Author's Note: Hello! this fic is not abandoned after all! I am gonna continue to update, but very slowly (hopefully faster than two years, but I'm a college student, so who knows) and I am so grateful to anybody who is still reading. Of course, reviews will speed up updates. I'm excited to be back. Thank you to Tara for the beta-read, as always.


RECAP
Mulciber has been scheming all school year, and even though Lucius Malfoy wouldn't back him up, he is still investigating the secret passage, and sets up his own plans with former housemates. Niamh somehow knows when he's figured it out, and warns Julie, telling her that somebody is going to get killed. Meanwhile, Julie dumped Sirius, and has since taken up with Will Preston, although they seem to want different things. James and Lily are each frustrated, with each other and with everyone else.

XVII. Willow

This was nothing James hadn't done before. The dark corridors of the castle were like a second home, the shortcuts were second nature, and the small night-sounds were softly reassuring. Julie followed him, precise and economical in her movements. That was unfamiliar. Occasionally he would turn, with a joke on the tip of his tongue, and bite it back; he was expecting one of the boys and instead it was Julie. In the darkness, her pale eyes shone in an unsettling way. She was following his lead, but it was like having a jackal at his heels: he might just as easily have been prey.

How long can a secret stay secret? He pulled out the Marauder's Map. All of his secrets felt very close to the surface. All of this came down to last spring, when Sirius had tried to kill Snape. Since then his life had done nothing but unravel.

"Where did you get that," Julie said in a low voice.

"Secret," he said. Just to piss her off, because nothing would be secret for much longer.

She scowled at him. Then walked into him, because he had stopped, in the middle of this sixth floor corridor, having located the two of them on the map.

"Scottie," he said wearily. "What the hell."

She craned her neck to look over his shoulder. He pointed. Just half a hallway behind the two dots labeled J. POTTER and J. FRASER (which he happened to know was the last name she had chosen, not been given at birth—it was really very clever of his charm to figure that out) was a third: W. PRESTON.

"That's your problem, Fraser, and you need to deal with it quickly, because the moon is going to rise."

She looked at him funny. "So we'll have light to see by."

Unraveling. He just stared at her, feeling an uncertainty that she must have seen, because she frowned before stepping resolutely into the center of the corridor.

"Preston!"

There was a pause, and then Will came out. He had just ducked into an open classroom door, which, while pretty much the same tactic James and Julie had just been using, still seemed amateurish. James had had the Cloak since second year, and the Map since fourth.

"What?" said Will, already on the defensive.

"Mind your goddamn business, wankstain," Julie fired off.

Christ, James thought. Sirius dating Julie had made him deeply uncomfortable, but at least Sirius could handle her better than this. If you wanted any respect from Julie, James had learned that you could not let her see that she had gotten under your skin.

But Will was still stubborn. "We need to talk."

"Sure," she said, "we can talk in the morning."

"No! You're not getting away from me again—"

"Watch it, Preston," Julie snarled. "One shag and I can still get away —"

"That is not ," Will started, his eyes flicking to James, clearly embarrassed. James folded his hands behind his back, trying to look interested in the wall. He was itching to move on. The sickness had come on a little earlier than usual this month; Remus had already felt bad over the weekend. His hands had been shaking around his mug at breakfast.

"I just want to know what you're doing," Will tried.

"With you?" Julie said, "Nothing."

Will flinched. "You are so," he paused, "Callous. It's been less than three weeks. You were broken up with Black for what, two days? before you went after me, and now you're sneaking off with his best friend?"

Julie took a step forward. "I am not fucking James , you shithead, and if I went after you, you made it pretty fucking easy, didn't you?"

"Enough," said James, because he could see Julie's fingers twitching, because quiet, stubborn Will was beginning to actually look angry, but most of all because he was looking out of an east-facing window, and suddenly, over the darkly looming hills, the moon bounded into view.

So, that was it. Remus was out there, and either Lily had found Sirius and given him the warning in time, or she had not. Lily, clever Lily, must have done a better job than he and Julie.

"Come with us," said James curtly. "I don't care what's going on with you and Julie, but we need to go now, and you can come along or go back to the tower but do it now."

Julie shot dagger eyes at him.

"I'll come," said Will.

And they set off again.

"I'm pretty sure we've talked about not messing around with anyone on the team before," James murmured.

"That is so irrelevant," Julie replied. "You nutcase. You asked Marlene out in fourth year."

James didn't rise to the bait. That had been a desperate ploy to make Lily jealous, and Julie knew it.

He had done a lot of stupid things over the years. Every once in a while, he promised himself that he would do better. Most of the time he just wondered what stupid thing he would do next.

Last spring he had saved Snape's life. Most of the time, he was sure that was the right thing to do. Every once in a while he wondered.


When they got to the Entrance Hall, Lily peeled out of the shadow behind the Gryffindor hourglass. She registered Will's presence but fixed her eyes on James.

"I gave him the note," she said.

James' shoulders sagged with relief.

He had a method for opening the front door which involved a paperclip as well as a nonverbal incantation. Lily was peering over his shoulder, but Julie and Will hung back, neither looking at each other. At least, Julie wasn't looking at him. He could go to hell.

She had avoided him for no reason other than awkwardness, but the comment about James rankled. She would never have sex with James; he was her friend. The implication that she would treat James the way she was treating Will made her furious.

This was one of those moments where she thought, Oh. I'm a bad person , and then pushed it away.

The great doors swung open, and the grounds of Hogwarts rolled away below them. A cool breeze pushed at them and pulled wisps of clouds across the magnificent full moon.

And over behind the greenhouses, the Whomping Willow cast a wild, thrashing moonshadow.

James turned to Julie. "Listen, Scottie," he said. "I need you to follow my lead. This could get…this could get bad. Don't do anything terrible. Please."

It was James' second please of the night. Julie inclined her head in unwilling agreement.

As they approached the tree, they all saw the figure in front of it. Will must have figured out something by now. That he was wrong, at least. Mulciber was standing with his arms lifted, wand extended, eyes fixed on the willow's flailing branches. Little swirls of dust were picking up around him.

"Get your wand out," Julie heard Lily whisper to Will. She kept looking up at the castle windows, as if unable to believe that no one up there was watching them. But most of the lit up windows were on the sixth or seventh floor, and Julie knew that most of the faculty offices, including Dumbledore's, faced the Quidditch pitch or the lake.

James paused for a moment, visibly readying himself. He glanced from one corner of the grounds to another before he called out.

"Mulciber!"

Mulciber spun around. It was hard to read his expression in the dark, but he hesitated. Then he said, in a voice full of teeth, "Potter. You should be able to help me."

"I can help you," said James, "by telling you to go inside, now. "

Mulciber sighed theatrically. "How does this passage open?"

James drew his wand. "Get back," he said. "Give up. Whatever you're planning, it won't work."

"It will," said Mulciber, drawing his own. "You're not going to stop me. And you're not either," he added, nodding to Julie. "Not after all this...

"After all this...?" Julie repeated, drawing the phrase out. Anger sharpened her voice to a knife slice. "All this what? All this sitting in a dungeon with Regulus Black? All this wanking off to posters of Grindelwald? What, exactly, have you accomplished?"

There was a beat of silence. James threw Julie a sidelong glance.

"You bitch ," said Mulciber. "You don't know shit. Change is coming whether you like it or not—a new world order, with people like you on the bottom."

"I know you're a halfblood, Mulciber," Julie said.

Mulciber raised his hand to point accusingly. He was actually shaking. "That's not the point—it's about how you think. It's about how you live—and you—you would never understand. This whole place, Hogwarts, it's rotten—rotten to the core—and it's going to be torn down and rebuilt, remade for people who are willing to really use magic, not pussyfoot around with Muggles and Mudblood legislation—"

"My god," said Lily softly, "you're actually mad."

Mulciber trained his wand on her and shouted, "Tell me how the passage opens!"

Bang. A jet of yellow light flew from James' wand, and Mulciber jumped to dodge it.

And you told me not to be reckless, Julie thought, but all she said was "Fuck, Jamie!" as she rushed forward to cast a Stunning Spell.

And then the small group of people erupted into chaos as Mulciber, James and Julie all dived for each other, Mulciber ably firing jinxes in both directions. Julie barely registered Lily moving around to her side, looking for a good angle, and Will didn't seem to be doing anything. She shot off another Stunner, and nearly hit James.

"Will, go back!" Lily shouted, "Get McGonagall!"

"No!" Mulciber shouted. He aimed another hex at James, who fell to the ground and rolled to avoid it, and then pointed his wand towards the castle, towards Will. There was a burst of white, a noise so loud it was almost silent. Somebody screamed. Julie was thrown into the air.

She came down hard, slamming onto her tailbone. Winded, it took her long seconds to scramble to her feet. Mulciber was ahead of her, running as fast as he could towards the gates. She started to follow. Even breathless, she was faster than him, she knew she should be, but he was too far ahead. Her head hurt.

No, she thought, No, no, he was so close to the gates now, he was tapping on them with his wand. From the inside they were stupidly easy to open, but Mulciber was stupid. There was a bright shock of light, he recoiled, she was racing towards him. And then he cast another spell, and Julie, struck, stopped running and shot a hex at him. She had thought only of getting her hands around his neck. And then it was too late; he was through the gates. He turned to look at her, and then turned again and Disapparated.

Julie bent down, hands on her knees, breathing hard. Under her breath she whispered a swear.

Pause. The afterimage of that explosion was still burned on the backs of her eyes. Also, lights were coming on in the castle. How odd that finally, after all his sneaking around, people would notice Mulciber only when he left. And why had he left? This was not the first time he had been in a fight, why had he run from this one?

Julie turned and started to jog back towards the Whomping Willow. The three other Gryffindors were arranged in a tableau, one standing, one kneeling, one lying on the ground. Julie slowed down as she approached them.

Lily was standing, and James was kneeling, and leaning into her a little bit. She had her hand in his hair. Will was lying on the ground with one arm thrown over his face.

When Julie got close enough to see that James was crying, she stopped and said, "Get up."

Lily opened her mouth to speak but made a small, uncomfortable noise instead.

"Get up," said Julie, and then, to Lily, desperately, "Why won't he get up?" and she might have been talking about James as much as Will, because James was still on his knees, crying, and she had never seen him cry before.

"Julie—" said Lily, "—Julie—"

Somebody's going to get killed , Niamh had said, but Julie had thought she was going to stop that, not watch it happen. Not make it happen. Will's eyes were wide and staring, and he was still and empty in a familiar way. Julie didn't kneel beside the body, she didn't touch his face or close his eyes, because James was there to do that. She stood next to Lily and felt a reeling horror in her mind, a sense of something detached long ago that she was only now realizing was gone.

The front doors opened, and light poured out onto the lawn.


There were no chairs in the hallway outside Dumbledore's office, so Lily sat on the floor, and Julie leaned on the wall. James had been brought in by himself, and there was no clock in the hallway either, but to Lily it seemed that they had been waiting interminably.

Professor McGonagall had brought Will's body inside. Neither of them knew quite where she had taken it. There had been a cluster of students in the Entrance Hall, wearing pajamas and confused expressions, and more than one professor trying to shoo them back to the dormitories.

Lily sat with her arms wrapped around her knees. She could tell that if she did not hold onto herself very tightly, she would start shaking. Julie, on the other hand, looked loose and relaxed. Her face was vacant, and the fingers of one hand were lightly tapping on the wall.

Neither of them spoke until the door opened. It was James. He looked pale and upset, and he gestured them both inside the office. Lily scrambled to her feet.

Professor Dumbledore sat behind his desk, grave and magisterial in a rich red dressing gown.

"Miss Evans, Miss Frazier," he said calmly. "Please, have a seat."

There was only one chair across from his desk, but he twirled his wand and it turned into three. The three teenagers sat down.

"I wonder if either of you have anything to say," said Dumbledore. "Mr. Potter has explained most of the story to me, but I would like to hear your ideas about what happened as well."

Lily looked over at James. "Did you tell him about Niamh?" she asked. She was remembering the time when they had seen Mulciber threatening Niamh in the hallway. James hesitated, then nodded jerkily.

"What's going to happen to Mulciber?" Julie asked.

The headmaster considered her over his half-moon glasses. "Caius Mulciber will be expelled from Hogwarts," he said, "and if he is found, he will most likely be arrested. He is an adult, and has broken wizarding law." He paused, and then said, "Most of the evidence against him is based on Mr. Potter's word. I wonder, if the matter were to come to court, would you be willing to serve as a witness?"

Julie looked at him sideways. "I'm not sure," she said. "I'm not sure I know very much myself."

"I see," said Dumbledore.

Can she say that? Lily wondered. Wouldn't she have to testify, if it came to that? But who would be there to press charges, she couldn't say. Will's family—someone would have to tell Will's family. Good god.

There was a long silence before Lily mustered up the courage to say, "I...I don't understand. What was Mulciber doing? Why was Will with you too? Why..."

And then she trailed off, unwilling to accuse James of anything with Dumbledore listening in. But James understood, and nodded. "Why didn't we get someone who knew what they were doing?"

Lily shrugged. "Well...yes."

Dumbledore let out a small, rueful sigh. "It is my belief that Mr. Mulciber was attempting to avail himself of one of the secret passages into the school in order to bring in two so-called 'Death Eaters,' two men who have spent the last three weeks living at the Hog's Head Inn. For what purpose, we can only surmise; however, it is safe to assume that their intention was to harm some members of the faculty, or of the student body. As for why Mr. Potter did not alert someone of a higher authority than yours, the impulse to protect your friends, James, is admirable, although in this instance quite misplaced."

He looked James in the face, with an expression that was not quite reassuring, not quite forbidding. It was as if he was trying to forcibly steady his student, using the strength of his gaze like a physical touch. But James could not meet Dumbledore's eyes; he looked at his lap, gray-faced. Lily felt a pang of pity through her confusion.

"Miss Evans," Dumbledore said, and Lily quickly turned her attention back to the headmaster. "Why did you leave Gryffindor Tower tonight, after curfew?"

"Potter asked me to," said Lily, automatically, before realizing how stupid that sounded. "I mean, they asked me for help. I thought I was just gonna deliver a note to Sirius Black, but then, after I got there...I guess I just wanted to know. I wanted to know what was going on. That's...I mean, yeah."

"Miss Frazier?"

When Julie looked up, her eyes were shadowed. Her hands were folded in her lap, and something about the way she held herself made Lily think of a stone statue in a church, a gray Virgin Mary standing in prayer. Her voice was tired and thin, but the words were clear enough. "Because," she said, "I know Mulciber hurt Niamh, and I wanted to find him out and get him back."

Dumbledore looked at her for a long time. He looked at her like he didn't know what to do with her, like he had been trying for a long time. Lily glanced back and forth between them. Then Dumbledore spoke again, to James.

"Mr. Potter—you will have to speak to Mr. Lupin."

James turned white. "Sir, Professor, why? Is Remus in trouble?"

"Not at all," said Dumbledore, "although I am sure this night will nevertheless give him some undeserved regret. But Miss Evans and Miss Frazier deserve to know the full story of what happened tonight, and parts of that story are Mr. Lupin's to tell. Ask him to do so; knowing half the truth will prove more dangerous than knowing the whole truth."

James nodded slowly, as if this directive was hard for him to come to terms with.

Dimly Lily registered that she should be burning with curiosity. She was on the edge of James' secret, the Thing about his friends, and she didn't even care. Guilt and numb misery coiled in her stomach. Will, a boy her age, her housemate, was dead.

"There will be no additional punishment for the three of you," Dumbledore continued. "However, I can not impress enough on you the value of asking for help. Professor McGonagall and I, as well as the rest of the staff, are here to keep our students safe. A student died tonight. A tragedy of this scale has not taken place on Hogwarts grounds in many years. I have failed at my job; we all have. You are all nearing the end of your Hogwarts education; you have all been trusted with some authority. If you wish to work effectively against Dark wizards, and if you wish to join the fight against Voldemort that I fear will not be over by the time you three graduate, you must begin to realize that you are on the same side as your teachers. You cannot solve every problem or fight every villain alone. Continue to be vigilant, but be more cautious. This must not happen again."


"I'm a werewolf."

All six of the teenagers gathered in the Gryffindor Common Room looked bad, but Remus undeniably looked the worst. A thick, woolly dressing gown was wrapped tightly around him, and he clutched in his hands a mug of lemon juice, honey, and hot water. His shoulders were hunched, and his expression wretched.

Telling Remus about Will had been one of the hardest things James had ever done. It was so close to what James knew to be his friend's worst fear. And to tell him in front of Sirius and Peter, to tell all three of them at once, seemed not quite respectful, but at the same time James did not want to tell the story more times than absolutely necessary. And so he had told all of them, and Peter's stammered expressions of horror had allowed Remus to silently think the whole thing through, while Sirius simply went blank-faced and pale. Lily and Julie hung back, waiting at the edge of the round common room, and it was Remus who went over to them, brought them to the fireplace, and said quite simply that he had something to tell them.

"What?"

"I thought so."

Both spoke at the same time, Julie shocked and Lily calm.

Remus smiled weakly at the latter. "Yeah, I thought you might have figured it out."

"They let werewolves go here?" said Julie, and although her voice was not accusatory, Remus flinched.

"There's safeguards...there're supposed to be safeguards," he said. "That's why there's a passage underneath the Whomping Willow."

"Mulciber was right," said Julie, and instantly she was interested in that, already over werewolves. She was like a hunting hound, keen on one scent at a time.

"About that...yeah." Remus sighed.

"So you use the passage at the full moon?" Lily asked. It was surprising to James that Lily could be curious at a time like this, but then none of the information was new to him. Lily, lovely Lily, sad and softly thoughtful, was curled up in an armchair, trying to make sense of this new and harder world.

"Yeah."

"And the rest of you...go with him?"

James glanced at Sirius. Don't tell. Sirius raised one eyebrow. He liked to keep secrets, no matter what the reasoning—James knew he wouldn't tell. And Peter looked to James, following his lead.

"Yes," said Remus heavily. "They...help me."

"How?"

Now Remus looked to James, just for a minute. "Moral support," he said.

Lily obviously felt sorry for Remus, and she didn't press the point.

Julie was still hunting. "So why did Mulciber know about the passage?"

For the first time, Remus' expression changed. His eyebrows drew together, and the mouth, which had been slack with exhaustion, tightened. He looked over at Sirius.

"My fault," said Sirius, without emotion. James felt his face tighten as well, mirroring Remus.

"It was a long time ago," said Remus.

"It was a year ago," said James. Sirius' shame was James' shame too, and James did not shirk from admitting his own mistakes. It was one of his most dearly held principles. On very few occasions in his young life had James failed to apologize when he judged it necessary (although he could be very stingy in his judgement) and those few occasions rankled deeply. In this case, however, James had done everything he could to make things right. He wished they could all move on.

The hound had caught a new scent. Julie had one thin, pale eyebrow raised, and she leaned forward in her seat. "Please, tell us more," she said, with a thread of delight running through her voice.

How she could feel that, now, James could not imagine. He was filled with a rush of disgust at his two friends, his two brilliant, brave friends. They could both be so cruel.

To his credit, Sirius did not sidestep. "I told Snape about the passage," he said, "because I wanted him to get hurt."

Against his will, James felt his eyes drawn to Lily, trying to gauge her reaction.

"I told him how to get in," said Snape, "and I told him to go on a full moon."

"He would have been killed," said Lily, and then, "Remus would have killed him."

James did not look over at Remus.

There was a pause. "Yes," said Sirius, "he would have."

"James pulled him out," said Remus quietly, when Sirius didn't seem able to move on. "But he had seen me—transformed. Dumbledore talked to him. I never really expected him to keep it a secret, and now I guess we know he didn't."

James was still looking at Evans, like he couldn't stop, and when she turned towards him he still didn't look away. Her eyes were burning holes in him. It was a shock when Julie spoke.

"So...why, exactly, did he do that?"

Sirius raised his eyebrows. The phrasing of the question did not quite make sense to James. Finally, he realized that his best friend was not going to answer, and he was expected to.

"Julie, it was just...it was a stupid joke."

"A joke," Julie repeated, blinking her pale eyes. She looked from James to Sirius.

"Yeah, a joke," Sirius said. He was lounging in his chair as if he found the entire conversation unnecessary.

"But the intent was to kill," she said.

He didn't answer, but that was an answer.

"Fascinating."

Sirius, who had been studying the ceiling, lowered his head to look at her. "What?"

"It's just interesting," she said, "to know what you're capable of."

"My god," he said, in a revelatory tone, "you are such a slut."

The right corner of her mouth went up in a smile. This was familiar territory. "That's not what you said when—"

" Stop ," James choked out, and they actually did. He was twisted up with misery and shock and fury, and he wanted to say something else, but nothing would come out. He stood up and started to pace, eating up the room with his long strides.

Lily curled herself into an even tighter ball.

Remus looked as if he were stifling the urge to throw up.

As James paced, he thought, and the more he thought, the easier it became to recognize the burning sensation in his belly that drove him to keep pacing. It was anger. This shouldn't have happened, he thought. You should have stopped it. Sirius shouldn't have started it. It was his fault.

"This is your fault," he said.

Sirius' attention snapped towards him. "What?"

"This is your fault," James repeated, drawing himself closer to his best friend's chair, wrapping himself in righteous fury like a comforting blanket. "You were the one who couldn't keep a secret, and you were the one who turned this all into a stupid joke! You were the one who fucked up!"

Sirius stood up. "Fuck you," he said in a low, controlled voice, "fuck you for pretending you didn't egg me on, fuck you for pretending that was all my idea, fuck you for always acting like you know what's right, fuck you for putting this on me!"

"Preston is dead because of your fuck-up, Padfoot, you killed him instead of Snape, I don't have to put anything on you, you did it yourself!"

"Preston is dead because of her , you arsehole!" shouted Sirius, and he flung out an accusing arm toward Julie, who stood as well, leapt to her feet, and slapped him soundly across the face. He staggered back.

"Don't you dare," said Julie, pale eyes flashing, "don't even...don't talk to me, you..." She gasped for breath, overcome by emotion.

Sirius pulled out his wand. Everyone who had not yet stood up, did so.

"Stop," said Lily, and then, gaining volume, she repeated herself. "Everyone, stop! You're being idiots, there's no point to this!" She had drifted in front of Julie, clutching her wand at her side, not yet raising it, but her expression was resolute.

All at once, in the middle of the most frightening night of his life, in the middle of the worst fight James had had with Sirius in a year, a pang of horrible, yearning admiration shot through him. He sort of hated himself for it.

Sirius, who felt nothing so soft and shameful, looked at her murderously.

"Do not ," he hissed, "get in the middle of this, Evans, this is none of your business —"

"Sit down," James shouted, "SIRIUS, PUT YOUR WAND AWAY AND DON'T FUCKING THREATEN—"

"PROTEGO!"

As he landed on his arse, James reflected that, without meaning to, they always underestimated Remus.

"I won't be used," said the underestimated boy. His voice was quiet and a little sad, but his wand arm was very steady. The Shield Charm he had cast bisected the room, with himself, Sirius, and Peter on one side, and James, Julie, and Lily on the other. "James, you did your part, and you know that I'm grateful. The rest of that is between me and Sirius, and I've forgiven him. Don't make it about you. Sirius, stop being a dick, you're not the first person in the world to be dumped."

Sirius looked daggers at him, and then at everybody.

Very slowly, Julie sat down, neatly rearranging her robes. Her face was catatonic.

"I'm not making it about me, Remus," said James, keeping his voice calm with great effort. "I'm just. Not happy."

Sirius interjected. "You weren't this angry about it when it actually happened!"

"No," James fired back, unable to restrain himself, "because we didn't actually kill Snape! I wish we had!"

Lily let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a hiccup, and James suddenly deflated. He sank onto one of the couches and put his head into his hands.

"I didn't mean that," he said to the floor.

"Of course you didn't," Julie replied, so drily that nobody could tell whether she was being sarcastic or not.

The room was quiet for a long, long time. Sirius, like Julie, seemed to be retreating back into himself. His gaze drifted slowly downwards until it came to rest at his feet.

"What now?" said Peter. He looked to Remus. Remus looked to James.

"I don't know," said James. "Everything's up to Dumbledore now, I guess. What...I mean. What would there even be for us to do."

"There'll be a funeral..." said Remus softly.

After another, shorter pause, Peter said, equally softly, "Think 'mgonna turn in." He turned and slouched over to the boys' staircase, dejection obvious in every line of his frame.

"Sirius, you coming?" said Remus, clearly trying to take one of the more volatile characters out of the scene. Sirius nodded and then followed his friend upstairs. The Shield Charm dissolved behind them.

Julie was still standing, still and shocked. Lily, who had pulled herself together, looked at her for a while before coming over to the couch James was sitting on, and, to his surprise, sinking down next to him.

Ever so carefully, she placed a hand on his shoulder, then slid it down to the center of his back, behind his heart. He felt it beat into her hand.

The moment seemed as precious as glass, and he felt like a clumsy idiot. But he couldn't help himself; he relaxed into her and turned towards her touch, resting his head on hers, and she did not pull away.

"What now?" said James, echoing Peter exactly. Julie turned towards him. In the dim, flickering light of the fire, she was as tall and unreadable as a statue.

Ever so carefully, Lily moved her hand, smoothing small circles into his back.

"We keep living," she said.


It took a week for Julie to get ahold of Niamh. First she had to get ahold of herself, and then Niamh was avoiding her and everyone. Like a moth, she excelled at camouflage, and she arrived in class just after the bell and then left right before, sitting in the back, skipping meals, even staying away from the dorm. Julie did not know where she slept, some days. But she was persistent, and finally caught up to her in a fourth floor corridor, after the last class of the day let out.

"Niamh," said Julie, "can we talk?"

Niamh stopped dead in the middle of the corridor. She held her hands clasped in front of her and looked at Julie out of the corner of her eye. "Of course," she said, after a moment.

"Not here."

"Oh."

They continued down the corridor until they found an empty classroom. Julie resisted the urge to barricade the door, and paced. Niamh stood, clasping her hands again, head down.

"Can you explain something to me?" Julie asked.

"Most likely."

"Siobhan."

Niamh's whole body was violently still. Her posture was that of a penitent school child, but from another angle, Julie saw her like a knight, standing guard with his hands folded over the hilt of a sword. In the aftermath of violence, praying.

Niamh was not going to say, What about her? Or, in fact, anything at all. So Julie had to talk more.

"I know she must have known what Mulciber was planning. And I'm guessing that she talked to you."

Niamh tilted her head. With her light blue eyes she looked right at Julie.

"So you're putting me on trial?"

"What? Niamh, I just want you to tell me. What did he want from you? Did you help him with his plan? How did you know what to tell him?"

Niamh blinked a few times. Her gaze wandered around the room.

"I told Siobhan I wouldn't help him," she said finally. "I'm not…I'm not like that. I don't like him."

"Yes?"

"But…I did. He hurt me. She asked me to."

Julie had never liked Siobhan very much, but there was something in Niamh's voice, when she said she asked me to , that made Julie shiver. Something dark and very twisted hid inside those small words.

"How did you help him?" Julie asked after a pause, making her voice as gentle as she could.

"I told Siobhan about my dreams."

"...What?"

"I dreamed about the passage, and then I told her about my dream."

Julie shook her head in confusion. "But, Niamh, that doesn't make any sense—dreams don't just come from nowhere."

Niamh's face faltered. She stepped forward and Julie stumbled back. "Then where do they come from? Where do the dreams come from? "

Julie spluttered. "I—what? Niamh, what dreams? "

Niamh looked at her sorrowfully. "Dreams. Visions. Don't tell anyone, Julie."

"Don't tell anyone what?" Julie demanded, although the dim shape of the truth was starting to rise through her confusion.

"I thought you were asking me," said Niamh, slowly, "because you already knew."

Julie looked at her, frowned, opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. She shook her head. "Sorry."

"That's all right," said Niamh, very formally. "I understand now. You see, I don't choose what I know. Sometimes it comes to me, and sometimes...well, sometimes I'm just as blind as the rest of you."

"I just—I feel like, if you had explained yourself a bit better, earlier..."

Niamh nodded, looking at Julie with her solemn, big blue eyes. Julie could not hold her gaze. Her stomach prickled with shame.

"I know," said Niamh. "It is my fault that Will died. But not, maybe, any more than it is Mulciber's fault. Or your fault. Or Potter's."

"That's not," said Julie, choking on her words, "at all what I meant to say, Niamh." Although it was, more or less.

"We all have to live with ourselves," said Niamh quietly. "Or, you know, not...I don't do anything. I just see."

See-er , Julie thought. Seer . Another frontier of the imagination, after six years at Hogwarts, when she thought there weren't any more. Another myth that turned out to be real magic. Sirius or James, she thought, would not have taken nearly so long to figure Niamh out.

Still, her principles held. "Nobody doesn't do anything," she said stubbornly. Action always spoke to Julie. She had no respect for passivity.

Niamh just looked at her. Calm, still, her hands once more folded in front of her. She was a knight again, a lone figure, keeping watch.

"Everything comes around," she said, finally. "Everyone gets something, in the end."

She tilted her head, and added, "If that's any comfort."