VII. The Post, or Memento Mori

Dear Mum,

Everything's fine. We lost our first Quidditch match. I finished the Collins and the George Eliot. I am sick of novels.

Love/miss you, etc, etc, etc.

Julie

PS Stop worrying about me.


If Marlene had not wanted to talk to Lily after the Quidditch match, Lily would not have stayed up late. If Lily had not stayed up late, she wouldn't have slept twenty minutes past her alarm. If she had not slept in, she would not have had to rush getting ready. If she had not been in such a hurry, she would have paused before she banged the Fat Lady's portrait open, and if she had paused, she might not have knocked James Potter off his feet.

He was picking himself up off the ground, only mildly disgruntled, as Lily stepped neatly through the portrait hole.

"Oh."

He looked at her, slightly incredulous. "Oh?"

"Um, I mean, sorry," she muttered.

"No problem," he said evenly. She had caught him off guard, for a moment—she did that a lot—but then he closed something in his face, like drawing curtains, and Lily could almost think she had imagined his surprise. He seemed so immediately at ease that she wondered if she was imagining the awkwardness between them as well.

She had gone almost a month without talking to James at all, and part of her wished she could continue in the same way for the next two years. She hadn't, in fact, had a proper conversation with him since the Hogwarts Express in June—she wasn't sure if that counted as a proper conversation. They had run into each other in the corridor, and then—she could have seen it coming—she found herself shouting at him. Later, she had cried.

Lily turned without another word. James, to her frustration, began to follow her, hands in his pockets, whistling softly. She wheeled around.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going down to the Great Hall for breakfast," he said innocently. "Aren't you?"

She didn't respond, just turned and walked down the corridor. It wasn't, she reflected, as if she could be angry at James all the time. There were plenty of obnoxious boys in the world.

He was thinking of their encounter on the train as well. He had known perfectly that she had been about to cry, and he had thought, with that miserable egotism particular to fifteen-year-olds, that it had been entirely his fault—that he had made Lily Evans cry.

(He hadn't, of course, or at least not entirely—there was Sev, who had tried to talk to her yet again, there was Marlene, whose indignation had been entirely unhelpful, and when they wore off there was always Petunia—there were quite a number of people Lily would cry for before she cried for James.)

"How's your arm?"

"My what?"

"Your arm," she said impatiently, "the one you broke yesterday."

"It's fine, thank you," said James politely.

Lily turned, heading for the staircase to the sixth floor, and James caught her, putting his hand very lightly on her shoulder.

"This way is faster," he said, almost apologetically, and she looked at him distrustfully, but followed him to a tapestry which he lifted, ushering her through to an unfamiliar set of stairs. They emerged, to Lily's surprise, in the Charms corridor.

"Actually," he said, coming to a stop, "there is something I wanted to say to you."

Lily had stopped at the same time; now she rolled her eyes and started to walk again. "I shouldn't have let you get me alone."

"Evans—I wanted to apologize."

"Whatever for?"

"Well, for being—you know, for being such an arse."

"Just in general," said Lily archly, "or is there a specific incident you're referring to, Potter?"

"Yes, of course there's a specific incident—the—the thing."

Lily came to a halt once more. "Which thing? There have been a lot of things."

"Merlin, Evans, couldn't you even try to make this a little bit easy for me?"

"You," said Lily, "don't deserve that. And I," (turning into the next corridor) "don't want to talk about it. Are you sure this is actually a shortcut? Because we're taking an awfully long time to get to the Great Hall."

"Are you doubting my navigational abilities?" asked James rather stiffly.

"More like your navigational—desires," said Lily, "don't make that face at me, that came out wrong."

"Please. I can't believe you would cast those kinds of aspersions."

"Potter, do me a favor?"

"Depends on what it is."

"Please stop talking."

"Ah," said James. "That, I'm afraid, is not possible, even for you, Evans. Besides, you just can't think of anything clever to say."

"Oh, yes," said Lily drily. "Your wit is truly overwhelming."

"I'm glad you acknowledge it."

She let out a small puff of air. They had finally reached the last staircase, and as they entered the Great Hall Lily slipped adroitly between two Ravenclaws without a word to close their conversation. No one in the room would have thought they had walked down together.

Marlene was talking very loudly, hands waving in the air.

"So I said, I'm sorry Bertie, but I don't see why that means I have to go out with you—Hi, Lily!"

"Hey," said Lily shortly, sitting herself down next to Julie. She seemed to have been chewing on a fork in a meditative way for the entirety of Marlene's story, and she flashed Lily a quick smile, very glad for the distraction.

"You're late," said Julie, "again. Why do you keep being late to things? It's very unlike you."

Lily reached for the bacon. "Well, somebody kept me up until one in the morning talking about—"

"—secret girl things," cut in Marlene, "and then I felt sorry for you and turned off your alarm. I thought you would be grateful."

"You turned off my alarm?" said Lily, very alarmed indeed.

"I'm a girl," said Julie at the same time.

"Yes, dear, we've all noticed," said Marlene. "Shall we talk about your love life now?"

The post announced itself with the soft rustle of many wings, and Julie didn't bother to retort—she was looking for the familiar light brown feathers of her barn owl.

And there he was, brown paper parcel clutched in his talons. Ariel wobbled a bit as he landed, nearly upsetting Lily's goblet.

"Watch it," said Lily absently, detaching her copy of the Daily Prophet. "Oh...oh wow."

Marlene looked up from her own snowy white bird. "What happened?"

Lily put five bronze Knuts into the small pouch tied to the delivery owl's leg, and it flew off, ruffling Lily's hair with a sweep of its wings. Lily paid no attention; she had leaned back and was frowning as she read the front page, eyes moving very fast.

"What is it?" asked Marlene, more urgently.

Lily folded the paper and pushed it across the table. "Why don't you just get a subscription?" she asked.

"Because I can read your copy, obviously," said Marlene. "What was the...oh."

Julie rolled her eyes. "Read it out loud, you prat."

Marlene cleared her throat. "Suspected Death Eater Found Dead," she read.

"Aludra Black was found dead in her Chelsea apartment in the early hours of the morning, Ministry sources reveal.

The 48-year-old has long been suspected of illegal activity, although she was never convicted of any crimes, writes Rita Skeeter, junior correspondent for the Prophet. Popular opinion linked Black with the 1973 murder of Isabel Crandall, then Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but these rumors have never been addressed—nor have those pertaining to Black's several large donations to the Ministry at the time. She was implicated in the 1975 killings of several Muggle families as well, apparently working with several of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's followers, but she was never tried.

Black was found in her bedroom, with her throat cut. Although the cause of death was non-magical, "a wizard definitely killed her," says an inside source. "She had loads of defensive spells around every entrance to the apartment. There's no way a Muggle could have gotten through."

"She certainly had enemies," continued the source. "I can think of plenty of people who would want to kill her."

No suspects have been yet taken in, according to Ministry officials.

Continued on page 17.

Marlene looked up. "Weird—why would someone kill her like that? Is it supposed to be revenge, for the Muggles she killed?"

Julie's thoughts were running in a different direction. Almost without trying, her eyes flicked down the table. Sirius was using his wand to shoot bits of scrambled egg at Remus, who was trying to have a conversation with Eliza Brock, the fifth-year Gryffindor prefect, and kept absentmindedly brushing the breakfast food off his sweater. None of them seemed to have read the newspaper. She wondered if Sirius would care that he was one family member fewer.

"What's in the package?" Marlene asked her, and Julie turned back to her own mail.

"It'll be from my mum," she explained, "just books, probably."

There were five, plays and poetry. There was also a note.

Dear Julie,

What multiloquent letters you send me. It's such a reassurance to know that you are doing so well.

No more novels...for now.

Margaret.

Julie folded the piece of paper in half, in quarters, in eighths. When it was smaller than her thumbnail she tucked it in her pocket.


In the break between History of Magic and dinner, Julie scribbled off a quick thank-you for the books and went up to the Owlery to send it. She didn't want to send letters. She wanted to talk to her mother in person. Not even to ask her questions—she just wished for her mother with an almost physical want.

She pushed open the door. The owls were beginning to wake from their daytime sleep, and she was greeted by a few angry screeches. Someone was standing at the window, and he turned at her entrance.

It was Sirius Black. He was holding his own letter, a small parchment scroll, and his own owl was perched on his finger. Julie stopped in her tracks.

"Aren't you going to close the door?" he asked. "One of the owls might fly out."

"I didn't think they were that stupid," said Julie, but she obliged and closed the door behind her, stepping fully into the room.

Say something, you moron, she thought, but her mind had gone curiously blank, so she just called for her own owl.

"Ariel!"

Ariel fluttered down to perch opposite Julie—he almost never landed on her finger right away—and eyed her distrustfully. She put her finger behind his feathery little knees—or whatever they were, she wasn't very bothered about avian anatomy—and he climbed up, hooting dolefully until she stuck the folded note into his beak.

Then she had to turn back, and go to the window and send Ariel off, and Sirius didn't really get out of her way, so she put her hand on his arm as she leaned over the broad sill.

"Who're you writing?" Sirius asked, busy fastening his scroll onto the leg of his very elegant great horned owl.

She waited for the bird to spread its wings and take flight, circling once above their heads and heading over the Forbidden Forest before she answered. "A friend," said Julie, who thought writing to her mother was remarkably uninteresting. "Boyfriend, actually," she added, and then, thinking of Ian, "ex-boyfriend, really."

Sirius raised his eyebrows.

"You?" asked Julie, thinking about raising her eyebrows as well and then instantaneously deciding that would look ridiculous.

"My cousin," Sirius said after a pause. "Andromeda."

"I thought you hated your whole family." Everyone knew that Sirius Black had Family Trouble—it was hardly a secret, not with him in Gryffindor and his little brother in Slytherin, their occasional spat insults in semi-private, the fights with each other's set of friends. For a short second she thought he was going to shout at her as well. But then he just shrugged.

"I hate most of them. 'Dromeda's all right."

Julie bit her lip and nodded, and then, because she very much wanted to know her limits, "I read about one of your relatives in the newspaper today."

He already knew, that much she could tell, but nothing in his face changed as he watched her. "Dear old auntie Aludra, yeah? Not a great loss."

She wanted him to know more than that, and to tell more, but she didn't want to ask.

"Why's your owl named Ariel?" he asked.

It was a rather weak attempt to change the subject, she thought, but she told him. "It's from Shakespeare. 'I come to answer thy best pleasure; be it to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled clouds, to thy strong bidding task—Ariel and all his quality.' The Tempest was—it was my favorite play when I was eleven."

She was a little embarrassed of this. It seemed now to be a remarkably silly name for an owl, and a remarkably silly play. Besides, it was utterly inaccurate—the barn owl hardly ever came to answer Julie's best pleasure; he was an irascible bird, and she an irascible girl.

But Sirius surprised her by looking at her sideways, a little awkward himself, and saying, "I read that when I was eleven too. I used to spend a lot of time in the Muggle library, before I got to Hogwarts."

"Really?" she asked, face breaking into a smile, and then she was going to say something else, and then someone screamed. Shattering, piercing, and close—no words, no thought, just pain.

A girl was screaming, just outside.

Julie and Sirius stared at each other for a moment (they were almost precisely the same height) and then they both ran, banging the door of the Owlery behind them, leaving a cacophony of hoots and shrieks and a few downy feathers floating in their wake.

She was still screaming, she would not stop, and they almost could not tell where she was, until—"This way," Sirius gasped, and they were off again and for a moment he grabbed at Julie's hand and she almost stumbled and they ran until they turned a corner and the horrible shriek was over. And there was someone lying on the floor, and two someones turning the corner, just a flick of black robes. And Sirius ran after them, and Julie nearly fell to the floor, skidding awkwardly down to her knees, to the sobbing girl.

"I don't remember," whispered Niamh Fairchild, hiccuping, letting Julie awkwardly lift her shoulders, before she could even ask the question—

"Who—Niamh—shit, oh my god, who was it, who attacked you—"

"I don't remember, said Niamh, looking up with her baby blue eyes. "Julie, really, I don't remember...I don't remember..."


"Out, damned spot," she demanded of the empty room as she scrubbed. It was ink, however, and not blood, that she was washing from her hands, and Margaret Fraser knew the difference perfectly well—ink was much harder to remove.

Alec was right, she thought. I'm not being sensible...

She went back to the table and once again dipped the quill in the inkwell. It was Amy's quill, one that she had neglected to take with her, and Margaret could see why—it was spattering hopelessly.

My dearest, she wrote.

Sweetheart.

If this letter should find you, or you find this letter...