In blindingly bright sunlight, Lily Evans made her way along a pathway stomped into the snow across the grounds of the Potters' manor house. The boys had got up early, rushed through a cabbage-free breakfast, and set off outdoors before Lily left her room. She could hear their voices now, loud and raucous at the end of the path.

She had been alone when old Euphemia Potter greeted her at the kitchen table where she'd sat with James the night before. She'd offered Lily prune porridge and told her how lovely it was to have young people in the house.

Fleamont Potter had sat at the other end of the table, dozing in a sunbeam coming through the window, jarring himself awake with a snore. "Coffee, Effie?" he'd croaked.

"Right here, Monty," she'd said, nudging his cup toward him. "And look here is Lily, the boys' friend from school."

"What? Well," he'd said, "fair bit shorter than the rest of them, aren't you."

She wasn't sure what she'd expected of James's parents, but it wasn't this. He was so much younger than them James seemed like a foundling child, or one of those miracle babies from the Bible or a fairy tale. The thought of his possibly charmed origins had her smiling as she came to the end of the path, to a wall of snow piled as high as her waist.

"Evans!" Sirius shouted in greeting from the other side as James came skidding toward her.

"Planning on a big snowball fight?" she asked, kicking lightly at the wall's base.

"Not at all," Remus said, beating the snow from his mittens. "Building a privacy shield. Somewhere we can share secrets. Don't let old Monty fool you. He knows everything that goes on here."

Lily raised her eyebrows at James. "Secrets? So they've agreed?"

"Yes, of course they have. They're as concerned about you as I am," James said.

But the rest of the boys laughed, Sirius clapping James on the back. "Don't know that I'd go that far. But yes, Evans, we agreed it would be in your best interest if you learned to trust us."

Remus rolled his eyes. "There is simply no way for him to say that without sounding smug. But he's right, Lily. These are dangerous times. People need to keep each other close."

Peter ground a heavy chunk of snow into the top of the wall, his face twitching with nervous energy. "Right. So let's get on with it."

When the wall was as high as Lily's head, the building stopped.

"Are you sure, Prongs?" Peter asked James. "I don't think it's quite high enough cover - you know - when you're..."

"Well, we can't wait much longer," James said, taking off his wet gloves and handing out the mutton and watercress sandwiches Effie had packed for them. "The days are so short now, it'll be too dark for her to see much of anything if we keep on building."

Remus took a rather savage bite of his sandwich and then a huge breath. "I suppose it's me who should start. Now Lily, I know you and Severus Snape were once close, and that he holds some strong opinions about me. But what exactly has he tried to tell you?"

James pulled at Lily's arm, getting her to sit next to him on the log the boys had rolled into their snow structure.

Perched on the log, she folded herself into a ball, grimacing a little as she said. "He tells everyone you're a werewolf. You know that. And frankly, between the the scar on your face, all your time out of school, and the fact that Severus is not stupid, and that he is extremely cunning - well, Remus, you tell me."

He nodded. "Snape's right. I was attacked as a child, and I've grown up a werewolf. Dumbledore risked a lot to bring me into the school."

"A risk that paid off nicely, You're the kindest boy at school," Lily finished.

Remus wasn't flattered, but troubled. He began to pace along the wall. "Kind. That's not always true. If you ever find me transformed, run, protect yourself, kill me if you have to - "

"Enough of that," Sirius said. "I'll take it from here. We decided old Moony needed looking after during his transformations. And to do that without having him kill us, we had to learn to un-human ourselves." Sirius sat back, smirking, glancing with satisfaction at James and Peter, giving Lily a moment to work it out for herself.

"Un-human - you're animagi?" Lily said, her eyes wide. "All of you? That's what's behind all the rat jokes about Peter? He is actually a rat?"

Peter grinned, proud of his power in spite of his nerves. "A Norway rat, to be exact. Call me Wormtail."

Lily looked at each of them in turn. "And you, Sirius, named for the dog star. You are literally - "

"A dog, yes," he said. "A dog of no purebred anyone could name. Something to scandalize my mother if she ever found out about my life as Padfoot, the big, black, gorgeous mutt."

"But you can call him Snuffles," James said. "Now go on and guess my transformation."

Lily looked him over, from his dark tousled hair to his long legs stretched out in front of where he sat beside her. She hummed. "I reckon the need for glasses would rule out anything known for its piercing eyesight. No birds."

Sirius was snickering. "James the blind mole, keeping Peter company down in the dirt."

James shook his head. "No birds. No moles. Guess again."

Lily hummed. "No birds, but you do have a knack for flying. Is it a bat?"

Peter made a hooting sound. "Spooky, like Moony."

"Enough with the tiny creatures," James said. "Try something bigger."

"Oh, here he goes about size again - "

"Alright fine then," Lily went on. "Something bigger, and maybe related to your name, like Sirius's dog. Potter, pot, pot-bellied pig?"

They were all laughing now - all of them but James.

"It's not a pig?" Lily said. "They can get quite big - "

"No, of course it's not a pig. You'll never guess. Just stand back," James said.

It sounded too grand to be taken seriously, but the boys were giving him space. "You're really going to do it? Right in front of her?" Peter said. He turned to Lily. "Might get racy. Sometimes the clothes don't quite make it through the transformation process. I've lost more socks that way - "

"Shut it, Pete," Sirius said. "None of us has had a mishap with nudity in years - in months, anyway."

Remus slapped Peter on the back. "No worries, mate. I'll cover her eyes if there's any glimpse of a - "

"You're all stalling," Lily interjected. "Let's see it, whatever it is."

James pocketed his wand and his glasses. He surveyed the space around him, and closed his eyes. Lily couldn't tell if he'd started or not. There was no stretching or struggling, no shouting or contorting, or clothes ripping at the seams. His transformation happened in much the same way as their Professor McGonagall changed in and out of her cat form. He lunged forward, springing from his heels and landing on the ground on his hands and feet. And somewhere in the movement, he changed. James Potter no longer looked like a seventeen year old human, but like a large deer covered in a thick coat of brown winter hair. He was a stag with a rack of long, branching antlers. The eyes in his head were still big and brown, but different. James, but not James.

Lily didn't know where to look, trying to see all of him - the four long, thin legs, the bowed back, the bushy tufts on his neck and shoulders. She blinked at him. "By the stars," was all she said.

Sirius smirked at her dumbfoundedness. "That's our Prongs. Quite the eyeful, isn't he? If he could talk, he'd be bragging about how he's the largest native land animal in Britain."

James bent his long neck to nuzzle the snow at her feet with his nose. His antlers framed her legs, as if he wanted her to notice them. Their texture seemed to be fuzzy. "Do they mind if untransformed people touch them?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the antlers.

"See for yourself," Remus said.

Lily turned to find him scratching the ears of a great, shaggy black dog. He was a rather badly behaved animal, tossing his head between Remus's hands, jumping up to put his wet paws on Remus's chest, nearly knocking him over.

Sirius, look at you," she said.

"Yes, I know, Padfoot," Remus said to the dog. "All the hair gets itchy. Yes it does. Yes it does. Now if you'd only hold still..."

Lily looked back at the antlers Prongs still held around her feet. With one fingertip, she touched the inner curve of one of the outer branches. It was soft, velvety. Prongs lifted his head and straightened up, stamping his hooves in the snow.

There was a squeal and a streak of brown-grey running along the base of the snow wall. "Wormtail," Lily said aloud as he rushed by.

"That's all of them," Remus said, pushing Sirius's head away. "You'll understand if I don't change myself. The effect is rather different. Far more murder in it."

Prongs bolted into the open, Padfoot and Wormtail chasing after him, raising a cloud of snow.

"Honestly, lads!" Remus called. "What was the point of toiling over a snow wall all morning if you're just going to - " He left off, frustrated but amused. "It's no use. Impulse control is harder to manage outside a human form. It's not just a werewolf problem."

Lily stood beside him, still speechless as she watched Prongs and Padfoot circling each other in the field. From a distance, Wormtail was harder to see. That they'd learned to do this so well, without any help or coaching while still so young was remarkable. James hadn't been bragging in vain when he'd told her the night before that they were talented. Truly, they were.

It wasn't only that James had been lucky enough to be born into a family that owned an invisibility cloak. No one had made James an animagus but himself. For all of them, it was something they'd cultivated for themselves.

From the snow fort, Remus watched them wistfully, as if he wished to join them. But his powers of transformation weren't a talent. They were a curse. Lily still believed he was the kindest boy in school. But now she knew better why. He was kind because of the kindness shown to him by friends like these. It was touching. Lily felt it stirring her heart.

It might have been why she blurted out, "Does he really like me?"

Remus startled. "What?"

"James," she said. "His fancy for me, at this point, is it all just a tired old joke? I mean - look at him. Look at this place. He's the miracle child of a wealthy, noble family. He's not starved for affection. He's got amazing friends who'd do anything for each other. He's smart, and the Quidditch captain, and then this magic of his - it's astounding. Why would he bother to like someone who was less than mad for him?"

Remus chuckled. "He's mad enough for both of you. That's clear. How can you ask this? There isn't a soul who doesn't know how James Potter feels about you. What are you playing at, Evans?"

"There's no playing about it," she said. "I think maybe one of the reasons I've done nothing but refuse him all these years is because part of me doesn't believe he's in earnest. Like it's a game for him, isn't it? And if he actually won, if I were to accept him, that might be the end of the game."

Remus sighed. "You're overthinking it."

"I am," she agreed. "All last night, in that guest room, I laid awake asking myself if it's really me James wants, or if he just wants to win at something he started too long ago to quit."

Remus nodded, his eyebrows raised. "And how would that make you feel? If James quit, and stopped trotting after you? If you let him catch you and he lost interest? You're saying you'd be disappointed?"

She wouldn't face Remus, but continued to watch the animagi gamboling in the snowy field as the sun started its slow bend toward the horizon. "I know now that I would be," she said. "But that's not to say I should be disappointed. My feelings - they're all wrong. So don't tell him I've been thinking about it. Everything's too confusing. I'm not sure what any of it means."

He palmed the top of her head. "It's not that complicated, Lily. Doesn't it just mean that you must like James back, at least a little?"

She sighed heavily, bowing her head under Remus's hand. "Of course I like him a little. We're partnered as Head Boy and Girl at school. We have to get along now. And we do."

"That is not what we're talking about, and you know it - "

"Actually, I have no idea what we're talking about," Lily said, turning her face up to smile wanly at him. "No idea at all."

Something in James's deer-brain remembered her and he came springing back toward where Lily and Remus waited. In his last bound toward them, he came out of the movement as human James again, rumpled but fully clothed, his hair and face wet, reaching into his coat for his glasses.

For a second time, Sirius transformed so swiftly Lily didn't see it happening. The black dog was gone and Sirius was back, fluffing his damp hair, sniffing it to make sure the scent of wet dog had transformed away with the rest of Padfoot. Wormtail darted behind the snow wall to change, stepping back into view slightly flustered, looking for a scarf he'd mislaid.

"So that's us," James said, blinking behind his glasses. "Are you alright with that, Evans?"

She nodded, her voice coming solemnly, as if in awe. "It's brilliant. You're all brilliant."

James already knew that, but he was so unaccustomed to compliments from Lily, he blushed behind his cold reddened cheeks.

"And you say you've got more secrets yet to come?" she said.

"None so fine as this," Remus answered. "What do say, lads, should we go inside and show her - "

"No," James said, far too loudly. "She gets to learn one secret a day. If we spill them all at once, she won't have any more reason to stay."

It was the kind of thing he said all the time - the little, low-key confessions Lily had learned to take with a smirk, a roll of her eyes, maybe a groan. But this afternoon, it felt different. As he'd spoken about not wanting her to leave, her stomach had dropped and her heart had skipped, like she was flying a broom that had slipped out of control for a moment.

She stood in the snow, watching James rub condensation from his glasses again. As he worked, his neck was bent, the way it had been last night, underneath the invisibility cloak when his voice had raised a shiver through her. She watched him in the low sunlight, his dark, well-formed eyebrows curving along the ridge of his forehead. Would his brows have the same velvet texture as Prongs's antlers?

Her mouth had gone dry, her heart gathering speed - when a snowball smashed into the side of James's head. Sirius was cackling, packing a second snowball, raising his shoulder to fend off one hurtling at him from Remus's direction.

"Take cover!" James yelled to Lily.

She wouldn't, stooping instead to arm herself with snowballs, shouting out threats as she took a hit in the back. The wall was not going to waste after all. The battle was on.

They were back in the manor, warm and dry, lounging in front of the fire in Effie Potter's drawing room, digesting their dinner of cabbage rolls. The night was dark and sparkling outside.

Old Monty was dozing again but Remus had warned Lily to never mention Prongs and the rest in front of the Potters no matter how sleepy they seemed. It was too frustrating for her, not being able to ask any of the questions she had about werewolves and animagi, so she stood up from where she'd been yawning over Remus and Peter's game of chess and excused herself for the night.

Everyone wished her goodnight but no one offered to walk her to her room, not even James. At the door of the drawing room, she took hold of the handle, paused and looked back into the quiet, firelit room. James's face was hidden behind a massive old book. It was some kind of atlas, one he had closed over his finger every time she came near him.

Too quietly for anyone to hear, she sighed and took one last look at the plain leather cover of the atlas screening her from James. As she did, the book tipped slightly. One lens of James's glasses flashed into view.

She was caught. He had seen her, watching him, waiting for him.

James was on his feet, setting the book aside and moving so quickly she almost expected him to transform back into a stag, right there on his parents' hearth.

"Mum, I'm going to make sure Lily has a good fire in her room for the night. It's supposed to be bitter cold," he said.

"Oh, it's that nice, dear," she beamed. "Go on then. It shouldn't take you more than ten minutes. Here, I'll time you."

Lily followed James through the house, moving quickly against his mother's clock, up the stairs and down the hall to the pretty room, decorated in lace, the one James had chosen for her the night before. He was in her room, kneeling at the fireplace grate, poking at the coals as if she might be helpless if they went out.

She crouched beside him, hugging her knees. "Thank you for the secret," she said. "Definitely one worth knowing."

He nodded at the flames. "It was fun. I think we've always wanted to tell someone," he said. "Frankly, we've wanted to tell everyone. But for Remus's sake we…"

James was the one who was speechless now, his voice trailing away as Lily eased her fingertip along the contour of his eyebrow. His throat bobbed as he watched her.

"It does," she said. "Your eyebrow does feel like Prongs's antler. That same fuzzy texture. Like velvet."

He breathed a laugh, raising his own hand to touch his eyebrow. "Really? I don't know what Prongs's antlers feel like, actually. I never have them and fingers to feel them with at the same time."

She smoothed his second eyebrow. "Well, now you know."

He took her hand, pulling it away from his forehead and holding it between them. "Today was nice," he said.

She let him keep hold of her hand. "It was," she agreed.

He dragged his thumb across the silky soft skin of the top of her hand. His chest was rising and falling quickly as he found the breath to say, "It was so nice, it was almost sp - "

All the clocks in the room began to chime, even the ones without bells, the noise growing louder every moment. James dropped Lily's hand and waved goodbye. His ten minutes were up.