Hello, my dears! Sorry it's been a while since I posted a new chapter for The Man Behind The Mask. Here is the next installment, in which Lily comes closer to discovering who her fellow Head Student is...

Disclaimer: Characters are JK Rowling's, everything else (including the limerick!) is mine.

- Lorraine


A couple of hours later, her parents dropped her off at King's Cross Station. She blew kisses to her mother and father, ignoring Petunia as summarily as Petunia was ignoring her—her sister was staring moodily out of the back window of the car, narrow nose elevated in haughtiness. Lily sighed internally, wondering where the days of sisterly affection had gone. She decided not to dwell on it, though, and led her trunk in the direction of Platform 9¾.

Once she had emerged through the barrier, she kept an eye out for any of the likely Head Boy candidates. As it was still an hour and a half before the train was due to leave, not many students were milling about. After nodding and smiling at a few acquaintances, she spotted Davies leaning against a wall, book in hand.

His concentration was so deep that she hesitated to disturb him, but she had to ask. He wasn't wearing the badge, but perhaps he just didn't want to show off. When she was a few feet away, she coughed gently. As she had worried, he jumped a bit, and searched for the intruder. When his eyes caught on her flaming hair he relaxed and gave her a small smile.

"Hey, Lily. Had a good holiday?"

"Kenneth, it's good to see you! Yeah, mine was alright. Mostly uneventful. You?"

"Same here. By the look of it, at least the end of your summer was more exciting than mine." He said, pointing at the gleaming silver HG emblazoned on her badge.

"Oh, that, yeah. It's really exciting! Wait, 'more exciting than yours…' You mean, you didn't get it?"

"No. I think I'm a bit too mild-mannered to really lay down the law. I'll still be prefect, though, so we'll see a bit of each other."

"Yes, I s'pose. I really thought Dumbledore would give it to you, Kenneth, I'm sorry."

"S'alright. I'm better off not dealing with all that Head Boy stuff on top of all my extra classes. You'll do great, I'm sure."

"Thanks. That's really sweet of you. I don't suppose you know who the Head Boy might be?"

"Well, if not me, the other likely candidate is Diggory, isn't it?" She nodded. "I don't think he got it, though. His aunt is good friends with my mum, and she would've been bragging about her 'ickle Amos' for a fortnight." Lily's face screwed up in consternation. "Sorry, I don't really know. Maybe Remus Lupin?"

"Yes, that's what I'm hoping. He doesn't seem to be here yet, though, so I can't ask. The suspense is killing me!" She laughed. "Anyways, sorry again, Kenneth. It was lovely talking to you. I'll see you on the train for the prefect meeting, yeah?"

"You certainly shall. Congratulations again, Lily."

They smiled at each other, and he went back to reading his book—Crime and Punishment by the looks of it—as she walked away.

The train would be arriving in about 20 minutes, so the students could start loading their luggage, but for now there was nothing to do but wait. She rolled her trolley over to a bench near a newsstand—she ignored the offers of Daily Prophets and Quibblers for sale—and sat down, lost in her thoughts.

She always wished that some of the professors would come to London on September 1st, or at least Hagrid. Then she would always have someone to talk to. Of course, they were all busy at Hogwarts, readying the school for the influx of hundreds of students. The house-elves weren't the only ones who had preparations to make.

Thinking of preparations, she began to wonder what her job as Head Girl would entail. She was friendly with last year's Head Girl, Alice Creevey—Longbottom now, probably—but they were not on such good terms that they would chat very often about their lives. She knew from Alice that it was "a bloody lot of work, but it's really ace when the work turns out." Lily wasn't worried about the workload, really. She'd learned to handle that sort of thing long ago. She was a bit apprehensive of the social aspect of the job, though. She thought she'd be able to organize the prefects well enough, as they were all fine upstanding youths like herself; and she had years of practice at telling students off for pranking and generally causing a fuss. When it came to arranging Hogsmeade visits and organizing dances, on the other hand, she was a novice.

She was woken from her reverie by a loud crash behind her, followed by raucous laughter. Her eyes narrowed automatically: she recognized those voices. She turned round to face two of her least favorite people: Sirius Black and James Potter.

As if James could sense her scowl, he sobered up as soon as he recognized her. Sirius, still chuckling, rolled his eyes how whipped his best mate was. "Aww, c'mon, Evans, we were just having a laugh. Look, we didn't even break anything this time!"

She quickly surveyed the area around the young men, where they had just materialized from the brick pillar that was the entrance to the platform. Indeed, they seemed to have done no more damage than to have attracted every eye towards themselves—and of course, this was the aim of the loud BANG! that had issued from Sirius' wand.

"Right. Well, don't make a habit of it—"

"—It's already a habit of ours, Evans, in case you haven't noticed. We're the Marauders. We've been pranking since the you found out you were a witch in the first place."

"—this year," she ploughed on, "because I'm Head Girl." She straightened herself up to her full 5 feet and one inch—5'3" with the heels—and placed her hands on her hips.

"Sorry, what was that?" Sirius had been examining his well-manicured nails. "Head Girl, did you say? Cor, I didn't see that one coming at all. Pardon me if we" he put an arm around James' shoulders "aren't going to kowtow to the all-powerful glorified hall monitor." James ruffled his hair nervously. "Right, Jamesiepoo? Oi, James, why has your face gone all red? If it's really that important to you I won't call you Jamesiepoo in public. Really, though it's all in good fun…" James was still staring at his feet.

As both Lily and Sirius were looking at James strangely, a third boy came from behind the other two.

Lily noticed him first. "Hullo, Peter."

The short, stocky boy with mousy hair and dark brown eyes grinned at her and have a nervous laugh. If she hadn't yet convinced Black and Potter that she was a force to be reckoned with, at least Peter was somewhat frightened of her, thought Lily.

"'Lo, Lily. Prongs, Padfoot. Hey, what's wrong with Prongs? Has she already turned him down?" he asked, jerking a thumb towards Lily. "Blimey, that was fast."

"Wormy! Marvelous to see you, mate. But no, we don't know what's gotten into James. He hasn't asked her out yet—I know, seems like it's a record: he's been in Evans' presence for 5 whole minutes without smothering her with his affections." Peter was standing by James now, alternately waving a hand and snapping his fingers in front of the boy's bespectacled face. "He hasn't serenaded her, or professed his undying love, or even read the limerick I wrote for him to use! Rude of him not to take advantage of my hard work, really. It's quite good, in my humble opinion. Would you like to hear it? Ahem, here it goes: There once was a young lass named Lily, whom we'd love to buy knickers so frilly—"

"Yeah, thanks, Pads, I'm snapped out of it!" James interrupted, blushing again. He grinned sheepishly at Lily. "Sorry, Lils, you know how he gets…"

Not amused, Lily huffed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. I'm warning you lads, no funny business this year. As Head Girl I can give detention, and don't think for a moment that I'll be sympathetic about Quidditch practice." Her stern look was lost on Sirius, who had an affronted look on his face at having been interrupted. "Have any of you seen Remus? I still don't know who the Head Boy is, and the only two likely people I can think of are him and Se—Snape."