It was a week before the marauders were all in the same place again. While he hadn't been expelled, Sirius had been suspended for a week. Remus had been a lot more subdued than normal and it took all of James and Peter's energy to cheer him up. Lily did as best she could when she was with him. Mostly they just sat together quietly, making their way through the unstinting work load, him taking comfort from her quiet strength.
Thankfully, Charms wasn't one of the classes they shared with the Slytherins. While many NEWT classes merged all the houses together, the larger, more popular ones were spilt much like lower down the school. Professor Flitwick climbed up onto the stool at the front of the class to speak to them all as Sirius entered. He shot a nervous look at where they all sat near the back of the class and stood looking the most indecisive Lily had ever seen. Remus wouldn't even look at him, but kept his eyes firmly fixed on the teacher at the front. Only the tension in his shoulders revealed he was aware of Sirius' presence. James, who sat to Remus' left, gave Sirius a nervous smile and shrugged, Peter was shifting in his seat, clearly uncomfortable with the tension between them all. Lily who was the nearest to where Sirius was stood, with Saffron on her other side gave him a small smile.
"Ah Mr Black," the professor squeaked, "please take a seat."
Sirius sat down behind them all next to the two Ravenclaws, Amy and Meg, they both gave him genuine smiles as he took out his books.
"For the next few lessons we will be studying the Patronus Charm," Flitwick began.
After a lengthy explanation about the finer points of this charm he told them to spread out and practice.
"Happy thoughts now people," he said as he walked round.
"I'll give him happy thoughts," grumbled Sirius, from behind Lily.
She turned and raised an eyebrow. All around the class wisps of silver smoke were blossoming from wands.
"Very good," the professor encouraged.
Glancing around, she spotted Remus in the farthest corner of the classroom with his back to Sirius. He looked like he was struggling with happy thoughts as much as Sirius was. Taking a few steps she stood in front of Sirius, deciding what to say.
"You don't have to say anything," he said in a low dejected voice, "I know, I'm a moron, an unfeeling egotistical idiot, a disgrace to my house-" Lily grabbed his arm and opened her mouth to speak, a frown of concern on her face, "- don't bother Lily, I don't deserve your sympathy."
"Sirius! Will you let me speak," Lily said exasperatedly.
He paused and glanced over her shoulder to where Remus was watching them, an angry frown on his face, "You'd better not."
She turned in time to catch Remus' eye before he turned away. "Look Sirius, you're not some kind of outcast-"
"-well I should be-"
"-Stop interrupting me! And quit feeling sorry for yourself." He started in astonishment. "Sirius, look," she paused and gave a half smile when Sirius didn't attempt to interrupt-
"-Miss Evans, Mr Black , I don't see any chanting," Fliwick said, looking up at them.
Lily rolled her eyes in exasperation. She drew her wand, not really focusing on it and selected a memory, deliberately happy enough to conjure a faint patronus, but tinted with sadness enough for it to be a realistic effort from a sixth year student. It was of a hot summer's day in France, where she sat on the beach with her sister eating an ice cream that dribbled over her fingers as it melted. "Expecto Patronum!"
A large shape erupted from her wand, with an almost but not quite visible form.
"Very good, Miss Evans!" Flitwick praised as he turned to Sirius, "Mr Black?"
Sirius sighed and drew his wand, rummaging for something that might be a happy enough memory. A moonlit night, running through the forest with his friends by his side. "Expecto Patronum."
The faintest glimmer of silvery white blossomed from his wand.
"Concentrate, Mr Black," Flitwick said, frowning at the poor work of a usually brilliant student.
Sirius produced several other half hearted efforts before Flitwick gave up on him and moved to the people to their left.
"This sucks!" Sirius said, sitting down on his stool and putting his head in his hands.
Lily sat down next to him, shortly joined by James.
"Hey mate,"
"Hey," Sirius responded despondently.
Deciding to leave James to cheer Sirius up, Lily made her way through the students to Remus. He pursed his lips in a thin line as she walked towards him.
"Don't be like that Remus, he's my friend," Lily said as she reached him.
"Yeah, I thought so too," Remus muttered darkly.
Lily took his arm, "don't tell me you're going to give up on him?"
"Why not?" he retorted angrily. She took a step back in surprise. He sighed and said in a calmer tone, "no, I suppose not. I mean, at the moment I am so mad and hurt by him that I can't begin to think of forgiving him, but deep down- very deep down- I know that it was just one stupid, thoughtless mistake out of a million other kind and generous things he's done for me. It's just that at the moment, I can't bring myself to look at him without being angry, give me a while and eventually I'll be able to look at him and see the friend I love rather than the idiot who betrayed my darkest secret for some kind of personal vendetta."
Lily bit her lip, "do you know why he said it?"
"No." he replied shortly, "I'm not sure that I want to, if truth be told."
"Well I don't know if it would help, but I always think it's better to know the whole story than only part of it," Lily said before telling him an abridged version of what she and Saffron had talked about before, leaving out anything personal.
He looked thoughtful for a while before sighing, "Just like Sirius to lose his head over a pretty girl." He shook his head, "the problem with Sirius is that he just doesn't think about things. He acts immediately without pausing to realise the ramifications of what he does. One day that's really going to get him into trouble, you know."
"But Sirius wouldn't be Sirius if he wasn't the rash, hot-headed guy we know," Lily added with a small smile.
Remus gave her a rueful smile and then changed the subject.
***
The sun shone brightly in the sky above, but she felt neither warm nor cold. Either side of the path she walked on lay stubby mountains covered in patches of scrawny grass scattered amongst dry and dusty earth, overshadowing the dirt track her feet walked along. Behind her the road stretched on and on as far as she could see, the landscape as unvarying as the scene before her.
Looking down she saw her feet, dusty and raw from many miles they had travelled, but she felt no weariness. Onwards her feet carried her, until she couldn't remember how long she had been on the road. Then, as she rounded a corner in the road a large expanse of land, brimming with life came into view. A sparkling waterfall splashed silently into a crystal pool. Long green blades of grass swayed in a wind she could not feel and stirred about her as she walked towards the water.
She turned, knowing it waited behind her. It tossed its proud head wildly, huge white, feathered wings gleaming brilliantly in the sun as it eyed her. Large, intelligent eyes regarded her with an expression of mixed curiosity and defiance as if it knew why she was there.
A familiar figure appeared by her side, dressed in clothes that seemed at complete variance with the strange scene before her. The girl's lips moved silently and she pressed something into her hands and kissed her cheek before vanishing.
Alone once more, she turned and looked at the creature before her and knew, as she had known before, what it was she had to do.
"Lily…Lily!"
"Huh?" she sat up with a start and found James grinning at her.
"Maybe we shouldn't stay up so late if you're going to fall asleep in lessons," he tried to stifle a laugh as he kept an eye on Professor McGonagall, who was a few benches in front trying to explain to Peter about what had gone wrong when he was transfiguring his chair.
Lily coloured, "did she notice?"
He shook his head, "No, Peter has kept her busy for the last ten minutes with his ineptitude." He grinned, "dream anything good?"
"Actually I did," she replied thoughtfully, "it was…oh never mind," she added hastily, "are we still on for tonight?"
He nodded, "I've done a couple of sketches from what we talked about yesterday, how have you gotten on?"
She turned to him and eagerly replied, "I had an idea that we could test out your drawings. I think I can make them sort of project themselves into a full sized version."
"Groovy!" James replied approvingly, "so what, you do your spell and my drawings…come to life?"
"Sort of," Lily said, "they won't be real exactly- I mean we won't be able to touch them or anything, but they'll give us the idea of what things will look like."
"Hmm," James looked thoughtful for a moment, "oh, do you think we should ask Dumbledore if we can try it out in the Great Hall, I mean, if what you say is true then the greenhouses won't really be big enough will they?"
"Good idea," Lily nodded, "why don't you-" she stopped and looked up to find McGonagall watching them with her arms crossed.
"Perhaps it might be better to split you two up if you're hoping to be productive in my lesson, which if you aren't then you should leave," McGonagall said mildly.
"Right you are, professor," James replied and glanced up, "Saff, swap?"
His sister nodded and they began to change places, Lily, making sure to pretend to use her wand, flicked her hand and sent their parchment and quills flying through the air to land on the right desks.
As the lesson ended, Lily and Saffron bid goodbye to the boys and headed back to the Ravenclaw common room. They were just chatting about this and that before Saffron suddenly blurted out,
"What's going on with you and Remus?"
"What do you mean?" Lily replied, frowning in confusion.
"Well… I don't know," Saffron shrugged, "it just seems to me like you two don't spend that much time together out of lessons and stuff. I mean you spend more time with James than him."
"We're working on an assignment," Lily replied defensively, "I have to spend a lot of time with him."
"Easy!" Saffron laughed, "I was just using it as an illustration. But don't you, I don't know, want to spend more time with Remus? He is your boyfriend after all."
They had paused and the rest of the Ravenclaws had overtaken them. Lily thought for a moment, before saying slowly, "you know, I don't. Is that wrong?"
Saffron shrugged, "I guess not."
"But I do love spending time with him," Lily added hastily, "I mean, he's really intelligent and considerate and-"
"Hey, I know the list," Saffron laughed, holding up her hand, "I didn't mean to be nosy. I was just wondering that's all."
The continued to walk on, silently, wrapped in their own thoughts. After a minute or so Saffron ventured, "so what are you going to do now?"
"Do? Do I have to do something?"
"Well, if you don't like him that way anymore than it isn't really fair on either of you to keep things going is it?"
"I never said that- you know…" she trailed off.
"Alright then, forget I mentioned it," Saffron said companionably, linking her arm with Lily's.
"Hogsmeade in a few weeks! I hope the weather's going to be good, I'm not too keen on the cold."
"Saff, it's almost April, it's hardly likely that we're going to see snow."
She shrugged, "well, you know what the English weather's like, we'll be lucky if it doesn't rain!"
*************
A/N: Ah yes, the good old English weather…anyway sort of a transitional chapter, it's hard trying to keep so many balls in the air at once-metaphorically speaking of course. Anyway, any guesses at what the creature is? I've tried to keep it concealed but the probability is that I dropped a hint somewhere or something.
In response to what some ppl have mentioned in their reviews no I haven't got the whole thing written out but I am several chapters ahead-the way it's going to stay if you want to have regular instalments. ^__^ I like to be able to go back and rewrite stuff if I change my mind about stuff. What else…hmm oh yeah, Lily's reaction to Remus' werewolf thing-I guess maybe she might have been a little more surprised, but if you think about it wizarding ppl are probably less likely to be surprised by things aren't they? Plus Lily's had some pretty huge surprises of her own in her life so I guess I just thought she'd be pretty unsurprisable. Well anyway, hope you're all doing fine and I'll see you next chapter- 'Under the Willow Tree' where you get to see the results of Lily and James' planning for the ball.