A/N: Just to warn you, this is the penultimate chapter, which is fancy-talk for second to last.

Sixth Year

Slytherins were so boring.

Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle were working on some stupid project Draco was obsessed with all the time, so none of them wanted to go flying with Lydia anymore. Flying by yourself got boring after a while, when the repetition started to get annoying. Pansy and Daphne never wanted to do anything fun, she just sat around gossiping and painting her nails. Lydia usually would sit and talk with her until nail polish fumes gave Lydia a headache, but today she wasn`t feeling up to it. Tracey was busy with her boyfriend, and Zambini was busy with his girlfriend, and neither had any interest in helping Lydia prank people.

It was times like these that Lydia missed her sister the most.

"El?" Seamus called up the stairs to the girl`s dorms. He momentarily thought about trying to get up them again, but the fresh bruises on his knees and elbows made him decide otherwise.

"Hello? Can anyone up there hear me?" He yelled again, but if any girls up there heard him, they were just plain old blatantly ignoring him.

He sat down on the bottom step, which turned into a slide and slid him onto the floor.

Seamus looked over at Dean and Ginny, who had stopped snogging to stare at him in his attempt to get up the stairs. He tried to ignore the other people in the common room who were also staring, pointing, and even laughing.

Ginny said something to Dean that Seamus couldn't hear, and walked over, looking pityingly at Seamus. "Do you want me to go look for her?" She asked.

"Yeah, thanks." He said, feeling stupid.

Ginny scaled the stairs no problem and disappeared into the dorms.

Seamus stood up and tried to straighten out his wrinkled clothes. He was about to walk over and join Dean on the couch when Ginny appeared again.

"She wasn`t up there. Sorry."

Sighing, Seamus left the common room in search of his girlfriend.

In the end, Lydia ended up in the library.

She really knew things were bad if the best option of things to do was homework.

It was a relief that Rachel wasn`t in the library, although it would have given Lydia something to do. Originally, when Lydia had stopped going to DA meetings and talking to her, Rachel had constantly followed Lydia and tried to talk to her. Lydia wasn`t sure if she was trying to apologize for trying to destroy the firewiskey (thankfully Draco had been able to get more in time for the party) or if she just wanted to yell at Lydia for not listening to her, but Lydia avoid her at all costs.

Eventually, Rachel had given up on trying to talk to her, but over the summer she would try and lore Lydia into conversation or just have a one-sided conversation with her. Lydia told her parents the reason she wasn`t talking to Rachel was for an experiment, so that they wouldn`t be upset like last year. Rachel just went along with what Lydia had told them, and didn`t tell them about the firewiskey incident.

Anyway, Lydia still refused to talk to her sister. It was a harder break than their last big fight, because this time Lydia wasn`t reluctant to turn her back on Rachel. If Lydia ended this, it wouldn`t just be knuckling under, it would be admitting that Rachel was right, and that Lydia needed her.

Lydia couldn`t shake her sister from her head. She couldn`t concentrate, couldn`t even put quill to parchment and do her homework.

Lydia took out a scrap piece of paper and started to write.

Stop thinking about Rachel. Stop thinking about Rachel. Stop thinking about Rachel.

It`s her fault.

It doesn`t matter she didn`t mean it.

It`s worse than what I did.

Really.

Stop. Thinking.

There was a loud banging from the behind Lydia. She glanced up to see Seamus Finnigan getting yelled at by Madame Prince for throwing open the doors too forcibly.

Seamus was Rachel`s boyfriend. He`d know if Rachel regretted trying to control Lydia`s life! He might not want to talk to her, but she`d make him.

Lydia crammed her papers in her bag and rushed after Seamus.

He didn`t see her trailing him down the corridor. Every time he passed a classroom, he`d peek in, then duck back out.

Right when Lydia was about to run up to him and ask about Rachel, he turned a corner. When Lydia ran around the corner, he`d disappeared. She stopped in her tracks.

There were voices coming from one of the classrooms.

It was a Saturday, which meant there wasn`t any classes. Lydia walked closer to investigate, and realized the voices had turned to sobbing.

Lydia recognized the voice of the person crying.

"El?"

Rachel didn`t turn around.

She immediately regretted not turning around. It was a very Lydia thing to do, to wait for the person to come in to your field of view before acknowledging them.

Lydia.

Rachel squeezed her eyes shut to stop crying before Seamus saw her face.

"I was looking all over the castle for you. Why are you in here? What`s wrong?" Rachel felt him sit down next to her on the ledge of the table. She opened her eyes and stared out the windows.

"I was just a bit …" She tried to say, but her voice faltered and she couldn`t speak. She tightened her grip on the fake galleon necklace she had in her hands. Lydia`s necklace. The one she`d thrown at Rachel.

His arm slipped around her shoulders. "Is it her again?"

Rachel tried to say something, but she was too afraid her voice would betray her again.

"What`d she do?! I swear, if she so much as-"

"She didn`t do anything." She whispered. "I did."

"You didn`t do anything that bad, and it was almost a year ago now. Forgive yourself."

"She didn`t, so I can`t. Besides, I`m a total hypocrite. I made her promise never to pretend to be me without my permission, and then I go and steal some Slytherin robes and pretend to be her. No wonder she hates me." Rachel wept loudly, no longer in control of herself, her voice ripping out of her throat.

"Does it matter what she thinks? You did it for the right reasons."

Rachel finally looked at him, and he saw her face was streaked with tears. "She`s my sister. What if it had been your cousin Fergus? Would it still be alright?!" She said, more harshly than she meant. He deflated a bit, and Rachel realized she was taking out her anger on her best friend. She was doing to him what Lydia had done to her.

"I`m sorry." she whispered.

They sat in silence in the darkened classroom and watched the sun set out the window. The reflection over the lake reminded Rachel of better times, when she`d looked out at the lake and thought about her sister.

"Did I ever tell you about what she did a couple years ago, when people were getting attacked?"

"You mean when Umbridge was attacking people, the Dementors were attacking people, the year the snake was attacking people, or the year a troll attacked people?"

"The snake." Rachel said, almost laughing. "Anyway, right after Hermione was attacked, I was upset because she was attacked in the library and I thought she had been there because of me. But then Lyd cheered me up by taking her entire supply of cauldron cakes and giving them to Hermione. We put them by her bed in the hospital wing, so that she could have them when she woke up. Those things last forever, so of course they were still good for when she was healed. Hermione was so happy, and Lydia made me promise not to tell her that she`d been the main contributor of the cakes. She said it was a Gryffindor thing, taking credit. She wanted to remain anonymous." The necklace quietly slipped out of Rachel`s hands and fell to the floor. Nobody noticed.

Rachel smiled and looked at Seamus. "Hermione never did find out who had supplied the cauldron cakes. I know you think Lydie`s mean, calculating, not trustworthy, and like Malfoy and the other mean Slytherins, but she`s really not. Just because you`re Slytherin doesn`t mean you have to be evil or like the stereotypical Slytherin person. Sure, Malfoy`s mean, Pansy`s mean, and Zambini`s mean and they are in that class of people that are pretty much evil, but not everyone is like that! Tracey Davis, for instance. She`s not half bad! Other houses just need to give each other a chance and not judge based on other`s reputations! If one Hufflepuff is a slacker, doesn`t mean they all are exactly like that one person! I know Lydia`s made bad choices sometimes, she`s got her faults, but everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and she truly is a great person. When you met us on the Hogwarts express for the first time, you were friend with both of us! It was only after she got sorted that you had a problem with her."

"She isn`t nice all the time."

"I know, and I`m sorry I`m ranting, but nobody`s nice all the time. I`m proof of that. Just look at what I did to her."

"You know her better than I do, El. I`m sorry I judged her right away. I know she means a lot to you."

"Thank you for finding me."

"I`ll always find you." He said, kissing her softly on the cheek.

The silence enveloped the pair for a moment of peace.

"I`ll meet you up in the common room. I just want to think for a few minutes." She said, kissing him. Seamus stood up and noticed Lydia`s necklace on the floor.

Picking it up, he asked, "What should I do with this?"

"I don`t know. I don`t want to look at it right now, though, it makes me sad."

Lydia saw Seamus starting to turn to leave, and she bolted down the hall and around the corner, and hid behind a suit of armor.

Seamus, unfortunately, had heard her footsteps.

"Stupefy!"

Lydia didn`t even have enough time to put up a shield charm.

He found her and frowned. "Alright, so when I unfreeze you, you`re going to come with me unless you want your sister finding out about this."

Lydia listened because she had no choice. He led her down a couple halls to another empty classroom, and put a jinx on the door to prevent people from listening in.

"You know what I think about you."

"I`m mean, untrustworthy, bitter, selfish, and totally controlling." Lydia said in a sing-song voice, feeling more like her old self. He`d told her that two years ago after she`d pretended to be Rachel.

"Yeah." He said. "But unfortunately, you`re also smart, resourceful, and you genuinely care about Rachel, which means you must have a soul. This makes it hard to completely despise you."

Lydia tossed her hair. "What do you want? Did you just pull me in here to tell me what you thought of me? 'cause it`s flattering that you think I`m an actual soulful human now, but I`ve got things to do."

Lydia did not actually have anywhere to go.

He sighed. "I realize that you pretended to be Rachel with good intentions, but obviously it didn`t seem or turn out that way, and Dean and I didn`t exactly fill her in on all the details, unless you did…"

"Which details?"

"You know, when you…"

"Kissed you?" Lydia said, and he didn`t meet her eyes.

"That. See, we didn`t mention it, and you didn`t either obviously, because we all know that would be a horrible betrayal and it would have hit a bit harder than you kissing Dean did. Therefore, you obviously care about her, despite what you`re trying to make her think by ignoring her and acting apathetic."

Now it was Lydia`s turn to avoid his eyes.

Seamus changed his tone to a slightly kinder one. "It hurts her, you just saw that. Why do you keep doing it?"

"She hurt me too." Lydia said, and Seamus realized he was having a heart-to-heart with the girl who he`d previously equivilated to the devil. "Do you think she`s the only one with feelings?"

"Okay, mutual hurt. Do you really want this to continue? Can you be the bigger person?"

Lydia didn`t say anything, and Seamus could tell from her expression that she didn`t want to lose the dispute.

"It wouldn`t go to Rachel`s head, if that`s what you`re thinking."

Silence.

"Whatever, but there is a war going on, and family has to stick together, which means-"

"You sound like my mother."

"Your mother is right. Do you love Rachel?" He asked

"Of course. She`s my sister." She said, with the same venom Rachel had used earlier when she had said it, but Lydia didn`t say sorry or feel guilty. Seamus to her wasn`t Seamus to Rachel.

"Then take this." He put Lydia`s necklace down on the desk next to them.

Lydia glared daggers at Seamus, and it took all his strength to stand tall against them.

"You might not like it when she protects you, but what about when you protect her? You kept our kiss a secret because you were protecting her. Because you care. And she cares about you too. So like it or not, Williamson, Rachel is going to protect you sometimes from things, and you just have to get over your pride because it`s for your own good."

Again, Lydia was speechless. This gave Seamus some strength.

"You can`t abandon her when she needs you."

"I know."

"You abandoned her last year."

"She didn`t need me."

Seamus raised his eyebrows. "Will you be there when she does?"

"Yes."

"Promise."

Lydia looked Seamus directly in the eyes with that intense stare of hers that only Lydia knew how to do. "I promise I will be there when she really needs me. I always have been, and I always will be."

"Good." Seamus said. He walked to the door, but stopped before he crossed over into the hall and turned back.

"I don`t consider you my friend at all, Lydia, and I don`t like you, but I do respect you." He looked once more at her necklace on the desk, which Lydia made no move to pick up, and left.

Lydia stood there, frozen in place, listening to the fast-fading sound of his footsteps. When she could hear them no more, she looked down at the necklace.