(A/N) THIS IS SO SAD–I CAN'T BELIEVE MYSELF! Ok...enjoy! *wel* :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or it's characters.
Ch. 18: The Three most Noble Things
The next few months flew by for Lily. She spent most of her free time with James and loved every minute of it. He had really transformed from a few years before.
One day at breakfast, she was surprised when her charms teacher came up to her and asked her to follow him. With a confused look back at James, Sirius and Lupin, she stood up and went with him. He led her to the staircase that led up to the Headmaster's office.
"Miss Evans," the professor said, "the Headmaster has some...news...for you. Go up the stairs and knock on the door and he'll let you in."
"Ok," Lily said slowly. What possible news could the Headmaster have for her? "Thank you, professor," she said as she started climbing the stairs.
At the top, Lily knocked on the door and it swung open. Sitting at the desk was the Headmaster just as he had been when she had changed houses.
"Hello, Miss Evans," he said slowly, motioning to a chair. "Please sit down."
Lily obeyed, still as confused as ever. "I heard you had some news for me," she said.
"Yes, I'm afraid so," he said quietly.
"You're afraid so?" she asked apprehensively. "Have you decided to put me back into my own grade?"
The Headmaster shook his head, looking down at his hands. "No, Miss Evans, it's nothing like that. You are doing wonderfully as always. The problem is, well...I think I better just say this straight out. I am sorry but your parents have been killed in a muggle car accident."
Lily stared at him. She must have heard him wrong; this wasn't real. He was joking. It was a dream. It must be something! Anything!
"W–what?" she finally asked, shaking her head to clear her foggy vision.
"I'm sorry, Miss Evans. The notice just came, but it happened yesterday afternoon. It took your parents' friends this long to track you down," he said, finally looking into her eyes.
When she didn't say anything, he continued. "The funeral is to be held in a few days. You, of course, will be transported there, most likely by the Hogwarts Express."
She still remained silent, staring down at her hands. "I know this must be more painful than I can imagine," he said very quietly. "Until the funeral, you do not have to attend classes of course. You may go now," he said in an awkward tone.
Lily stood up mechanically. This wasn't possible. Her parents couldn't be dead.
She walked out of the office and down the stairs in a trance and started to walk. When she finally realized what she was doing, she realized she heading towards the Slytherin common room. She stubbed her toe against one of the steps and the reality of the situation came crashing down around her. Tears started rolling down her cheeks and she could think of only one thing. She had to talk to Severus.
Lily broke into a run and sprinted the rest of the way, stopping only a foot away from the door. It was then that she realized that she didn't know the new password for the year. Desperately, she banged on the door, but no one answered.
"Cleansweep," she choked out, but she didn't have much hope it would open. The Slytherins usually changed passwords once a term. "Cleansweep," she said more clearly, continuing to bang on the door. "CLEANSWEEP," she finally yelled futilely.
"Mudblood," said a voice behind her.
Lily spun around, anger welling up in her. How dare someone insult her at a time like this? She was surprised to see Adrienne standing behind her.
Gaping, she stuttered, "A...Adrienne? Why did you call me a Mudblood?"
Adrienne snorted softly. "It's the new password. I obviously didn't have any say in choosing it. What's wrong Lily?"
Lily turned around and saw the open door in front of her. She turned back to look at Adrienne. "I...I need to see Severus. It's...very important," she said, tears running down her face again.
"I haven't seen him for weeks...but I don't know." she said, guiding Lily into the common room. "Why don't you ask Lucius?" she said, gesturing to a corner where Lucius sat, pouring over a book.
He looked up at her and hatred filled his eyes. "What are you doing in here, Evans?" he snapped.
"I...I need to talk to Sev...it's terribly important," she said, trying to stop crying.
"Right, so when ever he needs you, you turn your back on him and change houses...on the other hand, you get a paper cut and you come running to him to fix it for you. Some friend you are," he said, standing up and walking a step towards her.
"Shut up, Lucius!" Lily sniffled. "Where is he?"
Lucius snickered bitterly. "If you had been a better friend, you might have noticed that he's been gone for two weeks."
Lily gasped. She had been so occupied with school and...James...that she hadn't even taken time to follow Tara's advice and keep a look out on Severus. "Where is he Lucius?"
"None of your business. Besides, the truth would only hurt you," he said mockingly.
"So that's the way it is," she said quietly.
Lucius snorted. "Don't pretend you know what I'm talking about in hopes that I'll let something slip."
"Did it hurt, Lucius?" she said looking at his arm.
"What?" he asked, eyes wide.
She rubbed her arm in the place she had seen Severus' dark mark. "I bet it would..."
"How did you..." he stopped glancing up at Adrienne. "Haven't you got anything better to do with your time?"
Adrienne looked cautiously at Lily. "Do you want me to stay, Lily?"
Lily sighed. She would get more information out of him if Adrienne was gone, but she liked having her there as moral support. She took a deep breath. "No, it's ok Adrienne, you can go."
"Ok," she said slowly, going up to the girls' dormitories.
When the door was closed behind her, Lucius rounded on Lily. "How did you find out?" he almost screamed.
"I figured it out. It wasn't that difficult. Now where did...did this Voldemort take him?" she asked, her voice shaking at the thought of Severus being with that monster.
For a strange moment, Lily thought she saw concern in Lucius' eyes. "I–I don't know. None of us have been gone this long before," his voice then changed to one of cockiness. "But I'm sure he's fine if he obeys."
"I'm going up to the dormitories," Lily said, her jaw set. "Maybe he left some clue on where he was going." She walked a few paces towards the dormitories.
"Oh no you don't," Lucius said, blocking the way. "Get out of here before everyone else gets back from breakfast. Do you know what they'd do to you? The only thing keeping me from hurting you now is the fact that you're a girl and some stupid promise I made to Severus years ago. Now leave!"
Lily tried to push past him. "I'm not going anywhere. In fact, if you don't move, I'll tell Tara what an idiot you are and forbid her as a best friend to have anything to do with you."
Lucius' eyes widened in rage, but he took a step backwards. "Fine, Evans. You have five minutes to find something, then I'm personally kicking you out. It'll be hard enough to keep the other boys out of there for that long."
Lily didn't even glance back at him as she stormed into the dormitories and found Severus' things. She began searching through piles of clothes and pictures. Finally, under his bed, she found the old book she had given him years ago at Christmas that recorded his three most noble deeds. She hadn't found any other clues and this for some reason seemed to hold hope. Lily was in a haze; she couldn't even remember why she was looking for Severus, but she knew she had to find him.
She opened the book and was pulled in, into his memory of the third most noble thing he had ever done.
***
Lily saw a much younger version of herself standing in line before the sorting hat, looking very nervous, but the focus of the memory was on Severus and Lucius, sitting at the Slytherin table.
"Look at that stupid red head. She'll be in Gryffindor for sure. She looks as if she's going to throw up or faint or something," Lucius said smirking.
Severus shrugged. "I don't know. She's new. I feel kind of bad for her; she's just been thrown into a totally different kind of life. Besides, she's kind of cute."
"What!?" Lucius said incredulously. "She's a mudblood! Are you feeling all right, Sev?" He felt his forehead. "Sometimes you worry me. If you go on making comments like that about mudbloods, you'll find yourself without friends and probably beat up more than once by people in your own house."
"I know, but..." Severus started.
"Just stay away from her and people like her and you'll be fine. Trust me..." he stopped as the sorting hat was placed on Lily's head.
It muttered for a while before finally yelling out, "SLYTHERIN!"
Everyone at the table, including Severus, gasped in shock. Dead silence followed as Lily watched herself shuffle down to the end of the Slytherin table.
Finally, she saw Severus start to clap determinedly, looking as if it took every bit of will he had to do it. Lucius and the others stared in shock and started muttering, but soon other claps followed from around the room. Eventually, Severus' friends started clapping, even Lucius, to try to make it seem that what he was doing was perfectly normal.
Afterwards, Severus stared straight ahead at the next person being sorted.
"That was stupid," Lucius said. "You could have ruined everything."
Severus grunted, but didn't turn from watching the sorting.
Lily gasped. She had known it had been a big deal for him to clap, but she didn't know that even his own friends were angry at him for it.
She didn't have much time to think about this, however, as she was thrown into the next memory.
***
Lily found herself in the forest that was about a half of a mile from her house. She would often go there when she was little when she wanted to be alone. Severus was standing there, looking very haggard and slightly wild. His hair was loose and fell around his face, and he looked the same age as he was now.
"This must have just happened," Lily thought.
She took a step around Severus, and saw a figure crouched on the ground. Lily gasped. It was Petunia, looking very afraid and bedraggled.
"Get out of here!" Severus shouted at her gruffly.
"But...but what was that?" she sniffled.
Severus glanced over his shoulder apprehensively. "That was Voldemort and the band of Death Eaters–like me–" he said distractedly.
"But–aren't you Lily's friend?" she questioned slowly.
"What? How do you know Lily?" he asked, whipping around.
Petunia quivered. "I'm her sister...I saw your picture in her room..."
"You did? She has a picture of me in her room?" his tone softened, but then he snapped back to reality. "Get out of here, ok?"
"But, won't you get in trouble? Your master said that if you didn't kill me...you'd die..."
Lily shook her head in amazement. Petunia was so stupid. Why didn't she just run?
Severus shook his head. "I just can't bring myself to kill an innocent girl like you, ok? Even before I knew you were Lily's sister. Get out of here now or he might find you. Go far away and pretend to be dead for a while!"
Petunia stumbled to her feet, but stood still, staring at him.
"Get out of here!" Severus said, giving her a shove.
Glancing back every few steps, Petunia finally started running towards the town. Severus looked over his shoulder again before slumping to the ground in exhaustion.
Lily was thrown into the next memory.
***
She found herself standing in one of the deserted hallways of Hogwarts. Severus was standing close to her, looking straight ahead. His hair was done in a ponytail and was dressed neatly in his school robes. It was quite a contrast from the last memory. Far down the hallway, Lily could just make out James hovering in the shadows.
"So, I got your message," James said softly. "What do you want, grease ball?"
Severus seemed not to have heard him, and kept staring straight ahead. Finally he said in a cold voice, "Why aren't you taking Lily to the ball?"
"Why I don't know," James said sarcastically. "Oh yea, it might be because she hasn't spoken to me all year..."
"You're going to ask her to go with you," Severus stated.
James snorted. "Now why would I do that? I mean I like her and all, but I don't really want to be turned down. Besides, why are you telling me this?"
"Because Lily really wants to go to the ball," Severus said, looking out of a nearby window.
"Then why don't you take her yourself, Snivellus? It's obvious how much you like her," James said.
Severus waited a moment before saying in a quiet, bitter voice, "Because she doesn't want to go with me. She wants to go with you."
"How do you know this?" James asked incredulously.
"Because...because she told me," Severus said.
James laughed. "Oh ho! So you were rejected? Well, I would take Lily, but I've already promised to take Tara...sorry I can't help you, not that I have any reason to want to help you..."
"I..." Severus started, anger rising in his voice, "I wasn't rejected; She just told me that she wanted to go with you when she was talking about the ball. She didn't mention anyone else. Ask her...and...I'll take Tara."
"Why on Earth would I do this for you?" James said, scoffingly. "We're only arch enemies after all..."
"Fine..." Severus said in exasperation. "I won't give you any trouble for the rest of the year...I'll avoid you completely if you do this."
James laughed a little, "No trouble at all?"
"Well, only if you strongly provoke it," he said, still refusing to look at James.
"Ok, fine. You've got yourself a deal," James said. "But I'm really only doing this because I like Lily and want to see her happy..."
Severus turned around to walk off. "Well then it looks like we have one thing in common after all, Potter."
Lily was surprised to discover that she was crying. Severus had done this for her? Severus loved her? She would have gone with him in a second had he asked.
Suddenly, she was thrown out of the book to the boys' dormitory just in time to see Lucius burst in through the door.
"Ok I've given you more than five minutes. You done yet?" he said, irritated.
Lily nodded, trying to get control of her emotions.
"Y–yes I know where he is–or at least was," she stammered. "He's in the woods by my house...I need to go help him..."
Lucius laughed. "You'd only get yourself killed. I'll go if you show me where he is..."
Lily nodded and went to get parchment and paper to draw a map. She had been a fool. Severus had loved her the whole time but she had never seen it.
***
The rest of the year went by in a flash. Her parents' funeral went by in a terrible haze. Tara came to the funeral, which was some comfort to Lily, but nothing could fully stop the pain.
When she returned to school, she was relieved to see that Lucius and Severus were both there. Severus looked a little weary, but he was now wearing his hair in a ponytail and wearing clean robes.
She was going to go talk to him, but she received an unsigned letter telling her that communication would be dangerous because of the mysterious whereabouts of her sister's body.
It was in Lucius' handwriting.
N.E.W.T.S. came and went surprisingly quickly. Maybe it was because of all of her worse problems that she didn't really care much about how she did on her tests. She studied anyways, but didn't stress. It all seemed so trivial now.
Graduation was a grand affair and made her last week in Hogwarts one to remember. She couldn't believe she had finally finished school, a year ahead of what she had expected, of course, but still she felt too young to be that old.
When she sat on the Hogwarts Express, holding James' hand and looking out of the window, she felt a wave of sadness come over her. She would miss the school desperately. During the hours she spent doing homework she had always imagined being extremely happy when she finally left, but it was definitely bitter sweet.
She found herself missing Tara and their talks they would always have on the train.
Noticing her glum expression, James put his arm around her and pulled her close. "Strange to be leaving, isn't it?" he said.
"Yes...I'm ... I'm going to miss it," she said softly.
"Well, we can always come and visit," James said, trying to be upbeat. "Besides, we've got the most exciting part of our lives coming up soon–it will only get better from here."
Lily laid her head down on his shoulder, but continued to look out of the window at the castle until it disappeared from sight.
(A/N) 2 chapters left–AAAH—ok please review...love all of my reviewers!
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or it's characters.
Ch. 18: The Three most Noble Things
The next few months flew by for Lily. She spent most of her free time with James and loved every minute of it. He had really transformed from a few years before.
One day at breakfast, she was surprised when her charms teacher came up to her and asked her to follow him. With a confused look back at James, Sirius and Lupin, she stood up and went with him. He led her to the staircase that led up to the Headmaster's office.
"Miss Evans," the professor said, "the Headmaster has some...news...for you. Go up the stairs and knock on the door and he'll let you in."
"Ok," Lily said slowly. What possible news could the Headmaster have for her? "Thank you, professor," she said as she started climbing the stairs.
At the top, Lily knocked on the door and it swung open. Sitting at the desk was the Headmaster just as he had been when she had changed houses.
"Hello, Miss Evans," he said slowly, motioning to a chair. "Please sit down."
Lily obeyed, still as confused as ever. "I heard you had some news for me," she said.
"Yes, I'm afraid so," he said quietly.
"You're afraid so?" she asked apprehensively. "Have you decided to put me back into my own grade?"
The Headmaster shook his head, looking down at his hands. "No, Miss Evans, it's nothing like that. You are doing wonderfully as always. The problem is, well...I think I better just say this straight out. I am sorry but your parents have been killed in a muggle car accident."
Lily stared at him. She must have heard him wrong; this wasn't real. He was joking. It was a dream. It must be something! Anything!
"W–what?" she finally asked, shaking her head to clear her foggy vision.
"I'm sorry, Miss Evans. The notice just came, but it happened yesterday afternoon. It took your parents' friends this long to track you down," he said, finally looking into her eyes.
When she didn't say anything, he continued. "The funeral is to be held in a few days. You, of course, will be transported there, most likely by the Hogwarts Express."
She still remained silent, staring down at her hands. "I know this must be more painful than I can imagine," he said very quietly. "Until the funeral, you do not have to attend classes of course. You may go now," he said in an awkward tone.
Lily stood up mechanically. This wasn't possible. Her parents couldn't be dead.
She walked out of the office and down the stairs in a trance and started to walk. When she finally realized what she was doing, she realized she heading towards the Slytherin common room. She stubbed her toe against one of the steps and the reality of the situation came crashing down around her. Tears started rolling down her cheeks and she could think of only one thing. She had to talk to Severus.
Lily broke into a run and sprinted the rest of the way, stopping only a foot away from the door. It was then that she realized that she didn't know the new password for the year. Desperately, she banged on the door, but no one answered.
"Cleansweep," she choked out, but she didn't have much hope it would open. The Slytherins usually changed passwords once a term. "Cleansweep," she said more clearly, continuing to bang on the door. "CLEANSWEEP," she finally yelled futilely.
"Mudblood," said a voice behind her.
Lily spun around, anger welling up in her. How dare someone insult her at a time like this? She was surprised to see Adrienne standing behind her.
Gaping, she stuttered, "A...Adrienne? Why did you call me a Mudblood?"
Adrienne snorted softly. "It's the new password. I obviously didn't have any say in choosing it. What's wrong Lily?"
Lily turned around and saw the open door in front of her. She turned back to look at Adrienne. "I...I need to see Severus. It's...very important," she said, tears running down her face again.
"I haven't seen him for weeks...but I don't know." she said, guiding Lily into the common room. "Why don't you ask Lucius?" she said, gesturing to a corner where Lucius sat, pouring over a book.
He looked up at her and hatred filled his eyes. "What are you doing in here, Evans?" he snapped.
"I...I need to talk to Sev...it's terribly important," she said, trying to stop crying.
"Right, so when ever he needs you, you turn your back on him and change houses...on the other hand, you get a paper cut and you come running to him to fix it for you. Some friend you are," he said, standing up and walking a step towards her.
"Shut up, Lucius!" Lily sniffled. "Where is he?"
Lucius snickered bitterly. "If you had been a better friend, you might have noticed that he's been gone for two weeks."
Lily gasped. She had been so occupied with school and...James...that she hadn't even taken time to follow Tara's advice and keep a look out on Severus. "Where is he Lucius?"
"None of your business. Besides, the truth would only hurt you," he said mockingly.
"So that's the way it is," she said quietly.
Lucius snorted. "Don't pretend you know what I'm talking about in hopes that I'll let something slip."
"Did it hurt, Lucius?" she said looking at his arm.
"What?" he asked, eyes wide.
She rubbed her arm in the place she had seen Severus' dark mark. "I bet it would..."
"How did you..." he stopped glancing up at Adrienne. "Haven't you got anything better to do with your time?"
Adrienne looked cautiously at Lily. "Do you want me to stay, Lily?"
Lily sighed. She would get more information out of him if Adrienne was gone, but she liked having her there as moral support. She took a deep breath. "No, it's ok Adrienne, you can go."
"Ok," she said slowly, going up to the girls' dormitories.
When the door was closed behind her, Lucius rounded on Lily. "How did you find out?" he almost screamed.
"I figured it out. It wasn't that difficult. Now where did...did this Voldemort take him?" she asked, her voice shaking at the thought of Severus being with that monster.
For a strange moment, Lily thought she saw concern in Lucius' eyes. "I–I don't know. None of us have been gone this long before," his voice then changed to one of cockiness. "But I'm sure he's fine if he obeys."
"I'm going up to the dormitories," Lily said, her jaw set. "Maybe he left some clue on where he was going." She walked a few paces towards the dormitories.
"Oh no you don't," Lucius said, blocking the way. "Get out of here before everyone else gets back from breakfast. Do you know what they'd do to you? The only thing keeping me from hurting you now is the fact that you're a girl and some stupid promise I made to Severus years ago. Now leave!"
Lily tried to push past him. "I'm not going anywhere. In fact, if you don't move, I'll tell Tara what an idiot you are and forbid her as a best friend to have anything to do with you."
Lucius' eyes widened in rage, but he took a step backwards. "Fine, Evans. You have five minutes to find something, then I'm personally kicking you out. It'll be hard enough to keep the other boys out of there for that long."
Lily didn't even glance back at him as she stormed into the dormitories and found Severus' things. She began searching through piles of clothes and pictures. Finally, under his bed, she found the old book she had given him years ago at Christmas that recorded his three most noble deeds. She hadn't found any other clues and this for some reason seemed to hold hope. Lily was in a haze; she couldn't even remember why she was looking for Severus, but she knew she had to find him.
She opened the book and was pulled in, into his memory of the third most noble thing he had ever done.
***
Lily saw a much younger version of herself standing in line before the sorting hat, looking very nervous, but the focus of the memory was on Severus and Lucius, sitting at the Slytherin table.
"Look at that stupid red head. She'll be in Gryffindor for sure. She looks as if she's going to throw up or faint or something," Lucius said smirking.
Severus shrugged. "I don't know. She's new. I feel kind of bad for her; she's just been thrown into a totally different kind of life. Besides, she's kind of cute."
"What!?" Lucius said incredulously. "She's a mudblood! Are you feeling all right, Sev?" He felt his forehead. "Sometimes you worry me. If you go on making comments like that about mudbloods, you'll find yourself without friends and probably beat up more than once by people in your own house."
"I know, but..." Severus started.
"Just stay away from her and people like her and you'll be fine. Trust me..." he stopped as the sorting hat was placed on Lily's head.
It muttered for a while before finally yelling out, "SLYTHERIN!"
Everyone at the table, including Severus, gasped in shock. Dead silence followed as Lily watched herself shuffle down to the end of the Slytherin table.
Finally, she saw Severus start to clap determinedly, looking as if it took every bit of will he had to do it. Lucius and the others stared in shock and started muttering, but soon other claps followed from around the room. Eventually, Severus' friends started clapping, even Lucius, to try to make it seem that what he was doing was perfectly normal.
Afterwards, Severus stared straight ahead at the next person being sorted.
"That was stupid," Lucius said. "You could have ruined everything."
Severus grunted, but didn't turn from watching the sorting.
Lily gasped. She had known it had been a big deal for him to clap, but she didn't know that even his own friends were angry at him for it.
She didn't have much time to think about this, however, as she was thrown into the next memory.
***
Lily found herself in the forest that was about a half of a mile from her house. She would often go there when she was little when she wanted to be alone. Severus was standing there, looking very haggard and slightly wild. His hair was loose and fell around his face, and he looked the same age as he was now.
"This must have just happened," Lily thought.
She took a step around Severus, and saw a figure crouched on the ground. Lily gasped. It was Petunia, looking very afraid and bedraggled.
"Get out of here!" Severus shouted at her gruffly.
"But...but what was that?" she sniffled.
Severus glanced over his shoulder apprehensively. "That was Voldemort and the band of Death Eaters–like me–" he said distractedly.
"But–aren't you Lily's friend?" she questioned slowly.
"What? How do you know Lily?" he asked, whipping around.
Petunia quivered. "I'm her sister...I saw your picture in her room..."
"You did? She has a picture of me in her room?" his tone softened, but then he snapped back to reality. "Get out of here, ok?"
"But, won't you get in trouble? Your master said that if you didn't kill me...you'd die..."
Lily shook her head in amazement. Petunia was so stupid. Why didn't she just run?
Severus shook his head. "I just can't bring myself to kill an innocent girl like you, ok? Even before I knew you were Lily's sister. Get out of here now or he might find you. Go far away and pretend to be dead for a while!"
Petunia stumbled to her feet, but stood still, staring at him.
"Get out of here!" Severus said, giving her a shove.
Glancing back every few steps, Petunia finally started running towards the town. Severus looked over his shoulder again before slumping to the ground in exhaustion.
Lily was thrown into the next memory.
***
She found herself standing in one of the deserted hallways of Hogwarts. Severus was standing close to her, looking straight ahead. His hair was done in a ponytail and was dressed neatly in his school robes. It was quite a contrast from the last memory. Far down the hallway, Lily could just make out James hovering in the shadows.
"So, I got your message," James said softly. "What do you want, grease ball?"
Severus seemed not to have heard him, and kept staring straight ahead. Finally he said in a cold voice, "Why aren't you taking Lily to the ball?"
"Why I don't know," James said sarcastically. "Oh yea, it might be because she hasn't spoken to me all year..."
"You're going to ask her to go with you," Severus stated.
James snorted. "Now why would I do that? I mean I like her and all, but I don't really want to be turned down. Besides, why are you telling me this?"
"Because Lily really wants to go to the ball," Severus said, looking out of a nearby window.
"Then why don't you take her yourself, Snivellus? It's obvious how much you like her," James said.
Severus waited a moment before saying in a quiet, bitter voice, "Because she doesn't want to go with me. She wants to go with you."
"How do you know this?" James asked incredulously.
"Because...because she told me," Severus said.
James laughed. "Oh ho! So you were rejected? Well, I would take Lily, but I've already promised to take Tara...sorry I can't help you, not that I have any reason to want to help you..."
"I..." Severus started, anger rising in his voice, "I wasn't rejected; She just told me that she wanted to go with you when she was talking about the ball. She didn't mention anyone else. Ask her...and...I'll take Tara."
"Why on Earth would I do this for you?" James said, scoffingly. "We're only arch enemies after all..."
"Fine..." Severus said in exasperation. "I won't give you any trouble for the rest of the year...I'll avoid you completely if you do this."
James laughed a little, "No trouble at all?"
"Well, only if you strongly provoke it," he said, still refusing to look at James.
"Ok, fine. You've got yourself a deal," James said. "But I'm really only doing this because I like Lily and want to see her happy..."
Severus turned around to walk off. "Well then it looks like we have one thing in common after all, Potter."
Lily was surprised to discover that she was crying. Severus had done this for her? Severus loved her? She would have gone with him in a second had he asked.
Suddenly, she was thrown out of the book to the boys' dormitory just in time to see Lucius burst in through the door.
"Ok I've given you more than five minutes. You done yet?" he said, irritated.
Lily nodded, trying to get control of her emotions.
"Y–yes I know where he is–or at least was," she stammered. "He's in the woods by my house...I need to go help him..."
Lucius laughed. "You'd only get yourself killed. I'll go if you show me where he is..."
Lily nodded and went to get parchment and paper to draw a map. She had been a fool. Severus had loved her the whole time but she had never seen it.
***
The rest of the year went by in a flash. Her parents' funeral went by in a terrible haze. Tara came to the funeral, which was some comfort to Lily, but nothing could fully stop the pain.
When she returned to school, she was relieved to see that Lucius and Severus were both there. Severus looked a little weary, but he was now wearing his hair in a ponytail and wearing clean robes.
She was going to go talk to him, but she received an unsigned letter telling her that communication would be dangerous because of the mysterious whereabouts of her sister's body.
It was in Lucius' handwriting.
N.E.W.T.S. came and went surprisingly quickly. Maybe it was because of all of her worse problems that she didn't really care much about how she did on her tests. She studied anyways, but didn't stress. It all seemed so trivial now.
Graduation was a grand affair and made her last week in Hogwarts one to remember. She couldn't believe she had finally finished school, a year ahead of what she had expected, of course, but still she felt too young to be that old.
When she sat on the Hogwarts Express, holding James' hand and looking out of the window, she felt a wave of sadness come over her. She would miss the school desperately. During the hours she spent doing homework she had always imagined being extremely happy when she finally left, but it was definitely bitter sweet.
She found herself missing Tara and their talks they would always have on the train.
Noticing her glum expression, James put his arm around her and pulled her close. "Strange to be leaving, isn't it?" he said.
"Yes...I'm ... I'm going to miss it," she said softly.
"Well, we can always come and visit," James said, trying to be upbeat. "Besides, we've got the most exciting part of our lives coming up soon–it will only get better from here."
Lily laid her head down on his shoulder, but continued to look out of the window at the castle until it disappeared from sight.
(A/N) 2 chapters left–AAAH—ok please review...love all of my reviewers!