Lily Potter's POV

As we skulked through the castle, trying to avoid dinner-goers, the subject of conversation somehow came to my height. That was something my brothers liked to tease me about.

I defended myself grumpily. "Victoire is short," I said.

"Yeah," said James, "But you're teensy, though."

"Five-foot-one is not teensy. It's perfectly normal, for your information," I lied. "You only think I'm small because you're both freakishly large!"

"I'm what, Five-foot-ten and you're calling that freakishly large?" Al said, shaking his head. "You have a weird perspective, Lily."

"And you're still growing," I pressed on stubbornly as we ducked into a hidden staircase to avoid a raucous group of Ravencalws. I knew we were being stupid, but it felt good to have something unimportant to argue about. It made the situation seem somehow less frightening.

Of course this didn't work for Rose, who always had to get worked up in stressful situations.

"Oh, will you all just shut up!" she wailed as James started to retort. "I'm trying to concentrate and I have a headache!"

"Gosh, you need to relax a bit-" James started to say, but Rose was ignoring him.

"I'm so stressed!" she cried.

"James's right, Rose you just need to calm-"

"Don't you tell me to calm down, Albus!" She shouted, bursting into the hall. "I just found out that unless I don't make that potion soon, we'll be stuck here living as 'mere spirits' until we're born. And in case you've forgotten, that's a decade away!" She glared at Al.

He took in an audible breath and said, "There are a couple of things wrong with your little… tirade, Rose. First, I wasn't going to say 'calm down', I was going to say 'calm yourself down'. Second, yes, Rose, I know how long a decade is. I'm a bit smarter than you think I am. Third, you are not making that potion alone. We're going to make it together. We're just as worried as you are about this. We just have a different way of showing it. And to be honest, your way of showing stress is a really annoying… I've wanted to say that since we took our OWLS." He half-smiled in a satisfied way.

I hadn't realized that we'd stopped walking until then; when Rose huffed out an angry breath and stalked away from us.

Al laughed and started followed her.

Rose abruptly turned around.

"I'm sorry. I'm being stupid, aren't I?"

"It's okay Rose, you don't have to feel bad about it. I was only joking," Al said.

"Yeah," said James. "Everyone's stupid sometimes. I was wondering when you were going to join the rest of us."

Rose rolled her eyes but smiled.

I heard footsteps in the distance.

"Can you hear that?" I whispered.

"Yeah," Al whispered.

"Get in here," said James quietly; pulling aside the tapestry we had just exited through. We hurried in.

The footsteps became louder and then stopped. The person passed us three times, and I heard muttering from whoever it was.

"I'd forgotten," James murmured.

"Forgotten what?" I asked.

"We're on the seventh floor…"

"Malfoy," we whispered.

"Should we let him go in or…?"

"'Let him go in'? Of course we should let him go in! There is no meddling allowed!" Rose hissed.

"But I wanna-" my brothers and I whined together.

"No! You already know what's going to happen, you do not need to interfere!"

Because Rose was so forceful on this point, we were forced to resort to peeking through a gap between the wall and the tapestry.

For some reason, Malfoy couldn't get in.

"There must be someone else in there," Al said.

Sure enough, a minute later, Gregory Goyle came out, holding hands with a giggling girl. Without taking any notice of Malfoy, the couple embraced in the sickest snog that I had ever seen or heard. Malfoy's face was a plaster of rage and disgust.

I didn't know whether to laugh or gag.

"Goyle! What do you think you're doing?!" Malfoy ejaculated after a stunned silence. He looked like he wanted to say more, but couldn't with the girl there.

"Sorry Draco," Goyle said sheepishly with a stupid grin on his face, "We were just-"

"Get away. We'll talk later," said Draco dangerously.

Goyle shrugged his beefy shoulders, and pulled his girlfriend around the corner. I thought I heard their kissing start again, and I shuddered.

Malfoy turned and swaggered away.

"Is he gone?" Rose whispered.

"Yeah," Al said.

"Well that was interesting," I said when we were out.

James burst out laughing.

Al looked the way I felt – a smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth, but he was still grimacing.

"Just out of curiosity," said Rose when James finally stopped laughing, "how on earth did we end up on the seventh floor?"

James explained, "Erm, we went in behind that tapestry, you know, the one of the Mer-pigs, to get out of the Ravenclaws' way."

Rose still looked confused. "But that was on the fourth floor."

"Yeah, well, the stairs behind that tapestry lead to the seventh floor," Al said.

"Oh… Merlin!"

"What?"

"It's seven twenty three! We're late!"

We knew better than to try and calm her, so we followed Rose back through the tapestry of the balletic trolls.

"Look Lily, It's either feel like an idiot, or get caught breaking in to a teacher's office," said Rose.

We were in a hall just outside Snape's office, going over our plan for the final time. I had just expressed my fear of feeling stupid while I patrolled the corridor with James.

I sighed. "Fine."

"Okay. If you need to warn us, tap the left side of that rod." Al motioned to the little silver stick I had been handed earlier. "It'll make my one light up."

"Okay," I said.

"Let's go, Rose."

"Wait!" I said.

"What?"

"Um… this stick is pretty darn symmetrical, so… how do I know which side is the right side?"

"Oh! It's like... shake it."

I did, and on one side of the stick the word 'left' appeared. I almost laughed.

"Thanks, Al."

"See you in a bit."

They walked away, and I heard the door close softly.

Not until we planned our break-in to Snape's office did I realize how much stuff my brothers carried around in their pockets; there were at least a dozen things James was looking forward to lobbing at Snape if he happened to come too close to us.

"How long have they been in there, James?" I asked a few minutes later.

He checked his watch.

"About twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes!" I bit my lip anxiously. "I hope they're alright."

"They're fine, Lily. Did you see how long that list was? They'll be at least another ten minutes."

"I think we should get a message to the others; they'll wonder where we are."

"I don't think so. Didn't you just tell me that they couldn't get any where Snape – especially Lily?"

"Well, yes… you're right."

I examined the ceiling, my fingers absently playing with Al's little rod. It slipped from my fingers.

"Oops," I said.

We both lunged for the silver stick. I knocked my head on the wall, but James snagged it just before it hit the ground.

How grateful I was that he played Quidditch.

"Thanks, James," I sighed.

"No problem. You want to be careful with that," he advised. His eyes traveled to my forehead, and they widened.

"What?"

"How the… How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Your head: it looks like it's been… slashed… or stabbed." His nose wrinkled .

"Huh… I must have done that when I tried to grab the stick."

James was reaching out to touch my head.

"Hey!"

"Let me see-"

"Don't touch it! I want to see-"

"Stay still-"

"No I want t-"

"I'm not g-"

"What is this rumpus?" said a snide, oily voice.

James and I turned slowly and saw a dark shape. It took me a second to realize that it was a man; his resemblance to an overgrown bat was striking.

"Um, we um…" I tried to inconspicuously nudge James in the ribs.

Throw something at him! Throw that pointy thing that looks like an angry gorilla! I wanted to shout these thoughts at James, but I couldn't. Not because I didn't want Snape to hear, although that was a main reason, but because I was frozen: Mentally frozen, not physically.

You see, I'd never imagined before that an overgrown bat would look at me the way this one was.

Snape's eyes, as they saw me, were filled with recognition. I guessed it was because I looked like my Mum. But as he continued to stare at me with wide eyes, I realized it must be because I looked like Lily – the Lily he loved.

Poor man.

"Um, Professor Snape! Um…"

He stopped staring when I said 'Proffesor'.

"What," he said in a frighteningly silky voice, "are you doing here at this time of night?"

"We, er…" James said, but got interrupted by Albus.

"Okay, that's every-"

"Potter! What are you doing in my office?!" Snape hissed.

"Er, Sir, I was just… um… using the, erm… permission I have to use your, erm… potions… stores."

Albus was very shocked to see Snape there. Obviously, he couldn't come up with a decent cover story. Internally shaking my head at Al, I intervened for him.

"Sir, we're from-"

"I didn't ask you, Miss Weasley, I was asking Mr. Potter." His eyes slid from Al to me and back again.

It really seemed like Snape thought Al was Dad; but I supposed that I couldn't blame him. When Albus was wearing his reading glasses (which he was at the time) he looked remarkably like our Father.

"Professor Snape," Al said, "Just so you know, I'm not Harry Potter. I'm Albus Potter, Harry's son." He removed his glasses.

If Snape wasn't scary, it would've been funny to watch him so uncomfortable after Al's answer.

"Now that you are finished Potter," whispered Snape, trying, I thought, to sound like he knew what was going on, "leave."

"All right then," Al said brightly, "bye."

We left and kept walking until we were four halls away.

"Whew!" I exclaimed, leaning against the wall.

"That was," Rose panted, "Very close."

"But we got out of it, didn't we?" said James.

"What did you do to your head, Lily?" Al said.

"Bumped it." I shrugged.

Al was grimacing at the wound.

"Honestly, it's nothing that bad. I can hardly feel it." In truth it was starting to hurt a little.

"Let me see it," he said.

"No! I want to see it first."

"I don't think you want to see it, Lily." Al edged to the right discreetly. I looked at the place he was going – There was a mirror.

"HA!" I shouted as I booked it for the mirror.

"There's no point trying to stop her." I heard Rose say with a sigh.

What I saw was stomach-turning-ly repulsive. On my forehead was a rough, jagged gash. There were pieces of rock in the cut, and a blood was smeared thickly to my temple. All in all, it wasn't the nicest thing I had ever seen.

"Erm… help?" I turned around and looked imploringly at Rose.

"Oh, Lily! That looks terrible." She shook her head. "You are without a doubt the most accident-prone person I've ever come across."

I rolled my eyes.

"So are you going to help me out, or what?"

"I'm not the best at healing spells, but I can try," Rose answered.

I rolled my eyes at her uncertainty.

Rose: 'not the best'?

"Hold still." She first cleaned the wound, and then sewed it up.

"Thanks Rose." My head looked perfect, as I knew it would.

"Let's go," Al said.

We made our way to Myrtle's bathroom, thankfully without running into anyone else.

"We've got everything," I said as soon as we entered the room.

"Great," smiled Mum.

"Here," said Dad, handing James a tray delicious-looking food.

Al and James started stuffing it down their throats like the real boys that they were.

"Erm… are you going to save any for Rose and Me?"

"What?" said James thickly. "Oh! Right." He handed me the ninety-five percent empty tray.

"Thanks," Rose said and I laughed.

"So are you ready to start, then?" Hermione said quietly.

She and Ron and Lily and James were all being uncharacteristically quiet. It was probably from shock, and it would probably wear off soon, but I still wanted to do something about it.

"Yep," I said.

Rose and I finished eating, and joined the others in gathering our supplies.

"All right," Rose announced, "We first need to make a base potion, which will allow us to travel," she pointed at the left page of the open book on her lap, "and then we make a potion which will determine which direction we travel in." Rose then pointed to the right page.

"Let's get started, then," Rose said.

As we made the potion, I became more and more annoyed, especially at Lily and James, for how they were ignoring each other. None of them were talking; they just mutely did what Rose asked of them.

"I need to use the loo," I said to Rose, having decided that I couldn't stand a minute more of my Grandparents silence.

"This is a bathroom, Lily," she sighed without taking her eyes from the potion.

"Yeah, I know. But you can't expect me to go with the guys in here!"

"Fine, I don't care. Why are you asking me, anyway?"

I'm asking you because I need a cover for why I'm about to disappear for the next five minutes.

I said, "Because you're… never mind. I'll see you in a minute." I got up and exited into the hall to formulate a plan.

Five minutes later, I entered Myrtle's bathroom again with a purposely anxious look on my face.

"Lily and James?" I asked quietly. "I need to talk to you both for a minute.

I bit my lip and wrung my hands. I wondered if I was laying on the guilt-look too much, but they seemed to buy it as they stood and came over to me.

"What's this about, Lily?" asked my grandmother gently.

"Look, I'll explain it to you in a minute. Can we talk somewhere else?"

"Sure."

I led them to the empty classroom I had chosen while plotting my grand scheme.

I opened the door and James and Lily entered. I slammed and locked the door behind them, with a little invention of my Uncle George's.

Any second...

"Lily, aren't you coming in?" said Lily right on cue.

"Here," I said as I slipped a note under the door. "This'll explain everything!"

There was no noise as they read the note, and then,

"No WAY! Lily Potter, you let me out now! Understand?" It was Lily screeching at the top of her lungs.

"Sorry, I've thought it through and this really is the best way."

"No, it isn't! LET ME OUT!"

"Sorry!" I said again.

I went back to the bathroom.

"That should take care of things," I muttered as I took my place next to Rose.

"What d'you mean?" asked Dad.

"What did you do?" said James and Al at the same time.

"I locked Lily and James in an empty classroom."

"What? Why?" Dad said, looking a little upset.

"Have you noticed that they're not talking? If we want them to be on good terms when they get back to the past, they need a good, long, old-fashioned talk."

"But how do you-"

"How do I know they're going to talk and resolve their mutual issues?"

Dad nodded.

"If Lily's anything like me, and I think she is, she won't be able to stand the silence for more than twenty minutes. She'll talk, and eventually ask James questions, and if my plan works, he'll ask questions too."

"Okay," he said, but he still looked a little apprehensive.

I didn't know what to say to him.

Had I done the right thing? Or had made a rash, stupid choice like my usual impulsive self?

But it was the only think I knew to do, however idiotic shutting up my grandparents would sound to someone else. Lily and James were teenagers – They were young and lost and way too stubborn for their own good.

"Lily, hand me that jar of lovage," said Rose's voice, cutting into my thoughts.

Feeling less guilty and rather satisfied with myself, I complied.

Okay, That, ladies and Gentlemen, was chapter 7.

Please let me know what you think, and if you thought the'snogging' part of this chapter was actually funny.

Cheers, from Cheer... haha!