The following month, James, Sirius and Peter continued to spend their days whispering excitedly. She would often turn a corner to find three- sometimes four- heads bundled together, looking hurriedly over their shoulders as they stumbled down the portrait filled corridors and discussing urgently in hushed voices. As the month progressed, the nights got darker and everybody generally spent more time inside, especially in the common room. Most days it was impossible for Lily not to see some kind of vital team meeting take place in one way or another. Frustratingly, no matter how silently she quickened her pace to hurry near to the group, one of them would see her and immediately they would become silent, or worse, they would talk to her about nothing even remotely important or relevant. To make matters increasingly terrible, James was acutely aware of her growing irritation at her obvious lack of knowledge. If it wasn't constantly causing her blood to boil, she might have found James' dedication to showering her with unwelcome attention flattering.
Whilst Lupin remained determined to refrain from sharing information, Lily had spotted a change in his demeanour towards school and anything unschoolish. After last month's bout of illness, it took a fraction of the time before colour returned to his cheeks, his eyes became bright and alert and he could be seen joking and laughing willingly with his friends. He had returned to lessons almost straight away. In potions, Lupin had even chosen to work with her and Dorcas. Although they did not talk about his absence anymore, she exchanged looks with him that seemed to communicate that all was well. Although she knew that whatever James and the rest were up to was against the rules, she was certain that Lupin's optimistic outlook had something to do with their meddling.
Thursday began as a very regular day. At eight am she was woken by Mary throwing open the faded drapes, letting in the low morning sun. The beams reflected off droplets of condensation that had collected on the diamond shaped window panes, Lily was sure that this made them seem brighter and even more cruel. With heavy limbs, she dragged herself out of bed and hauled on her freshly laundered robes, ready for the day. Silently, and too tired to speak, the four girls shuffled down the winding staircase and headed to the hall for some light breakfast. Surprisingly, when she arrived, James, Peter and Sirius were already there. Not surprisingly, Lupin was absent. Lily had predicted that he might be off again, he had looked positively death-like yesterday, with sunken eyes, shaking fingers, a hoarse, crackly voice, and just general reluctance to engage in much whatsoever.
"Oh, how nice of you to come and join us!" James wasted no time, he looked up from trying to hex Snape's goblet to tip onto his golden toast.
Lily barely acknowledged him as she sat down but she took care to sit directly in his line of sight to deter him from ruining Severus' meal. The group of nearby fourth years looked disappointingly back down to their food. It became apparent that James was enjoying providing mealtime entertainment. Lily responded by scowling in their direction like a disappointed mother before reaching to butter her toast that had appeared on her plate.
"She's blocking the show Prongs!" Sirius complained, throwing his hands up dramatically.
"Prongs?" Lily raised an eyebrow. She'd heard a few of these daft names thrown about, she wasn't sure what they meant but they sounded like seven year olds making up club names.
"I mean, fork. Can you pass me a fork? Prongs- fork? Prongs, can you pass me a fork?" Lily's stomach dropped and she could feel the irritation growing as she realised she had walked willingly head first into one of their stupid bits.
"Here you are Padfoot- I mean shoe- I mean lace. Your string is untied on your foot pad, Padfoot." James caught on quickly and within seconds they were away. By the time they had exhausted all shoe and cutlery related jokes, it was time to go to class. All seven of them had charms. Lily tried to leave ahead of the boys to make it their first and without hassle. Flitwick stood at the front of the rows of desks on a raised platform. He waited calmly and patiently for both Gryfindors and Slytherins to file in. When the final Slytherin had slunk through the door, he waved his wand casually and the heavy piece of wood swung swiftly on its silent hinges and closed with a click.
"Good morning everyone," he began, his voice squeaked as he spoke, "today, we will be learning a very handy spell- the summoning charm."
Instinctively, Lily grinned and turned to the direction of Lupin's chair, which was, of course, vacant today. She had already learned accio from the book that he had recommended at the beginning of the year. Flitwick began by asking the students to name all of the times that the spell will be useful. The first few suggestions were acceptable, but later when James began asking if he 'accioed' the answers to his charms exam in the OWLS, would he get a merit for initiative and demonstration or a demerit for cheating. The unsurprising answer was that he would be caught for cheating and would get an automatic fail. As expected Lily mastered the spell straight away. In truth, it had taken her a few times to get it right in practice outside of lesson but she was thrilled to quietly show off to James that she could do something that he couldn't yet. Within five minutes she had a neat pile of classroom objects, books, quills, a door handle and a hat. James had just succeeded and he had immediately summoned Snape's wand, which was awarded with a ripple of applause from most of the Gryffindor fifth years, and was met with the loss of 15 points from the house.
The day continued in the same way, there was one free after lunch which Lily used to get ahead of her homework in transfiguration so that she could go Slugclub that evening without worrying. This would be the third Slugclub meeting, this week ad been pitched as a social party, and each student was encouraged to bring a "party trick" to demonstrate. Lily decided to show how she could transfigure anything she liked into a bird that still resembles the object it started as. Alice was unable to make it to this meeting, she claimed it was illness, but Lily knew that she hadn't done her transfiguration homework.
When Lily entered Slughorn's office, she was one of the first. As a standard, the meeting was non-uniform as an equaliser, Lily had opted for a black overall dress wth a dark green turtle neck underneath, white tights and black boots. A few students had arrived, she recognised them but couldn't name them. They politely raised a hand to wave before continuing to observe the different fascinating objects in the office. Realising she didn't have much choice, Lily chose a surface of the office to investigate. She found a curious sand timer that flowed upwards instead of down, she wasn't sure why, but as she looked at it, the sand floated so slowly that it looked like it had stopped.
When the office had been filled, Slughorn began asking others their party trick. When he made it round to Lily, she slowly lifted her wand towards a thick leather bound book, it had a green dusty cover, with gold writing and a red trim. She whispered an enchantment and the pages fluttered to life, the spine twisted into a green feathered body, the trim rolled itself together to become the beak and the pages formed white and grey fluttering wings.
Like before, the meeting finished at nearly ten o'clock. Reluctant to hesitate in the dark, lonely corridors, Lily darted in the direction of the Gryffindor tower, leaping up steps two at a time. She was one more floor away from the safety of her common room when she heard the low mumbling of talking. The location of the sound was not clear, though it seemed to be moving further away. If she was convinced that the voices belonged to a teacher, then she would have let it go. However the tone and manner of speaking confirmed that it was a student, or at least somebody suspicious. She did her best to follow the direction of the intriguing whisper.
She couldn't see who was talking, but she knew that they were moving. As the voices neared the exit to the school, the louder and more excitable their voices became. Within minutes, Lily found herself outside the castle and heading straight for the violent arms of the womping willow.
Before long, it became clear that the steps belonged to someone invisible. She had heard of invisibility charms before, but that was incredibly difficult magic, many experienced wizards find full body invisibility charms impossible. What made the situation more curious, was that it wasn't just one charm, there were at least two voices hidden. Whilst the source of the noise seemed too distracted to notice her, she ensured that she kept to the shadows of door frames and walls.
Once they had left the security of the castle doors, Lily felt a wonderful freedom wash over her. The air was sharp, it stung her cheeks and caused sharp shivers to run up her arms. She crossed her arms tightly across her chest and looked around at the familiar but new world around her. The stone steps had a slight warm glow, that flickered from the few windows that were still lit by candle light. At the bottom of the stone steps, the cobbled path stretched out, the end hidden in darkness.
Unsure of the direction, Lily paused, listening intently for any sound. She could hear the rustling of the willow's branches. In the far distance, she could hear the rumoured howling from the shrieking shack. She made a mental note to apologise to Dorcas for telling her that her theory about the haunted shack was stupid. For a brief moment, Lily's heart sank and she feared she had completely lost the trail. She took small steps forwards, not wanting to turn back. It was here, that she came to her senses. How did she manage to get through the doors without drawing attention to herself? How will she get back in? What is the punishment for not only being out of your dorm, but out of the school?
Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sound of muffled foot prints. The arch way. That was the only place nearby that would echo small sounds that loudly. She drew her wand and quickened her pace, bending her knees to race over the steps as soundlessly as she could manage. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she noticed three silhouettes appear in the distance. She took a quick short breath. Surely that was them. Her determination to keep her presence a secret became more of a priority.
Almost frozen to the spot, Lily watched the three boys laugh and joke in the stone archway. They were looking right at the tree. They were joking and pushing each other about. Unsurprisingly, Lily instantly grew irritated. They were risking points and getting in trouble? And what for? To laugh and mess about watching the womping willow? They could do that from the common room. The taller figure, she guessed was Sirius, pushed the smaller looking boy, probably Peter. Lily had to stop herself from audibly expressing a yelp as the smaller shadow fell forwards, right off the towering step. The other one, James, laughed loudly and the two boys ran forward. Lily ran forwards to where they had just been standing, she made a silent plea that her boots did not fall as loudly as she thought they had on the ground as she darted.
Protected by the shade of the rounded archway, Lily could see the two boys, half running, half tumbling towards the tree. Feeling suddenly more brave, she darted to hide behind the stone column that overlooked the tree that was half way between where she stood, and the smoking chimney of Hagrid's hut. To her surprise, the boys were completely gone. She whipped her head left to right, her hair falling dramatically over each shoulder. The howling of the shack increased dramatically in volume, worryingly so.