AN: Happy Sunday, everyone! I hope you're all enjoying yourselves this weekend. We're gonna have a double update, so I hope you enjoy that as well!

Lily did not know if her plan was going to work, but the wall of flame that was surrounding James, Sirius and the enemy party was enough to make her think it was necessary to try. There was no telling what was going on inside the flames. Peter told them that Riddle wanted to put her on the throne instead of James, what if they were trying to hurt him? What if they already had?

"Lily, are you sure?" Peter asked, standing behind her, in the shadows so that no one would accidentally see him. She nodded, mustering up as much courage as she could.

"Do you really want to leave James and Sirius in there any longer?:" She asked.

Peter frowned. "I mean, they'll probably be okay."

"You're just saying that because you think James is going to be upset that I tricked you into letting me out of the room."

"You didn't trick me, you forced me. And he is going to be mad."

"Do you think I could force Riddle to leave?"

"I would not try that if I were you." Peter sighed and looked over her shoulder. "Looks like Hestia is ready." He nodded.

Lily took a deep breath and then nodded as well. "Then I'm ready too." She took a step toward the flames and saw them start to move in a different pattern than before.

"Remember to be quick, she said she could not hold it for long." Peter said, his arms crossed over his chest.

"I'm going to be alright, Peter."

"You better be. Or James will have my hide." He ran a hand through his hair.

"Alright, let's go." Remus came up behind her with a sword that he found behind the bar, looking angry. But he was here with her and no longer telling her that she shouldn't be doing this, so Lily was not going to complain.

"Alright," She took another step closer to the flames, the heat kissing her skin, but after a few more steps, the heat pushed her back. It was almost unbearable, but she continued forward. "Alright, let's go."

Hestia managed to separate the flames a few inches, and Lily held her breath and squinted, the heat quickly drying out her eyes. A few more inches, it was like watching molasses move. Slow work, and the flames only seemed to get hotter with every passing moment. She couldn't see anything inside the flames still.

Finally, there was enough space for her to fit through without touching any of the flames, and she ran in, Remus close on her heels.

The wall of flames seemed to slam closed behind them, and Lily was a bit shocked to find that the heat that had been so searing outside, was not present in here. The flames were blue, which should have meant that they were hotter, but it was almost a pleasant temperature in here. They weren't making any noise either.

It was nearly silent.

So when she and Remus burst through, panting and stomping, they drew all the attention to themselves.

"There she is."

She heard Sirius swear, but her eyes followed the voice that she hadn't recognized.

It was Riddle.

She knew that with absolute certainty. He stood before her, his eyes zeroed in on her, and his eyes bright and blue. He didn't look evil, he didn't look like he'd destroyed more of the earth than should have been possible. But just like when she'd been near the dead land, she could feel that there was something off about him.

She narrowed her brow and stepped further away from the wall of flames. She could see James taking a step toward her out of the corner of her eye, but she kept her eyes on Riddle. "The land is angry with you," She said, still looking him in the eyes. She didn't know where the words had come from, but she knew they were true. And something flickered in his eyes that let her know that he knew it was true as well.

"How did you get in here?" Severus was standing to Riddle's right and Lily's glare intensified as she looked at him. She hadn't noticed him before.

"I thought you would have learned not to underestimate me,"

"And why should I have learned that? The prince is the only reason you go out."

"I think your arrogance had something to do with it as well." Lily started walking toward James and Sirius. James was looking at her, she could feel his gaze, but she still didn't look at him, she had to keep her eyes on the court of death.

"It is a great honor to meet you, your majesty."

"Don't lie," Lily smiled. She knew that he couldn't lie, but he was not being truthful.

"I am incapable of it," He grinned. "However, you can say whatever you want. How free you must be."

"Do you feel trapped by your immortality and your magic?" Lily felt Remus come up on her other side. She was glad that he didn't reach out and grab her in an attempt to stop her from speaking out like that. She was breaking his rules, the rules that were supposed to keep her safe.

She was strangely calm though. She didn't feel as though she was in any immediate danger. She was far more worried about James right now. She was far more concerned about what these men were planning to do to this town.

"I think you know that I am not truly immortal."

Lily blinked at him. "Would you like my condolences now, or in a card?"

Sirius started coughing, doing a very poor job of hiding his laughter. And some of Riddle court bristled as well.

"You are quite confident in your newfound status." Riddle continued to smile, and it continued to feel like a threat. "I can admire that."

"You could, but you don't." Lily shrugged.

"Perhaps a little bit," Riddle shrugged back at her. "Though I will say that I am impressed by everything that I have heard about you. Severus told me that he was unable to glamour you." She knew that Severus was going to tell other people, but there was a look of shock that traveled across the faces of the other court members. This was new information to them. "Would you mind if I tried?"

Lily snorted, even as she felt James and Remus stiffen at her sides.

"You will not attempt to glamour Lily." James said firmly, speaking up for the first time since she'd entered the wall of flames. "I am not going to allow it."

"I was asking the queen, prince." Riddle only spared James a quick glance before his attention was trapped on Lily again. His use of titles felt very intentional. Did they really prefer to have her on the throne than James? Was it only because she was less of a threat? Someone that they thought they could manipulate more easily? "So? What do you think, Queen Lily?"

"Would you mind if I tried to glamour you?" Lily asked, tilting her head to the side. Remus did not stay silent this time. He nudged her with his elbow, but Lily couldn't look over at him as he muttered her name, she had to keep her gaze locked on Riddles.

Riddle still looked amused though, "And what makes you think that you would be capable of doing something like that?"

Lily shrugged. "She shall have power that the Dark Lord knows not… isn't that how the prophecy goes? So don't you think it's a little arrogant of you to think me incapable? Or did you think that my protection against glamour was the only power I would have?" That wasn't her power though, it had been given to her by a charm, by a mother trying to protect her and her son. Whatever power she had that the Dark Lord didn't know about probably had something to do with her blood making flowers pop up out of the ground, or what she'd just done to Peter back in the room. "I just walked through a wall of magical flames to give you a message from the earth. Perhaps some credit is due."

"How dare you stand there and accuse me of arrogance." He laughed, but she saw the truth. There was that flicker of, not quite fear, but something close to it. "You stand between the high prince of the land and the Dark Lord, leader of the Court of Death, and you accuse me of arrogance? You threaten me with powers that you know nothing about? Powers that you have never used?" He was getting angry, but he shook his head and looked at Lily more softly. "You want to use those powers to help fairyland, do you not?"

"Stop," Sirius snapped at the same time that James took a step forward.

She could feel the buzzing on her skin, but she felt no different as she nodded. "I do want to use whatever powers this land has given me to help heal it. What you did was terrible, a truly terrific display of power, and completely unnecessary. I will never help you achieve whatever twisted goals you have set for yourself."

"You will though." He said calmly, and she hardly felt anything at all. "You will help me, because when I command a person, human or fae, they do as I wish. And I wish to become truly immortal, I wish to rule with more power than anyone before me, and if I need you to do that, then I will have you."

She felt buzzing at the bottoms of her feet now, something completely different from the deflected glamour. "The land is the only thing immortal here. The land that is angry with you for what you did to it. You may have already made it impossible for any mortal to kill you, but the land is immortal. She can use whatever weapons walk among her to do her will, so long as she has their permission." Lily felt ridiculous, but she knew that every word she spoke was true. "And I've given permission."

She didn't know when she had given permission, it had to have been before she'd scrapped her knee by the pond and watched the lilies bloom. She had been so careful to avoid making agreements with the fae creatures, to avoid eating the food or dancing too long to the music, she had followed the rules and stuck by Remus' side, but still, she had somehow given Fairyland permission to use her as a weapon against this creature before her. It didn't feel like she'd been tricked though, she didn't feel fearful of what that meant for her.

Her feet felt as though they had been sucked into the earth, she didn't look down to see if it really had or not. She watched the whites of Riddle's eyes grow as the fear in him became palpable.

Suddenly, she could feel the heat of the flames and they were no longer silent, they whipped around them faster, wind was blowing at Lily's hair now. Riddle took a step back and his men all looked from Lily to their Lord, trying to figure out what they were meant to do, trying to figure out which one of them had caused the changes to their secluded spot on the road.

Lily took a deep breath and then felt her skin buzzing, her feet still felt stuck to the ground, and when she breathed out, the fire disappeared.

It startled her, she could feel the magic traveling through her as though she was some kind of conduit, it was going back into the earth, and the earth was greedily accepting the magic.

Riddle took another step back. "How did you manage that?" He asked, managing to make the question sound more based in interest than fear. Lily wasn't fooled though.

She still felt no fear, she knew that she should, but she remained calm. This man before her should terrify her, but she was only angry. "I told you, Fairyland is angry with you."

With the fire gone now, the people on the street were able to see what was going on, and while most of them fled, Benjy, Hestia and Gwen carefully stepped up behind Lily, silently making a statement.

"As the High Prince, it is my job to do the lands bidding," James said, his voice low and slow. "If it is angry with you, then you are not long for this world, Riddle."

Riddle laughed at that, and instead of a chill going down her spine, Lily clenched her fists at her side and took a step toward him, almost giddy when she saw a few of his men take a few steps back. They were afraid of her. All of the time she had spent in Fairyland, and this was the first time that any of the creatures of this land had been afraid of her.

Riddle had stood his ground though. "The land can be upset all it wants, but you cannot kill me."

Lily could hear James grinding his teeth, and then he slid his foot across the dirt path and storm clouds came rolling in, as quickly as he was moving. Riddle laughed again, and James clapped his hands together. Instead of the sound of his hands coming together, there was a crack of lightning and it hit directly where Riddle had been standing a moment before, but now there was no one there.