July 8th, 1976
Before she remembers where she is, Lily is a bit confused the next morning when she wakes to the combined scents of freshly baked pancakes and unwashed feet. She takes a few seconds to adjust before having the good sense to bolt out of bed and away from the offending feet—Marlene's. "Way to put a damper on my sense of smell," she mutters, rubbing her arms in the cold shock of having ridden herself of blankets.
"And here I thought I was doing you a favor," comes a voice from behind her. Lily whirls around—it's Black, holding out a breakfast tray and looking all too at ease. "Then again, James does tell me I tend to reek of wet dog in the mornings."
"Oh, I didn't mean you," she assures him, grabbing her dressing robe off the floor and wrapping herself in it (she'd noticed that he wasn't looking where her eyes were). "I meant Marlene's feet—does she always sleep with her head at the foot of the bed?"
Black shrugs and thrusts the tray out at Lily. "I wouldn't know—you're the one who sleeps in her dorm. You going to eat this or what?"
"I assumed it was for her," she replies honestly, jerking her head at Marlene (who lets out a fairly unattractive snore).
"Right, like Marlene can hold anything down within an hour of waking up—why else d'you think she wakes up at five every day? Anyway, this is the room you picked—hers is upstairs, even though she obviously didn't use it last night," he retorts, dropping it in Lily's lap. A bit of orange juice splashes on her dressing gown, but she doesn't complain—a simple spell will take the stain out back at Hogwarts.
Instead, she suppresses a blush at knowing so little about her Hogwarts roommate—by the day, it becomes more and more obvious how isolated she's been from the rest of her house all this time. "I still think it's a bit fishy that you made me breakfast," Lily persists, fiddling with the provided utensils: for some reason, he'd given her a spoon instead of a knife.
"You'd be right to, if I'd made it for you," Black agrees, sitting on the bed and scooting at least a meter away from Lily. Old habits die hard. "James's mum had the good sense to cook everyone breakfast at eight in the morning, so she put James and me on breakfast-in-bed duty. Eat up."
"Potter let you take my room?" she says skeptically, sawing through the pancakes with the fork's edge (Black looks thoroughly amused by this).
"No, his mum made me take your room," Black corrects, yawning. "Doesn't trust him alone with you in here—she wasn't banking on Marlene's… aromatic company."
Lily snorts through a mouthful of orange juice and dabs delicately at her face, hoping he won't notice the trickle of juice dripping from her nose (he does, of course, and laughs loudly enough to elicit a snore from Marlene). "You know, I think Potter was right about you; you do smell a bit like wet dog," she goads him, ripping off another chunk of pancake. "Don't mention to him that I agreed with him on something, though; he might have a coronary from the shock of it."
Black grins. "All right, but don't be surprised if I leak it to Remus or Peter, completely by accident, of course."
"Fair enough," Lily acquiesces, tilting her head. Black is silent as she chews through her pancakes, idly wishing that Mrs. Potter had had the foresight to add a touch more syrup.
Out of all the Gryffindor sixth year boys, Black might be the one Lily's talked to the least all summer, which has surprised her. Sure, she always got on better with Lupin, but given her history with Black, she'd have expected that they'd fall into some kind of intense heart-to-heart at some point or another. Honestly, though, she feels sort of relieved that Black hasn't gone there. Where they left things at the end of the school year…
He'd said Lily could have friends in Gryffindor, if she wanted them, and implied that he'd be willing to be one of them before she shut him down—and he'd offered to stop instigating fights with Severus. He hadn't thrown her falling-out with Severus in her face like she'd sort of been expecting him to, but—she's a little afraid to let her guard down in front of him, in case he changes his mind. After all, when he and Potter started abusing her in third year after rumors started to circulate about Potter fancying her, it happened just days after Black had started making a confusing larger effort to be nice to her and spend time with her in public spaces. If he'd been willing to turn on her then…
She wonders how it's going, Black living with the Potter family these last few weeks. She wonders whether she'll ever be on good enough terms with him to be able to ask him.
When Lily is nearly done, Marlene gives a great snort and bolts upright: this wake-up, too, Lily doesn't recognize (but then, she sleeps much later than Marlene does). "Morning, sunshine," greets Black, his voice softening. Marlene stretches and smiles up at him; he bounces into the center of the bed and crawls over to put an arm around her.
Awkwardly, Lily decides, "I'll just go give this back to Mrs. Potter, then."
Marlene is too groggy to care, grinning lazily at her, but Black is quick to protest: "Oh, no, Evans, that's all right, I can—"
"Oh, no, it's fine, really," she insists, downing the last of her orange juice and getting up. "I'll see you two in a bit, then?" Black looks like he's about to complain, but Marlene shushes him with a ferocious-looking kiss on the lips, and Lily steps out, making faces at him until she closes the door.
Once out in the hall, she retraces her steps from last night to find her way down to the living room, then wanders about and looks aimlessly for the kitchen (she remembers Potter having mentioned that it was somewhere on the first floor). She's a bit surprised at Marlene's forwardness with Black—right in front of Lily, no less, when they usually barely look at each other with others in the room—but she figures that Marlene's too groggy of thought this early in the morning.
"Evans?" It's Pettigrew, looking a bit startled to see Lily—and given her current wardrobe and the condition of her hair, she can't say she blames the boy. "Where's Sirius? Mrs. Potter will be angry—she thought it was sweet that he was staying with you, but he's, er, not with you."
Lily smiles—unlike with all the other Gryffindors, she doesn't feel intimidated in the slightest by Pettigrew, who's the least impressive but possibly the sweetest of the bunch. "He did stay with me, actually, but Marlene slept in my room last night after we were up late talking, and I thought it would be a good time to bow out."
"Good idea. Marlene tends to give him, erm, thoroughly nonverbal greetings in the morning. Anyway, do you want me to take you to the kitchen? Not that you look lost, but—"
"That would be great, Pettigrew," she accepts, nodding. "Thanks."
He flushes pink and leads her down a few sharp turns, then opens a heavy wooden door and bows theatrically. Grinning at him, she steps into the kitchen, where Potter and Lupin are laughing loudly with a middle-aged woman who must be Potter's mother. "Mrs. Potter?" she introduces herself, stepping forward with the tray and place settings (now that she looks at them, the pattern looks to be fairly expensive). "I don't believe we've met yet; I'm Lily Evans…"
She knows just what to make of Lily, waving off further salutations as she takes the tray and washes it with a jet of water from her wand. "Lily, Lily, of course. Dorea Potter, a pleasure to meet you… Charlus had to get to work, but he will be so sad he missed you, you're such a lovely young woman."
Potter talks over his mother, adding, "You're looking especially lovely this morning, if I do say so myself, Red." Lily's face turns an array of colors, and she watches her feet and plays with a curl of her hair.
"Don't embarrass your friend, James," snaps Mrs. Potter, pointing her wand accusatively at her son and spraying him with the gushing water.
"Mum, the hair!" cries Potter, wriggling out of his shirt and using it to dry his hair, which is almost flat to his head with all the water. Lily pointedly looks away from his chest.
Pettigrew adds, proving a needed distraction from Potter as he steps in with Lily, "You know, Dorea, James wasn't necessarily insinuating that Lily doesn't look lovely; you could argue it only comes off like that since you pointed out the possibility that she might not…"
Potter nods fervently in Pettigrew's (and, thus, his own) defense, but Mrs. Potter raises the wand warningly in both of their directions, though she's stopped the jet of water. The words die on Pettigrew's lips and fade into an incoherent mumble, although Potter looks all too relaxed.
"Come have a seat, Lily, Peter," offers Lupin, pulling out two chairs. Pettigrew shakes his head, dithering something about having been about to brush his teeth when he'd found her, so Lily takes the seat nearest Lupin and smiles in thanks. He's not looking much better than he was yesterday, she notices: though the dark rings under his eyes have gone down, she's sure his skin wasn't that pale a week ago, and there's something weary about the way he carries himself.
Relatively confident in his hair's disorder, Potter pulls his shirt back on, to Lily's relief, and speaks up. "Red, where's Sirius? Why didn't he come in with you?"
"Marlene woke up right when I was finishing breakfast—thanks for cooking, Mrs. Potter," she adds before she forgets. Mrs. Potter just scowls modestly at Lily and busies herself putting away dishes. "I thought I'd give them some privacy."
"More like you'd get nightmares from them if you didn't," mutters Potter, looking green. "She crashed in your room last night?"
"We were up late… I don't even remember falling asleep."
"Gossiping?" suggests Potter, his eyes twinkling.
"Keep it to yourself, dear, he's not worth telling," Mrs. Potter advises her (Potter grumbles something about "bias against me" and "bloody feminist movement").
Lily chuckles quietly and tells him aside, "You'll want to be careful, Potter—I hear that real feminists can be rather militant. Mrs. Potter," she continues, raising her voice, "would you mind much if I stayed here today? Potter was showing me your Muggle study when we Flooed into its antechamber last night, and I was hoping to get the chance to take a look at some of your books…"
"Of course, Lily," she agrees immediately, chuckling a little when Lily called her son by surname. "Only you'll have to stay through dinner, too; Charlus would positively love to get the chance to meet you…"
She starts to say something about staying with Marlene, but Potter interrupts, pouting. "C'mon, Red, we're having tenderloin tonight, it'll blow your mind." Lily raises an eyebrow but consents nevertheless: Mr. and Mrs. McKinnon are both vegetarians.
So she stays for the day. It's the first time she's been away from Marlene for more than a few hours all summer, and to her surprise, she rather misses her. It's painfully obvious, after living with her for so long, that she needs a real mate as much as Lily needs a mate at all, and from their codependence has come a mutual understanding—even the budding of a friendship. Potter is lively (albeit pesky) company, every so often bursting into the study to read over her shoulder and provide a running commentary on the wizarding misinterpretation of this or that, but she's gotten used to hearing Marlene's blunt revelations and unashamed gossip, and he can't quite compete with that level of honesty.
What he lacks in candor, though, he certainly compensates for in intensity. He comes in with a tray for lunch—beef stew, tossed salad, and mineral water—around two o'clock and asks offhand, "Have you even gone out to use the loo yet?"
"What's it to you the size of my bladder?" Lily asks right back, still poring over Patricia McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld.
Potter shrugs and sidles on top of the desk, snatching up her book and losing her place. "Gotten into Mum's British Fantasy Society collection, have you?"
Lily blinks. "Your mum's a member of the British Fantasy Society?"
He snorts and extends the tray toward her. "Of course not; are you kidding? The Ministry'd never let her risk it, with the Statute of Secrecy and all."
Nodding, she accepts the tray. "She doesn't have to cater to me all day, you know. First breakfast-in-bed, now this…"
"Ah, she loves it," Potter assures me, taking a swig from the water bottle. "She's a respected Healer in her own right, but she gets really into all the domestic stuff. Just take the food without question."
Lily raises her eyebrows as she snatches back her water. "Mineral water? Is this a joke?"
He shakes his head and grins. "Believe it," he counters, then pauses as she starts on the soup. "You really shouldn't be holed up in here all day, Red, it's no good for the soul."
"For the soul. Really."
"I watch you sometimes," Potter tells her in earnest, taking another sip of water (drinking liberally, now that Lily's established she doesn't want it). "And it's not just about your looks. Once there's more than, oh, three people in the room, you just close up, and—you don't talk or smile or laugh at all—"
"So I don't feel comfortable in big groups of people," Lily says, shrugging, through a mouthful of lettuce and tomato. "Is there a problem?"
He claps suddenly and points at her, like she's just paved the way for some huge revelation. "But that's just the thing; you're not yourself around them—I don't think I've seen you talk with your mouth full once until just now, you know that? I'll bet you barely even know the other girls, just me and Snape."
"And what makes you think you know me?" There's that question again, the one he can't seem to properly answer, whether his fault or hers.
"You let go when it's just us," he responds, voice lower now, as if he's speaking over a track of melancholy music, acting in one of the soaps Lily's mum likes. "It's not what I know, it's how I bring it out."
She holds his gaze steadily for a while, then slurps indifferently at her stew. Gradually, a grin breaks over his face, and he says with borderline delight, "You don't care."
"Nope," she says needlessly, stabbing bits of salad with her fork. He needn't know that Lily is at least a little intrigued by his line of attack.
"Oh, but this changes everything, Red," he says, his smile hardly fading. "You don't even mind."
Potter goes quiet—awfully quiet—for a while as she finishes lunch and makes progress on the novel; he just sips at her water and keeps reading over her shoulder, then offers to take the tray back for her once she's done. "Be sure to tell your mum thanks for me," Lily insists, and though he nods and assures her he will, she strongly doubts his sincerity.
For the rest of the day, Potter returns to his usual peskiness and banter—the rest of the weekend, in fact, after Mrs. Potter insists Lily stay a few extra days. They're falling into a routine of sorts by the time Lily finally catches the other boys around the next day. She's come out of the study to look for a bathroom when she stumbles upon Potter with Lupin and Pettigrew in a corridor, arguing heatedly in low voices. "I just can't believe you invited her here for the weekend, Prongs. Of all days…" Lupin's saying when Lily crosses them. She recognizes herself as the subject of the conversation immediately and doesn't take another step closer, hovering in the arch.
"I didn't invite her, my mum did," Potter insists, folding his arms. "What am I supposed to do, kick her out? 'Hey, Red, you've got to sneak out a day early because I have to be somewhere Saturday night that you can't know about.' That's subtle."
"You don't have to come," Pettigrew says meekly, glancing warily down the hall (Lily ducks behind the doorway out of eyeshot). "I can make do without you or Padfoot—"
He says shortly, "We're coming—we're not missing this. I'll figure something out about Red; even if she finds out we're up to something, she'll keep her mouth shut. I know that about her."
"God, Prongs," sighs Lupin, clearly hung up on whatever issue they're discussing. "Don't you realize that you're dragging Lily Evans into this? Who knows how much Snape told her the last time? She could still be wrapped around his finger, for all you know."
Bewildered, Lily strains to listen as Pettigrew further lowers his voice. "We already know he's out to join the Death Eaters; he could have gotten her involved in that. And with her permission to spill the beans, they'd jump all over this."
Potter comes fast to Lily's defense. "She's not. She's not even friends with him anymore. Have a little faith, why don't you?"
"Yeah, well, just because you think she can do no wrong—" persists Pettigrew.
"No one knows exactly what went on between them," Lupin says darkly. "Or whether they'll make up. You've heard the rumors about it—whether it was just friendship or a relationship, even that they'd practice Dark Magic on each other…"
"Lily would never sink to that," says Potter, and his voice is shaking. "And just for that comment, I'm not going to hide this from her."
He practically flies down the corridor away from them, and Lily hastens back a few steps and make like she's just now walking toward the doorway. Before they collide, she hears Lupin call at Potter's retreating figure, "It's not yours to tell, Prongs, don't say anything you'll regret…"
"Red!" exclaims Potter, slamming into her—she can tell he's raising his voice for Lupin and Pettigrew's sakes. "I—what are you doing down here?"
"Got lost looking for the loo," she says, a half-truth. "Could you…?"
He helps her up and nods repeatedly. "Er—yeah, sure, 'course. I don't know how you didn't find it already; it's right by the study… though in the opposite direction from the one you went."
"That would explain it," she says, faking a smile.
She's caught between curiosity, shock, and disgust at the conversation she overheard, and her mind is still reeling when Potter brings it up, true to his word, while dropping her off at the bathroom. "Er, Red, before you—go…" Lily just nods for him to continue, leaning against the wall. "Sirius and I are going out with the blokes tomorrow night—we're leaving at maybe eight, since we're flying, and we'll probably be back a bit later… well, a lot later than we let on to my mum. Not that I thought you'd wait up or anything," he titters, "but I just thought you ought to know, since you're staying at my place and all. Just keep it to yourself, yeah?"
"Where are you going?" Lily asks, trying to sound casual.
Potter doesn't miss a beat. "Remus's."
Lily presses further. "For what?" Potter doesn't answer, but something clicks: they'd said that Severus knows too much… "All right, does this have anything to do with Severus's theory about Lupin being a werewolf?"
His knees give out; she smiles weakly as he joins her against the wall. "I reckoned he would tell you," Potter says to himself, though he still looks shell-shocked. "So did he figure it out before or after the time when Sirius tricked him into going in the Shrieking Shack after Remus transformed on the full moon?"
"Before," Lily admits shortly. "So that's what was down there when you pulled him to safety? A werewolf?" At least this clears up part of the earlier conversation: Death Eaters would surely be interested in knowing the identity of a Dark creature—as well as that of the person who used a werewolf to threaten someone's life. The boys' involvement, though, is still a mystery. "This thing you're doing for Lupin…" she starts, catching Potter's eye, "how dangerous is it?"
"I'll be fine," he says hastily.
"How dangerous, James?"
After a lengthy pause, he turns away. "Don't wait up tomorrow night, Evans."
She calls after him when he makes to leave. "Potter—"
"Just use the bloody loo, Evans," Potter barks, spitting out her surname like an insult and turning out of sight.
She locks herself in the bathroom for far longer than it takes to use it. Only a few things are for certain: her reputation is apparently in shambles, her soon-to-be-uninvited date to Tuney's wedding is a werewolf, and she will most certainly be waiting up for Potter and Black on Saturday night.
If she doesn't go to Lupin's herself first.
xx
For the next day and a half, Lily can hardly contain her building worry and rage. Though Mr. Potter (a pleasant, balding man who shakes her hand and tells her to keep his son under control) tells her she's fabricating drama, Mrs. Potter is increasingly suspicious of the both of them: she tells Lily specifically at lunch on Saturday that she should come out of the study and socialize a little, and she even scolds Potter for "neglecting" his guest. "You ought to come find Lily more often, James," she tuts. "Don't you claim to be in love with her?"
"I am in love with her, Mum," sighs Potter (Lily turns furiously scarlet). "Lily knows that. But it doesn't mean I have to be her keeper—you'd rather just read without me interrupting all the time, wouldn't you, Lily?"
Lily nods; Mr. Potter notices her coloring and promptly changes the subject.
Potter has the courtesy to at least tell her when he and Black are leaving. "We're off to Remus's, Red; we just let Mum know," he says, poking his head in the doorway and turning to leave. "Sirius is waiting for me."
"Wait."
He lingers, looking cross. "Hurry up, Evans, they're counting on me."
"They're not even expecting you; you think I wasn't eavesdropping before you found me looking for the bathroom yesterday?" Potter groans but doesn't make any accusations, for which she's grateful. "What could you possibly do for Lupin that would help him and not temp him to kill you?"
Potter chews over his words before he answers, softly, "Human Transfiguration. The company calms him down, makes him less violent—werewolves are only a danger to humans."
Lily pauses—she wasn't expecting that answer. "You could get expelled for doing that kind of magic outside of school, Potter. You're all idiots, of course—brilliant but stupid—but up at the castle it's one thing—"
"The Ministry doesn't know who performs the magic, just where," says Potter. "Bit unfair to Muggle-borns, if you ask me, since you won't get in trouble if your parents are wizards—we're not going to get caught, all right, so don't worry about us and just go to bed—"
"You're mental for dreaming that up," she insists. "Human Transfiguration…"
He shrugs. "I didn't dream it up. Sirius's idea."
"I'm coming with you," Lily demands, changing tack.
Instantly, he turns white. "Lily, you cannot come, you hear me? He's not used to your presence, he'll recognize you as human, it'll just make him worse. Look, we've been going with him for months; trust me, all right?"
She huffs but takes his point; Lily doesn't want Potter to get himself killed, but she doesn't want to endanger herself for no reason, either, when he could be just fine. "I'm waiting up," she compromises.
"No, you're—"
"I'm waiting up, Potter," Lily says stiffly.
He recognizes something in her tone of voice. "You heard what they said about you, didn't they?" asks Potter gently, stepping into the study.
She sets down the book and stands. "Severus is not a Death Eater," she contends as he comes closer. "And I am not some kind of—"
"I know," he promises. He's reached her but remains a decimeter away, wary about touching her after last time. "They don't believe that, either; it's just that we can't take any chances for Remus. He didn't even want us knowing; we figured it out on our own."
"Still. I'm waiting up for you."
He doesn't protest, just guarantees, "I'll fly straight into my room when I'm back. Meet me there."
So she takes a handful of books up to Potter's bedroom and changes into a pair of his long pajamas (Mrs. Potter hasn't done the laundry since last night). They smell the same as Potter, as Lily's noticed when he gets too close—like fauna and grass stains and ink—and she buries her nose in the fabric and hopes that Lupin won't do any severe damage to the three of them.
It's not so much that she cares about Potter as that she would care about anyone's wellbeing, his included. If not for desperate measures, desperate times call at least for unexpected bursts of emotion. Lily had always partly believed Severus when he called Lupin a werewolf, but she'd never expected his mates to get involved—it seemed natural, before now, that they would have some kind of sense of preservation.
She starts to ponder what other secrets she doesn't know about in their year—the books, though interesting, aren't urgent enough to warrant her attention. And she doesn't mean how long Patil was seeing Catchlove before he left Davies; she means real, honest-to-god life-or-death things that can't get out. She'd never heard a word of doubt in her character before Friday, when Pettigrew and Lupin insinuated that she and Severus both practice Dark magic; though she's shocked and offended by that shallow a view of her, she can't help but wonder what other social repercussions have resulted from their friendship. Hasn't anyone noticed that Lily detests his Slytherin mates, that she tones down his hatred of Gryffindors, that she's done nothing but broach house lines in an effort not to discriminate?
By the time she catches her eyelids drooping, it's nearly four in the morning. A quick glance out the window tells her that the moon is still out, and knowing Potter and Black, they won't leave until Lupin transforms again. Add that to the flight from Wales to Cornwall, and it'll be eight o'clock in the morning by the time they're back.
She's kicking herself at this point—how could she not have noticed the boys' involvement? The last few months, they missed class on the same mornings of Lupin's monthly absences, but Severus explained that as them visiting Lupin in the Hospital Wing all day. Lily expects that they do spend the day with him, to stop the teachers from getting suspicious—but they likely spend more time sleeping at his bedside than keeping him company, having been up all night with him themselves. It's a huge commitment to Lupin, she realizes as she stares emptily out the window; that they would risk so much for him: they may be idiots, but they're certainly loyal idiots.
But it occurs to her soon after that they're not loyal enough to protect him—at least, Black isn't. Using Lupin to endanger Severus's life… a burning fury with Black, coupled with sharp sympathy for Lupin, fills her, and Lily moans and flings herself back on Potter's pillows. Why did they have to get involved?
Her thoughts are interrupted by a disturbance at the window—Potter, several hours early and barely upright on his broom. Panicked, she hurries to open the window and help him inside; he collapses in a heap on his bed, and even without a light on Lily notices the gashes.
"God, Potter, what did Lupin do to you?" she whispers, fishing in the pocket of his torn robe for his wand—she's left hers behind in the study, and his wounds haven't been given any attention for hours now.
"Not Remus," Potter corrects me, surprisingly lucid as he struggles to sit up. "Sirius. There was a fight…"
She tugs out his wand and starts easing him out of his robes, ignoring the heat in her face and focusing on the cuts running along his arms and torso. "You're lucky your face didn't get hit; you don't want your mum noticing this," she says softly, then adds, "A fight over what, pray tell?"
"He was angry that I told you so much," admits Potter, lying back down. Lily uses his robes to sponge off the blood before clumsily checking the biggest wound—a long gash across his abdomen—for internal bleeding with a simple spell. Thankfully, she finds none. "Peter or Remus would've tried to stop him, but Remus's human mind is basically unconscious when he transforms, and Peter was too small to defend me—he Transfigures into a rat. We, er, keep the same forms every time so we're familiar to Remus," he adds, sucking in breath as Lily closes the wound and tests his skin with her hands.
"But Black is all right, even if you fought?"
"Yeah, he'll be fine. You can check on him after this if you want—he flew straight to his own room—but I came out of it worse than he did."
"Look, Potter," she says, "I'm not worth fighting for."
"You are, though," Potter counters. "You're brilliant at this, you know. It would get rough a lot these last few months with Remus, and we didn't do nearly as good of a job patching each other up after. It drained all our energy just to do the bigger scrapes, and so we'd leave most of them… and we'd close the skin unevenly, or leave scars… and we never had time to do it thoroughly, that late in the morning." His eyes are starting to brighten, which Lily takes as a good sign.
Glancing over his chest, she indeed notices a pattern of thick scars, many of which look uneven. "I wouldn't call some of these scrapes, Potter… do you still have pain in these? Discomfort?" The largest wounds are all closed, so she moves on to a cursory fix of the minor injuries.
Potter shrugs, then winces from the gesture. "Discomfort, usually, and occasional twinges…"
"I can fix those when I'm done, if you'd like, but I'll have to reopen them. It'll be painless, but after tonight, I don't know if your body can take the trauma…" she considers.
"There's always tomorrow," he reminds her. "You don't have to finish today; the Ministry will get suspicious about why my mum might be Healing someone at five in the morning…"
"Next time this happens," she says darkly—because they both know that there will be a next time—as she closes the last open wound, "you come to me. All three of you. I'll spend full moons in the common room when school starts up."
He shakes his head, but already he's started to doze off. "Oh, Red, don't waste your energy on us," he argues groggily, but his head is drooping to the side, his glasses sliding down his nose. He turns his head suddenly to look at her, though, just before he nods off, and comments, "Are those my pajamas?"
Lily shakes her head, laughing, then sets his glasses on his bedside table and tucks him under the covers. Stashing his robes in a corner of his half-unpacked trunk, she takes one last look at Potter before leaving him to his slumber.