Disclaimer: I don't own this. You know that. I know that.

Author's Note: I know it's been a while, so I'll make this short and forgo the replies this time. I'm sorry it's been forever but water polo season is ending, the spring play is starting, and I just started my SAT prep class. Yikes. This chapter didn't exactly turn out how I expected. It's not overly long, but I'm halfway done with the next chapter.

Chapter 23: Leap of Faith

"It's not that funny, Re!"

"Yes it is, Lillers. It's hilarious. You've got to admit it."

"I'll admit no such thing."

"I think that was an admission."

"It was not."

"If you're refusing to admit something that means there is something to admit," he grinned wickedly at her.

"You're impossible. Help me move these stones." By now, they were behind the tapestry and moving aside some of the fallen stones to free the cloak from where it was trapped.

"So what are your plans tonight?"

"I don't know. There's not Quidditch practice. But I should probably practice anyway with the game tomorrow. But there's no way I'm asking James for help."

"I'll practice with you," he offered, noting that she used his friend's first name rather than his surname.

"I don't know. I don't want to fly really. I just want to relax."

"Not enough relaxing this afternoon between Hogsmeade and the food fight?"

"Shut-up before I strangle you with this cloak," she said, pulling the cloak free at last.

"Whatever you say, Lillers. But I've got to tell you, James is a better player than I am. If you want expert flying advice, I'd go to him if I were you."

Lily glowered at him.

"Just a thought."

Lily stuffed the cloak in her schoolbag. "Let's get going back to the tower."

"Does that mean you're going to ask James to help you practice for the game?"

"Shut-up."

Remus shut-up, but felt like laughing. Maybe James and Lily's future relationship wasn't going to be a lost cause after all.

When they got back to the tower, there was no sign of James in the common room. They went to the boys' dormitory to check the map. James was in the girls' dormitory, alone.

"How are we going to get him?" Lily asked Remus. "We couldn't use the stairs, even if I wanted to."

"Do you remember in your third year when you woke up and there was a sort of cocoon around your whole bed and a sign reading, 'Good morning! This lovely day has been brought to you by Padfoot!'" he asked.

"Yes. And until this week I didn't know just who that was, only that it was a member of the mysterious pranking group in school. I always suspected James and Sirius, Remus, but never you."

Remus smiled. "Gotta watch out for the quiet ones."

"Did you have a point?"

"Oh, yes. How do you suppose Sirius got in your dormitory to do that?"

"I don't know. The problem stumped me for a while, and then I just let it slip my mind, I guess. I haven't thought about that prank much since then."

"Think about it now. He flew in."

"Flew? Through that little window? It's hardly large enough!"

"On the contrary, it's more than adequate. Two people could get in at the same time even. Are you game, Miss Evans?" He grinned at her.

Lily looked really angry that she would have to be doing this. She was nowhere near comfortable enough at riding to want to try and get through that window, but what choice did she have? "Let's get going before I talk myself out of it. I owe it to him to do what I can to make sure he doesn't look like a complete idiot out there tomorrow."

Remus found his and James's brooms and handed James's to Lily. After a little more searching he found Sirius's broom and borrowed it for James to use. He stuffed the Marauders' Map in his pocket. He threw open the window. "I'll go first. It's really not so bad."

Lily stared at him. "You've done this before?"

"Come on. You know who my friends are. Sneaking out is part of the bargain when it comes to doing something with them." Without a backwards glance climbed onto the windowsill astride his broom (with Sirius's clutched in one hand) and dropped out of sight.

Lily didn't breath while she waited for him to resurface. He did, he came back through the air to hover, smiling, outside the window.

"It's your turn," he said.

Lily climbed the windowsill and couldn't go any further. She had looked down and seen the immense fall underneath her. "I can't do this."

"Yes you can. Trust me."

Lily looked around and shook her head. "No way, no how. Not happening."

"Lily, didn't you tell me that you owed James tomorrow's game for all the misery you've inflicted on him?"

"He's treated me pretty miserably too you know," she retorted.

"Lily, if you won't jump out this window for James, will you at least do it for your house? I know you don't really want to see Gryffindor lose tomorrow. You need the practice and I know James can help."

Lily still wouldn't budge.

In a way, Remus knew he couldn't blame her. He was asking her to jump out of a window trust all her life to a broom; something that, until seven years ago she thought was only good for cleaning. Still, he had to get her through that window and to James. They needed to talk and she really did need the practice if they were going to win the game in fourteen hours. He took a deep breath. "I really didn't want to go here, Lillers, but…you're a Gryffindor. Gryffindors are supposed to be brave. I guess you've just got a different sort of bravery in you. The kind that says, 'I know they'll hate me for snitching on them but rules are rules and I have to do my duty'. That's okay. Just go back inside. I wouldn't want you to get hurt. We'll manage without you." He started turning his broom away from her, clearly intending to go practice flying alone.

Lily bristled, clearly angered by his comments.

It took all of Remus's self-control not to smile. They'd been friends for a long time after all and he knew just how to push her buttons.

"What do you mean I'm not brave?" The number of times she'd covered for him and his friends! It was only small things, things that Sirius, James, Peter, and often Remus didn't know she was covering for them in. Sometimes if she was on patrol and saw them in the hallway before they saw her, she turned and went the other way, never saying a word. Once she'd even led McGonagall away from them when she'd heard Sirius and James coming down the hallway talking about finding away to get stinksap in to the Slytherin showers.

"Oh, Lily, I didn't say you were brave. I just said you were a different type of brave."

Muttering angry to herself, Lily, still astride James's broom jumped off the window sill. For a mere second she was met with a sheer adrenaline rush that resulted from both the fear and excitement of dropping through the air. But for some reason, she didn't stop dropping. She was still heading toward the ground at a dangerous speed, gaining velocity every second. She couldn't even bring herself to scream. She just watched the ground coming closer.

Remus realized something was wrong. Lily hadn't pulled up out of her dive. She must have just assumed that the broom wouldn't just keep going. She'd never done anything like this before. He started screaming frantically at her, "Pull up! Pull up!"

With the wind whistling past her ears, Lily didn't hear him.

He kept shouting and saw it wasn't going to do any good and immediately started diving, finally reaching her level. He kept shouting and jerked his thumb up, trying to get her attention and tell her to bring the broom up.

Lily finally no longer seemed paralyzed and realized just how close to the ground they were getting; twenty meters left and the ground was coming closer every second. She looked and Remus and finally understood, pulling the front part of her broom up. She started her ascent.

Remus, almost limp with relief, steered his broom back toward the sky, coming level with Lily again. "Are you alright?" he asked shakily.

"I think so," she said, looking around. Both brooms were still climbing, but were under control. "What happened?"

"I thought you saw the way I jumped, so I thought you knew what to do. I jumped out and pulled the handle up after half a second of free falling."

Lily said nothing.

Remus couldn't blame her for not talking. This was his idea and she'd nearly been killed! He'd just nearly killed one of his best friends. He shuddered. That was the kind of thing he only thought was possible at the full moon and the moon was still two weeks away. Ever since he'd joined the Quidditch team Dumbledore had made sure that the Gryffindor games were arranged such that Remus would not have to miss a game due to his condition.

Lily kept going on, higher and higher until she reached the top of Gryffindor Tower and landed on the roof.

Remus joined her.

She looked around. She'd never seen the view from here before. She imagined what it would have looked like earlier, at sunset. She wasn't normally the sort to spend time looking at nature, the world had more pressing concerns; but in this case, she new that at sunset, from the top of Gryffindor Tower, the grounds of Hogwarts would be beautiful. She resolved to come back sometime; maybe she'd come at sunrise instead of sunset.

"I'm sorry," Remus said hoarsely. It was a weak response to what had just happened and he knew it.

"You asked me to take a leap of faith, Remus. That's what I did. I've always trusted you. I had no reason not to." She paused, staring at the lake as if waiting for the giant squid to pop up and say hello. "It wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have let you goad me into jumping and when I did it anyway I should have made sure I knew what I was doing."

"Lily, I…" He didn't know what to say.

"Just forget it, Remus. I said I'd do this and you're right, I need to do this. Let's go get James."

"Are you sure? We don't have to. We can just forget this."

"No, let's go." She kicked off.

He followed her around the tower and down to one of the windows.

"I think this is it," she said.

Remus looked at the windows, counting. "Yeah. This is it." He edged his broom forward and knocked on the window.

There was no answer.

Remus knocked more insistently, wondering if James had left while they were on the roof.

At last, James came to the window and opened it, looking irritated and clearly not expecting to see Remus and Lily hovering outside the room.

"What are you doing out there?" he asked. "Just hanging around?"

"We need your expertise to get Lily ready for her game tomorrow," Remus explained, tossing Sirius's broom at James.

James, reflexes as quick as always, caught it. He looked at the broom and recognized it. "Does he know?"

"He won't miss it," Remus said confidently. "Let's get going."

James didn't hesitate. He climbed onto the sill, straddling the broom. Just as he jumped, the door opened and Alice entered.

It happened so quickly that Alice wasn't even sure she saw what she saw, but she could have sworn she saw Lily jump out the window on a broomstick. If she didn't know any better, she would have said James and Remus were hovering outside the window. She raced across the room to the open window. They could have been seventh years flying off, or they could have been birds. The dark shapes in the distance were too hard to make out from the room.

Shaking her head she went looking for the book she'd come in to get in the first place.

Author's Note: I was going to include more, but I made it the beginning of the next chapter instead and cut it off here so you wouldn't have to wait any longer than you already have. Thanks for being so patient! I really didn't mean for this to turn into such a dramatic chapter.