This one goes out to my guy Jay. Hopefully you don't have that heart attack, pal.
This one ended up being a lot denser than I had anticipated, and as such, the whole chapter takes place over the course of a single day. For pacing reasons, I don't normally do this, but that's just how it shook out this time.
I swear, I've never been one to snoop. Well, I never was before I fell in with a lot of troublemakers. But there was something going on, something beyond just a bunch of boys putting aside their differences and bonding. Severus Snape was chumming it up with James Potter! That was weird! And so I resolved to get to the bottom of things by, well…snooping.
I only expected to learn that Severus was being blackmailed or that this was some long con being played against him by James and Sirius. What I actually discovered was that not only was there some sort of quantum existential threat at play, but that James Potter (seriously, James Potter!) had played a direct hand in saving Severus's life, with the aid of his band of misfits.
It's enough to give a girl whiplash, I tell you.
Much as I hated to admit it, I'd misjudged James Potter.
Very slightly.
…
5 December, 1971
How could someone be of such utterly sterling character while also being a total and complete…dunderhead!? James Potter was a textbook example of what Lily had once learned was called a juxtaposition. She had learned the word when Mrs. Robinson had assigned them all to find one containing the letter X. A juxtaposition was the joining of two opposite things in one place, like putting a fast food restaurant next to a gym or a hospital next to an undertaker's. James Potter was rude, uncouth, loud, obnoxious…and loyal, caring, and unfailingly noble.
It was, to put it mildly, infuriating.
"Well, it's not like I was about to let him get snatched by some nutter from the future, was I?" James said through a mouthful of potatoes. "Would've done 'im in, he would've."
"He was mad as a hatter, no doubt," Sirius said. "No way we were letting him get our mate like that."
"Is this that thickheaded bravery Gryffindor boys are so infamous for?" Lily asked the pair, who had flanked her at supper as they tended to do nowadays. Apparently, being privy to their Big Secret made her one of the gang now.
Goody.
"Oi, my head's not all that thick," James insisted.
"Well, put it this way," Sirius said. "You make the quidditch team next year, you likely won't need a helmet, will you?"
"Bludgers'll just bounce right off," James snickered.
"You could play beater and not even need a bat," Lily told him. "Just headbutt the bludgers at the other team."
"That's it!" James said triumphantly. "That'll be my signature playstyle!"
"James Potter, do not go getting your head caved in on my account," Lily said with a roll of her eyes, though she couldn't fight a smile at his antics.
"You, telling Potter not to get his head caved in?" Mary asked as she made her way over. "You feeling alright?"
"I couldn't handle that kind of thing on my conscience, is all," Lily said in lofty tones, taking a prim bite of her shepherd's pie while Sirius stuffed his face with beef wellington next to her. "Oh! Sirius, did you want to listen to that new Fleetwood Mac album?"
"Today?" Sirius asked, glancing up at her with food on his face and such an innocently hopeful expression that Lily once again felt her face heating up at how pure Sirius Black could be. How could James Potter's top stooge be such a puppy dog sometimes?
"More of that muggle music?" James asked.
"Yes, 'that muggle music' is actually really good," Lily insisted.
"Some of those drummers are rubbish, though," James said. "They can't hardly keep a rhythm."
"Well, that's because they don't have Metronome Charms on their foot pedals," Lily huffed. "They don't cheat, they play real music that's pure."
"What's the point of 'pure' music if it's off-beat and out of tune?" James asked her.
"Because it's better that way!" Lily shot back. "Music's singing about your feelings and thoughts, and that stuff isn't perfect. Your thoughts are certainly off-beat and out of tune."
"You like this music, too?" James asked Sirius, who grinned at him.
"Love it," he said. "It's like… Scratchy and thumpy and makes me think of riding a motorcycle."
"A motorcycle?" Lily asked, snickering at the idea of Sirius Black astride a great roaring two-wheeler. "That'd be a sight."
"I think I'd look rather cool, don't you?" Sirius asked. "Riding a motorcycle and zipping along and listening to The Who."
"You would look cool," Lily told him with a smirk, watching as James's face turned a blotchy red.
"Well…I wanna listen to this muggle music, too, then," he insisted.
"Great!" Lily said with a bright smile. "Well, since I'd rather not disturb the common room with my 8-track player, why don't I just bring it up to your dormitory?"
She was rewarded by the sight of two pale-faced boys (a feat, given James's aforementioned blotchy redness), before they shared a glance and sprung to their feet.
"Half hour?" James asked.
"Better make it an hour," Sirius asked. "Remember Peter's potion mishap?"
"Oi, forgot about that," James grumbled, peering at Lily. "One hour, Evans."
They sped off, leaving Lily sighing in relief at how peaceful lunch was without the two most boisterous boys in the school disrupting the experience. Inheriting Severus's social circle had been exhausting!
"They're a handful, aren't they?" Mary observed, pouring herself some tea.
"Definitely best had in small doses," Lily said. "I don't understand how Sev handles it."
"He's a boy," Mary said with a knowing look. "He may be quiet and smart and polite, but at the end of it all, he's still one of them. Remus is the same way. Good for a talk, but he can only keep the insanity in check for so long."
"You sound so learned," Lily said with a giggle. "And wise."
"I should've been in Ravenclaw, I tell you," Mary said. "I couldn't abide solving a riddle just to get back into my common room, though. Imagine if you really needed the loo and you're expected to hop in place while figuring it out."
"What hops on one leg when it needs a wee, then hops on the other when it needs a wee?" Lily asked.
"I do, let me in!" Mary said, both girls bursting into laughter.
Once lunch was finished, Marlene joined the pair on the way back to the common room, having apparently gone for a brisk walk about the grounds.
"I wanted to see if 'at big willow tree out there really was a whumping willow," she said. "Alice Reeves was telling me ta make sure not tae get too close, and I thought she was talkin' mince. But the thing took a swipe at me!"
"Isn't that rather a dangerous thing to have around a bunch of children?" Lily asked. "They're just asking for someone like James or Sirius to get into some ridiculous contest with each other on who can get closest without losing an eye."
"I guess if they tell you not to go poking at something dangerous and you do it anyway, that's your own fault," Mary shrugged.
"It's the only way some people will learn," Lily sighed. "Rather callous, though."
"So, where you two headed?" Marlene asked.
"Oh, I'm off to the boys' dorm to let Sirius listen to the new Fleetwood Mac album," Lily said, glancing over to the see Marlene staring wide-eyed at her. "What?"
"All alone?" she asked. "With a bunch of boys?"
"Well, Severus will be there," Lily said. "And Remus. They're alright."
"…Alright, firsty party in the boys' dorm," Marlene decided. "I'll bring snacks."
"I'll drag Hestia along if I can," Mary said. "She likes muggle music."
"You girls act as though I'm some porcelain doll," Lily huffed.
"No, you're a trophy to those boys, is all," Mary said. "We let you go alone, they'll start carrying on trying to impress you or something."
"This way, we can divide and conquer," Marlene said.
"You just want any excuse you can get to pick on Sirius," Lily pointed out.
"Who d'yeh think I'm planning on conquering?" Marlene snickered.
…
Marlene veered off to the Owlery on the way up to the common room, to send a letter home asking if her parents would be having her for the holidays. Mary promised to scour the library for Hestia and "drag her bookworm bum up by force if need be", leaving Lily feeling a small pang of sympathy for poor Hestia as she soldiered on alone.
Walking along the stone floors, Lily was once again overcome by the sheer unknowable age of this place. When one thought of castles from the Middle Ages, half-crumbled ruins and long-abandoned keeps came to mind. Vacation destinations for tour groups where you weren't allowed to wander off or touch anything. But Hogwarts was only a few decades shy of a thousand years old and still very much alive—too much in some ways, Lily mused as she mounted a staircase only for it to shift and decide it wanted to lead her to the west side of the third floor this afternoon.
Oh well. She was in no hurry, and the view from the oriel on the third-floor corridor was always breathtaking. The sky was clear and cloudless today, a refreshing change from the slate gray it had been the past week. In fact, as she found herself approaching the ornate window, she saw that she wasn't the only one appreciating the view. A boy sat perched on the window ledge, staring out at the snow-covered grounds.
He was older, maybe in his fifth or sixth year, with black hair that had been shorn quite short. His eyes were a gleaming green not dissimilar to Lily's own, and as he turned his gaze onto her, she saw that a scar bisected his left brow, a lightning bolt crossing down over his eye.
A scar like lightning…
Lily gasped, stumbling backward and nearly tripping as she remembered Severus's description of his attacker on Halloween. The boy (Harry, she recalled) only regarded her with curiosity, toying with a gold pocket watch dangling from his grip by a fine chain.
"Hey," he said in level voice. "They've told you about me, then?"
"You…you're Harry," Lily said. "You attacked Severus."
"Well…yeah," Harry shrugged, grinning at her in a roguish expression eerily reminiscent of the annoying smirk James got sometimes. "Oh, you should meet him in my timeline. Real piece of work."
"Severus is a sweetheart," Lily insisted, her hands clenching into small fists at her sides. Infuriatingly, the action only seemed to amuse the boy, whose smile widened fondly.
"You're a kind girl," he said, and Lily felt her face heat up at the warmth of his words.
"What are you doing here?" Lily demanded. "Are you here to attack him again?"
"No, not this time," Harry said. "I…actually just wanted to be here for the last few moments of this timeline."
"What do you mean?" Lily asked, feeling a cold dread settle a pit into her stomach. "What are you planning?"
"Not to worry," Harry told her with a chuckle. "You won't even know what's happened. It'll just be the past to you. But that's the fascinating bit to me, I suppose. All of this is about to change, and soon this timeline will only even exist as a memory for about three or four people. You may not even remember this conversation, depending on whether the alternate me popped in here the same as I did before I catch up to him."
"How…" Lily trailed off, unable to keep up with him. It was like the time she'd accidentally walked into a third-year Transfiguration lesson and listened to Professor McGonagall go on about Fredrick's Seven Fundamentals of Sentient Transfiguration. There were definitely real words being used, spoken in English and comprehensible on their own. But the way he was stringing them together was sending her head spinning.
"It's complicated stuff," Harry admitted. "Even I don't fully understand all the finer points of it."
"Sounds like you maybe shouldn't be mucking about with it, then," Lily shot at him heatedly. Again, her ire only seemed to amuse him, a handsome grin spreading on his face.
"I've wanted to meet you for some time, you know," he said. "I didn't ever think it would be like this. It's not fair, really. It feels like it's never been, like I always get the raw deal and then hear the same old lines. Life isn't fair. Sometimes we just have to find the silver linings in the clouds, you see."
"Well, that's true," Lily said. "We have to accept the bad with the good."
"What do you do when you're getting spoonfuls of bad, heaping plates of it, and only a crumb or two of good?" Harry asked, his voice fervent now, nearly quaking with suppressed emotion. "When you know, you know who's been feeding you all of this bad and can do something about it? Wouldn't you want to…to get them, to show them your life is yours and not some…some story to tell as they see fit?"
Those hauntingly green eyes of his were shining now as they fixed on her, and Lily felt an almost horrible familiarity with that gaze, with this boy. She'd never seen him before in her life, but she could have sworn they'd met…
"Everyone's left me," he went on in a throaty voice. "Taken from me, drifted away, ditched me of their own accord. My life is… And it's all their fault! I was last place in a race I never wanted to be in, just…handed down this lot, had it dropped on my head. And he thinks these empty platitudes will fix it, well no, sir. It's too late for my happily ever after, but the least I can do is make sure my alternates don't have to deal with the same thing."
He was staring fixedly at the watch now, circling his thumb around the small button atop it.
"All of them, they're your friends now, but they'll only betray you," he said, quietly enough now that Lily had to lean in to hear him. She knew she should have been running for Professor Molotov, but she was positively transfixed by this oddly familiar boy. "That's what happens, having friends. They betray you to save their own skins, make promises they don't plan to keep. When it gets hard, when it doesn't match up with how they imagined, you'd be shocked how many would rather cut their losses than stick around. But the three of us… That was all we needed. Just the three of us."
A wistful smile now spread on his face, one of such aching longing that Lily hurt just to look at it.
"You don't need to worry about a thing," he said. "I'm just putting it right. Putting us right."
"What on Earth are you talking ab – "
He pressed the button on top of the watch, and in the time it took Lily to flinch at the ringing click it gave off, he was gone. Staggering a step back, she wheeled around in a circle as a shudder seemed to ripple through the castle around her. No, not the castle; Lily realized that everything was shaking around her, like the air, her senses themselves were being grabbed and rattled. She needed to find Professor Molotov! Turning and dashing away –
She rounded the corner leading to the library, sighing with an exasperated smile as Mary trotted up with Hestia in tow.
"Found one of them," she said. "Artie's unaccounted for, though."
"Probably up the Owlery sending a letter to Daddy dearest," Hestia said with a roll of her eyes. "I always thought the mother was supposed to be the worrywart."
"Well, the man is the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures," Mary said. "And we're a stone's throw away from a forest full of quite dangerous magical creatures."
"Why do they make the names of departments so long?" Lily asked, the trio now heading toward the common room.
"It's so no one will want to write them letters," Hestia said sagely. "Imagine the cramp you'd get writing all of that with a quill."
"You'd use half the ink bottle just addressing the letter," Lily said. "You know, they have these amazing things called pens in the muggle world. No dipping, no blotching, you just…write."
"Now, you stop with that muggle savagery," Mary told her with a grin.
"Next thing you know, she'll be suggesting we use light bulbs instead of proper candles," Hestia said with a mock scoff.
"Imagining stooping so low," Mary said, placing a hand to her mouth in shock. "How brutish!"
"Right, right, I'm so sorry," Lily giggled. "Goodness, how dare I talk such muggle nonsense?"
"At least she's aware of it," a new voice muttered from behind them, to a chorus of snickers. Lily glanced back and saw a group of girls smiling coldly at her. Leading the pack seemed to be the blonde-haired cousin of Sirius Black, Narcissa, who had apparently been the one to speak. "Alright, mudblood?"
"Oh, go marry your cousin, inbred," Lily shot back, watching the older girl's expression turn rather ugly before she reached into her robes to produce her wand.
"Would you care to try that again, filth?" Narcissa asked in silky tones. "I know they don't teach your kind propriety in those muggle schools, so if I have to give you a lesson, I'll do what I must."
"The only thing you must do is go to – "
"Miss Evans, Miss Black," a man's voice interrupted what Lily thought would have been a cracking good comeback, though she was also secretly rather relieved.
There was no way she'd come out of a scuffle with Narcissa Malfoy in anything resembling good shape.
Mary's hand gently pulled at Lily's sleeve as Professor Molotov approached the scene, fixing Narcissa with a hard expression.
"I won't abide such prejudiced talk in this school," Molotov said. "Miss Evans has just as much a right to be here as any of us."
Narcissa only scoffed in response, smirking at the professor in a simpering way.
"Of course she does, Professor," she said in saccharine tones. "My sincerest apologies."
"I don't believe you've ever apologized sincerely, Miss Black," Molotov sniffed. "On your way."
The group of Slytherin girls departed silently, all of them matching the blonde girl's baleful look at Lily.
"That'll be twenty points from Slytherin for your harassment, as well," Molotov called after them. "And don't think I don't know who's been filling your head with his nonsense ideals."
"Who's got nonsense ideals?" Mary asked once the girls had left. Molotov peered down at her, running his fingers through his graying beard with a pensive look.
"It's nothing you need concern yourself with," he said. "A child shouldn't trouble herself with grown-up politics."
"That's a bit patronizing, isn't it?" Lily asked, bristling at being called a "child". She was nearly twelve, after all!
"When you get as old as I am, you'll have earned the right to patronize here and there," Professor Molotov said with a chuckle. "Go on, don't fret about a bunch of pureblood harpies. You're on your way to spend time with your friends, aren't you?"
"Oh!" Lily remembered their previous plans, glancing back at her friends. "Right, off to the Owlery to wrangle up Artie, then?"
"Artie?" Molotov muttered.
"Are my ears burning?" a girl's voice spoke. Behind Molotov, a girl with messy brown hair to her chin and dark green eyes appeared from around a corner, glancing back in alarm. "Just saw a bunch of catty snakes in a huff. Everything alright?"
"A bunch of politics we're apparently not ready for," Mary said.
"Oh, that's lucky," Artie giggled. "Hate politics, I do."
"Your home life must be unbearable, then," Hestia pointed out.
"Why d'you think I was so keen to come to Hogwarts?" Artie said with a grin. Her eyes darted over Lily's shoulder, to where Professor Molotov was staring at her open bafflement. "Professor? Everything alright?"
"…Yes, my apologies," the professor said, seeming to rouse himself from a deep think. "I've only just remembered I need to speak to the headmaster. Have a lovely time, girls."
"What's got him all out of sorts?" Artie said in a low voice as the professor sped off down the corridor.
"He's always been a bit odd, hasn't he?" Hestia pointed out.
"Come along, then," Lily said. "I want to catch the boys in the middle of tidying up and give them a scare."
"You're cruel, you know," Artie told her.
"Oh, James Potter needs a little cruelty directed at him," Lily insisted.
"…You're only right," Artie sighed.
…
All things considered, gathering in a dormitory and listening to music while eating snacks was certainly not top of the list for activities one would imagine taking place at a magical boarding school—in fact, it was downright mundane compared to classes spent learning how to magic a hedgehog into a pincushion. Even so, it was the sort of memory Lily knew she would look back on fondly, as she accepted a Cauldron Cake from Ron while Marlene went about demonstrating how to use an 8-track player to a positively flummoxed James Potter.
"So, the music's on this little…plasticky thing?" James asked, peering closely at the ribbon as though expecting to find very tiny musical notes on it. Well, Lily supposed that that was true, in a fashion.
"Yes, and don't touch the tape bit there," Marlene said. "It'll smudge, and then I bet Lily will be pretty cross with you."
"She generally always is anyway, aren't you, Evans?" James said with a grin at Lily.
"Always for good reason," Lily sniffed as she took a bite of her cake. Oh, strawberry. Next to her, Artie chuckled, though she spared her only a smile before returning to a somewhat hushed conversation with Mary. She seemed rather curious about Mary's mother's work as an Unspeakable.
"Does she ever work with Time-Turners?" she asked.
"I…don't really know," Mary said with shrug. "You know, she obviously can't talk about it, being an Unspeakable and all."
"Fair enough," Artie grinned. "In the job title, innit?"
"You've really been into chronomancy lately," Mary pointed out, and Artie hummed thoughtfully.
"I suppose it's quite fascinating, isn't it?" she said. "Lily, don't you think so?"
"Y…yeah," Lily said, coughing a bit on her bite of cake. Having become privy to the Big Secret among the group, she was suddenly quite conscious that Mary and Marlene weren't, nor was Hestia. It felt a bit dishonest, even alluding to it as slightly as they were in front of them.
"The strawberry ones are the best, but they're also quite dry," Sev said.
"Oh, too right," Ron agreed. "I always have to take a bit of tea with those, wash it down, like."
It was a marvel, really, how they went about their normal lives with something so monumental having crashed upon them. A strange boy had shown up and attempted to end Severus's life, and here they were, listening to Fleetwood Mac while scarfing Pumpkin Pasties and Cauldron Cakes. Lily supposed that if something so potentially traumatizing had happened to her, she'd rather forget it as well.
"Woman of a thousand years,
How are your sons of a time ago?"
And what better way to do so than with good music and good company?
"What does Fleetwood Mac even mean, anyway?" James asked after a moment, now simply lying on his back in the middle of the floor while Sirius attempted to toss Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans in his mouth.
"Do they still admire your silvered ways?
As you go down
To the sea and the gold sand"
"I think that's their names," Sirius said, priming a blue bean before arcing it to bounce of James's nose. "I know the drummer's last name is Fleetwood."
"I like that for a last name," James decided. "I want Fleetwood as my last name."
"Well, send an owl to the Ministry and change it," Artie said. "Don't think your mum and dad would be overly chuffed about it, though."
"I think Dad would actually disown me," James chuckled. "'You don't want the last name, just get out the family, then.'"
"James Fleetwood does have a ring to it, though," Lily pointed out, and James grinned at her.
"Yeah, Evans?" he asked. "Well, then I could start a band with Sirius and be Fleetwood Black."
"Oh, boooo!" Lily said, giggling as she chucked a pillow at the boy.
"Nah, it'd be brilliant," James chuckled while batting away the fluffy projectile. "You could sing, and Artie could play the guitar."
"I've never so much as touched a guitar," Artie said.
"Sev could play the bass," Sirius said with a grin at Severus. "Bassists are always the quiet, thoughtful sort, my uncle says."
Severus rolled his eyes, though Lily could tell from the faint quirk of his lips that he was pleased to be included in the scheme.
"Would you sing, too, then, Ron?" James asked the redhead, whose ears darkened as he snickered back.
"Not bloody likely," he said. "Couldn't carry a tune to save my life. I'd play the drums."
"Maybe we should all just play the drums," Artie said. "No training or the like, either, just all of us on a stage playing the drums really badly."
"That's art, that is," Mary said flatly. "I'd pay ticket price to see that."
"Can't be any worse than what John Lennon and Yoko Ono have been doing," Lily said.
"Who?" James asked.
"Oh, he was one of the Beatles, John Lennon, right?" Ron asked through a mouthful of chocolate frog. "I know that, at least."
"Well done, Ronald," Lily said with a smirk, earning a proud but chocolatey smile from the boy. "See, Potter, there's no excuse to be ill-informed about muggles. Ron knows a thing or two about them."
"Showoff," James said, tossing one of Sirius's misfired jellybeans at Ron.
"Pot kettle, that's for sure," Marlene said.
Lily heard a small giggle behind her and turned to see Hestia wedged back in the depths of Ron's four-poster, happily reading an issue of Witch Weekly while the commotion went on around her.
"Alright back there?" Lily asked.
"Content as a cucumber," Hestia said, fixing her magnified eyes on Lily. "I don't abide crowds and chatter and all this banter. Not being the center of it, at least."
"I hope I didn't make you feel forced to come along," Lily said with a small pout. Hestia rolled her eyes with a warm smile.
"No one's forced me to do anything, ever," she assured the other girl. "Maybe I don't like being the center of it all, but it's rather nice to linger near the outskirts and still feel included, I suppose."
"Oi, Hestia, choccy frog?" Ron asked, rooting around in the pile of candy they'd amassed.
"If you please," Hestia said. Ron tossed one of the offered treats over his shoulder, and Hestia snatched it out of the air.
"Not a bad catch, that," Lily said. "Maybe you could be the seeker on the quidditch team next year."
"Not half likely," Hestia snickered. "Organized sports aren't really my scene."
"What is your scene?" Lily asked her. "We've been rooming together for weeks, and I don't know terribly much about you."
"My scene is… I don't really know," Hestia admitted. "I like writing. I wish Hogwarts had a school newspaper. Mum says I'm an eleven-year-old girl with the soul of a hardboiled private investigator."
"Keen to rock the establishment to its core?" Lily asked, and Hestia winked at her.
"Hogwarts must have something sordid going on," she said. "Mostly, it'd just be a bit of fun, though. Digging round the castle, finding secret rooms and such."
"Secret rooms?" James asked from the floor. "Where at?"
"Dunno, do I?" Hestia said. "Be fun to find some, though, wouldn't it?"
"It would," Sirius said. "Hey, we should do that next. Go on a great big expedition."
"I'll pass," Severus said. "Traipsing all over the castle doesn't sound like fun at all."
"Aw, Sev, where's your sense of adventure?" James asked with a grin.
"Left it at home, actually," Sev drawled. "Bad luck."
"I reckon James has an extra one," Ron said. "Or two."
"Got a whole trunk of 'em," James said. "C'mon, it'd be fun."
"And what d'you expect to find?" Lily asked. "You'd probably get lost, big as this place is."
"Then we make a map," Sirius said. "Sev was saying something the other day about making a map of the castle."
"You know Hogwarts is Unplottable, right?" Artie pointed out, and Lily shot her a questioning look. "Can't cast a Mapping Spell on it. Can't even stick it on a map, either."
"Alright, but you could still make a map of the inside, right?" Ron pointed out.
"…I…have no clue," Artie admitted, looking almost disappointed that she didn't know.
"One way to find out," James said, springing to his feet and sending a cascade of jellybeans to the floor. "Sirius, you can be the calligrapher."
"Cartographer," Artie corrected him. "And you want to go running off now, when we've just gotten everyone gathered round? Lily would be disappointed, I think."
James shot Lily a look, and Lily quirked an eyebrow right back at him. Had he forgotten about her so easily? She was nearly offended. Slowly, James lowered himself back onto the floor, jolting when Sirius chucked a jellybean at the side of his head.
"I s'pose music and snacks is good sometimes," he mumbled, and Lily rolled her eyes at him, unable to fight a smile at the petulant look on his face.
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