When Lily reached her dormitory that night, she found a letter waiting for her on her pillow, and a kestrel perched on the curtain rail of her four-poster. As she picked up the letter, the bird gave a loud cry and swooped out of the still-open door. Jess was sitting on her bed, reading an unknown book with a startlingly pink cover which Lily thought she probably didn't want to know the name of, sporting a rather wary expression.

"Has it gone? The bird?" She leaned sideways and attempted to see around the door, but only succeeded in very nearly falling off her bed.

Lily laughed. "I assume so. Whose is it? I've never seen anyone with a bird of prey to carry letters." She frowned and tried to think who she knew who would be able to tame a kestrel. Perhaps Hagrid, but he tended to use the school owls.

Jess shrugged. "Beats me. It's been here a while, though; it was already here when I came up. It's been one-eyeing me the whole time."

"One-eyeing? What the heck is one-eyeing?"

Jess sighed. Then she turned her head to the side, looked at Lily, and pulled her lower eyelid down with one finger. "One eye," she said, matter-of-factly.

"Okay," Lily said, and grinned. "One-eyeing it is. Is that a verb then?"

"Yup. I one-eye, you one-eye, he / she / it one-eyes. Example: 'Wow, she's really one-eyeing that cake, isn't she?"

Lily laughed. "Fine." She turned to the letter and picked it up. Her name was written on the front, as you might expect, in slanted, loopy, slightly spiky handwriting. It didn't look particularly familiar, which confused her even more. Surely no one she didn't know would be sending her a note, especially not to her dormitory rather than at breakfast in the Great Hall.

"Who's it from?" Jess asked, bounding over to look over Lily's shoulder. "Get a move on and open it! It might be a love letter!"

Lily sighed, but grinned all the same. "Who do I know who would be sending me a love letter?"

"Matt? Sirius? Jamesypoo?"

Lily pulled a face. "Matt wouldn't bother, Sirius hates my guts, and Potter's handwriting couldn't look like this if he practised for an hour every night for fifteen years. Besides, it's girly writing."

"Alright, a lesbian love letter then," Jess said, not the least bit put off.

"Well then, I'd like to read my lesbian love letter in private, please," Lily commanded, pointing a finger at Jess's bed. She slunk away, pouting, and Lily couldn't help but grin. She sat down, unfolded the parchment, and read. It said:

'Lily, would you please return my necklace? I need it tonight, if possible. Thanks.'

It took Lily a moment, but then she clicked. Petra's necklace. She bit her lip – it had been weeks since she had borrowed it. In truth, she had forgotten all about it, which was weird, because she had worn it a lot. She never remembered putting it on, but she always seemed to be wearing it. In fact – Lily looked down and saw her fingers clasped around the silver chain. She dropped it as if it was white-hot, and shook herself.

"Are you alright?" Jess asked, frowning. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Lily said automatically, and started to think. She couldn't remember putting the necklace on, but she must have done. She didn't consciously eat or breathe or spit after brushing her teeth, after all. They were just things that she did, subconsciously.

"Who's the letter from?" Jess asked, just as Chrissy and Carrie came through the door.

"What letter?" Christina asked, looking from Lily to Jess.

"Lily's got a lesbian love letter," Jess said in a conspiratorial whisper. "She was just about to tell me who it's from."

"Van Spyk," lily said to Jess, ignoring Chrissy.

"You've got a lesbian love letter from Van Spyk?" Carrie asked incredulously.

Lily burst out laughing. "No, I just got a letter. Absolutely no lesbian references, implied or otherwise."

"Fair enough. What does it say?" Chrissy asked, and Lily threw the letter to her. She watched her friend mouthing the words, and then she said, "You have her necklace?"

"Yeah," Lily said, and unhooked the necklace, passing it to Chrissy.

"Wow," Carrie said, peering at it. "It's pretty."

"Very Slytherin, though," Jess commented as she stood up to see.

"True." Lily smiled. "Anyway, I reckon I'd better take it back to her before curfew. I really don't need a detention."

"No one's going to give you a detention, Lils, you're a prefect," Carrie said, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, I don't know," Lily said. "It's Slytherin night tonight." With that, she jumped off her bed and retrieved the necklace from Christina's clutches.

x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x

When she reached Petra's office, Lily knocked twice and put her hand in her pocket, feeling for the now-familiar serpentine shape that was her teacher's pendant. It wasn't there, but she suddenly felt the weight around her neck that meant she was wearing it. She must have looked puzzled as she opened the door, because Petra said, "Good Lord, what happened to you?"

Lily was so shocked by the sight of Petra in pyjamas that she couldn't speak. Finally, after several long moments of stuttering, she said, "Your pyjamas…they have kittens on them." And, indeed, they did. Little white kittens gambolling around in a rather frightening manner, for that matter.

"Don't you like them?" Petra asked, looking down at her purple trousers.

"Erm – yes, they're, er, sweet," Lily managed to say.

"You think so? I think they look rather demonic. Come in," she replied.

Perhaps it was the sporadic appearance of the word 'miaow' that made Petra's pyjama bottoms so frightening, Lily thought, though it was more likely just the fact that Lily had never seen her teacher anything less than dressed to the nines.

"Oh," Petra added, "why did you look so confused? At that point, you hadn't seen my pyjamas." She grabbed a black dressing gown and pulled it on over her white vest.

"Nothing," Lily said quickly, "I was just thinking about Transfiguration homework."

Petra raised an eyebrow in mild disbelief, but nodded. "How are you?" she asked, gesturing for Lily to take a seat on her red sofa.

"Fine, thanks," Lily said. "You?"

"Could be worse," her Professor said, massaging her temples. "I've had a splitting headache all day, though. That's what comes of having seventh-years first thing."

Lily unhooked the necklace for the second time that evening, and handed it to Petra. "Thanks a lot, I completely forgot that I hadn't given it back. Sorry."

Petra smiled. "It becomes habit, doesn't it? Wearing it, I mean."

Lily nodded, wondering if Petra was getting at anything in particular, or whether the remark was completely innocent. "Yeah," was the only reply she could really come up with.

"How's James?" she asked abruptly.

"Er…" Lily said, taken aback, and Petra grinned.

"Or Matt, for that matter."

"Er…" Lily repeated, feeling like a bit of an idiot. "Well, they're both alright, as far as I know."

Petra's eyebrow raised again. Lily wondered absent-mindedly whether it spent more time raised than in its normal position. "It's not going well, is it." It wasn't a question, it was a fact.

"No," Lily admitted with a sigh. "I hate boys."

"You'll hate men, too," Petra said with a grin. "They're just the same, only bigger. That goes for the egos, too."

"Great," Lily said, grimacing.

"Well, that's one way to describe it," she replied.

"Your love life not going well either, then?" Lily wondered after saying this whether she hadn't overstepped the mark just a tad. After all, it was normally her teacher who asked the questions, not the other way around.

"No, in a word," Petra replied, looking at Lily in a rather odd way. "Contrary to your belief, I'm sure."

"What?" Lily said, confused.

"Just because I haven't mentioned it, it doesn't mean I've forgotten," she said grimly. "And I doubt that you two have, either."

Lily gulped. This was not going to pleasant, she could feel it. "About that –" but Petra butted in before Lily could speak.

"It's hardly my place to reprimand you for being in the forest, but I don't ever want to witness you two being anywhere you shouldn't, or following anyone you shouldn't." Lily winced. Clearly, Petra had worked out their reason for being in that exact part of the forest. "Is that clear?"

Lily nodded swiftly. "I'm really sorry, we didn't mean to –"

"I dare say you didn't. The fact is, however, that you did. I won't try to confront Potter about this, as he probably couldn't take the embarrassment –" Lily grinned as she tried to imagine James's face if he ever had to talk to Petra about what he'd seen, "- but I want you to make sure that he doesn't get into any mischief either."

"I can't control what he does, I'm not –"

"Aren't you?"

"Aren't I what?"

"You tell me. Goodnight." And with that, Petra got up and ushered a highly confused Lily out of her office.

Well, I thought I'd better get something up, so here it is. If I went on any longer at this point, I'd give more awaythan I wanted to, so apologies, but the short chapter was at least partly necessary. Thank you so much to those who are still reading and reviewing, and for those who are still reading but not reviewing, thanks, and it would be nice to know that you still exist once in a while :)

I'm on study leave now, so I'm hoping to get some more up sooner rather than later, so cross your fingers for me!

Becca x