Mary Had a Whip

or

In the Face of All Adversity

When Mary wouldn't get out of bed on Thursday morning, Alice went quiet, Dorcas started looking up magical shock treatment and Lily tucked Petunia's engagement invitation into the front pocket of her blouse. It symbolised hope for her and, boy, was hope something they all needed right now.

Summer was closing in on Scotland with a determination that was surprising, given that it wasn't even June yet. But the sun was such a welcome guest in the nerve-ridden castle that no one questioned the unseasonal weather. Many students were still studying outside, despite the teachers' orders not to: 'I'd prefer it if you didn't, things being as they are,' McGonagall had said crisply in a way which actually said 'I will put anyone I see studying out of doors into a windowless, torch-lit dungeon'. But sun, Lily thought, was a natural antidote to fear, and, anyway, who would choose the drafty library over a green hillside?

And so prefect who should have known better was among those risking the wrath of the teachers for a bit of the golden remedy on Friday afternoon. Dorcas and Marlene, the latter having finally been kicked out of the hospital wing that morning because of her sickeningly perfect health, finished their exams at midday. After lunch they joined Lily in her strenuous task of lolling about by the lake and watching those poor fools who had Friday evening exams cram.

'Why aren't you out busting your Unforgettable Umbrellas and Merlin's Tears and what-have-you?' Marlene asked, stretching out in the grass, trying to get as much of her surface area in the sun as possible.

'Filch complained to McGonagall this morning,' Lily said listlessly. 'Said I was taking over his job. McGonagall was very apologetic about it but a sacking's a sacking.'

'Well, good luck to him,' Marlene said with a snort. She covered her eyes with a hand and settled down, stilling, with a contented sigh. 'I doubt he'll do half as a well as you did.'

Pleasantly surprised and amused by the compliment, Lily said very soberly, 'Thank you, Marlene.' She picked at the pilling on her skirt. 'Anyway, I went out with a bang. Spent all of yesterday chasing down seven rogue bottles of Merlin's Tears, four Wicked Witch Whips and one of those ludicrous Dementor-in-a-bottle things. You know, those things that are supposed to act like personal bodyguards.'

Dorcas made a sound like 'chyeh' at that, and Marlene gave Lily a one-woman round of applause for her efforts. The issue of Mary was raised then; apparently she hadn't yet left her bed and hadn't even touched the newly stocked emergency hamper. Dorcas had gone to the hospital wing to get advice on Thursday night but the new healer —Pompeii, Pomflay; Lily couldn't remember —had said something wise and useless like 'these kind of wounds heal best and cleanest with time.'

'The party's tomorrow night,' Dorcas said presently, pulling up a fistful of grass. 'That might pep her up a bit. Mary loves a good party.' Marlene and Lily made vague noises of assent. But Dorcas tipped her head back and smiled up at the sun, her eyes sliding closed. 'I think I'm going to talk to Dom Fletchey at the party. About… things...'

The pronouncement, awkward as it was, was so sudden and so unexpected that both Marlene and Lily were wrenched out of their individual torpors and gaped stupidly at the witch. Clear-headed, temperate Dorcas proclaiming her feelings to anyone was a baffling image.

Dorcas seemed to read that in her friends' stunned silence and said, a little churlishly, 'He graduates in a week, so… I dunno.' She shrugged and wrapped her arms around her knees. 'I thought I might as well try. Got nothing to lose,' she mumbled.

Seeing that Dorcas was losing confidence, Lily jumped in to reassure her friend that it was a great idea. Someone should go home with a bit of the ole pep in their step, she thought when Dorcas sat up a few minutes later looking significantly more sure of herself. Lily's mind was already straying. If bloody only…

'What about you?' Marlene was sharp, lifting her hand off her eyes and angling her gaze towards Lily almost as if she could hear the redhead thinking about James Potter. 'What are you going to do?'

No one needed to ask about what.

Lily didn't even notice, but she adopted the pose Dorcas had just abandoned, arms hugging her knees to her chest. 'Nothing.' She breathed in deep and exhaled, crossing her eyes to watch the ribbon of hair touched to red-gold by the sun lift off her nose. 'Nothing… at… all…' The words were puffed out on a falling cadence like a sigh.

It was clear that Dorcas wanted her turn to do the reassuring, because she got up onto her knees, palms down on her thighs and looked attentive, mouth opening, as if she expected to be hit by a brainwave at any moment. Marlene rolled onto her stomach and frowned. Lily stared at the clouds and allowed herself to wallow in a sort of deliciously melodramatic defeatism for a short while.

There were a few minutes of silence, during which a fourth year a few yards behind them gave a little mumbled scream and threw her Herbology textbook into the lake in a panicked frenzy, and a bird winging its way across the water was snatched out of the air by a deceptively peaceful tentacle waving above the surface. Lily imagined she could hear the crunch as the giant squid enjoyed its afternoon snack.

Then: 'He has feelings for you,' Marlene said, her tone level. The witch didn't often give her opinion on things —she didn't believe in that, apparently —because she preferred to deal in facts. It made her quite hard to argue with. Now her words were precise and her eyes were trained unwaveringly on Lily's face and she was speaking as it were encyclopedic information. 'The kind of feelings you have, he has them for you as well. So what are you going to do?'

A few weeks ago Lily would have leapt through the roof at this. Now she only felt miserable.

After their conversation about Petunia there had been an unspoken truce between Lily and James; a delicate ribbon of accord. It was quite possibly an electric wire rather than a ribbon, but whatever it was, it was hung so heavily with unspoken words, confusion, longing and guilt that it was very, very fragile.

Since Wednesday their relationship had been that of casual acquaintances. Of course it wasn't really that, but 'casual acquaintanceship' seemed a good name for the light and easy façade that cloaked the indeterminable true nature of their relationship.

When they passed each other in the corridor, a slight incline of the head served as a greeting, and a closed off, impersonal smile. Perhaps an 'Alright, Evans?' or a 'Hi, James,' would be exchanged. At face value it looked as if Lily had reached the place she'd wanted to get to: a normal, casual relationship. It all seemed so normal.

But it wasn't.

It was terrible and wonderful. When she saw him she kept her hands close to her sides and tried to look at anything but him. But her hands would near ache to hold his, and her eyes would never be looking anywhere else but at him, and her gut would churn and she'd flex her fingers and grip her pullover in great fistfuls to stop from reaching out.

When she came out of McGonagall's office after her sacking, it was to find James lounging by the door, ready to serve a detention. He shot up when she came out, hands clenching by his sides, and they hovered there in tense, uncertain silence for a few seconds, both seeming to forget what it was they were doing. Lily thought she could feel the walls pushing in and she felt a pull toward him like a tide that the moon had forgotten about… and there was something in his face —something acute and longing and full of… of something that she was sure was written clearly on her own…

And then lucidity came upon her like falling through cracking ice into glacial water below. Mumbling something incomprehensible, although it might've been 'sorry', she darted from the room.

At breakfast on Thursday, Remus, sitting halfway down the table from her, innocently asked James if he could pass Lily the completed patrol logs for the fortnight. The Great Hall was close to vacant besides a few desperate studiers and early birds, and so Lily heard the question ring clearly through the empty space.

She sat very still, eyes upon her novel, acutely aware of every sound and movement that came from their spot at the table. He couldn't refuse. It'd be too obvious. She turned a page without reading it.

After what seemed an eternity of waiting, she saw James heave himself off the bench in her periphery.

'Remus says these are finished,' came the low, quiet voice from above her a few seconds later.

When she looked up at him their eyes caught and held a second too long, and something fizzed between them like a bicarbonate tablet dropped in water. Desperate for something safe to look at, her eyes flicked quickly down to the patrol logs. 'Thanks.'

So eager was he to get away that he dropped the papers before she had a hold on them, and, both muttering apologies, they ducked to pick them up. When their hands touched they twitched as if with static. His eyes flashed and her face flushed and they both swallowed and then he headed back to Remus at a near run.

They worst moment was on Friday morning, precisely four hours before Lily had flopped down on the grass by the lake. At breakfast, intending to attempt the crossword in the Daily Prophet, she had reached for a pen in the pocket of her blouse and instead pulled out Petunia's invitation. The sight of it lifted her stomach again as if she were free-falling on a rollercoaster. She flipped it between her fingers for a moment, tracing the words with her fingertips, and then, inexplicably, it burst upon her that it was due almost entirely to someone else that she had this blessed piece of card.

And very suddenly she just had to tell him.

He was in the Owlery with Peter —she had heard Remus say so. That's good. Insurance. One can't feel particularly romantic with Peter as chaperone. Abandoning Gen Clearwater, Aldora Finch and her scrambled eggs, Lily raced from the Hall. It took her less than two minutes to race up to the Owlery, but it felt like at least twenty. She took the steps four at a time and burst into the musty-smelling stone room. Despite the bird droppings everywhere and the constant murmur of screechy owl communication, Lily had always liked the Owlery. It was peaceful and earthy and somehow separate from all the drama that came with boarding school. But, boy, did it look even better with James Potter standing in the middle. He was trying to coax his tawny, Fergelina, down from her perch. Peter was nowhere to be seen.

'James!'

Her fingers tightened around the invitation. He'll be so pleased. Her voice, upbeat and eager, sent a ripple of disgruntled hoots around the circular room. A couple of grumpy screeches took off from their perches and swooped out of a window, shooting her baleful glares as they left.

James whipped around and his eyes widened as Lily approached him at a jog, waving the invitation. There was terror on his face. A defensive hand shot up between them, as if to ward her off. 'Lily, no —'

Her name cut through her as effectively as a chainsaw. She stopped dead, the smile dropping from her face.

There was a long beat of silence. James was looking at her as if she was something dangerous, both hands raised, palm forward to her, shoulders tense and body bowed backward. As the seconds passed he seemed to realise that Lily wasn't coming any closer and the hands fell to his sides. Maybe he could read the shock on her face.

When she located her vocal chords, Lily asked, 'What did you think I was going to do?' Her voice quavered. The hand holding the invitation clenched by her side.

'Lily,' he began again, hands open in appeal. Something akin to shame was on his face now. He took a step forward this time, but he stopped himself and hovered uncertainly a few yards away from her.

'I thought it was Evans to you,' she said, finding that she couldn't inject the right amount of anger into it. 'You thought I was going to kiss you, didn't you?' She took a deep breath and gritted her teeth. 'Have I —have I really been so underhanded as to —to make you think I'd do something like that?'

He didn't say anything; probably couldn't say anything. What was there to say?

'I thought Peter was here,' she mumbled. 'I'd never have come otherwise. Well —' maybe I would have, but I wouldn't have kissed you.

'Pete forgot his cologne, so he went to get it. He is —he has a pet rat, so he has to disguise the smell, otherwise his owl… tries to eat him…' James trailed off, probably realising that Lily didn't particularly care about Peter's mutinous owl.

By now the embarrassment was kicking in. A sick feeling of disbelief was roiling in Lily's stomach. I can't believe he thinks I'd do something like that. She needed to get out of there, quickly.

'I came to show you this. And say thank you.' The words were just words; Lily didn't really feel them. Pointing her wand at the card and muttering a hasty 'Gemino', she stepped forward and put the duplicated invitation on the ground between them. She'd had something funny to say; something about a request that James turn the whale Vernon Dursley into lipstick before her sister tied herself to him forever. She'd been trying out all the different intonations and variations of the joke on the way up the stairs, but she didn't know how to say it anymore.

James hadn't looked down at the invitation. His eyes were fixed on her face, and he looked for all the world as if he never wanted to look anywhere else, but Lily was so used to her own delusions that she didn't let it touch her. It was easy to see that he wanted desperately to tell her something, but wasn't able to, and Lily couldn't find the emotional energy to wonder what it was he wanted to say. So she turned —no pivot —and left him standing there.

She passed Peter coming up the stairs on her way out, smelling strongly and terribly of some cheap perfume, and she said rather fiercely, 'What's that you're wearing, Pete? Eau de Rodent?'

Sitting now on the grass in front of the lake, Lily could see the incident as if it were playing on a television screen in front of her. Marlene's voice rang in her ears. Those feelings you have for him, he has them for you, too.

She remembered other things he had said. We can't ever be friends. I can't let you get any closer than this. He had been right. They couldn't be friends, because there was always something more. Whether it was hate or… or something else entirely, there had always been too much between them for mere friendship.

'Lil?'

Dorcas was peering at her with gentle worry on her face. 'What are you thinking?'

Lily picked at a ladder in her stockings. Normally Dorcas would have slapped her hand away, but today the witch's eyes only followed Lily's destructive fingers, and she held her tongue. 'It's up to him,' Lily responded, almost to herself. 'He's got to decide what he —what he wants.'

Because, she thought, watching as the ladder suddenly expanded from a few inches to nearly a yard, it's frequently said that good things come to those who wait, but one never hears of what happens to those who don't wait. Or who were waiting, but just didn't wait long enough. And she had no intention of finding out.

At about five o' clock on Friday evening, Mary MacDonald got out of bed.

The other witches had relocated into the common room by this time; Scotland was still Scotland, and despite the lovely weather during the day, by five it was too cold on the hillside. They were sitting around the fire when Mary strode very purposefully down the stairs. Her face was pale, but her eyebrows were set with determination.

'Mary,' Emmeline said, startled. Four other heads shot up —and heads all across the common room, actually: Mary's self-immurement was quite famous by this point —and pointed in her direction.

'You got up,' was Lily's brilliant observation.

'This party isn't going to throw itself,' Mary said calmly - too calmly - shrugging into her jacket. 'I told Frances, Bernice and Frida I'd help and I don't want to let them down.' She was composed, but even from over near the fireplace Lily could see the manic gleam in her eyes.

'Oh dear,' she said anxiously as Mary powerwalked out of the portrait hole. 'She's going to drown her sorrows in party planning.'

Emmeline and Dorcas both nodded their heads, but Marlene only looked thoughtful. 'I suppose it's one of the healthier ways of dealing with grief. Imagine if we had two repressors in the dormitory! Good Lord, save us all.'

Summer decided to flee on Saturday. The morning dawned like it was roleplaying the winter solstice, but it didn't matter to anyone because exams were over. The cold didn't stop a group of Hufflepuff fourth years doing a celebratory nudie dash across the grounds, chased by a bellowing Hagrid, who was already furious because the lock on his 'household' creatures pen had rusted through overnight and a horde of bowtruckles, Cornish pixies, nifflers and hinkypunks had invaded his kitchen. The majority of the morning was spent by most with faces pressed up to the glass, watching a very naked Patrick Doggarty, Leon Hawke, Alvin Poacher and Albert Fletchey, Dom Fletchey's younger brother, play cat and mouse with the groundskeeper in the arctic courtyard. For those with better things to do, the morning was spent preparing for the biggest end of term party Hogwarts had ever seen.

To close every school year for as long as anyone could remember there had been four separate parties; one for each house. This time around, however, Frida Davies had, in a brief fit of brilliance, shown why she was chosen for Head girl. There would be only one party this year for all students of all houses, and, in an act of solidarity with the Austrian students, the theme was to be 'In the Face of All Adversity'. Each house would, for the night, adopt the name and colours of a Pferdefliege house. Gryffindor was officially Bockspringen; the students to be bedecked in the foreign house's purple and green. Although it was no doing of her own, Lily felt she had struck gold here, as purple and green were two of the only colours that didn't clash awfully with her hair.

Just as her dorm-mates had predicted, Mary had gone mad. She was a little brunette streak of manic lightening around the Gryffindor common room; a veritable terror with a five-foot checklist. She had enlisted almost every Gryffindor over fourth year into helping her with preparations, although 'helping' quite quickly disintegrated into 'pitiful and painful toiling under a ruthless dictatorship'. Lily didn't mind so much, though; she knew better how to deal with crazy Mary than the Mary with the blank eyes.

Something struck her as odd at about midday. 'Mary,' she said, pausing in her task of charming plastic goblets to flash the different Pfedefliege house colours, 'The party isn't going to be here in the common room, is it? The slimy Slyths wouldn't hold with that.'

'Of course not —why have you stopped charming, Lily? There's so much to do!' Mary's voice was that of muffled hysteria from behind the huge stack of tapestries she had heaped in her arms. 'It's in the Room of Requirement. Honestly, where have you been?'

For fear of setting Mary off, Lily didn't mention that she actually didn't know what the Room of Requirement was to begin with. The other witch stalked off, muttering something like, 'and look at all I'm doing for her… in for a shock, I tell you…' which struck Lily as a terrifying thing for Mary to be saying. She didn't have much time to dwell on it, though, because soon the taskmaster was back with one of the Wicked Witch Whips that Lily hadn't managed to confiscate, and was cracking it with the battle cry of 'Maximum productivity!'

James had been trying to catch her all day, but she managed to avoid him each time. At one point he almost cornered her in the stairwell going up to the girls' dormitories, but she desperately shoved a gallon of punch mix into his stomach and ran off, calling, 'can't talk now, James. Busy, busy,' behind her.

It was Dumbledore's hundred and seventh all over again: by the time it came to go to the party that night, Lily just wanted to sleep. Mary, on the other hand, had even more energy than before, and as they trekked through the corridors with the other party-bound students on the way to the Room of Requirement, her eyes were burning with an unholy fervor.

'You are going to have a fantastic night, Lily,' she said briskly, straightening Lily's blouse. 'Just you wait.'

'What are you doing?' Lily asked worriedly, recalling Mary's earlier prophecy that she would be in for a shock. 'Mary, what does that mean? You don't have another plan, do you?'

'Of course not,' Mary cooed reassuringly in a voice that said 'we both know I'm lying, but there's nothing you can do about it'.

Marlene, who was currently in the throes of a heavy crunk and had eyes like fire directed at Mary —'I take it back, Evans: I'd much prefer two versions of you,' —had just explained the function of the Room to an enthralled Lily. When the redhead had fully grasped the concept, she couldn't help but cast her mind back to the hundreds of goblets she had spent her second last day of her second last year at Hogwarts charming, appalled. Cautious as she was not to set Mary on edge, she couldn't help but to have a gripe.

'The Room is great for practicalities, not themed parties,' Mary responded squarely. 'When you want something done perfectly, you've got to do it yourself.'

Lily thought that this was probably not the case, but didn't bother correcting her.

The moment they walked into the Room —equipped with a fully functioning, permanent door for the purposes of the night —Lily split from her friends and dashed off. It wasn't anything personal, she explained to a disgruntled Marlene when she was discovered later on, but if Mary had anything sinister planned for the night, Lily was going to be as far away from her as possible.

It was only once she had taken up residence in a little alcove on the first floor that she took in the scene before her.

The Room had produced what she supposed was a three story, circular ballroom. It reminded her vaguely of the Coliseum, or a theatre: an impossibly high ceiling hemmed by three levels of balconies, all looking down on a circular, wooden-tiled dance floor. The lighting was dim, pierced with brightly coloured charmed candles that gave the strange effect of both fairy lights and strobes. Music was already pounding from odd-looking speakers —tricky contraptions that combined electrics and magic —that were rigged upon the pillars at different intervals. All the speakers were connected to a turntable on the first floor, operated by Margot Jordan, who looked as though she had no idea how she had gotten the job. A huge disco ball was suspended from the roof, catching the light of the candles with which it was looking incredibly at odds. Students were clustered in small groups across the levels, looking around in awe, still in that slightly awkward beginning-of-the-party-and-no-one-wants-to-be-the- first-to-have-riotous-and-embarrassing-fun stage.

Of the lovely theme Lily could see very little. Besides the banners hanging from the pillars which proclaimed the Pferdefliege houses —Bockspringen, Maibaum, Huckepack and Bohnenstange —and a smattering of students who had made an effort to dress in their new house colours, the party that stood 'in the face of all adversity' really just seemed like any other party, except candlelit. It's nice, though, Lily thought; refreshing, to see the Houses together for something like this. Hogwarts against the world.

At length, when she had been assured by Francis Doggart that Mary was on the other side of the dance floor, Lily crept up to the third floor, where she found Dorcas and Emmeline. The three girls set up a network of informants across the level: if Mary was to even begin to approach the third floor, she would be informed that Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew were turning the finger food on the ground level into large and rudely spoken insects.

Insured now against Mary, Lily began to thoroughly enjoy herself. The tiredness she had felt at the beginning had been painted over by the electric thrill of loud music and even louder voices. There's something about a party that makes you more confident, she thought, maybe two hours in, nibbling on a cocktail sausage as her friends mulled around her. Chatter was more animated and excitable than usual, the dim lighting seemed to flatter every skin tone, and under a disco ball one could dance as if they had the coordination of a prima ballerina. At about ten o'clock, Dorcas, fortified by many a sugary drink, stood and fixed her eyes upon Dom Fletchey, who was with his group of mates on the other side of the level. She smacked her lips together, straightened her skirt and said, 'wish me luck,' in a very firm voice.

Emmeline, Lily and several other witches who had joined them watched in rapt anticipation as Dorcas marched around the level, broke into the group of lads and pulled Dom bodily away. Something about a party makes you daring, Lily considered, watching as Dorcas led a confused but grinning seventh year down to the dance floor.

Emboldened by Dorcas's bravery, Emmeline stood up next. 'You know, I think I'd actually like to have a chat with my old pal Vance.' The girls, wide-eyed, crowed their encouragement as Emmeline, smoothing back her hair, walked straight past the great idiot Adam Prescott on her way to find Friedrich.

'It's you next, Lily!' Gen Clearwater, who had by this point consumed more than recommended of the heavily spiked punch, grabbed ahold of Lily's arm and shook drunkenly. 'Go find your man.' The fifth year then led the witches around her in a rousing chant of 'Get him! Get him! Get him!'

With no Marlene to start up some wonderfully acerbic chant of rebuttal, and unable to get them to shut up, Lily very quickly went 'to find the loo'. Halfway down to the first floor, however, she saw Mary weaving her way to the foot of the staircase. Shit, bugger, go, go, go. Bumping into at least three slightly tipsy third years —disgraceful, honestly, they're only children —Lily raced back up the steps. Through a door halfway across the level a sliver of night sky could be seen and she made an aggressive beeline for it. The double doors opened up to a little balcony —Lily wished she could have been standing in the grounds below the castle that afternoon as the Room was refurbishing itself; to see extra balconies popping up like spots on the side of the castle would've been awesome —but this particular balcony was thoroughly occupied. Sirius, Remus, and a few other Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff lads were clustered along the railing, leaning over the edge with cigarettes and drinks – most probably a tad harder than butterbeer —in hand.

'Oh, really,' she said, so annoyed that she didn't pause to think how very rude the exclamation was. This was supposed to be my hiding place.

Despite her rudeness there was a general hubbub of greeting; Remus gave her a smile that was half-agony, Douglas offered her a plastic cup of firewhiskey, and a very drunk Lance Boot slung his arm around her shoulder and told her that she was very beautiful, even if she had red hair.

'Evans,' Sirius said, smirking, tapping his cigarette on the railing. Bits of ash fluttered down into the grounds below. 'Here to bust up the party as usual?'

'Sirius. Killing yourself as usual?' Lily fired back, peeling Lance's arm off her shoulders. 'Why would I want to bust that up? By all means, keep smoking and drinking.'

'Ohhhhh!' the boys all hollered in unison, slapping Lily on the back and poking a grinning Sirius in the gut. A Hufflepuff who she was sure she'd only ever spoken to twice in her life gave her a great smooching kiss on the cheek.

Marching away from the frisky Hufflepuff she peered around the door, trying to keep in the shadows. Just across the level Mary stood talking to Frida and Bernice Higgins. Bugger.

'Hiding from someone?' Sirius's eyes were narrowed. As always, Lily couldn't tell whether the look was predatory or humourous.

'Yes, if you must know,' she said, stepping hurriedly back onto the balcony. 'Mary's got something planned.'

'You could join the lads,' Sirius proposed with a grin that said quite clearly he didn't think she'd be game to take up the offer. 'We're real good at hiding.'

To be completely honest, Lily wasn't game to hang around with a bunch of drunken sixth year boys, but Andrew, Lance and the Hufflepuff Lily didn't know very well heard Sirius's proposal and started up an earsplitting chorus of 'Join the lads! Join the lads! Join the lads!' and, worried that Mary would hear, she hastily agreed.

This actually isn't so bad, Lily thought maybe half an hour later. The first thing she had done was to apologetically relocate a Ravenclaw boy and take his place next to Remus, one of the few left sober. Remus didn't much like parties, but he was quality company, so Lily didn't mind his occasional grousing.

Soon, however, the lads wanted to dance. Lily didn't want to dance; on the dance floor she would be an easy target for Mary's scheming. When the lot of them, an apologetic Remus included, bundled themselves from the balcony a few hastily cast sobering and freshening charms later, she was left alone in the cold night air. As the last boy stepped foot off the balcony, it shrunk until it was a cosy little platform, big enough just for Lily.

As she sat there alone, she thought about going to find Marlene and the others. Loneliness bit at her for all of three seconds, until she realised how pristine and untouched the grounds looked at nighttime. The peace and stillness of this idyll of a balcony beckoned her for a moment.

It was almost meditative, that small eon she spent alone in the cool night air with the summer and the whole of her life ahead of her. The muffled noise of the party behind her was oddly comforting, and when she got too cold, she touched the tip of her wand to the railing so that a small section began to glow bright orange. When she got up to leave, it was regretfully —

—and it was to find a wide eyed someone watching her from the doorway. James Potter was hovering uncertainly, obviously undecided about whether he should approach or leave.

'James?' Lily tried to keep her voice even, but even then the word flicked up nervously at the end. 'How long have you been there?' She clasped her hands together in front of her skirt.

Clad in purple trousers and a pale green button up, he was the most wonderfully terrible thing that Lily had ever seen. His cheeks were flushed from dancing, his eyes were bright behind his glasses and his hair had been lacquered severely back. Had been: even as she watched, a hand came up to displace what had once been meticulous order.

'I came to find Padfoot and —Sirius and Remus,' he said, looking semi-stunned to see her. Of all the luck: he comes to find his mates and gets me instead.

Clasped hands tightening, Lily nodded. 'Were you with Daisy?'

'She's with her mates on the dance floor. I said I'd only be a few minutes.' He paused for a long moment, eyes flicking across her face. 'I've been trying to speak to you. All of today and yesterday.' Then his eyebrows rode high up on his forehead. 'I've got a corker of a bruise from that punch mix you threw at me.'

'I gave it to you, I didn't throw it,' Lily said, dismayed. 'Sorry about that. Mary had a whip.'

He probably would have inquired as to why, but at that very moment Lily noticed that the door behind him was gaping open. And through it she could see Mary walking straight toward them. Still about thirty feet away, the schemer hadn't seen Lily yet, but it was only a matter of seconds. 'Quick,' the redhead hissed at James, 'get in, get in!'

Thoroughly surprised, the wizard didn't move for a second, and so in a moment of desperation she grabbed the front of his lovely, carefully pressed shirt, pulled him onto the balcony and pushed the door shut.

Within seconds she was right where she shouldn't have been. Because the Room of Requirement always did as required.

In the second it took them both to inhale with shock, the balcony they were standing on shrunk to the size of a small coffee table. And Lily and James were standing almost chest-to-chest, alone in the biting cold. The stunning gravity of the moment didn't hit Lily for a good few seconds. As she waited for the shock to set in, an absolute, deafening silence buzzed in her ears like white noise. Surely this was a bad dream. I'll wake up in a second. Any second.

Then a voice cut through to them. It was Mary MacDonald's muffled voice, right behind the door. Her voice rose and fell indistinctly, although Lily could hear her own name punctuating the sentences like gunshots. When the dialogue continued —Mary appeared to be talking to Milena Digby, Hogwarts' greatest conversationalist —it became clear that she wasn't moving on in a hurry.

Outside, silent and frozen with tension, the two Gryffindors were standing so close that Lily's nose was almost touching James's chin. With each exhale, his breath shifted her fringe off her forehead. They were standing so still that she could feel every single fibre of his clothing that was brushing against her. When Lily's neck tilted as organically as a hippie famers' market to look into his face, his eyes were vast and his breaths were coming short. The movement of her head brought their lips so close that to move an inch either way would be to kiss. She was terrified, and so was he. She didn't quite know why he was terrified, but she was terrified because she had never wanted to kiss him more. It would only take the tiniest of movements...

'Lily,' he mumbled, dragging his eyes away from her mouth. The movement of his lips almost brought them in contact with hers. 'This is so bad —'

'Shh,' she breathed, forcing her head down, away from his lips. 'It'll be worse if Mary finds me.'

But it couldn't have been worse: it wasn't possible. With her head turned down like this his warm breath washed over her neck, and now there were goose pimples racing up her arms like wildfire. Lily could feel where his fists were clenched inflexibly into his purple trousers because they were touching her fists, knotted in the material of her skirt in the exact same way. Every time their fingers brushed a jolt of static rushed through her entire body. There was a good inch or two of space between them but she felt as if they were touching all over.

Panic rose in her like a wave: a few more seconds of this and surely she'd forget about Daisy. Surely she'd forget about honesty and guilt and doing right by Botticelli angels and dark-haired, bespectacled wizards. About doing right by herself. With everything inside her, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed Mary to move on.

And, just like a miracle, the tone of the conversation outside the door changed to indicate it was coming to a close. A last few short words were traded, and then they heard the click of Mary's heels as she turned and left.

'I think she's gone,' Lily whispered unevenly in the direction of James's collarbone. A shaking hand reached out to push the door open. Stepping away from the warmth of his body was somewhat akin to waxing her whole front surface in one go, but she did it, and she peered around the door. Mary's hairdo was bobbing down the stairs to the first floor. As soon as the girl was out of sight, Lily half-tripped out of the balcony in her desperation to get away from the personification temptation.

'Lily?' It was Milena Digby, standing next to the doors with a pimply Slytherin boy, gaping at Lily in surprise. 'Were you in there the whole time? Mary just came past looking for you.'

'Right, thanks,' Lily said distractedly. James had just emerged from the balcony, walking slowly as if wading through mud. Scrubbing a weary hand across his face, he looked a strange mix between shell-shocked and desperately tired. 'Yes, sorry, Milena,' she said stumblingly, scraping her hair back with an anxious hand. 'What did Mary want?'

Milena's eyes were flicking eagerly between the stunned-looking James, standing by the door, and the white-faced redhead. 'She told me that if I saw you I should tell you that everything's in place.'

This had Lily's full attention. 'What's in place? Did she tell you what she's doing?'

'Lily,' James said wearily. 'Daisy's alone on the dance floor. I should–'

'Wait, James,' Lily stopped him desperately, holding up a hand. 'One second. Please. What is she planning, Milena?'

The Slytherin girl shrugged. 'Not sure. She said it'd be entertaining, though. Said we should watch from the balcony in a few minutes time.' Milena frowned. 'Actually, that was a few minutes ago, wasn't it?' For confirmation she looked at her pimply companion, who looked miserably indifferent about the whole thing.

Not bothering to thank Milena for her time —she'd probably receive her dues in the gossip she could generate about James, Lily and a balcony —Lily raced to the railing of the third floor and looked down.

All looked normal. Wreathed in a transparent film of smoke, the dance floor was pulsing with movement. Teenagers bumped and grinded —ground? Lily wondered vaguely —while miniature fireworks sparked over their heads. The disco ball, spinning above them all, sent shards of silver light skittering across every surface.

But…

What is that?

Her eyes focused in on something on the edges of the floor, in the shadows. She squinted. It was made of strong, straight lines. Some sort of furniture? Then she noticed another, even stranger thing: the dance floor was clearing. Even through the haze one could see confused students shuffling off the floor, blinking their eyes as if emerging from a trance.

'Why are they leaving?' James asked from behind her, bemused. Lily hadn't heard him approach. 'That must have been a strong-tasting fart.' Then, frowning, he said, 'Daisy's still there.' He pointed. 'There in the middle.' The dance floor was nearly clear, aside from a small group in the middle and a few stragglers on the edge. Lily could see a head of curly hair in amongst the last few determined dancers. Daisy was dancing with her friends, looking like the Angel of Discotheques in her spangled silver blouse and a jean skirt. A cold feeling washed over Lily.

'I think you should probably get her out of there,' she said, her voice croaking in her throat. 'I have a really, really bad feeling about this. Look —' tugging on the elbow of his shirt, she directed his vision to the thing in the shadows ' —can you see that? What is it? You've got glasses.'

James squinted. 'It looks like…' He straightened up with surprise. 'Is that a catapult?'