AN: So much for "next week", sorry! Here it is anyway. As always, thank you for the lovely comments 3

Next chapter should be up in 2-3 weeks.

The next day was a blur. Lily left the packing until the last moment, and so had to hastily throw everything into her suitcase, jamming it into the back of her dad's car.

Petunia seemed to have softened overnight, because she gave Lily a surprisingly long and tight hug before she left.

"Love you, Pet, see you at Easter," Lily whispered into her sister's hair. She tried not to get teary — Petunia would surely make fun of her for doing so, but she really did miss having a sister. She hoped that once she had graduated Hogwarts, she would find a way to move the wedge that had come between she and Petunia. When she had time on her hands, and wasn't just passing through.

Still, at least Seph and Madeline would be back at school soon, meaning her surrogate sisters would be there to plug the gap, until she could do that.

Her mum came with her to the station, but refused, as always, to go through the wall to the Hogwarts Express platform. She always said it freaked her out too much. So only her dad helped her onto the train. She found a compartment with Severus, and, much to Lily's surprise, it wasn't long before Seph had found them and plunked herself down opposite Lily, a serene grin on her face.

"Merlin, it's been nice to get away from homework for so long," Seph said, her voice dreamy and light.

"I thought you and Maddy weren't back until after New Year," Lily said. She felt tense — Seph and Severus had never much gotten along. For now, Seph either hadn't noticed him, or was too relaxed to bother making any comments.

"That was the plan, but you know how it is," Seph said waving her hand. "Trouble on the old homefront. Dad fucked up the turkey, all hell broke loose. Not to mention, both Timmy and Sam"—Seph's two younger brothers, who were not yet of Hogwarts age—"were down with the flu. I would much rather spend my time curled up in the Common Room than trying to nurse two dickheads who don't cover their mouths when they cough."

Seph gave a dramatic shudder.

"How was Puke-tunia?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Severus smile at the nickname. Lily only glared.

"Petunia was good," Lily said. She held up her scarf, a hard-won trophy. "She got me this for Christmas."

Seph pretended to swoon. "Oh my, what has come over our dear older sister? Next thing you know they'll be hugging and kissing and telling you that she loves you, and then what'll we do?"

Lily rolled her eyes.

"It's Christmas, you grouch, lay off," Lily said, and kicked Seph's shin. It was a light kick, but Seph hammed up the pain.

"Fine, fine, even though technically, Christmas is over. Consider this your gift," Seph said. She sighed and leaned back against the cushions as the Express shuddered into life.

Lily looked over at Severus, who looked sullen and uncomfortable. She supposed there wasn't much room for him in the conversation, especially since Lily had ordered him not to bad-mouth her sister many times before — Severus and she had never gotten on. It wasn't like either were particularly forgiving creatures, which never helped matters.

"How was Christmas?" she said.

"Fine," Severus said. "The usual."

Lily knew for a fact that the usual for Severus was not 'fine', but she didn't want to press in front of Seph.

Just then, the compartment door slid open.

"What you doing with this lot, Sev?" drawled one Maximus Avery. "You fraternising with the muck of Hogwarts?"

Lily glared up at him. Severus had once had the cheek to defend Maximus calling her a mudblood, because, after all, hadn't Lily wound him up? Lily had almost stopped being friends altogether with Severus over it. That was only last year. And Lily didn't miss the implication of the word "muck" — at least her vomiting hex had convinced him not to use the real word. Small victories.

A thousand barbs made their way onto Lily's tongue, but she tried to restrain herself.

"Oh, um," Severus squeaked, looking between Lily and Avery. "We're just talking."

"Won't get much sense out of this lot," Avery said, his lip curling. "Come on."

Severus didn't move, his eyes going wide. He never was one for confrontation.

"I won't tell you again," Avery said, his voice hard now. "Let's go, Sev."

"Why don't you lay off, Avery?" Lily said. She put a hand on Severus' arm. "You don't have to go with him, you know."

"I know," Severus said. His teeth were gritted. "I want to, it's fine."

He brushed her hand off, and got up, walking past Avery out into the corridor. Lily tried to ignore the rising anger and hurt in her stomach.

"You could come too, if you wanted, Persephone," Avery said, lip still firmly curled. "I'm sure your family would be more pleased by my association."

Seph's face was drawn into an tremendous frown, and her wand appeared from a fold in her robes.

"Avery, if it was a choice between spending five minutes with you or snogging a mountain troll, I would take the troll. Now, you have about five seconds before I do you some serious bodily damage. Move along before you regret it."

Avery tried to scoff, but Lily could see the tremble in his hands as he slid the compartment door closed. Seph was not known for her empty threats, and her face twisted even further as she watched him walk away through the glass.

"Is he the biggest arse in school?" Seph said, presumably once she was sure he wasn't coming back.

"It's such a tight competition, with so many worthy competitors," Lily sighed. She threw her head back against the cushioned seats, trying to calm her erratic heartbeat with long, slow breaths.

"I swear, when we get to the last term of next year, I'm going to hex the hell out of whole droves of our classmates," Seph said. "When it's too close to graduation that it won't be worth expelling me."

"Ooh, sign me up for that."

"We'll start a list — pretty much the entirety of Slytherin is on it by default."

Lily smiled, glad that a certain Slytherin would have already graduated by then.

"As long as Potter is on the list, I'm happy," Lily said. She looked up at Seph, who had gotten up to fuss with her bag. "Thanks, by the way."

"For?"

Lily shrugged. "For — I don't know, not caving to Avery and leaving me?"

Seph turned to her, her face a picture of bemusement.

"I don't even know where to start, so let's go with 'do you honestly think I would leave you?' and 'do you not know how itchy my wand hand gets whenever Maximus fucking Avery shows his ugly mug around the place?'. Now, if it was that gorgeous Ravenclaw seeker who swung by to ask if I'd keep her company, then you might have a problem. Otherwise, I'm right here for you."

Lily chuckled.

"What happened to Rachel?"

Seph sat down, having successfully retrieved a bag full of sweets from her case. She waved a hand at Lily.

"I'm allowed to fantasise, aren't I?" Seph handed the bag to Lily, who eagerly extracted some sugar mice.

"What Avery said, about your family — is that true? Would they disapprove?" Lily had met Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and both had been warm and welcoming. But perhaps that was just a kindness to her face.

"No. I mean, my dad can get a bit radical when he's had one too many — we got into a pretty big argument, actually, just before Christmas after he got drunk and tried to lecture me — but my family isn't like that. They love you," she said. "Sorry that Severus went with him."

Lily looked up, an eyebrow arched. It was not like Seph to apologise for someone else's behaviour.

"Thanks," Lily said slowly. "I know you don't like him but—"

"Look, it's not about that. I mean, yes, it's hard to like a guy who leaves his so-called friend for a supremacist, but I know it doesn't feel good."

"You do?" Lily couldn't fathom anyone ever leaving Seph's side.

"Dating women hasn't exactly won me friends over the years," she said with a sigh. "Not that I want the bastards who would turn their noses up at me, but there was a period where even my dad wouldn't talk to me, that was really rough."

"How did I not know this?"

Seph shrugged. "It was over the summer holidays, in our first year. I didn't know you well enough to trust you then."

Lily felt shame, that she hadn't been able to comfort Seph all those years ago, but she knew it was misplaced and useless here.

"In another life, you were a Hufflepuff," Lily said firmly.

"I actually had a pretty long argument with the Hat about that," Seph said. "The crux of which was that yellow washes me out something rotten."

Lily laughed, rolling her eyes. "Of course, the most important part of choosing our Houses."

"The Hat knew straight away with you, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"You don't have to sound so glum about it!"

"I know, but everyone else has these stories, and the Hat barely spoke two words to me before he announced Gryffindor," Lily said, "Is it too much to ask for some drama and excitement?"

Seph's eyebrows shot up, getting lost in her fringe. "I'm sorry, Lily Evans wants drama? Are you coming down with the flu too?"

"Oh yes, I forgot — that's why I keep you around, because you bring all the drama I need in life."

Seph gave an approving nod.

"Obviously," she said. "So I assume that Hogwarts without us was frightfully dull then?"

Lily's heart sped up again, and she tried not to show anything on her face. Luckily, Seph was busy digging through her bag of sweets to notice the sudden blush on Lily's cheeks.

"Yeah, mostly," she said. It didn't sound nearly as casual as she was hoping it would. "Mostly spent time with Remus, you know."

Seph looked up, her eyes slitted.

"Why are you so high-pitched?" Then her face brightened with a grin. "Are you and Remus hooking up? He's a babe, I can totally see you two together! Tell me everything!"

"No! No, we're just friends," Lily said. "I think he's involved…in other matters, anyway."

"Hey, I won't judge you," Seph said. "Merlin knows I've done much more questionable things."

Lily glared. "I am not seeing Remus in any capacity past platonic, Persephone Jones."

Seph studied her for a moment, as if she could divine whether Lily was lying or not from her face. Probably, after all these years, she could. Luckily, this wasn't a lie. "Fine. I don't think you'd be able to keep that kind of secret anyway."

"Exactly," Lily said, smoothly and trying very hard not to think about the secret she was keeping. Telling Remus was one thing — she'd needed the moral support, and he'd certainly been good about keeping it a secret. Seph would no doubt not rest until she knew who Lily was meeting, if for no other reason than so she could make him vomit slugs if he ever hurt her.

"So tell me about Christmas! Other than Petunia going all soft on us, what did you get?"

Lily was very glad to have the subject of romance dropped.

She didn't see Lucius all day, despite having a good wander around the Castle accompanied by Seph — obviously not looking for Lucius, just happening to stray near the dungeons. She restrained herself from going down to a certain Potions classroom, helped by the fact giving Seph the slip would be hard, especially doing so casually.

Nor did she see Remus until dinner — though Remus was sat with Sirius, who had arrived back on the scene, and Lily wasn't in the mood to pretend to like him. Instead she kept to the other end of the table, sitting with her back towards the Slytherin table.

She felt like she'd put herself under a microscope — her inner-monologue pointing out every time she glanced away from Seph, every time she lost her train of thought or mishandled her fork, as if to say, "Seph will know something is up! You're being too obvious!" She knew it was ridiculous, of course, but it didn't stop it. She had never kept secrets before, not really.

It stopped her, at least, from turning to check the Slytherin table, as much as she itched to. Not only did she want to see him, to exchange a glance that would no doubt send a thrill down her, but she also wanted to make sure he didn't think she'd come back from the holidays not wanting any part of him.

She wanted part of him.

In fact, it had been a miracle to think of anything but his final words to her — that he, too, was falling for her.

So it was hard not to freeze up when Seph announced, "Um, why is that Slytherin dickhead is coming towards us?"

Lily looked up, trying to remember to breathe.

"Which dickhead?" she managed.

"Lucius, obviously," she said.

Lily's heart constricted to the size of a raisin and she was pretty sure she was going to cough it up. Surely if he was coming over, it was to speak to someone else entirely? Hadn't he said — or had he changed his mind? And if so, why hadn't he consulted her about making it public? And to do it now, on the first day back? When they hadn't even had a chance to talk? No, he couldn't be talking to her, that was silly, because —

"Lily," he drawled from behind her.

She turned around, her face feeling hot and sticky. She didn't know what to expect. She didn't know, even, what to hope for.

"Slughorn sent me," he said, and she let out a breath. Okay. This was known territory. Perhaps a tad disappointing, but at least it wasn't blowing up her world. "Did you hear about the dinner?"

Lily shook her head, her mouth too dry to speak.

"She was home for Christmas," Seph offered instead.

Lucius flicked a look at her, and nodded.

"Right, sorry," Lucius said, as if he didn't know that. "There's going to be a Slug Club dinner on New Year's Eve. Just the usual lot. Do you want to come?"

She nodded, wishing her mouth would fucking work.

"Well, he said he needs a few hands tonight, to clear up the mess from the Christmas Party, wanted to know if you'd volunteer?"

"Oh lovely, first day back and Slug can't cut you a break?" Seph said. "Is it just the women being suckered into working?"

Lily didn't turn to look at Seph, just watched a flicker of annoyance pass over Lucius' face. The idea of Seph and Lucius getting into a fight was enough to get Lily's voice working again.

"I'll help, sure," she said quickly, and louder than she had intended. "What time are we meeting?"

"We're meeting at seven," Lucius said. He gave her a nod. "See you then."

Lily just nodded, and watched him walk out of earshot, before she turned back to Seph. Her heart was still beating far too fast, but there was nothing that can be done about that.

"Are you really going to do chores for the bloody Slug Club?" Seph said. "It's Boxing Day! And the first night back! We could do something fun!"

"Oh, and you won't be spending this evening canoodling with Rachel?"

"…We could do something fun before I canoodle with Rachel!" Seph said, but her voice didn't have much conviction behind it. She waved a hand at Lily. "Fine, fine, go hang out with your Slug buddies, but I feel like anything, even gobstones would better than that."

Lily couldn't exactly tell Seph that yes, chores for Slughorn would be a mind numbing task, and she would prefer to do anything else but, no, it wasn't what she'd actually be up to.

She risked a glance back at Lucius, who was leaving the Hall with a few Slytherins she did not recognise. It was incredible, really, that he could lie so baldfaced and easily, surrounded people. There was not a touch of deceit about him. It was like nothing had happened between them. Lily took a deep breath.

As she looked back at Seph, she caught Remus' eye. He was giving her a questioning, curious look from his end of the table. Lily gulped, feeling her cheeks start to heat again.

She looked away quickly, and went back to eating, trying to concentrate on keeping the lie up until she could escape at 7pm.