Part Two: Secrecy

Chapter Seven: An Answer, an Argument, and an Inability to Tell the Truth

James Potter had always been secretive. He might not have seemed like it to others, being fairly outgoing and friendly, but he loved keeping secrets. When he was young he would pretend that the family cat was talking to him, and together they would go on secret adventures around the house, eavesdropping and snooping. When, inevitably, at age 6 his first big broomstick ricocheted into a cabinet of potions he enlisted the help of their house elf to tidy it all up. He had been thrilled to find that his little secret went unnoticed, especially because he wasn't meant to have been flying inside. He didn't purposely go out of his way to break the rules, it had just so happened that his father's posterity workshop was the perfect width for concentric circle flying (if only those bothersome pots and cauldrons hadn't been in the way).

He had also convinced their house elf to sneak him chocolate frogs and other treats occasionally, and once a month they would sit together and eat Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans until he felt sick. He once 'borrowed' his mother's wand to try to make a secret passage from his room to the kitchen which had only resulted in a small fire and a couple broken picture frames. Nothing he couldn't clean up before his parents noticed.

He absolutely loved pulling pranks with the Marauders and watching everyone's stunned expressions as they puzzled over it. He revelled in refusing to tell people how they had achieved it. He even kept secrets from his friends. It had taken several years for him to tell them that he fancied Lily Evans (although they apparently had already figured it out and had assumed he had just been in self-denial).

But he knew from experience that when people found out about secrets they got annoyed. So, regrettably, he knew exactly why Lily Evans was shouting at him.

"How could you have thought that this was a good idea?"

"Woah now Evans," James looked around at the once again busy common room where she had cornered him, and decided that damage control was the best course of action despite his annoyance. "So maybe I did something stupid –"

"Something stupid?" James winced at the loudness of Lily's voice. Despite how often it seems to happen with them he knew that she didn't actually like public scenes and confrontation. He also knew she'd regret it later. So would he. Unless he could keep his annoyance at her insistence under control, which definitely wasn't easy. He took a deep breath and tugged on his hair.

"Okay," he conceded, "Several somethings stupid. But you can't know the whole story–"

"Yes of course. I can't know." Lily waved her hands in frustration, wand dangerously gripped in her hand and shooting out puffs of steam with every new flourish. "So you told me for months and yet here I stand. Knowing."

"No, Merlin, I mean–" James clenched his teeth and lowered his voice. "I meant that, while you clearly know something, there's no way you know everything, and I would really rather not do this in front of every other Gryffindor and his pet toad."

"Then oh dear," she enunciated with a pointed stare. "It appears we're in a stagnant stalemate."

"Lily, please," he said calmly, trying not to react to the obvious references to his animagus form. But bloody hell how could she know?

As she brandished her wand at him he realised too late that his efforts to remain calm just infuriated her further.

James dodged the spell Lily cast at him, a tricky little hex which hurled into an innocent 4th year standing behind him, turning the poor girl's ears bright purple. Her friends quickly hurried her out of the common room when her ears started spewing bubbles.

"Throwing hexes in the common room, really! Aren't you a prefect Evans? Shouldn't you try and set a better example to the students?" He returned a spell of his own, revelling briefly in the act of duelling before she deflected it off and he came to his senses.

"You're a Quidditch Captain, you should know better just the same as me!"

"Funny, I don't recall that being in the job description," he smirked, "I think the title says it all. I'm no prefect, I just captain quidditch."

Another hex was hurled his way which he dodged quickly. The bystanders behind him were more prepared this time and parted so the hex hit only the wall, turning the splattered patch of wallpaper where it hit a rather nasty shade of blue.

"Evans. This is not the place."

"Not the place to tell you that I think you're an absolutely pathetic person with an outdated ego the size of an erumpent?" Lily inundated each word of her crescendoing insult with further spells, which in her anger, luckily for James (and the innocent Gryffindors behind him), only spluttered out the end of her wand ineffectually. "Not the place to say that you're a complete fool who dangerously breaks rules because he needs the attention?! And– and that I hope a Hebridean Black dragon decides to eat you!"

"Strangely specific Evans," said James with a smile, as he expelliarmus'd away her wand. "I'd prefer the Chinese Fireball m'self. Now, do you think we continue this intriguing discussion about which dragon should devour me outside? I'm not sure the first years should hear the gory details."

"Give me my wand! And you know it's not about that. It's about your ruddy secret. That you're all—" Suddenly Lily's voice was cut off. Although her mouth was still moving no sound came out. She supposed it was better than having Potter's hand clamped over her mouth.

She looked up at him with a fierce glint in her eyes and saw that he was no longer smiling. His gaze flickered over to where Remus stood watching, out of Lily's sight, wand held up after casting silencio.

"Nonetheless," he continued calmly, "I don't think we should talk about this in front of everyone else, hm?" It was an order rather than any opinion, and he walked slowly towards her and tugged on her arm until she followed him upstairs to their dorm. She silently protested, and attempted to retrieve her wand from where it was tightly held in his other hand above his head, but he wouldn't give in.

As he walked up the stairs with her, ignoring her struggles to jump high enough to reach her wand, he glanced behind him to see his friends make to follow him. He shook his head and Moony frowned before stopping and whispering something to Sirius. Sirius shrugged before whispering back, and James hoped he would say something reassuring. James mouthed a final Trust me at them before continuing up. He didn't think that having multiple people with different plans trying to deal with an angry Lily Evans would be useful.

When they reached his dorm he held the door open and motioned for her to enter. She put on her best glare and made a final swipe at the too-high hand that held her wand before walking in and standing in the middle of the circular room. Damn Potter for being so tall.

"You can sit down if you want," he said. She crossed her arms and glared harder. He shrugged and tried not to laugh at the scrunched expression on her face.

She pointed vehemently at her mouth and then at her wand before re-crossing her arms.

"Yes you have a very pretty mouth Evans, pity you use it to yell at me so often. So I'm going to enjoy this silence while it lasts."

He sat down on Sirius' bed. She glared and sat down on his. He wasn't enjoying the silence at all.

"Right," he started, unsure of what to say, "So you've uh, figured some stuff out." He ran his hand through his hair and grimaced.

She decided that she really needed a more varied arsenal of glares for situations like this.

"Obviously you know about…" He lifted his hands onto his head and made little antlers with his fingers and the wands. "Cause you were making puns that'd rival Padfoot's! I think he'd actually be impressed if he wasn't so worried you'd, um, tell everyone."

She blinked at him. He pulled his hands back down to his lap. James' cat jumped up on the bed next to Lily and started rubbing up against her. It was hard to keep glaring at someone with a purring cat next to you.

"Oh," he said eloquently, fiddling with the wands he held. "Maybe I should actually hear everything you do know before I start spouting irrelevant secrets hm?"

She rolled her eyes and nodded as sarcastically as she could. He had never realised that a nod could hold such disdain.

"But if I give you back your wand I need your word, or I suppose nod in this case, that you won't summon that dragon or do anything drastic. You tell me what you know, calmly, and I explain," He said carefully. "That's what you've wanted this whole time right? An explanation. But if you try to hex me or whatever I won't say a word."

He'd taken a risk here and he knew it, acting like he held the cards when it was definitely her. Lily could curse him and run out, telling everyone what he thinks she knew, but he was playing to her curiosity and thought she'd be reasonable if she thinks she can find out the truth.

She nodded, and he hoped he knew her well enough. He didn't mention that he's shite at counter-charms and just tossed her her own wand to undo it herself, albeit nonverbally.

"You're animagi," she spat, as soon as she un-silenced herself. "Illegal animagi. And you run around at night doing stupid, dangerous, illegal things."

"Hey hey now, the running around at night isn't illegal," James corrected, "it's just stupid, dangerous, and against the rules."

"But it is illegal Potter, because you're doing it as unregistered animagi!"

"Yes. Yes we are." This was where it would have gotten confusing if his friends had all joined him in talking to Lily. Sirius probably would have tried to obliviate her, Peter would have accidentally blurted out the whole truth, Moony… He wasn't sure what Remus would do actually. But James knew what he was going to do. "We're… All animagi. We did it last year, for fun."

"For fun? You underwent a 3-month long process which could have seriously injured you or left you part animal eternally for FUN?"

"Well, more for a bit of a challenge really. I think the worst of it was the mandrake leaf," he confided. "Oh boy, Pete nearly swallowed his three times. I don't think any of us could look at leafy vegetables for weeks."

Lily nodded. She'd never heard something so stupid in her life. Sounded just like Potter.

"And I suppose the sneaking out part is to see how long you can wave illegal transformations under the professors' noses before you all get thrown in Azkaban?" She asked sarcastically.

"Not exactly," he replied with a tentative laugh. "We're, well, finding out all of Hogwarts' secrets. We want to know each passageway, all the nooks and crannies, every hidden secret of the castle there is."

With the enthusiastic glow in his eyes Lily didn't doubt James was telling the truth. She just didn't think he was telling the whole truth.

"And you accuse me of being the knowledge hungry one," she quipped, then her face fell. "I still can't believe you're animagi."

"Well now you know the—" he hesitated— "truth. And you know that if other people find out how much trouble we'd be in. Not that I usually mind trouble, but I reckon this sort of trouble'd be a lot worse than scrubbing trophies with Filch breathing down your neck… and if you don't care about Sirius or me, think about what Azkaban would do to poor Peter! We dragged him into all this, you wouldn't stick him in prison would you?"

"If you're trying to ask me not to tell anyone don't worry. It was never my intent to 'expose you for the truants you are' or anything. I just wanted to know, you know?" Lily looked down at her hands, regretting her earlier outburst even if she thought he was still hiding something. "I– I didn't mean to confront you in front of everyone. I guess I just got so angry that you were doing stupid dangerous things when I thought– I thought you were growing up… But now I know."

The countless endings to that remark went unsaid but nonetheless heard. Now I know your secret. Now I know what you do all night. Now I know that you'll never grow up.

Now I know that you haven't changed at all.

James wasn't sure what to say.

"I mean you won't even tell me the whole story!" Lily continued suddenly, looking up at him. "I saw Remus had an invisibility cloak, so why bother with transforming when you can hide completely? And why wasn't Remus an animal? And the parchment? What's that about?"

If someone had been watching this scene unfold they might at this point have assumed that James had been silencio'd, because his mouth kept opening and closing without a jot of sound coming out.

"Oh don't bother, I can guess, you can't tell me." She stood up strode to the door, disappointed in them both.

"Lily." James found his voice, as quiet and desperate as it was.

"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me," she spat before turning and walking out the door, leaving James to lie back on Sirius' bed and wonder what he could have done differently.

She was wondering that as well.

Oh will the angst ever be over? As someone with knowledge of what the next chapters entail I can tell you in strict confidence that there will come a day when this story will be happy once more. But this is not that day!

For now, I'll leave you in suspense once more.

I do hope you enjoyed the CONFRONTATION (omg wow it finally happened),

Your busy Ravenclaw author