrid. Hagrid smiled at them, and Filch scowled at them all.

"They're not here to have fun, you remember that, Hagrid!" was his last threat before he stomped back to the castle. They laughed when he was out of sight, but not, to judge by the way his back stiffened and his pace increased, earshot.

"Well, I see ye're in trouble again. If it's fer yer love potion, t'was worth 't! Your pranks'll go down in Hogwarts history!"

"It was nothing," James said with fake modesty, bowing elaborately. Lily rolled her eyes and Hagrid grinned.

"I suppose ye want to hear of yer detention, then?" Hagrid asked them.

"Yes!" the two said together.

"Again, ye'll be collectin' animal substance, this time from an insect. S'called a glumbumble, have ye heard of it?"

Lily had, but decided to let Hagrid explain anyway. She would undoubtedly learn something.

"Right. Well, this creature's small, but big for an insect. It's about the size of yer closed fist," here he nodded to Lily, who had the smallest hands of the three, "an' it's grey." Lily, meanwhile, made a fist and was looking at it. Hagrid smiled, and it was James's turn to roll his eyes and grin.

"Yeah, that's it," Hagrid said to Lily, before continuing, "So, where was I? Oh, yeah, grey. Right. It eats nettles and suchlike, and nests in dark and cool places. Hollow trees 'd be a good place to look, as well as caves. They'll also hide in rabbit warrens and snake holes, if the owner isn't there. Sometimes the things will take over bees' nests too, spoilin' the honey, but it makes fer a good nest. So, o' course, glumbumbles are immune to bee stings, and a lot of the more acidic substances other animals use for protection. Jus' fer extra information, magical wasps are fatal to glumbumbles, so don't bother lookin' for 'em alive in areas with wasps in it. So, o' course, wizards mixed together science with magic, and produced a spell to help remove the treacle.

"Oh, I'm getting ahead of m'self here. The glumbumble makes, well, according to your book, it's a 'melancholy inducing treacle.' It'll be useful to Madame Pomfrey to calm hysterical students and suchlike. So, you'll need to catch the glumbumble. It's hard to spot, but it doesn't have any poisonous defences or anything. Now, once ye've found t' insect, ye'll catch it and put it in a glass box. Say the charm 'Alkalii.' Make sure ye pronounce the second 'i,' tha's very important. Then, the glumbumble should lead ye to where it's hidin' its treacle. Ye can then release it, an' it shouldn't bother you, not once ye've used the alkalii charm on it. Use magic to collect the treacle, and put it in the glass box. Then you're done. Don' touch the treacle whatever ye do, or ye might find yerself feeling suicidal. If one of ye does touch it, t'other one has to know, ok? It's very important. One insect's treacle should be enough for tonight, but it's the finding that'll take time.

"Ye might only be out an hour, but ye'll probably be out fer quite a while. The headmaster wants ye to get the treacle, so ye've got all weekend. If ye start out in the direction of the cabin you stayed in last time, and search in that area, ye can stay there overnight if ye need to. So, any questions?"

Neither Lily nor James had a question, so they left the hut. When they saw Hagrid wasn't following them, however, they had a lot of questions.

"You're not coming?"

"How are we supposed to do it without you?"

"If you're not coming, where do we get the glass box?"

Hagrid grinned at them. "I thought ye hadn't any questions?" he asked teasingly. Lily rolled her eyes. She felt like sticking out her tongue, but restrained herself.

"Why aren't you coming, Hagrid?" she repeated.

"I've got matters to attend to, I'm afraid. Business fer Dumbledore. And," Here he leaned down and winked at Lily, "I hear ye two are a couple. I also hear that th'eadmaster was very pleased when he heard ye two 'd patched up yer diff'rences. Fer bonding, p'raps?"

"Hagrid!" James said exasperatedly. "Come on!"

Lily was blushing furiously, having forgotten her ability to make the blush disappear. Rather, she felt like disappearing herself. She retorted sharply, "Very funny! Do you expect us to collect it without you?"

"S'matter of fact, yes. You'll be 'right, jus' search out caves an' whatnot. Ye'll sooner or later come across one 'f the glumbumbles, and even if ye don't, go to the cabin, and ye can search again. Oh, I didn't tell ye, th' insects 'r nocturnal, so once ye get t' dawn, find the cabin and settle down fer th' day. There's no point searchin' in daylight, ye won' find them. Got it?"

"Yes," James said, "but where do we get the glass box from?"

"Ye're the master o' transfiguration aren't ye? Work it out!" Hagrid grinned at them, and then looked at his watch. "Well, I've got t' be goin'. Good luck!"

With that, Hagrid strode quickly up to the castle. James and Lily stared after him.

"I guess that's it then." Lily said. "Can you transfigure a box now? From grass or something?"

James sighed exaggeratedly. "You can't just transfigure anything from anything! You have to get something similar in shape or principle. For example, I'd have to have a box or a container of some sort."

"Oh. Hmm…" Lily stood, thinking, trying to come up with something that might be suitable.

James stood too, undecided. Finally, he asked, "Do you have any ideas?"

Lily hadn't, but as soon as she opened her mouth to say so, she remembered the jewellery box Kate had been going to give her for her birthday. She had accidentally found it, though, so Kate gave it to Lily early. "Yes, actually, would a jewellery box do?"

"Should be fine! If it's empty."

"Yes, it is. Kate gave it to me for my birthday."

"But you said your birthday was the 25th of November!"

"It still is… next week. But Kate gave me her present early, because I found it and thought it was her's."

"Right. Can you summon it?"

"Sure." Lily drew out her wand, and almost lazily performed the summoning charm. Her jewellery box came floating down with a grace that James both admired and envied. His charms were adequate, at best.

Lily caught the box and handed it to James, who accepted it with a murmur of thanks. He too drew out his wand, and performed the transfiguring spell. Soon, he was holding a flawless glass box. It was Lily's turn to be envious.

"Are we ready to go?" James asked.

"I guess. Lumos," Lily's wand lit up, and she continued, "We'll take the path to the cabin, and search anything we find on the way. If we can't find anything by the time we get there, we'll search the clearing until dawn."

"Sure. Let's go." They set off, both their wands alight.

Lily and James investigated two hollow trees, three snake-holes, and one bees' nest, with no luck, before they got to the cabin. By that time, it was midnight. Lily was beginning to feel tired, and James was yawning quite a lot, but the two nevertheless continued to search for glumbumbles. They walked together around the clearing, and investigated another three fallen trees and one more snake hole. None of them showed a glumbumble, and the times was getting on to two a.m. Lily was asleep on her feet, and finally told James so.

"Maybe we should go to the cabin, and try again tomorrow night?" He suggested.

"Yeah, please," Lily said gratefully. So they went to the cabin, which was just as they had left it. They both went without qualms to the bedroom section, and both lay down next to each other on the bed. They forgot to climb under the covers, both too tired. Within minutes, they were asleep.

Lily woke up and saw, to her surprise, that it was noon. There was an empty space in the bed next to her, so James had evidently already got up. But he hadn't been up for long, because just as Lily was getting out of bed, the closet door opened and he emerged with wet hair, a towel around his middle. He grinned at her, and then got out fresh school robes from the closet.

"Um, James?"

"Yeah?"

"We are going to search the clearing today, aren't we? You know, to see if we can find any places likely to be hiding glumbumbles?"

"Well, that's what I was thinking…"

Lily smiled at him. "Maybe black robes aren't such a good idea, then? Jeans and a t-shirt might be more practical."

"You're right. I'll get changed, and then the bathroom's all yours."

"Thanks!" James grinned and took out jeans and a white shirt. Then he went into the closet to change. He emerged, and Lily took her turn showering and changing into a t-shirt and another pair of jeans. When she came out, though, it was cold enough to make her change her mind and put on a long-sleeved shirt.

She came out to find James had already set breakfast. They ate, and then went out to explore the area around the clearing for possible glumbumble nests. But there was a problem. The door wouldn't open.

A/N Gah. I don't like this chapter. It's far too predictable and irritating, but I can't change it without completely rewriting the next five chapters. Tell me what you think, anyway.