Chapter Five: At-Least-Get-A-Believable-Lie-From-James-And-Almost-Certainly-Get-Caught (or Maybe it's Time to Stop.)

After the disastrous veritaserum incident of Saturday morning, Lily had received no less than 48 suspicious glances from Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew. And it was only Sunday. It was clear they were on to her, and while they may not have evidence that she did something illegal and highly questionable (and technically she hadn't, because like all her plans so far, it had failed), they were watching her like three lions stalking a zebra. Or three determined Gryffindors stalking a smaller, redheaded Gryffindor. There was absolutely no way she would be able to try with the truth serum again.

She was beginning to feel like the whole thing was pointless. Why should she care about what her misguided peers were up to on their nightly escapades? It was none of her business. And it was distracting her from her schoolwork, her friends, and her life.

That's right. She had wanted to be distracted from her life. She wanted to be distracted from the friend who was gone.

She sat in a corner of the library, having sought out the peace in an attempt to distract herself via a productive method instead of a wild potter-chase. She was failing in this attempt.

Discarded to her right lay a half-written transfiguration essay for Monday. To her left sat a stack of untranslated runes, due on Tuesday. Thrown on the floor in frustration were several crumpled sketches of a Fire Crab's inner workings, the last in a collection due on Friday, each missing some integral part thanks to her current inability to concentrate. Just under where her head had slumped in despair laid her many (many) notes on the Potter-goose chase, and the many (many) lists of ideas which she had failed in implementing.

It was a sorry sight, and her loud groan of annoyance scared off Matthew Turner, the 7th year Ravenclaw who had just turned the corner in search of a quiet place to study. His tripping over one of the dozen discarded balls of paper on the floor in a frantic hurry to escape the crazed Gryffindor awoke Lily from her haze of self-conflict.

There was just no way around it. She needed to know.

That night, there was a disagreement in the sixth year Gryffindor girl's dormitory. It occurred shortly after Lily Evans departed once more on a mission for the truth or blackmail (hoping to find either in the sixth year Gryffindor boy's dormitory). The disagreement was only indirectly about what Lily was doing that night, and pertained more to general obsession she had about this mystery, and whether it was going too far. Mary MacDonald thought that it had become detrimental to Lily's health, Jasmine Shafiq thought that they should wait and see, Robin Fawley thought that it was at least getting Lily's mind off a certain Slytherin, and Marlene McKinnon decided that something should be done but didn't know what.

Lily herself was not part of the discussion, despite being the subject, so it was unbeknownst to her, that her friends decided that if it continued they were going to have to intervene.

While her fate was being debated by her worried roommates, Lily was snooping around, poking her pretty (prefect) nose where it certainly didn't belong — under the bed of James Potter.

It was there she found something that explained several things, why the boys were never tired after being out all night, the missing ashwagandha and roseroot, scientifically known as rhodiola rosea, both necessary ingredients when you're secretly making sleep restoration potions in your dorm. It was with that knowledge that Lily concocted her new plan.

Get-Truthful-Answers-From-James-And-Not-Get-Caught 2.0, had the unfortunate probability of getting caught, and the unfortunate possibility that the answer got would be a believable lie rather than the actual truth. So she wasn't sure it really deserved the 2.0 rating, but really, at this point, she was too lazy to come up with a new title.

Taking their supply of sleep reviving potions was the easy part. Confronting them she was less keen on.

"Why were you in our room last night?" Potter asked abruptly, when Lily cornered him alone after Charms on Monday.

"How'd you know I was in your room?" She said, thrown by the fact she had already been caught.

"I saw you," he said simply, rubbing his long nose awkwardly under his glasses.

"Does that mean you were there? Do you not actually leave? Are you practicing invisibility charms or something?" She rapidly asked, stunned by that information.

"No, no. I didn't actually see see you. I saw you on–" he stumbled for the right word– "on, er, never-mind. You're avoiding my question. What were you doing there?"

"I– I have–" she paused under his gaze, suddenly not wanting to have this confrontation at all. She reminded herself that she wanted to know. She wanted to know. She needed to know. "I have your, uh, potions. And I, um, I'll only give them back once you tell me what's going on."

"Bloody hell Evans." She winced at his harsh tone. "Why? Why are you incapable of letting this go?"

"Why are you incapable of telling the truth?" She retorted, but her heart wasn't in it. She knew he was right, and she shouldn't be blaming him for her obsession with his secrets. He clenched his fists in frustration at her, and turned his face away.

"If it was just me Evans I would," he ran a tense hand through his messy hair, "I would tell you. I would tell you everything you could ever want to know. Because yes, I keep secrets, but what I find so impossible to do is to keep secrets from you. Even now, I'll tell you anything you want. Anything, except this. I can't tell you this Lily, and every time you ask it gets harder and harder to refuse. But I have to, and I'm pleading Lily, for the love of Merlin stop. It's not just my secret to share."

Lily opened her mouth then closed it again, and if James had been in a better mood he would have perhaps seen a resemblance to a fish who was lost for words. They stood there for a while, Lily gaping silently, avoiding his eyes, James slowly tearing his hair out.

"I should get to class," she finally said, "I'm late for ancient runes."

She wasn't late for ancient runes. She didn't have that class until the next day. In fact they both had free periods at that moment, while the NEWT Divination and Arithmancy classes took place, but neither felt the need to point this out.

It was Thursday before she spoke to James again. It was a simple interaction, Lily asked him to pass the potatoes at dinner, and in return he requested the peas. They both mentally noted how tired the other looked.

Lily was still yet to return the potions and ingredients she had taken from the boys' dorm, though she had spent many a night sleeplessly wondering if she should. She wasn't sure how much of their argument he had told his friends. She wondered if she'd lost Remus' respect. She'd certainly lost her own respect.

That night, while she brushed her teeth, even the mirror noticed how tired she looked.

"Someone's in need of a good night's sleep," her reflection commented, "you're ruining my complexion, look!" It pulled at the dark circles under her eyes. Lily flicked her wet toothbrush at it.

When she came out of the bathroom the dormitory was empty. She sat down on her bed and looked at the collection of vials that were causing her so much trouble. She thought about what the mirror had said, and impulsively grabbed one, pulled out the stopper, and sipped at the potion inside.

Almost immediately she felt better, and she hated that she felt better.

She was trying to distract herself by finishing her Fire Crab diagram for Care of Magical Creatures when Mary came in. A good thing too, because it was looking more like a squid than any tortoise shelled crab she'd ever seen. She waved her pitiful homework at her friend and said "Help!"

Mary smiled and joined Lily at the end of her bed, pulling out her own crab diagram and handing it to Lily for reference. Mary's drawing was impeccable and labelled flawlessly. Lily tried her best to copy some of the details onto her own page.

When Lily's hand gave up she turned to her friend and admitted "I've made a complete mess of things Mary."

"Look, it's not the best diagram of a Fire Crab I've ever seen, but it's not a complete mess," said Mary, tilting her head at the drawing, trying to ascertain which end was the head. Lily gave a little laugh.

"No, not the drawing." She paused. "The whole thing with James, and– and where they go at night. I got so caught up in the mystery of it all, and I went too far."

She told Mary about her schemes and plans, and she told her about what James had said, and how it was stuck on replay in her head and she still couldn't work up the courage to give up.

Mary didn't interrupt while Lily spilled, nor did she press for details, she was good like that. Capable of not knowing things. She was also good at giving advice.

"I've actually been meaning to talk to you about this, Robin and Marlene and Jas and I, well we all noticed that this mystery thing was getting a little out of hand. So I've been doing some thinking about it, but first, I'm really glad you've, uh, realised. I definitely think that you should try to stop, and I'll be here to help you try and forget about it," Mary smiled carefully at Lily and gave her friend a one armed hug. "I know that this started as a distraction itself, and I know I encouraged you, but I'd say now is the time to let it go. Before things really get out of hand."

Lily nodded. "I should apologise as well, shouldn't I?"

"We can work up to that, eh? For now, let's eat some Chocolate Cauldrons. I stocked up last Hogsmeade weekend!" Mary stood up and went to her trunk to fetch the chocolate, which Lily accepted gratefully. "Firewhiskey chocolates are the best for troubled times!"

They sat like that for a while, munching their sweets in contemplative silence. Mary was the first to speak.

"Would you mind if I posed a theory to you?" She said, tentatively, "I don't want you to take it the wrong way, but I've been thinking about why you've been so obsessed with this Potter thing. Because usually you're pretty curious about things, but this was a whole new level. I just want you to think about this."

"Uh, sure?" Said Lily, curious about Mary's thoughts on the matter.

"I know that you say you can't stand him, but this fixation on knowing what James Potter is doing, well you don't think there could be another reason, other than the fact that you want a distraction or you're worried about Remus?" Lily opened her mouth to protest but Mary held her hand up. "Just hear me out. I know that for a long time he was horrible to Snape, and that you were close to Snape, so there was this big reason you had to hate him, and that consciously you still hold that grudge, even though Snape isn't in the equation any more."

"My dislike of Potter is perfectly valid, even though Severus has… Changed, their actions towards him were perfectly unreasonable, and he's still accountable for them even though Severus… Severus is–" Lily broke off and Mary took the opportunity to continue.

"But maybe unconsciously, you've realised that they both changed, and that James now is someone you might want to get to know. But you feel like you owe it to the Snape you were friends with, who is gone, to hold this grudge against James. And maybe you've become so invested with this mystery because it allows you to get closer to him without betraying this outdated sense of loyalty to someone who ended up being a worse friend than the boy you declared your enemy."

Mary said none of this accusingly, her tone was calm and clearly only posing this as a possibly, but somehow that made Lily feel even worse.

"James Potter is an arrogant, selfish, piece of dirty fabric not worthy of a house elf. Maybe he'd never insult my blood, but I– he– I don't want to be friends with him."

Mary frowned, but said nothing. Lily looked down at the labelled flaming squid shaped drawing in her lap. She didn't really think that about James. She wasn't sure what she thought about James anymore.

"But you're right," Lily conceded, "about the stopping, and apologising. I went overboard, and I need to let it go. I can let it go."

"You can," agreed Mary.

Lily apologised to four boys the next morning, returning their potions as early as she could. It was stilted and uncomfortable (not least because she'd woken half of them up), but it was sincere. And this time, when she said she would keep her nose out their business, she meant it.

Her eyes met James' hazel ones, and she whispered another "I'm sorry," just for him, before turning away and going to meet Mary for breakfast.

Later that day she journeyed around the castle to tell her painted friends to forget about the mission she set them on. It was a therapeutic way of letting go, especially as none of them had found anything so there was no real temptation, until she came to Gifford Abbott. Gifford had something to tell her. He repeated a story one of his fellow secret passage guardians had told him, when he had spread the word about Lily's quest. This portrait, said Gifford, recalled being opened in the middle of the night by a mysterious invisible voice, and had suggested it could be the person she was after.

This new information was tantalising: invisibility, sneaking around secret passages, she was sure that questioning this portrait, knowing where it was they were going, would lead straight to the answer she sought. So it took all of her willpower to turn away, and let the chance for truth slip away like Potter through a secret passage.

A lil bit of angst (definitely not the last)

As always I hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you think!

Your Ravenclaw author