The next morning, everything was chaos. Lily had thought there was something wrong with the door, and had wrestled with it, trying to get it open, before it finally burst and let her see the huge crowd that had amassed in front of that hall, all talking amongst themselves and pushing each other to see something better.
"Head Girl here, let me through!" Lily shouted, but no one heard, or if they did, they didn't care, so she began to elbow her way through the crowd of students. The Gryffindor Heads' common room door opened again, and Lily turned to see a bewildered James, still wearing the ragged shirt he'd slept in and with his glasses crooked.
Lily reached the front of the crowd and her mouth fell into a perfectly round little "o." The suits of armor that had once proudly lined the halls had been somehow dismembered. Their metallic bits floated grotesquely, bathed in green lights. They had been arranged so that each suit of armor floated in its own little space, with its bits jumbled and out of order. The green light came from a number of Dark Marks, one hovering above each of the metallic piles.
Lily was stunned, and suddenly felt an arm resting comfortingly on her shoulder. Sensing it was James, she shoved it off, still staring at the snake that writhed inside one of the skulls. It seemed like its head was staring straight at her, its tongue flickering out, and Lily had to break eye contact.
She turned to face the crowd. "Everybody out! Now!" she shouted, sending up small fireworks from her wand to get everyone's attention. The popping noises called everyone to attention, and they started milling around, mumbling, the noise level reduced to a murmur.
"EVERYBODY OUT NOW IF YOU WANT TO HAVE HOUSE POINTS LEFT THIS DECADE!" she shouted, shooting more sparks that sailed above their heads. The crowd started to move faster now, thinning out.
"That was kind of hot," James whispered in her ear, and Lily turned on him viciously, her wand still out.
"Right, sorry," James said, but he couldn't quite get rid of the last traces of a smirk.
A scared-looking Hufflepuff girl stood still among the dispersing crowd. "I-I'm a prefect, I was wondering—"
"Go get Dumbledore," Lily said, turning again to look at the display.
One of the helmets bobbed next to her, and the metallic jaws clanked together. "Apologies…" one whispered. "We have failed to protect our castle…"
Lily felt a sudden pang of compassion for the bewitched metal, as illogical as that was. "You were very brave, thank you," Lily said. "Thank you for your service."
She swallowed, willing herself to stay on task. "Do you know who did this?" she asked.
"Students…" the helmet said, before drooping lower.
"What a shame…" a soft voice said behind Lily, which caused her to turn. Instinctively, she straightened up, trying to look alert and professional.
Dumbledore was looking sadly at the display, looking every bit as moved for the suit of armors' plight as Lily had been a moment ago. He waved his hand in an arc and closed it again, and the suits of armor all fell to the floor in one impossibly loud, clattering motion. A strange sigh seemed to escape the piles on the floor.
The old wizard looked up at the Dark Marks. "Those will take a little more effort to remove," he muttered, before turning to Lily. "I hear you… handled the situation?"
Lily felt her cheeks burn. In the heat of the moment, she had shouted at everyone, instead of being the leader she should've been. "Yes… I…" she said, but she couldn't exactly explain what she did, so she stayed silent.
"And what about Mr. Potter?" Professor Dumbledore asked, and both Heads stayed silent. Dumbledore shook his head. "Miss Evans, now is, more than ever, a time for cooperation, especially within the two leaders of the student body. I can appreciate that it may be difficult getting acclimated with living in such close quarters… Usually, each Head has a common room to themselves alone. It is not usual to have two Heads of the same House. Bear that in mind," Dumbledore said, and turned towards the Dark Marks, muttering something under his breath with his palms facing upwards.
Lily carried a feeling of shame all the way down to the Great Hall for breakfast, but despite Dumbledore's urgings to work together, she couldn't bring herself to speak to James, who followed her down in utter silence.
At breakfast, the rumors were flying around. Lily poked at her porridge, making ridges and whorls in it with a spoon. Most of the theories followed along the same lines: everybody was saying that it must have been the Slytherins who were bitter that Gryffindor had gotten both of the Heads.
Lily was worried in the immediate because she had disappointed Dumbledore in her duties as Head Girl, but there was the nagging worry, also, that this went beyond a school prank. After all, the Dark Mark was no laughing matter, and maybe this was a symptom that things were getting worse outside now, that the Death Eaters were beginning to infiltrate what had once been thought of as the safest place to hide from Dark forces: Hogwarts.
Lily worried about her family and in her porridge she saw terrifying images, that maybe next time she saw Dark Marks it wouldn't be enchanted metal floating lifelessly in the air, but Tuney and Mum and Dad.
She put down her spoon and looked around. Her friends had been staring at her for quite a while, and Lily supposed she must have been making some kind of faces. Actually, it seemed everyone in the Great Hall was looking over towards the Gryffindor table, specifically the part that the seventh years were prone to occupy: Lily and her friends on the very edge of the table, and then the Marauders next to them, with Marlene and Mary as the bridge between the two wildly different groups: Marlene was always one to pull pranks and had struck up a friendship with Sirius early into her first year, and Mary knew that Remus took notes as careful and exhaustive as hers, and they would often switch their parchments to make sure neither had missed anything.
The Marauders seemed to not be in the mood to joke either that morning.
"D'you reckon they think it was us?" Peter worried, looking at James.
"No, Wormtail, are you daft? Why would my friends put curses right outside my own common room?"
"I dunno, it's usually that McGonagall goes straight to us when there's been something…"
"We wouldn't have done something like this," Sirius said somberly.
James wasn't listening anymore, looking at Lily. Then again, when wasn't he looking at Lily? It had become almost second nature to observe her, trying to memorize every last freckle.
Maybe she really did hate him now, and this year, this last year that he had one chance to change her mind, nothing would change. Lily Evans would go right on living her life, and he his, like they had never met at all. Somehow that made him feel queasy inside, a feeling that was far worse than seeing any amount of Dark Marks.
Suddenly Lily stood up, and James jumped, looking for something to do, not wanting Lily to know that he was staring. He ended up grabbing one of the books Remus had open all around him.
"Interested in dragon evisceration, are you?" a voice asked from behind him, and he recognized it as Lily almost at the same exact time that he fully registered what he'd been reading.
"No, I—" James sputtered, but he couldn't come up with a good excuse, so he shut up.
"Meet me directly after classes tonight so we can discuss schedules," Lily sighed.
"Quidditch practice—" James said.
"Fine. Directly after Quidditch," she amended, and her green eyes flashed a warning at him, and James obeyed and nodded.
As soon as Lily had left, the Marauders all joined into a chorus of a teasing "ooooo." James shook his head and gave Remus back his book. He stood up, having lost his appetite a long time ago. It may have been his imagination, but it seemed as though Lily's friends were giggling as well.
! #$%^&*
"We're not friends," were Lily's first words as soon as James appeared in the Heads' hallway. The Dark Marks had been removed and the suits of armor were gone as well, but there remained some sort of chill lingering in the area. "We're not dating," she continued. "I have no interest in anything other than professional cooperation."
"Right…?" James said. He felt like he was walking on eggshells with Lily. Whenever they took a step forward and he felt like he could relax around her, he cracked one joke too many or did something wrong, and she snapped at him immediately. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe Lily was afraid of getting close to him, before dismissing the thought.
"But, while we work together, we should get to know each other," Lily conceded. "And… if you want to be my friend, you'll have to really earn it."
James nodded and saluted. "Yes, ma'am."
This might have been a little too much, though, because Lily shot him a mildly annoyed look.
"Walk with me," she said, heading off into the stairwell at a brisk pace. James noticed that she stopped in front of the Fat Lady, looking almost longingly.
"Are you going in?" James asked.
"Don't know the password… It isn't my common room anymore," she said.
"You're Head Girl, I'm sure you can—"
But Lily was already heading into the stairwell, and James followed, questions jumbling around in his mind. When he caught up to Lily after jogging a little, he asked her, "Do you miss living there?"
"Don't you?" Lily said.
"I suppose… It feels like something's over, but it's also something else beginning, you know? A new chapter."
Lily snorted. "You should make greeting cards."
James smirked a little. Once he got used to Lily's acerbic style, talking to her wasn't all that bad.
They rounded a corner and entered a darker hallway. A gust of air rushed past them, and he noticed Lily tensing up. Maybe she was on edge since that morning, and that was why she'd wanted them to do their rounds together.
Finally reaching the library, Lily let out a slow breath. Here a few torches cast a faint glow across the hallway, and Lily switched off the light on her wand, muttering "Nox."
Suddenly, there was a creaking noise, and Lily let out in a rush, "Expecto Patronum!"
A bird flew out of her wand, and, finding nothing to fight, came to perch on the wood of her wand like it was a tree branch.
"Nice Patronus. What is it?" James asked.
"A platypus. What does it look like?" Lily asked, craning her neck around, obviously still looking for the source of the disturbance.
She saw nothing and turned back to James, somewhat more calm. "It's some kind of bird. What about you, can you make one?"
James closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. "Expecto Patronum," he said, and a beautiful stag trotted up to Lily, nuzzling at her hand.
A smile suddenly lit up her face, and James found himself grinning widely too. The Patronuses' warm, happy energy seemed to cheer up the dark, dreary hallway, making the two Heads giddy.
Another sound rang across the hallway, like a dull thump, and the two snapped up to attention, but this time neither was afraid; they were filled with a kind of calm confidence, and Lily led the way into the library.
"Lumos," she said, and she shined the light into the eyes of two terrified Ravenclaws. They seemed to be first or second years, and they were carrying large stacks of books.
"It's after hours! What are you doing here?" Lily asked sharply.
"Th-these books were restricted and we didn't have a note, Professor Flitwick thought we were crazy, and Professor Slughorn gave us detention for asking, but we're going to invent a new potion that can repel the killing curse so that You-Know-Who can't get us—" one boy confessed.
Lily sighed. "You're perfectly safe in Hogwarts," she said out of habit, but then felt a wave of strange guilt when she realized she didn't fully believe it herself. "Put those back, and go back to your dormitories."
She was about to go and tell them that she wouldn't tell, sympathizing with their good intentions, but James said quietly, "Fifty points from Ravenclaw. You'll be explaining those lost points to your House mates. And if you're so afraid of You-Know-Who, why are you out wandering the halls at night, especially after what happened this morning?"
The girl's lip trembled, but James was impassive. "Now, go."
They scurried away, and Lily frowned at James. "They were just trying to invent a potion, you know you did that and worse at their age—"
"But I'm Head Boy now. And they need to learn. There's a war going on outside, they shouldn't take it so lightly."
Lily found she had no answer to that. The warmth from earlier was quickly draining away, and she found that both the bird and the stag had dissolved. She shivered slightly.
"Let's go," James said.