Yeah, so I'm updating again. I am truly sorry for not having updated in a while, but the end of my summer was packed with stuff to do, which I think I've explained before, but if I haven't, I won't bore you with the details now. Suffice it to say that hot tea HURTS, marching band uniforms are extremely hot, and I no longer have homework. Well, I actually do have homework, but I never do it, so it really doesn't matter whether I have any or not. But don't tell my dad I said that. Special thanks to EiSeL, the-Wake-just-after-Midnight, Lady-Slytherin-Warrior, Forbidden, Tara, and xmaraudergirlsx.

To all of the wonderful reviewers whom I felt it was necessary to respond to:

lockerfairy- I'll look for the jelly thing and try to fix it. Thanks for pointing it out!

glowing-ice- Yeah, Professor Slughorn throws a lot of stuff off. I may add him in later, but, quite frankly, I'm just too lazy. And I'm glad you liked the prank war!

Prongsie4028- Lysol all-purpose cleaner? OUCH! Geez, getting Windex in my eye was bad enough… and there was that time when the Clorox bleach just randomly jumped out of the cupboard and into my face (which hurts, by the by)… I think cleaning supplies are out to get the human race. We created them, but they want out of our control, and so have a vendetta against our entire species… And now I'd better shut up, before I get too out of control. I'm glad you liked it!

Alaska Steele- An army of biting books? Oh, my. Consider it updated, but may I have a few to add to my collection of odd, random creatures?

Angela Scarlett- Of course I know who you are, even without the baka squirrel whose name we can never agree on. Never fear, your time will come. I have something special in mind for YOU. And while I may not be entirely certain of when you are to show up, rest assured that you are not forgotten. I am sorry that you feel lonely, but as soon as you meet some of the other people who are also off set right now, I can promise that loneliness will be the last thing on your mind. I'm really glad you like my story. Maybe I should have Jessi read it… hehehehe… Oh, and have you looked on clickity clickity boom recently? It's been updated… evil grin

Thank you to everyone who reads this! I really appreciate all of you! And now, after an entire freaking page of my rambling, onto the story, which is the REAL reason you are reading all of this!

Disclaimer: Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I could say this is mine,

But that isn't true!

Chapter Six: Warlock

Lily stood outside James' door, her hand raised to knock. Could she really do this? Could she possibly imagine apologizing to James Potter? After three years of yelling at him, criticizing him, and, well, so on and so forth, could she really tell him he was right? She was still pondering this five minutes later when the door swung open of its own accord. James was standing there. So maybe not of its own accord.

"Were you knocking?" James asked, looking as surprised as Lily felt.

"Er," she said. Eloquent, she thought. Real eloquent. "Actually, I'd been trying to knock for the past five minutes. James I ― I wanted to apologize."

He looked at her, clearly mystified. "What do you have to apologize for?" he asked blankly.

"I realize that I've said some things in past years that ―" she paused. This was hard. "― that weren't entirely warranted. So I'm sorry." There. It was out. Whatever came next was up to James. Lily felt strangely relieved by this.

Suddenly, James grinned. "I forgive you for whatever it is you're trying to apologize for," he informed her, then reached forward and gave her a hug. Lily blinked. On second thought, maybe she'd better stick to the thinking.

James looked at Lily's slightly shocked face, still grinning. "What?" he asked. "Don't you hug your other friends?"

"Well ― yes, but ―"

"Is it because I'm a guy, or because I'm me?" James wanted to know. Lily thought about this. She'd never hugged a guy she wasn't related to before. This was mostly because the only guys who asked her out were idiots who weren't smart enough to avoid competing with James Potter. Lily's boyfriends had a tendency to disappear for a couple of days, and turn up gibbering near the dungeons. Oh, sure, they returned to normal, but tended to avoid most females after their experience. Lily hadn't gone out with anyone long enough to hug them.

"I don't know," she replied truthfully.

"Okay," he said. "Did you understand a word of what Professor Flitwick was telling us today?"

"Yes," said Lily, wondering why James cared.

"Great! You can help me with that homework!" James dragged Lily off.

Lily was in the Heads' bathroom, applying make-up. It was Friday evening. "What time is it?" she called out to James, who was in the common room. Or, that was where she thought he was.

"Seven forty-five," he said appearing in the mirror behind her. "Why? Got a hot date at nine?" he teased.

"Eight, actually," she informed him. He raised his eyebrows.

"Really? Who is it?" He only sounded slightly more curious than any other guy would have, so Lily decided she could tell him without risking catastrophe.

"Thomas Kadings," she told him. He frowned.

"Have you mentioned him before? I swear the name sounds familiar…" he trailed off, looking thoughtful.

"Aaah," Lily said, applying lipstick.

"And in English that means…?" James inquired.

"Very funny," she told him. "No, I haven't mentioned him."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm sure," said Lily, exasperated. She put her make-up bag away. "Gotta go, James. Bye." She walked into the common room, picked up her purse, and left through the portrait hole.

James was seriously confused. He just knew he had heard that name before. He considered his choices, and decided he had two options to pursue. Number one: he could go to the library and attempt to look something up. Number two: he could talk to Remus or Abby and see if they had ever heard of a Thomas Kadings.

James left the common room in search of his two friends, who were probably both in the library. Because that was where smart people who actually cared about their grades went. James had actually only been in the library a couple of times; there weren't any nearby passage ways to the kitchens. He didn't even know if Sirius had ever been in there.

Lily was walking down the marble staircase into the Entrance Hall. She glanced at her watch, and, realizing it was eight o'clock, began looking around for Thomas. About forty-five seconds later, he appeared right in front of her, smiling charmingly. She blinked.

"How did you get there?" she asked.

"Sideways through the particles," he answered, as though this explained everything. Lily, of course, did not have the faintest idea what he was talking about. However, she did not wish for him to think her unintelligent, and so she didn't say anything.

They did not leave through the large double doors, but rather through a smaller, more commonly used set off to the left. Thomas led the way down to Hogsmeade as they discussed what would happen if the world ended and they had to rebuild it. Lily tried out her own feeble theory, which Thomas instantly shot down in a nice enough way. Lily wasn't really offended, though, she had only developed this theory when Abby started reading sci-fi books that Lily was too busy to read herself. She then tried out Abby's theory, which, not to her surprise, did not have any obvious errors. She took this as Thomas' way of admitting he couldn't find any problems with it. Abby had cross-referenced her theory with every new world scenario she could come up with, so it was pretty much perfect. Nice to know someone would know what to do if the government somehow destroyed the world, and they had to rebuild.

They were discussing the advantages and disadvantages of journalism (Thomas was dead-set against it, for some reason he would not explain) when they reached a small restaurant called Fireball's Feast, and sat down to what Lily expected to be a quiet, enjoyable, non-stressful meal.

How very wrong she was.

James was in the library, completely lost. He had never realized just how large the library was, and had absolutely no idea where to find anything, let alone anyone who actually knew their way around the place. Luckily, the librarian, Madam Pince, came to his rescue. In a roundabout sort of way.

"Shouldn't you be at the study tables?" She was frowning disapprovingly at him, her lips a thin line.

"Uh…where are they?" James put on his best helpless puppy look. She rolled her eyes and dragged him along, muttering to herself the whole way.

"Students these days… don't know how to properly respect my books… wandering around like the young hooligans they are… treat the place like their own personal playground…" She dumped him at a table and went to find the next "young hooligan" who was terrorizing her precious books, still muttering under her breath. About thirty seconds later, Remus and Abby appeared in front of him, arms laden with books. They sat down across from him.

"So, James…what brings you to the library?" Remus asked, as Abby looked at him expectantly, for once not buried under a mountain of books.

"I was looking for you guys… How did you know which table I was at so quickly?"

Remus and Abby exchanged an amused look. It was, for once, Abby who answered. "Really, James. If you came to the library more often, you'd know. And do speak more quietly, or Madam Pince will kick us out. How may your bookworm friends assist you today?"

James blinked. He suspected that was the longest speech Abby had ever made willingly that did not involve explaining something incredibly complicated to people with a far inferior IQ. "I was actually wondering if you could tell me something―"

"Obviously," Abby interrupted him. "Now, it's also obvious that the library is making you nervous, so why don't you just cut to the chase and tell us why you're here?"

James blinked again. This library place was excellent for making Abby start talking. Maybe she just felt most comfortable surrounded by books. He certainly didn't. But Abby had always been weird like that. She knew odd things for odd reasons, and divulged this information for stranger reasons.

"Well, have either of you heard of a Thomas Kadings?"

"Thomas Kadings…the name does sound vaguely familiar, but I couldn't tell you why." Remus looked thoughtful.

Abby, on the other hand (on which you have different fingers), looked shocked. "But I thought…" she muttered. The boys looked at her curiously. "Never mind," she told them. "Why do you want to know?"

"Lily's on a date with him, and I thought the name sounded familiar."

"WHAT!" Abby shouted, attracting the attention of Madam Pince, who looked up from the desk, trying to find the culprit who disturbed the peace in her precious library. Abby grabbed James and Remus and dragged them behind a few shelves, looking petrified. James looked slightly confused and Remus looked mildly amused. After Madam Pince had gone and was safely stationed behind her desk again, Abby let out her breath.

"Tell me you did not say that Lily is on a date with Thomas Kadings." Although slightly less scared than she had been a few seconds ago, Abby was still very worried, and James privately thought that she could do with a calming potion just now.

"That's what I said. Is that bad?"

"Bad? It's a disaster waiting to happen! Thomas Kadings is definitely not date material!" Abby was now fairly hysterical. James found it quite interesting, and, had he not also been worried about Lily, would have been laughing because of how odd a hysterical person looked while trying to be quiet.

"So, Abby, are you ever going to explain who exactly Thomas Kadings is, or are you just going to sit there becoming more and more worried?" Remus asked, obviously amused at her facial expression, or maybe just the odd, blotchy coloring of her face.

Abby took a deep breath. "Thomas Kadings," she began, "is not a wizard, first of all. He's what we call a warlock, a master of traps. Warlocks can bind anything, even magic. They could trap anyone or anything anywhere for any length of time, any time they wanted to. Some of them work for the Ministry, binding the powers of particularly dangerous criminals. Binding's pretty much all they do, but there's a few other traits, disappearing and reappearing at will, things like that. And immortality. They can't ever die. No one knows how long, precisely, warlocks have been around, even their memories don't reach back that far, but they've been here for millennia. So Thomas Kadings only looks seventeen, he's actually God knows how many thousands of years old. Mostly warlocks keep themselves to themselves, as wizards and muggles alike have a tendency to notice that they never age. No new warlocks are ever born, either. The only warlocks there will ever be are the ones around now.

"There has been the occasional famous warlock, such as the gods of Greek mythology. Zeus and all them. There's others. But Thomas Kadings is the most recent one. Apparently he did something only a few hundred years ago, and, well, I'm not actually supposed to know, but the newspapers were interesting, but it didn't really have much information on the details, so I found out for myself—"

"Yes, yes, this is all very interesting, I'm sure, but what exactly does it have to do with Lily?" James interrupted. Abby looked faintly annoyed.

"I was getting to that. Thomas Kadings no longer exists to us. Or, by rights, he shouldn't."

Maybe that was a cliffhanger, and maybe it wasn't. The fact is, I'm too lazy to type anymore today, and this was the ideal spot to break this chapter in two bits. It was a tad longer than I had planned.

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