The holidays were over and the Hogwarts Express was due at Hogsmeade station in the next half hour. Though they weren't on it, the Head Boy and Girl had been sent to meet the train that evening. They sat at the head of a convoy of empty carriages, riding to the station as the sun set.

"You know Muggles take riding in carriages to be romantic," Lily said. "On the night they got engaged, Vernon paid for a man with a team of enormous shire horses to take him and Petunia on a trot around Richmond Park in an open carriage in the snow, with everyone looking at them. Petty kept going on about how much it cost him."

James hummed. "Odd," he said, frowning, thinking hard. The four-legged beast in him was trying to imagine why anyone would want to spend an evening staring at a captive animal's rear end. He shook his head. "Nah, a tandem broom ride makes a much better date."

"You mean, like you promised my dad?" Lily smirked, leaning hard into his chest.

James grimaced even as his arms closed around her. "Now that I think of it, old Mitch is not really my type. Maybe you should be the one to float him around a deserted football field, or something. Frankly, he seemed a little shocked that you've been able to fly on a broom all this time and he's never seen you do it."

"How could I show off flying for him without owning my own broom?" she said.

James was so taken aback he nearly toppled out of the carriage. "No broom of your own - you've got - no broom?"

She caught him by his cloak and pulled him close again. "When would I need one? We can borrow the school ones when we're here, and I can't very well go speeding around Cokeworth on one, can I? Plus, they're expensive. My school supplies are already enough of a strain on Mum and Dad."

James looked at his wristwatch. "Your birthday is in twelve days and I am getting you a broom. The fastest, most comfortable one I can find. I'll need to know how tall you are to get the best fit. About halfway up my neck - what's that in centimetres?"

"Never mind that," she said. "I don't need a broom, much less a fancy one. It'd be wasted on me."

James was sputtering, disbelieving. "Wasted? Haven't you always wanted one? It's not like you're a bad flyer."

She sat back. "How would you even know? Every time we had a flying lesson in school, you were off darting about, showing off, not paying attention to anyone who wasn't throwing a quaffle."

James pounced, one finger pointed in her face. "A-ha, so you did notice. You were watching me, just as I was watching you."

She swatted his finger away from her face, folding her arms. "It was impossible not to notice you, hooting and trick flying and generally making a nuisance of yourself all over the pitch. But don't you act like you noticed me through all that bravado."

He was having none of her sitting apart from him, and hooked an arm around her waist, pulling her back into his space. As he did, their carriage rolled over a rock sunk into the road, bouncing her partly into his lap. Her breath caught in her throat as James held her there, nuzzling her ear as he spoke, "Oh course I noticed you. All of that idiot young teenaged bravado was crafted especially to attract your attention."

A shiver ran down her neck and along both of her arms but she managed to roll her eyes. "Really, Potter? All for me? Then how do you know a tandem broom ride is a good date? You took that Beauxbatons Suzette flying, didn't you?"

"You noticed that too? Good," he said. "Though I would have rather taken you, of course - "

She scoffed. "Stars, you're awful - "

"Forget brooms," James said, lifting each of her wrists to arrange them around his neck. "Instead of a broom, I can get you something smaller for your birthday. Something to wear on your finger."

"Don't you dare propose to me during a school errand," she warned, grinning.

"I'm not," he said, suddenly serious and quiet. "But we will have to talk about it eventually, Lily. There isn't much time left before Dumbledore either sends me home or you and me, we get - "

The carriage lurched again, pulling sharply sideways in Lily's direction. She released James and spun around to see someone walking alongside them in the dim evening, one hand closed over the edge of the carriage. The figure was managing to keep pace with the thestrals pulling them along, moving with a gait so quick and smooth he seemed to be floating. Perhaps he was.

It was difficult to get a proper sense of him, hidden as he was in a heavy winter cloak, fine black brocade trimmed with leather, its hood arranged so his face was completely shadowed. All they saw of the person's flesh was a single hand, bare in spite of the cold, grasping the side of the carriage, the flesh white and threaded with tiny purple veins.

Lily edged closer to James, spreading her back across his front as if to shield him from the hand. But her voice kept its confident Head Girl tone. "Can we help you, sir?"

A voice sounded from within the hood, high but rich, like a well-trained tenor, yet somehow not at all pleasant. "Off to meet the school train in Hogsmeade?"

"That's right," James answered, his wand in his hand as he gripped Lily's sleeves, unaware she meant to be shielding him. He was ready to pull her out of the way if things got rough. For the moment, all he did was crane his neck to see a face inside the cloak. "Classes start tomorrow," he went on, "and we're seeing that everyone gets safely in."

"Yes," the figure said, hissing slightly at the end of the word. "Student safety is so important. Accidents are always at the ready. Strange that you're here without the train. When I was Head Boy, we were expected to ride on the train with the rest."

Somehow, every word the stranger spoke sounded something like a threat. Lily spoke up again. "You seem to know us, sir, but we don't know you. May I ask your name?"

"I do know you, and I am an admirer of yours," the voice continued to menace. "Yes, you, James Potter, the map-maker. And even you, Muggle-born Lily Evans, the seer."

Lily felt as if her blood sank to her feet as, all at once, she knew exactly who this was walking, gliding unnaturally quickly at their side as they rode in the carriage. On the road to Hogsmeade, with the train station in sight, they were in the presence of Tom Riddle, Voldemort, the Death Eaters' Dark Lord.

He was laughing at their stunned silence. "Yes, your friends have brought me word of your talents, and of your reluctance to put them to good use - "

"Then those were not our friends," James interrupted.

"Oh, but they were," he answered. "They were most concerned for your future health, your safety, and your longevity. Especially the one bringing tales of Miss Evans's gifts. He was quite concerned the rising new regime might prove - difficult for her." His words trailed into a hollow, mirthless chuckle. "I go one better. It is not only your destiny that concerns me, but also that of your child."

James tugged hard on Lily's cloak, forcing her behind him on the carriage seat.

Riddle laughed again. "Ah, protective. You haven't got the child the stars promised me started already, have you? We aren't in its presence even now, are we? You do seem awfully close."

"Be on your way at once," Lily called, leaning past James again.

"There now," the visitor said. "I see you do know me. Let us talk about your future as members of our movement, its inner circle, like my own family."

"No thank you." James said it with all the force he could short of shouting.

"I have not come to beg you," Riddle snapped, all traces of his laughter gone. "I have come to give mercy, not to ask it. I have come to call you into my service with an invitation you cannot defy, an invitation of my own making."

"We do defy it," James said.

The profile of the cloaked head turned toward them, and slowly, as if in a nightmare, Tom Riddle's face appeared. Like the hand, its skin was deadly white, small red veins laced all over its surface. Something about the structure of the skull suggested that he had once been very handsome, but the edges of his features were wearing away, smoothing out, becoming snakelike. As he spoke, he bared his teeth. "To defy me is to suffer."

His second hand appeared, the one not holding onto the carriage but brandishing a long, thin wand. If Lily didn't know better, she would have thought was made not of wood, but of bone. He raised it, as if to curse them where they sat penned in the carriage. James lashed out with his own wand, not at Riddle, but at the deceptively empty space in front of the carriage, where the thestrals had been walking lazily along.

At the crack of red light flaring at their haunches from James's wand, the thestrals reared up, whinnying and stamping before galloping up and into the sky. Riddle had assumed James and Lily wouldn't have known the beasts were there. James's use of them took him by surprise, and he struggled to keep his hold on the carriage, snarling and flailing as the team of thestrals rampaged out of control.

Along with the carriage, the three of them rose up into the darkening sky over the station. From above, the train was visible in the near distance, steaming along the track, losing speed as it approached the end of its line.

Riddle's entire arm was clamped around the edge of the carriage now. Lily and James clung to the seat and each other, trying to stay inside as the thestrals thrashed the carriage from side to side. Riddle's wand was in his free hand, jerking and wheeling with the erratic motion. If he wanted to curse them, he would have to do it without aiming his wand.

The train was directly below them now, and the sky was filling with other figures, coming on brooms to meet it. These were professors from the school. Riddle saw them approaching and gnashed his teeth.

"Upon my throat, James Potter, Lily Evans," he swore, "should you defy me a third time, you will indeed suffer, and you will die." With these words, Riddle let go of the carriage and flew away in a plume of hissing black smoke.

He was gone, but James and Lily were still in an out of control carriage tilting through the air, pulled by a team of thestrals who were more spooked than ever thanks to the blast of black smoke.

James clutched Lily on the floor of the carriage, the air noisy with rushing wind, the train whistle, and braying animals. The thestrals couldn't be seen, but they could see. And just as he could hear them, the thestrals could hear James. An idea struck him, a bit of magic he'd never tried before. It was all he had. He got his feet underneath himself.

"Don't," Lily called to him. "There are teachers coming. We just need to hold on."

He shook his head. "We could be tossed out before they even notice us. I'm going to try something."

Keeping low, he moved to conjure a Patronus, his stag. In this state of fear, he wasn't sure he could do it, not until he took Lily by the hand. He pressed a kiss to the top of her hand and then called the incantation. The stag appeared, not as a blinding white force, but as a message bearer. It hovered before him, waiting for him to speak. Instead of using English, James nodded, bobbing his head, shaking it, making noises that were more grunts than words. Prongs could speak to animals, so perhaps, in an emergency, human James could manage to as well.

Lily was careful not to interrupt, holding James's hand and watching as the silver stag floated to the head of the carriage to deliver James's message to the unseeable thestrals.

It hadn't quite reached them when Lily squeezed James's hand and sent out her own Patronus, the doe. The stag circled in front of the thestrals tossing its head, delivering the message while the doe pranced from one side to the other, more like a sheepdog than a deer, slowing them down and keeping them from veering off into a new direction before they understood that they were safe now, and should return to the ground.

James watched breathlessly as the Patronuses disappeared. The carriage were slowly losing altitude, coming back to rest on the road along the railway. The train was pulling in as they came to a stop.

"You spoke to them," Lily said, falling against James as the carriage landed.

"Yeah," James panted, slouching against the wall, exhausted. "I wasn't sure it would work. Might not have without your help, you darling soulmate." He stamped a dry kiss on the top of her head.

She held him, rocking against him as she sat at his side. "What was that monster saying, about himself and some child of ours?"

"No idea," James said, clasping her in his arms. "Still, I feel like it was the worst thing I've ever heard anyone say."

She nestled her face into the curve of his neck. "There's something they're not telling us about what might happen if we - if we don't split up. Your dad calls his grandchild a chosen one but that ghoul makes it sound like a child is part of his plan. I don't get it."

James hummed. "Maybe he's trying to scare us off ever having a child."

"It's a better plan than trying to convince us to turn a baby over to him. Did you see him? Did you hear his voice?" She shuddered. "As long as I live, he'll never touch a child of mine. Never."

Not far from where they sat collapsed in their carriage, the train vented its steam a final time. There was a clunk and shuffle as all of the doors slid open, students tumbling out onto the platform.

Lily was scrambling to get up. "Come on. We've got go. It wouldn't do for the students to see us lying in a heap breathing heavy."

"Right," James said. "There's a duty to be done."

They were out of the carriage and standing on the platform, checking lists and giving orders. Everyone seemed to be smirking at them, but no one said much to them until Marlene McKinnon disembarked.

"James and Lily, you sly things," she said, rushing over. "I was going to ask if it was true, what the Pettigrew girls have been telling everyone about the pair of you being a couple now, but look at the state of you. You must have done some championship snogging to get yourselves that rumpled just waiting for a train - "

Lily gripped Marlene by the elbow and pulled her into a whisper. Marlene fussed with Lily's hair as she listened. "Yes, we are together, but no, that's not what got us into such a state."

Her voice had a grave, knowing tone Marlene recognized from other conversations she'd been having lately. Her hands fell away from Lily's hair. "What happened?" she asked in a tense monotone. "It was them, wasn't it?"

"Not only them," Lily said. "It was him."

Marlene's face blanched. "Him? He was here?"

"Yes," James said. "We saw his face. If the train and the teachers hadn't turned up when they did, and if we hadn't been together - who knows what might have happened."

Lily couldn't help herself. "It's not just luck we survived. James was brilliant - "

"What did he want?" Marlene pressed.

Lily shrugged. "Service, our loyalty. He was recruiting us."

Marlene was frowning. "So he risked coming here? To recruit students? It's so brazen, so unlike their usual skulking, cowardly ways."

"Tell your order about it," James said. "Dumbledore told us you're involved - "

Marlene raised her hands to cover her ears. "We can't talk about this here," she said. "But yes, I will pass it on."

James and Lily were the talk of the school. Dumbledore called them to his office to hear about their encounter with Tom Riddle, and to shake his head with a vague but quiet sadness when they pressed him with questions about chosen one babies. This was what they actually talked about, but most of the school assumed they were sent to the headmaster to be reprimanded for snogging at the station before the train arrived.

It was a rumour that would just have to be allowed to run its course. Dumbledore agreed to speak to the students to denonce blood purity and to warn them about being drawn into dangerous political movements they couldn't understand, but he would not alarm everyone by announcing that Tom Riddle himself had been so close so recently.

Classes began again the next day, and the last of the shine of Christmas holidays dulled with cold, white January. It was in this rather glum mood that the lads made their way to the edge of the forest, where Professor Grubbly-Plank was holding the Care of Magical Creatures class.

Lily was off in Divination so James was missing her, and taking the chance to bemoan all the rumours about their "inappropriate" behaviour for a pair of student leaders.

"She's so embarrassed by it, Lily's hardly spoken to me all day," he said. "And we didn't even do anything, nothing but protect ourselves."

"Hush, James," Remus said, glancing over his shoulder to where Sirius's cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange's sister, that Narcissa Black, was picking her way through the snow behind them. "No one's supposed to know what you were actually doing before the train came."

"It's odd that old Dumbledore is being so gutless about it," Sirius said, one fist closed around the tail of Remus's cloak, making him tow him along through the snow.

"Not so much," Peter said. "Dumbledore loves his secrets."

"Will you all please stop talking about it," Remus said. "We have to trust him and follow his lead."

James noticed Remus glancing over his shoulder at Narcissa, the girl with a family full of Death Eaters, the girl wearing the promise ring of a Death Eater who'd graduated a few years ago, the girl who usually walked to class with Severus Snape. Something like a growl escaped James at the sight of Narcissa walking alone today. "And what's worse is they let Snape transfer to Divination in the middle of the year. He's there with Lily right now."

"At least we get a break from his ugly mug for one more class a day," Sirius said. "And it's not like Evans is going to fall in love with him over a crystal ball. Can you imagine if she suddenly started producing nothing but bats as Patronuses? No, it's unthinkable."

James smirked. "Bats," he said, almost giggling over it.

"Nothing like the smug rush of a relationship stamped with a soulmate guarantee," Peter added.

Remus made an exasperated, choking sound. "All of you must really and truly shut it," he said as they came to a halt in the ring of students gathered around Professor Grubbly-Plank.

She stood over a long table stocked with boxes set at intervals. Each box was large enough to store a hat in, and every moment or so, they would jerk, as if gathering strength to jump off the table and disappear into the forest.

"My apologies," she was saying. "This year's early cold snap drove most of the country's Hodags into stasis before we could secure a supply of them, so you will have to double up for today's lesson."

"Not Hodags again," Sirius groaned. The last time they had trifled with these little dragon-like frogs, half the class ended up inhaling enough of the powder that sloughed off Hodag horns to not be able to sleep for a week.

"Yes, after last term's poor showing, we are redoing Hodag care. Mind your masks, this time," Grubbly-Plank ordered. "Keep those noses and mouths covered. Now pair up."

"There goes Pete," Sirius smirked as Peter left without a word to team up with Alice Fortescue. For Peter, the best thing about Care of Magical Creatures class was that Frank Longbottom didn't take it but Alice did. Now that both of them had got over their mutual shyness, Frank and Alice had been inseparable all year. But Peter still hadn't given up hope of them splitting up. Just in case they did, he made himself available to Alice whenever he could.

Remus shook his head as Peter popped up at Alice's side, blushing and beaming, telling her how smashing she'd been at the dueling club before Christmas though she hardly remembered now.

Sirius watched them over Remus's shoulder. "Sad," he said. "Longbottom's the perfect match for that girl. If James and Lily are good enough to be soulmates, then Frank and Alice are for sure. Pete has got to let that go."

"Nah, it could pay off yet," James said.

Sirius scoffed. "Your relationship trajectory with Evans isn't normal. You know that, don't you?" he said. "You shouldn't be encouraging him."

"It's not like I'm - "

"Excuse me, gents."

The lads startled at the sound of a smooth, almost drawling woman's voice speaking to them. It was Narcissa Black, standing at Remus's elbow saying, "The four of us are the only ones left without partners. So do tell me how you'd rather we divide yourselves up."

It took a moment for them to understand. Before Snape transferred to Divination, the class had an odd number of students, so the three of them always worked as a trio. Now the numbers were even, and someone would have to work with Snape's abandoned partner, Narcissa.

It wouldn't be Sirius, her estranged cousin. He spun on his heel, his back to her as he stared at nothing between the forest's trees. James could do it pleasantly enough, but he was having a hard time not babbling about Dumbledore and soulmates and all sorts of other things it wouldn't do for a Death Eater sympathizer like Narcissa Black to hear, so Remus volunteered himself.

A small smile curved sideways across her sharp, white, but pretty face as he offered. "Well then, Lupin," she said, speaking his name in a low voice, as if to say it too loudly would be to reveal too much, "let's be off then."

With raised eyebrows, James watched them walk to the last remaining unattended box.

Sirius spun back around to huff at the sight of Remus following Narcissa, absently fingering the scar on his face as he went. "I thought for sure she would have insisted on you, James, what with all the stories about Remus being…corrupted."

James laughed it off. "You jealous, Padfoot?"

Sirius punched at him and nearly upset their quivering Hodag box.

"Now, remember," Grubbly-Plank said, "even in your mask, you must take great care. Gloves on, one partner restrains the Hodag, the other files the powder from the horns. Collect every grain of it in a vial. Like so."

There was a great deal of grumbling as the partnerships donned their protective gear and got into position.

"Right," Grubbly-Plank resumed. "Restraining partner, grasp your Hodag by its back legs and by the scruff below its neck spines. Carefully now…"

Without negotiating who would do what, Remus grabbed and restrained their creature. Narcissa lifted the file as if it was the stem of a wine glass, twirling it daintily between her fingers as she regarded Remus struggling to hold the Hodag still.

"If you don't mind," he said. "The sooner you can manage it the better."

Narcissa stepped closer. The Hodag must have had its horns filed before and knew to thrash its head, driving its neck spines against Remus's gloves.

His manner of gentle coaxing was gone. "For stars' sake, get in here, Black, before this beast shreds my hand away."

In a rush, she crowded into him, tall enough for her hair to be in his face, tickling his nose. Her smell came with it, perfumed with the flowers she was named for. Everything about her made Remus want to shout out a sneeze. He drew in a deep breath and blew out a puff of air to clear her hair from his face.

She flinched. "What are you doing back there, Lupin?"

"Maintaining a respectable distance," he said. "One that wouldn't disgust your husband."

Narcissa clucked her tongue. "Lucius Malfoy is not my husband."

"Good as," he said.

"Come, Lupin," she said, "I expected for you to have a better understanding of the Black family temperament than that. We're not so easy to predict or control. Not even with arranged marriages. Hasn't Sirius told you about my sister Andromeda who abandoned us to marry someone with a more interesting background than my parents preferred?"

Actually, he hadn't, knowing Remus wouldn't have cared. "You haven't even started filing yet, have you?" he said through gritted teeth.

"Yes of course I have," she said. "Doff your mask and take a deep breath if you don't believe it. You won't sleep the rest of the week."

As she worked, they stood without talking, her back tilted against his arm as they hovered over the poor struggling creature. Remus turned his face as far away from her as he could.

"This one has been mistreated, I think," she said. "They're not supposed to mind this so much. They usually tolerate it as you or I would a fingernail trim. I mean," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him, "I assume nail care is the same for you as it would be for the rest of us."

Remus's cheeks flamed red, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of a response. He did look over at where James and Sirius were working. Sirius returned the look, his lip curled. Of course Narcissa had wanted to work with Remus. Why settle for simply spying on them when she could peeve her cousin at the same time by encroaching on his best friend. It was nothing Sirius could reasonably complain about, just enough fake smiling and real touching to irk him.

"Look at the poor thing," she said, drawing Remus's attention back to the Hodag.

Remus peered over her shoulder. "Is it injured?" he asked.

She shook her head, fine, fragrant platinum hair wafting into Remus's face again. "Not anymore. But it once was. See here, this horn was ground down to the quick at one time. It's healed now but it would have bled and hurt. There now, we've finished. Let the creature go."

He yanked his gloved hands away as Narcissa closed the box. She was calling Grubbly-Plank over to explain the animal's trauma, insisting it not be used for student training anymore. When she had finished and Grubbly-Plank was walking away with the boxed Hodag they'd rescued, Narcissa turned her face up to Remus, smiling as if she expected to be applauded.

"You see, Lupin," she said. "I have rather an affinity for magical creatures. I'm veritably dripping with compassion for them."

He scoffed. "As long as they keep to pure bloodlines. Isn't that what you mean to say?"

She laughed. "Oh no. Blood purity is just an ideological smokescreen for old fashioned classism. Or didn't you know? If anyone was serious about it, there would be no room for the Black family in the movement. Our genealogy is clear of Muggles, for the most part, but things get murky where magical creatures are concerned. Why, eight great-grandmothers back on my mother's line, there's a Veela. Not many traces of it left in my generation, though some people claim they can tell. Can you believe it, Lupin?"

As she said it, she pulled one of her long, gleaming hairs from the shoulder of Remus's shabby winter cloak. She held it over the snow and let it fall, white on white, disappearing.