James and I had been chatting (and maybe snogging a bit—alright, a lot) for the better part of an hour in the Heads' Office when we got interrupted by a loud rapping at the (very) locked door.

"You heard that, too, right?" James asked between kisses.

I registered another round of knocking, and groaned in protest as James pulled away from me.

"Better straighten up," he advised. To the door, he shouted, "In a minute!"

I opened my eyes just in time to see him run his hands uselessly through his still-silver hair, the sticky-uppy bits at the back just as wild as ever. I snorted, pulling my robes over my school uniform and quickly charming my hair into a plait, just in case.

We locked gazes and he winked before putting his glasses back on.

Just as James walked over to the door, I opened up the prefects' scheduling ledger so that it might look like we'd been Very Busy with Actual Work (and not snogging like the filthy, hormonal teenagers that we were).

However, at James's reaction to whoever was on the other side of the door—"The fuck do you want?"—I realized such pretense was unnecessary.

I got up and peered over James's shoulder and spotted Frank Longbottom, looking disheveled and shifty, lacking the detached composure he so easily carried when he was in journalist mode.

"I—er… I felt I had to—explain," Frank answered. "Is Lily here?"

"Longbottom," James started, his voice on edge as though he were going to insult him, but then thought better of it and sighed. He stepped back and gestured Frank inside.

Frank shuffled through the doorway. Upon seeing me, he said, "Ah, good. I was hoping you'd be here, Lily. I was sorry to see the final edition of my article—you understand, I really had no idea that—"

"No excuses, Longbottom," James warned. "Just get to the point."

Frank winced. "It's not that simple, Potter. I need your help."

James scoffed.

"Is it because of Rookwood?" I asked, attempting to diffuse any tension between my idiot boyfriend and the idiot journalist before us. Idiot boys and their idiocy, I tell you!

Frank nodded glumly and sat himself at the long table we usually reserved for our prefect meetings. "He'd offered to help with editing, after spotting some grammatical errors in a few earlier editions of The Hogwarts Post, and we became partners soon after. Business partners, of course. We started up this zine about things going on in the castle. It's our baby, for lack of a better comparison. Though, apart from wanting to get some good reporting done—with as little grammatical errors as possible, of course—we really have nothing in common. As it turns out." He frowned, clearly upset.

"Rookwood? That Hufflepuff?" James asked, taking a seat across from him, his brows furrowing in confusion.

I sat at the head of the table, feeling rather grateful that James would put away his personal grudges and do the right thing, even if it meant listening to a fellow student vent about his odd Hufflepuff editor.

Frank sighed. "Yeah, that's old Auggie. You know, he and Alice were friends for a bit. She tutored him in Herbology. She sort of distanced herself from him last year, though. Said he was a bit too twisted." At our blank looks, he shrugged. "His sense of humor," he clarified. "Too dark for Alice's taste. She's too idealistic to find his cynicism charming."

"Right, so what does his twisted sense of humor have to do with this rubbish article?" pressed James.

"Well, I'd written it all up. I had a whole feature on the Rhiannon Riders and the Neckbreakers—no mention of you at all, Lily—but I accidentally gave Auggie my notes instead of the article to publish, and he must have just filled in the blanks so there'd be something on the page."

"Ah," I said.

James hummed, and leaned forward on his elbows, clearly deep in thought.

"He still gave me the byline, that's the most damning thing about it," Frank muttered. "I created the Winged Wronski Warrior—that's your celebrity persona, Lily—and now he's gone and made her into a monster. And people will believe it because my name's on it."

"You can always write a retraction," I suggested.

Frank blinked up at me sadly. "Auggie would never let that happen. Nothing can fix this. Unless…"

Impatient, James crossed his arms and sighed. "Unless?" he compelled.

Frank's baby blue eyes were shining as he said, "I need you to kill the Post."

"Frank, no!" I gasped, in spite of myself.

Frank shook his head. "I cannot stand behind a media institution that manipulates the truth for its own ends."

James pulled a face of confusion. "He wrote one off article, Longbottom. Don't you think you're being a little melodramatic?"

"James, you don't understand. I only do the sports now, but I've got a small team of writers that have been complaining about the shift in tone of their edits overall. Auggie—I think he's a pureblood supremacist. And I think he's been colluding with Bellatrix Black to turn the public against you, Lily."

"But not even Bellatrix believed that article, Frank," I pointed out.

Frank looked as though he might laugh. "Of course not, Lily. She knows the truth. But she doesn't need to believe a lie in order to feed it to those around her and get what she wants."

"Okay, what you're talking about is a conspiracy to slander a student's reputation," James said. He glanced at me, a frown draping over his bright, calculating eyes. "How exactly are Lily and I supposed to pursue that without any actual proof? I assume you're not going to testify against your business partner."

Frank grimaced. "Well, yes, you'd be correct. I'd need it to be a clean break with old Auggie, and I have just the thing: it turns out that we're using a bit of an illegal charm to make duplicate copies—and you could shut us down pretty quickly after discovering that."

James and I exchanged a surprised glance. Without the supervision of a professor, casting a Duplicate Charm was against school rules. Materially, a Duplicate Charm conjured a duplicate on a subatomic level that could spontaneously combust, resulting in fire or explosion—and if the Duplicate was large enough, it could even warp time-space.

Normally, Duplicate Charms were the sort of thing you could get away with on a smaller scale, as long as you didn't get caught. But if you were caught, the consequences bordered on dire. Especially if you were making hundreds of Duplicates, increasing the chances of a magical mishap.

James nodded at me, and I leaned toward Frank.

"Alright, I'm listening," I said.

Seventh Year was not supposed to be the year that I willingly crafted and executed the most backhanded schemes so that legally—or at least within the school's terms of what was allowed and what wasn't—I could systematically shut down all the insidious ways that pureblood supremacy seemed to creep in through all the cracks in the castle walls.

I felt more like a Slytherin than ever—not that that was a bad thing, but I felt far removed from my more straightforward nature.

"But you're fighting Slytherins," Marlene reminded me during Operation Fire Dragon the next day. "You've got to be one step ahead of them."

I sighed, laying resignedly over the neck of my broom. "It just feels … unnatural. Why can't I just confront Rookwood or Bellatrix and Nott and end this?"

"Because this is much bigger than you and any one individual," Jen piped in, carefully balancing a Quaffle in one hand before chucking it at Mary.

It hit Mary in the stomach, and she keeled over her broom, pulling a face of discomfort.

"Sorry!" Jen called over to her.

Mary glared at Jen, but ducked down to retrieve the falling Quaffle before popping back up and throwing it to me.

I caught it easily with one hand, trying not to look as surprised and pleased with myself as I felt. "But I just want a normal Seventh Year, with normal Seventh Year problems! I thought my biggest challenge was going to be working with James as our Head Boy."

Marlene caught the Quaffle and threw it at Mary in a single movement. "Unfortunately, things with You-Know-Who are getting more serious."

"He's really stirring up a following and it's bloody terrifying—oof! Mary Macdonald, get back here!" Jen sped off, tracking a retreating Mary, who had gotten her sweet revenge and knocked the wind out of her with a Quaffle to the stomach.

I stared up at Marlene and shrugged. She grinned wickedly and began doing her Donna Summer disco arms, her still-pink curls catching in the sunlight as she danced.

Secretly, I think Marlene must have enjoyed having pink hair; everyone else's Color Changing Charms had already worn off. The only way her hair was still pink after a week was if she'd been reapplying the charm herself.

I laughed as her disco arms progressed to an in-flight performance of The Hustle. "Marley, you're an absolute miracle!" I cheered, as she turned her broom in small, artful circles.

Naturally, this caught the attention of her twin in mischief, Sirius Black, who joined her not a moment later, twirling with her in sync while whistling the Star Wars theme. He had, of course, found the Muggle disco track and made the whole common room listen to the vinyl on his Charmed record player. It'd been stuck in our heads for weeks at this point. Although, that might not be such a bad idea if—

I gasped, a brilliant idea entering my head. "Oh! Sirius! Could you please do that during my team's first match?" I requested excitedly, imagining whole throngs of students in the stands cheering and singing the Star Wars theme tune as The Millennium Falcons crushed the opposition.

"Only if you're good," he answered with a wink.

He flew off before I could retort, leaving me gaping in offense, deflated and more than a little miffed.

Honestly. So rude.

Marlene laughed. "Of course he's going to do that during your first match, Lily. And if he doesn't, I'll make sure he knows he's a ponce. A few whacks to the head should do it."

I rolled my eyes, my gaze catching on Mary, who easily outflew Jen, though who kept dipping in height when laughing too hard. They flew past the goalposts, and the Marauders, who were hanging upside down on their brooms in an apparent battle of nerve.

Mary and Jen continued on along the perimeter of the pitch, a bit slower, as Jen lost some steam, until they reached the middle of the field, where they stopped flying, and just hovered, taken by conversation.

"I heard you met the new ref," Marlene said. She Summoned one of the many Quaffles from the ground and passed it to me.

"Yeah, Bertha Jorkins," I answered, throwing the Quaffle a bit to the left of where Marlene was hovering. "We got off on the wrong foot, she and I."

Marlene zipped through the air to catch the Quaffle, and when she returned, she tossed it from hand to hand, as though unwilling to trust my aim if she tossed it to me instead. "Really? She was talking about how good you were."

"What? When did you meet her?" I asked, meeting her eyes. For the first time I'd ever known Marlene, she shied away from my glance and actually blushed. "Mar?!"

"I ran into her the other day. After you and the Captain left to go snog because he'd Charmed your hair—oi, oi!" She cheered. "Anyway, I thought I'd come out to the pitch and get a few laps in before the sun set, and she was just there." She had a faraway look in her eyes, a hint of a sparkle.

"On the pitch?" I asked.

She blinked and nodded. "Yeah, flying. I've never seen anyone fly like her before…" She trailed off again, but then shook her head and met my gaze. "So I got up on my broom and joined her, asked for some pointers."

"What'd she say?"

"Well, after I established that I was not on a Hippogriff team, she said I had to fly with my blood."

"Your blood? Is she—" I stopped myself. Bertha Jorkins a blood supremacist?

Marlene shook her head sharply, understanding my unasked question. "No, no—nothing like that, Lily. No, I think she meant that I had to let go, stop controlling the broom, and just fly. You know?"

I bit down on my bottom lip. I did know. It's what I had to do during all those flying lessons with James.

Let go.

I suppose I'd also let my guard down because I ended up falling for the idiot.

OH.

"Mar, did you fall in love with Bertha Jorkins?" I asked very quickly, very seriously, and very abruptly.

Marlene dropped the Quaffle, her eyes wide and as earnest as I'd ever seen them. She blinked very slowly and looked down at her hands, realizing the Quaffle had slipped through them. Finally, she looked back up at me and said, "Well, fuck."

She didn't have to say anything. She was still working it out for herself, and to that end, she dipped the neck of her broom and dove toward the fallen Quaffle.

Well, that was quite the development. I couldn't help but feel a faint sense of disappointment as we never got around to the part of the conversation where Bertha Jorkins said I was really good.

That evening, The Millennium Falcons and I had our first official practice on the Hippogriff pitch. It was time to buckle down and form a first string of players. We warmed up with some basic stretching, running, push-ups, and sit-ups, during which Gideon Prewett shot up and let out a long blast of wind that scattered the rest of us across the pitch in terrible fits of laughter.

It took us a few moments to organize ourselves after that.

Eventually, Jen, clipboard in one hand, and wand in the other, spelled an invisible line across the finish line that would capture our finish times as we raced one another.

The six of us waited on the ground, ready to run and fly up into the air as soon as Jen gave us the cue. A general sense of giddiness seemed to curl itself around us, which was a much better feeling than the usual unease and anxiety I felt whenever I had to try and prove my flying skills to anyone.

The Prewett twins were waging all sorts of absurd bets over which of the two would place before the other. Caradoc nervously spouted off flying statistics, while Abed and Harriet listened politely.

Finally, a burst of gold sparks burst from Jen's wand, Caradoc shouted, "Good golly!" and we were off.

By the end of our trial races, there was one clear anchor flyer—the person who would finish up the race because of their dependable speed and agility: Harriet Seabury.

She was a remarkably quick flyer, who zipped past us quite efficiently at every trial, though only on her old Comet broom. She'd had so much trouble with the school brooms that she insisted she do the trials on her own. Perhaps because she'd used it her whole life, she knew how to use it to her advantage.

Puzzled and perhaps a little disgruntled by her bewildering mastery, Caradoc demanded that he study her flight techniques so that he might be able to figure out what we could learn from her and apply it to the way the rest of us handled the school's array of brand new Cleansweeps, which should be faster than the old line of Comets.

"If we can crack this, gang, we'll surely be on our way!" he declared, pushing his orange glasses up his nose, and readjusting his wristbands.

"Reckon this is what we get for havin' a Ravenclaw on the team," Harriet muttered as she took to the sky for the third time in a row, demonstrating her flying prowess to her studious teammate.

As our second-fastest flyer, once we'd averaged out our overall times, Caradoc would be our starter. Despite all of their hippogriffing around before they took to the skies, the Prewett twins tied for third place, and myself and Abed were only seconds within each other in fourth and fifth places, respectively. Despite being the Wronski Warrior, I had a lot of work to do, if I was ever going to race Bellatrix's team in a match and win.

"Suppose I won't be racing much, eh?" Abed asked, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Course you will!" I answered, confusion drawing my face into a frown. "Why wouldn't you?"

He ducked his head. "I was last…"

"But you came in second on our first trial, Abed. You just need to work up your stamina. It's what practice is for. Besides, maybe the Doc will learn something useful from Harriet and we can all benefit."

That didn't seem to make him feel any better.

Fabian clapped Abed on the back reassuringly. "Don't worry, mate. Inevitably, Gids the Git and I will end up in some sort of horrifying collision, and you an' the Cap'll have to save the day." He flashed Abed a winning smile, and instead of feeling disarmed by the wiry boy's arm around his shoulder, Abed relaxed into his embrace.

It must feel nice, I thought, for Abed to finally get on with some boys in the school.

"You'd better not collide in the middle of a match, Fae!" I called out to Fabian, who waved me off and burst out laughing, leaning onto Abed for support. Abed pinked with pleasure.

I wondered at Fabian's ability to ease the group's tensions with a simple dose of ridiculous cheer. Then I remembered how easily Alice seemed to be able to move through several different groups of students at Hogwarts, regardless of their house or their views, always friendly, always engaging. She'd been a brilliant Head Girl.

I could stand to learn a few things from the Prewetts yet.

I got an owl from home the next morning.

Dearest Lily,

There might be reason for you to be away at the start of winter holiday, but will you be home for Christmas? Your sister and her husband have invited me to their new flat for the holiday. It's in one of those depressing little places in Surrey, where everything looks identical. Your father would have hated it. However, seeing as he isn't around to whinge about it at length, I thought I'd extend that honor to you.

Please don't leave me alone with them. If I have to have another conversation about the manufacturing of drills, I will drill myself into the centre of the Earth. (That doesn't really exist, does it? Part of me thinks H.G. Wells might have known a thing or two about the Wizarding World.) I'm not joking. (I am. Sort of. The tiniest bit.)

As your mother, I am half-begging, half-ordering you to come home for Christmas, if only to make sure I don't go batty. I already feel dreadfully off my rocker when I catch myself asking your father something, only to realize he can't actually be in the room with me. I really miss him. I really miss you. (I am using every tool at my disposal to get you to come home, of course, but I do truly miss you.)

All my love,

The woman who gave birth to you and raised you and who put up no fuss when she found out you must be whisked away to boarding school in Scotland to learn to become a witch of all things. (And Head Girl this year, too! I am so proud. Dad would have been so proud.)

I love you dearly,

Mum

P.S. Mary wrote me saying that you and that Potter boy are (finally, thank goodness) dating now. Congratulations! (I hear he's rich.)

P.P.S. Invite him over for the hols, too? Strength in numbers and all that.

I felt a surge of love for my crazy Mum. Honestly. I didn't know how she didn't have her own sit-com on the Beebs yet—the woman was deliriously hilarious.

But I understood. She used her sense of humor to cope with everything.

I knew it sounded like she couldn't stand to be around Petunia and Vernon, but really, I thought she knew that I couldn't stand to be around them, and she just wanted us all to be together at Christmas. Especially since it was the first Christmas without my father, who had passed away last winter.

But first things first.

I had to murder Mary for tattling on me to my mother about my new boyfriend. And telling her he was well-off! Good Godric. I was infinitely embarrassed.

I found Mary sitting a few seats away from me with Marlene and Peter. I slammed my letter down in front of her, folded in such a way so that only Mum's first postscript showed.

"Would you care to explain this, Mary dear?" I asked, voice a little sharp.

Marlene grinned. "That a letter from home, then? She must have gotten that owl, Mary. Told you Mrs. Evans lived in Cokeworth!"

I glared back at her.

"Oh my god, Marlene! Shut it!" said Mary.

"I can't believe you were on in this, too!" I exclaimed at Marlene.

She shrugged, nonchalant as ever. "I was just making sure the right sort of Muggle got a letter by owl. International Statue of Secrecy and all that."

Mary blew a raspberry at her, and Peter laughed.

"I don't believe a word you've just said," I informed her. I turned to Mary, whose early morning hair was tied in a mess of feathered ends at the top of her head. "Well? What have you got to say for yourself?"

Mary finally met my eyes, her bottom lip sucked in her mouth sheepishly. "Er, well." She shot a look over at Marlene, who nodded in reply, as though giving her permission to speak. Mary sighed, her fringe fluttering about her forehead at the sudden gust. "I wanted to know if your mum would be alright with you staying with me the first week of hols. And I just wanted everything to be properly set up so that there wouldn't be any reason for you to say no, because it's very important to me that you're there—but I knew you might not feel alright if your mum wasn't already expecting you to miss a week of break.

"I probably should have asked you first before going to your mum, now that I think about it—but that was my logic at the time. And anyway, we sort of had a few exchanges where we wondered about your plans and such without outright asking you anything, and I mentioned that you might have made plans with James, and then she asked who James was, and it would have been very rude of me not to reply, wouldn't it, Lily? I couldn't just not answer her, so I told her—the whole story, starting from about first year."

My eyes widened in slight horror. "Mary, what did you tell my mum?"

Marlene snickered into her hands. "What didn't she tell her?"

Mary grimaced.

"Oh my Godric," I breathed. "Why? Why did you—I still don't understand. Why do you need me to be here for the first week of the holiday?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "I'm doing one of those traditional wizarding coming-of-age balls, and it requires a lot of preparation and planning. And writing your mum is a part of that, because," she sighed exasperatedly, "I wanted to ask you to be one of the ladies of my presentation court."

"Huh?" I said.

Marlene laughed as Mary grumbled, "Oh, where's Jen when you need her?"

Peter cleared his throat. "It's a traditional wizarding custom, back when the royal court had something to do with wizards. The old pureblood families would present their daughters at court when they were of age to the Muggle nobility. It was most impressive when wizarding families put on a show for the royals at the presentation. Anyway, then they started burning witches at the stake and you lot had to go into hiding, so magical families were no longer welcome at court, but the tradition more or less remained. It was a way for the pureblood families to keep track of each other."

We all gawked at him.

He blinked. "I got an O.W.L. in History of Magic," he said by way of explanation.

"You and the Doc should meet," I replied.

Peter merely smirked and popped a bit of iced bun into his mouth, satisfied.

I turned to Mary. "So, you want me to go to your coming-of-age ceremony?"

Mary bit her lip. "Yes, but more than that, I want you to be in the ceremony. You're one of my best friends, and—oh, this is all wrong! I haven't even got the flower crowns or the agate boxes ready yet!" She put her head in her hands, truly overwhelmed.

I shot Marlene a look, and she raised her eyebrows.

"She had a whole plan," Marlene deadpanned.

"I had a whole plan!" Mary parroted, her head shooting up, and looking thoroughly miffed. "I was meant to give us a nice picnic, and ask you all with the proper magical trinkets!"

"But instead you owled my mum and told her my entire history and current relationship with James Potter," I pointed out.

She narrowed her eyes. "Alright, yes, so I made one tiny mistake, but—you weren't meant to find out!"

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"I'm sorry," she sighed, and her fringe went up again. "But will you at least consider it? Even though I sort of went behind your back and tattled to your mum? I couldn't bear it if you weren't there!"

I rolled my eyes. "I'm obviously going, Mary," I said.

Her blue eyes widened and welled up with tears. "Really?" she exclaimed, and before I could answer, she'd thrown her arms around me in a tight hug as she cried happily into my robes.

"Of course," I laughed. "But you have to tell me everything you've told my mum. What does she mean by 'finally'? And why have you told her that James is rich? That's stretching it a bit, isn't it?"

Mary pulled away from me as she, Marlene, and Peter all burst out laughing.

Frowning, I surveyed each of them. "I mean, I know he comes from a family of purebloods and his family has donated some Quidditch equipment to the school, but it's not like he's got vast caverns of gold in Gringotts, is it?"

Peter laughed his chortling laugh, a hand on his belly, his face pinking with mirth. "Oh, Evans. You've no idea!"

"About what?" I growled, exasperated.

Marlene held out one finger as she attempted to control her laughter enough to speak. Finally, she said, "Ever hear of Sleakeazy's Hair Potion?"

Bewildered, I cocked my head to the side. "The cosmetic product?"

Mary laughed quite loudly at that.

Marlene grinned. "That's his dad's invention."

I was even more bewildered than before. "But his hair's always so—"

Someone plopped down next to me, and considering they planted a warm kiss on my cheek, I deduced it was none other than the subject of our conversation. Speak of the basilisk.

"Morning," chirped James, stretching forward as he reached for a teapot across the table.

We all craned our necks towards him in tandem to take a good long look at the wild tresses of jet black hair that seemed to reach out in every direction from the back of his head, our expressions equal parts amusement and disbelief. The sticky-uppy bits were feeling extra rebellious this morning, it seemed. Marlene stifled a laugh.

I reached up and attempted to rake my hands through his hair, but James jerked out of the way as he leaned over the table again for a few sugars. When he sat back down, I let my hands travel from the nape of his neck up to his scalp, massaging my fingers through his surprisingly soft hair.

James practically purred with sleepy delight. He turned to give me a blissful, sleepy smile, before bringing his cup of tea to his lips and taking a sip.

"So Mary's having a party," Marlene said, conversationally.

Peter snorted as Mary whined, "Marlene!"

James brightened up a little, but leaned back into my hand all the same. "When is it?" he asked, shooting another contented smile in my direction.

He was a puppy.

James stretched his arms leisurely above him and moved his head slightly so that I'd continue petting him.

Alright, maybe he was more of a cat.

"First week of hols," answered Peter.

Mary pursed her lips into a worried line. "I would have liked the opportunity to invite everyone properly," she said pointedly at Marlene and Peter, "though seeing as how the kneazle's out of the bag, I may as well get on with it."

James regarded her curiously, taking another sip of tea.

I'd grown rather tired of massaging his scalp and had retreated my hand to my side. It was there only seconds before James grasped it in his and started tracing maddening circles onto my skin with his fingertips.

"James Potter," Mary announced, gathering her wits and squaring her shoulders, "will you be one of my gentlemen of the court?"

James grinned widely, and set down his teacup. He bowed his head dramatically in his seat and said, "It would be my honor, Mary Macdonald." His eyes were positively twinkling.

Mary smiled, her cheeks pink with cheer. "Perfect! You'll be dancing with Lily."

"Dancing?" I asked, alarmed. "You didn't say there would be dancing."

Marlene rolled her eyes. "It's a presentation court, Lily. Of course there'll be dancing."

My eyes were as wide as saucers, I was certain. "But I don't know any of the wizarding dances—you can't have forgotten third year!"

James snorted into his tea, and Peter laughed openly.

"No one could forget that, Evans!" Peter exclaimed through his nonsensical chortling.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and pouted. "It wasn't that funny."

Marlene cracked a smile. "You did the chicken dance, Lily. The chicken dance."

"To Mungo Jerry," added Peter, with an expression suggesting he was rather embarrassed for me.

Mary laughed. "In front of the international students! Oh my goodness!"

James smirked at me. "Got yourself a little nickname as well, didn't you? What was it?" He tapped his forehead as though in deep thought, then jumped up in sudden realization.

I narrowed my eyes at him, just daring him to say it.

"Poo-poulet!" he shouted.

I shoved him as he and the rest of my ex-mates burst into laughter. "Oh, Merlin, please for the love of Godric, shut up!" I grumbled. "I'm having war flashbacks."

It was the winter of 1973. The Yule Ball was in full swing. The band the Ministry had hired was doing covers of some wizarding hits, and since everyone had until that point, been doing some rather funny footwork on the dance floor, I had refused to dance at all.

But then. The Mungo Jerry song, "In the Summertime," came on and the flash of recognition in my eyes was enough for Marlene to push me into the middle of a befuddled bunch of wizards, unfamiliar with the Muggle tune.

"Go on! You can dance a Muggle dance!" she'd whispered.

And there I was, gobsmacked and frozen in place. Until my limbs—my uncoordinated, prepubescent, gangly limbs—crumpled and became all angles. I was doing the chicken dance. To Mungo Jerry. In front of all the international students.

For a moment, everything was okay, because the crowd was too shocked to react. But then someone laughed. And then someone else did, too. Soon, the entire hall was just wave after wave of laughter.

I should have stopped dancing probably. But I am a Gryffindor. And my house traits are only evident at the most ridiculous of moments.

I continued to do the chicken dance, despite all the laughing, hoping to either a) play off my awkward dancing as some very deliberate joke, or b) infect the crowd with my contagious moves and get everyone to join in.

Marlene must have taken pity on me and called for backup, because as soon as the crowd had started chanting "Poo-poulet," Marlene and Sirius Black flanked me and joined in on the chicken dance. The crowd cheered, but I was petrified and my fight or flight system had chosen its default chicken dance setting.

They had to force me to bow at the end of the song, and gently escorted me off the dance floor. It had taken me hours to stop staring at the floor, as I replayed the event over and over in complete shock, trying to process what had just happened, and why exactly I had done the chicken dance to represent my Muggle heritage.

James pulled me into his side and pressed a kiss to my hair, shaking me from my thoughts. "It's alright, Lily. Although I have to admit," and he directed a full-frontal smile of delight straight into my face, "that may have been the moment I knew I'd found someone just as bonkers as me. My little Poo-poulet! I've been smitten ever since."

I tried not to melt into a pile of jelly as Peter snorted and exlciamed, "Poo-poulet!"

I glared at him. Peter didn't seem too fazed. Did he not realize his mate was the sweetest boy on the planet and he had ruined a perfectly good moment?

"Don't worry, you mad little chicken," James said, squeezing my shoulder, "I'll teach you to dance."

"Somebody had better," muttered Mary. "I won't have a less than stunning presentation."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, Mary."

James grasped my hand in his and nuzzled my nose with his. "Think you can manage not to sprout feathers until then, Lily?"

I groaned against him. "I hate you."

His smile widened. "Nah, you don't."

"No, I don't," I said, fighting off a smile.

"Well, I hate the pair of you," said Mary. "For Merlin's sake—get a room!" She slammed her palms down on the table and got up. "I'm going to the baths."

Marlene finished off her jam and toast and saluted us before getting up and following Mary out of the Great Hall.

Peter let out a low whistle and clambered out of his seat. "I'm not like, abandoning the two of you or anything, but I am finished with brekkie, so I'm going to leave as well. Nothing personal."

He got up and walked backwards slowly out of the Great Hall.

"He totally abandoned us," I said, watching Peter reach for the doors behind him.

"Totally," agreed James.

"Thank Merlin," I said, and James laughed.

He served himself a plate of fried eggs and sausages, then levitated a scone and a bowl of porridge over to my plate. We chatted idly about our mad friends, classes, and my terrible dancing ("Honestly, how am I supposed to study for my N.E.W.T.s, complete my Head Girl duties, captain a Hippogriff team, and learn to dance without ending up in the Janus Thickey Ward?") before Frank sat down across from us and put his head in his hands.

"Alright, Longbottom?" asked James casually, though he'd stiffened slightly at Frank's arrival.

Frank was a total mess. His facial hair had grown into a beard since we'd seen him last week. He peered up at us, his baby blue eyes draping tiredly over dark circles. He ran his fingers over his patchy beard and shook his head, sighing loudly.

"No luck with Rookwood, eh?" James guessed.

"I don't think you'll be able to shut it down," he murmured.

"And why's that?" asked James.

Concerned, I poured him a cup of tea and pushed it at him. He took it gratefully, adding quite a lot of cream and sugar.

Erlack.

I knew the poor sod was having a rough time of it, but there is a right way and a wrong way to have a cup of tea, and drowning it in cream and sugar is definitely the wrong way.

I decided to be compassionate, however, and not say so.

Frank took a sip of his tea, and sneered at it, clearly disgusted with the flavor. I tried not to appear too self-righteous about it—because of course I was right about it being all wrong—and then had to hold myself from gasping as he absolutely massacred his cup of tea with two more sugars.

Sweet, sweet Merlin!

He seemed satisfied with his tea and continued. "I should have seen it coming, but honestly, I got too caught up in my beat to get involved in office politics and all that."

"Frank, what happened?" I asked, picking over the fried egg on James's plate. James grinned over at me, apparently pleased to find me sharing his food. "We were supposed to check out the presses tomorrow, before the next issue, and discover that illegal Duplicating Charm."

Frank smiled a half-smile, looking anything but happy. "Rookwood's decided to change up the entire press. He got new writers and put the rest of us on odd stories. I'm on the agony column. He's even changed the tagline of the zine."

"But he can't do that to you! It's your zine!" I exclaimed, nearly rising from my seat in indignation. "It's not fair!"

Frank shrugged. "He's the editor-in-chief, and he made Bellatrix Black creative director. The other writers and I staged a walk-out in protest, and he just replaced us with writers from Black's circle of friends. I managed to find a final draft of the zine set to publish tomorrow. It's horrific." He took another long drag of his tea and wiped his mouth on his robe's sleeve.

"I'm so sorry, mate," consoled James. His eyes softened enough that I knew he meant it.

"The worst bit is the new tagline. 'Real news for the real witch and wizard.'"

"That's positively vile," I said.

James shook his head. "It's a blood supremacist takeover."

Frank nodded sadly and finished off his tea, lifting his head back as the last drops poured down his throat. "That was terribly sweet, but I have no appetite for anything less at the moment."

Aha! So he was aware that his tea was offensive. My opinion of Frank lifted itself back up to a respectable height.

"Frank," I said, leaning forward. "You started that zine. If you can't have it back because the power's gone to someone else's hands, you can't give up. You said your whole team of writers walked out, which means they're out of an extracurricular as well."

"I know where you're going, Lily, and it's not like I haven't thought about it—about starting a new zine. I'm just not sure if I'll be able to survive competing against obviously slanted journalism. It makes me sick, just thinking about the blood supremacist shit that's going to print tomorrow."

James drummed his fingers rhythmically on the table. "And there's no chance he'll be using that Duplicate Charm?"

Frank shrugged. "From what I gathered, he and Black refined the process so that they can get more copies done faster, and they've no use for the unauthorized charm."

James leaned in, quirking an eyebrow conspiratorially. "Not if the presses suddenly stop working, and they run out of copies in the morning, and have an unhappy crowd of readers at their front door!"

"James!" I exclaimed.

Frank, however, wasn't so scandalized, and looked, for the first time since he sat down, as though he had a gleam of hope for resistance.

"You haven't officially quit yet, have you?" James pressed on.

The bizarrely bearded boy before us finally grinned. "Not yet," he answered, apparently on the same train of thought as James.

James matched his grin. "Then you know what to do. I'll round up the boys and take care of the rest."

"Brilliant." Frank looked positively relieved and revitalized. He served himself an egg soufflé and tucked in, his appetite apparently returned.

James pushed his plate away and got up. He offered me his hand. I took it and got up myself. James bowed at me and I giggled, bowing back.

"Well done, Lily. That was your first dance lesson and you're a natural!" He winked at me, then lowered his voice, his eyes earnest. "We can get everything done, promise."

As he led me out of the hall, I felt myself positively glow at the thought. Even though I'd been complaining about all the responsibilities that seemed to be piling higher and higher on my metaphorical plate like a great big mountain of unforgiving pancakes, James hadn't even hesitated to share the burden with me.

I squeezed his hand in gratitude, and he threw a happy smile my way. Merlin, the way he looked at me. I could defeat whole mountain trolls as long as James was by my side, making everything okay, everything safe.

A/N: Lily has lots of opinions on the do's and don'ts of tea. For example, iced tea is a don't. Earl grey tea with lavender cream? A definite do! Meanwhile, James has only one rule about using his dad's famous Sleekeazy's Hair Potion: don't. Anyway, I hope you're all enjoying the story so far! Any and all reviews are greatly appreciated; thank you, dear one, for reading. :)