She went by the rest of the day in a sort of haze. James made to disappear with the rock, but Lily tensely grabbed his arm and shook her head. Maybe she was tethering on the edge of insanity – she hoped never to meet who wouldn't, after this – but she didn't feel safe. Not yet. She didn't realize that feeling would be a permanent part of her from then on, all the way to her grave, until much later.
The bar was full of unconscious people (she didn't dwell around for very long), and Lily found out that the Death Eaters, whose presence was now marked only by the trail of destruction their storm had left behind, had, for some reason, wanted their fun with the seven of them specifically. Anyone without pieces of stone or wood or glass about them had decided to stay alive and had bolted, but Lily couldn't remember having time to think safety=away=run between flashes of red and green and white. They weren't going anywhere, anyway, so the thought occurred to her that there were scattered pieces of their impromptu initial congregation outside (her first thought wasn't to get a figure of authority but rather to become one, and it didn't cross her mind why that was). The rain, somehow only a dribble now, was reduced to an almost welcome, constant presence.
Remus was standing, or rather, half balancing himself, half balancing what appeared to be the floor and was actually the sky, even though he was on the edge of the woods in the grass and the trees had him perfectly covered, and James let him collapse practically all over him – he'd dealt with the Lestrange brothers all on his own. Lily was both horrified and not allowed to help, because, as it turned out, she hadn't been quite as good with Bellatrix as she'd have thought, and there was a large gash on her shoulder that instantly began hurting her when she noticed it to prove it.
"They vanished a second ago, I think." He said dazedly, tripping on his ankles, and Lily didn't want to find out how that could actually be done. "With this large POP!" He said it quite loudly, which made James jump in an unbalanced manner and end up on the floor entangled with him. Remus wasn't much help getting up, but it lifted her mood partially.
They found Alice tearfully crouched over Frank, wand in hand, and she cried in relief when she saw them. They were closest to the pub because Frank had been hit with a fair bit of ceiling – and then Avery had shown up, and that's how Alice had gotten a nice long gash that ran all the way from her temple to her chin, and that's how Lily let go of the idea of being a Healer.
Lily used her good side to help Alice with Frank, but it was clear two injured girls alone weren't going to last long.
Then the people showed up, and that was no longer a problem. What was, however, was that they didn't seem to have thought prudent to check on anyone that might have been in the bar while spells and curses were flying along, but after they were very worried. Rosmerta was immediately taken to the Hospital Wing, which seemed the closest and the brightest idea. Frank and Remus followed, and when James and Lily went after the final members of their party, they found Peter up and about, blushingly stuttering about tripping and hitting his head, and Sirius staring at him incredulously, wondering whether it was proper to laugh at that point.
Lily looked around – she saw no flash of black or fur or dog. "Where were you the whole time?" She asked Sirius. "And where's that dog that went after Peter?"
"Erm-" Sirius seemed to think long and hard about that question. "Fighting- someone. And- I don't know. Ran off." He shrugged at the look she gave him. "Eh, you know Death Eaters, they all look alike."
"You're a horrible liar." She said in surprise. "I didn't expect that."
James snorted, looking too exhausted for more, Sirius sputtered and Peter trailed behind them rubbing his head. Lily didn't get any more answers from any of them.
It was two hours before they were in the Hospital Wing, waiting until Madam Pomfrey would let them see their friends. Lily saw them sooner than the others, because her shoulder was noticed and James made sure to say that she'd stumbled more often than she walked a straight line and that she'd lost a lot of blood. None of that was true, but she ended up being marched inside along with Peter and directed to Remus' bed – trying extremely hard to pretend Madam Pomfrey was no busier than usual, though she seemed to have run out of beds – which relaxed her only marginally. Peter's problem was apparently not as serious, as he was sent to the back where Madam Pomfrey didn't go often.
"Frank's still out." Remus offered as soon as she sat down at his feet – probably because the first thing he'd done was ask questions too. "But Rosmerta's up, about, and questioning everyone about the state of The Three Broomsticks. Alice's cut was not dark magic, so she's fixed up and sneaking around Pomfrey to stay by Frank's bed."
Lily relaxed a little. "That's good." She murmured, smiling hesitantly. "You seem better?"
Remus nodded. "I have no idea what I was hit with, but Madam Pomfrey seemed to have. She cleared it up and forced me to stay, but had no time to explain anything."
"Well, Mr. Lupin, the half of the bar's occupants that didn't decide to run off or fight Death Eaters on their own are also here, and though they aren't very many, they've all been hit by pieces of flying wall or falling ceiling. I believe chats over tea are something that will happen tomorrow at the earliest." Remus looked properly ashamed as Madam Pomfrey materialized (figuratively) right next to them. Lily winced as she began prodding at her wound with a dark scowl on her face.
"But I can tell you that you've been hit with a Gemino curse-"
Lily gaped. "A Ge- on a human?" Remus looked uncomfortable at that, and Madam Pomfrey readjusted Lily's arm. She noticed that the charms to close a simple cut were taking a fair bit longer than what was usual for the Healer.
"Yes – very odd, and I don't particularly believe it was deliberate, because in a duel it would be too slow-acting to be of any use. It acted essentially on your cells, , like a Muggle deathly illness called cancer. It wouldn't have given you half a day. You're lucky you did not take long getting here." The look on her face intensified, and she looked up from her shoulder briefly to show it. "And do try not to move around an awful lot, won't you, Miss Evans?"
The glare she spared was, however, preferable to the concern that suddenly replaced it. "What?" Lily asked, alarmed.
"This is the work of-" For some reason, she glanced at Remus, who looked as bemusedly concerned as her. "Well, a curse I've seen before. It's dark magic, and I've no time to deal with it now. It's not very serious." She reassured the stricken expression on Lily's face, and then turned apologetic. "I'm afraid it'll leave a scar – I have no dittany to spare as this is rather shallow, and it was not applied immediately anyway. I've stopped the bleeding and you'll stay overnight." This she said very sternly, as if she expected Lily to sneak out for five-o'clock tea if she wasn't impressed with the danger of whatever it was she was talking about. Lily thought it unfair that she judged all Gryffindors by the Marauders' behaviour just because those four were the ones visiting her most. Then she hurried off to attend to a fourteen year-old Lily remembered having seen near the blast site, and who was looking very pale.
"Lily," Remus called urgently, and when she turned he didn't look bemused anymore, but like someone who'd just had a horrible thought. "may I see your shoulder?"
Lily blinked at his odd request, but she showed it to him nonetheless, if a little self-consciously, because of the look he was sporting. He looked at it for two seconds, and then he swore, and Lily, who'd never seen him do such a thing, jumped a little. "Who hit you with this?" He demanded.
"Er- Bellatrix. Lestrange, Bellatrix Lestrange. Why?" But the colour was draining from Remus' face and before she had time to be alarmed, he had jumped up and walked out the door.
It didn't take long – Madam Pomfrey surely had a sixth sense for these things – and the matron was dragging him furiously back, lecturing him on wasting time she didn't have. Just when Remus dropped back into bed still with an anxious expression, the teachers arrived.
McGonagall, Sprout, Slughorn and Flitwick realized quickly there was hardly anybody who could tell them anything useful – right up until Dumbledore, silent so far, went straight to Peter and the latter rattled off the seven names that were to be, as Madam Pomfrey was told, brought to the Headmaster's office as soon as the confusion died down. Lily couldn't blame him, because she could hardly hear herself among the cries and the orders.
When Madam Pomfrey realized that they were doing nothing more than taking up space, she kicked them all out, except for Sprout and Flitwick, who, like McGonagall, were perfectly willing to lend a hand, but who, unlike McGonagall, hadn't been demanded by duty as Deputy Headmistress and not a Head of House. She'd been assigned to press duty, which she grit her teeth at, dragging Slughorn along to share her misery, while Dumbledore was on damage control, both with the Ministry and the village. Anyone else would, Lily could see, only get in the way. She almost felt bad, watching everyone bustling around with ten hands, and herself lying there looking like another task someone else had to complete.
"Frank's up." Remus said suddenly, and Lily snapped around too fast for someone completely unaware of the previous presence of someone who'd just spoken – she'd never known herself to have such good reflexes.
Frank was, indeed, up, and the worst injury he appeared to have was a nasty hit to the head, which Flitwick seemed to waste no time in deeming treated – he was just telling him he was fine to leave when Madam Pomfrey noticed the atrocity and told the short teacher off for clearing a student who'd been unconscious and could have been hit with all manner of curses and charms (it hadn't seemed to cross her mind that Flitwick was the Charms professor). That was when Frank joined Lily and Remus, because apparently Madam Pomfrey had a system. Alice trailed behind. He too sat on Remus' bed, because they had to free as many as they could.
For the reminder of the day, all they did was stiffly discuss what had happened in Hogsmeade – and Lily only opened her mouth to let out a strangled gasp when Alice, of all people, mentioned Voldemort. "I screamed, Frank cursed, You-Know-Who sent whatever the hell it was I don't want to know about at us and we both stumbled back to the pub. That's when the wall beside us caved in and I couldn't see anything or hear him-"
Alice's eyes were filling with tears, and Frank rubbed her arm comfortingly. "It was weird." He added, trying to appear nonchalant but bobbing his Adam's apple. "He was so-"
"Human-looking?" Lily winced.
Everybody looked at her in alarm, and she pulled her knees to her chest. "Wanna share?" Alice ordered.
"I think he took a shine to James." She answered truthfully, and Remus went very white. Lily had an inkling something was up in his head, but he didn't look willing to share.
And so Lily told them – Remus' frown kept getting darker in contrast to his complexion getting whiter, Alice looked faint enough to be sick and Frank was gripping both his girlfriend and the sheets he was holding on to too tightly. Lily did, however, somehow manage to cheer Remus up a little by talking about the large black dog that had mysteriously disappeared after their exploits.
There they stayed while the sun set the same way as yesterday - and, strangely, to Lily, far more fascinating - not daring enough to ask permission to leave. Madam Pomfrey, grudgingly forced to let go students who'd suffered cuts to mild concussions with only strict instructions, ushered Frank, Alice and Peter out the door. Then it was just Remus and Lily and their quietening roommates as the Hospital Wing emptied.
She filled the space and the time with idle chatter. There were a number of things she was itching to ask, but something held her back. Remus was a far cry from being her best friend, and though she trusted him implicitly, she also knew to rarely expect honesty from him when it came to suspicious or weird things happening around his friends, or himself. She was about to ask about something she hadn't thought of yet when there was a sudden rush of warm air down her neck. She couldn't help it – she was jittery – and just barely refrained from making any noise above a squeal, jumping a foot in the air. Then she turned around and there was nothing there.
"Do you mind not calling attention to us?" Remus snapped in an angry whisper. Lily, indignant, turned in shock to Remus – and realized he was looking past her, to a trio of grinning miscreants who had not been there before.
"James!" She huffed. "What- humphf!" He had a hand on her lips now, and his face was too close, because she could distinguish the brown from the flecks of gold in his eyes behind the lenses, and she discovered he wasn't smirking anymore.
She snapped out of it when her eyes focused on Black and Peter, who didn't look nearly as distracting.
Before she could start insulting people or maybe pulling out her wand, Remus stood and closed the curtains of the now cramped space, taking advantage of Madam Pomfrey's turned back. He opened his mouth, but then Lily spotted something rather interesting in Potter's other hand, and instantly she figured explanations were unnecessary. "You're a fine lot of lunatics, you know that?" She said through her teeth, feeling the texture of the fabric of an invisibility cloak, which James was holding the way anyone else would hold a coat. "This is rare. How would you possibly have gotten it? And whose clever idea was it to breathe down my neck?" She was feeling her face burning, which only made her more murderous. Where was her wand?
"How about we leave the jinxing for when Pomfrey won't come see what it's about?" Remus asked pleasantly, stretching his hand in a clear offering of the wand that was hers and he was holding, though keeping it far enough away for it to be a warning.
She took it and very nearly growled at him. "Why did you sneak in here?" She tried again, more calmly.
"Well, we thought about knocking and swaggering inside, even coming in here yelling, but then we remembered Madam Pomfrey's used to people barrelling through the door and we wanted to be different." Sirius said.
"How about asking to come see your friend? Nicely?" Lily suggested.
James shook his head. "No, we couldn't do that. Can you imagine McGonagall's reaction if we started acting reasonable and polite and mature? We like her, we wouldn't do such a thing to her."
Sirius grinned, plopping down beside her. "Besides, deep down – deep, deep down – she's very fond of us and our antics, and we aim to please."
"I can't believe you went outside before to tell your mates to sneak into an understandably out-of-bounds place at night. Under an invisibility cloak that explains so much of the last few years of my life, with origins I likely don't want to know about." She grumbled. "Honestly, I'd expect this from them, not you!" Remus had the decency to look abashed.
James, on the other hand, looked insulted. "I'll have you know," He said, pompously. "that 'tis a family heirloom. Belonged to my father, my father's father before that, my-"
"I get the picture." She interrupted, and then frowned, because something didn't quite add up. "Wait – an invisibility cloak that lasts for multiple generations?" She sighed, annoyed. "Must you always exaggerate your point?"
James seemed surprised at that. "I'm not. My grandfather gave me a few wicked ideas for what to do with it my first couple of years here, actually. Why's that so weird?"
But Lily was glancing from the mystical cloak to Remus, because surely if he knew about it as he so obviously did, this had to have crossed his mind at some point. And yet Remus was nodding along with her, looking like the thought had just hit him for the first time too. "Because she's right, James." He said, plucking it out of his hands and examining it. "It was what Professor Madison talked about, class before last, matter of fact. Invisibility cloaks aren't infallible, nor certainly forever, that's what she said, remember? Your cloak came to mind, but I never- I mean, I just thought of it as a whole different level, or something."
Sirius, who'd started looking bored and was now eying the window as if wondering how he could turn it into a source of amusement, barked out a laugh. "Nice save. It's okay, we all know you only pretend to pay attention in class, Moony." Remus aimed his pillow at him.
James shrugged, and though there was a new interest in his eyes when they landed on the cloak, it was still the same faithful instrument he'd used to get some serious pranks going. He shoved it aside so he could sit too, which scandalized Lily. "I guess my cloak is just the Invisibility Cloak. And by that I mean that it's really only as good as its owner."
"Yes, thank you, James, but I didn't ask you here to give your self-aggrandizing a hand." Remus said drily with a hint of annoyance. Lily couldn't keep up with him. Sometimes he went along with the other two's jokes, sometimes he nipped them at the bud – then again, they didn't exactly have all the time in the world. He proved her theory when he began promptly and rather bluntly. "Lily said Voldemort was interested in you."
James stiffened and Sirius pursed his lips and let his back hit the mattress. "I've come up with a theory about that." Sirius announced lightly. "Voldemort's realized, before you did yourself, Prongs' inner sadistic git potential, and he wants in on the action before anybody else catches on to it."
"Don't joke about those things." Lily ordered gloomily. "It's bad enough that somewhere else, to someone else, it might actually be true."
Peter had been standing right in front of the rather violent light on the wall by the bed – she'd had the uncomfortable suspicion that he'd stared at her accusatorily, like she was somehow taking his place, though that was maybe her imagination, and a little guilty at the little truth nugget that promised her she was hanging around the Marauders a little too easily - looking like a huge formless shadow looming over them, so it startled Lily when he suddenly spoke timidly and squeakily. "I don't understand, though. What even made V- Vo- V- You-Know-Who aware of Pr- James?" He paused, and Lily imagined his flickering gaze jump, jittery, for one boy to the other next to her. "Assuming he's the reason V- You-Know-Who was in Hogsmeade in the first place, which I also don't understand."
Lily unexpectedly saw, quite clearly, why Peter was part of the most popular group of boys at school. "Blimey, Wormy." Sirius said in surprise, sitting up again. "Trust you to point out the obvious. Did Voldemort really come here just because of Prongs?"
For some reason, that sounded horribly wrong to Lily, and she figured out why a second later, when James snapped his head between the lot off them so fast she almost didn't see his gritted teeth. "Are you saying The Three Broomsticks was blown apart on my account?"
"Hey," Lily protested. "let's not get ahead of ourselves. No one said that. No one knows if that's why V- he was here, anyway." She had felt very brave indeed, when spells and uneven broken bits of bar were showering all around her, but now saying Voldemort's name was looking like quite a reckless endeavour, and she'd had enough of those for the day. "Besides, I find that highly doubtful. James is a Gryffindor through and through, right down to the pride thing. I don't even see why he'd know you exist in the first place." James seemed to puff up at this, and Lily wondered at the ease with which boys went through feelings.
"And even if he was here for James, which still doesn't make sense-" Sirius added, leaving the jokes aside for a moment. "How would he know he'd be at the Three Broomsticks?"
"I don't know." Remus answered, upset, frustrated – except the frustration seemed a little forced, and Lily barely saw it, and she didn't know how the people who knew him best in the world didn't too. And then she saw James averting his eyes and thought that maybe the people who knew him best in the world didn't want to know.
"And why did Voldemort leave all of a sudden, right after James blatantly insulted him?"
"I don't know." Lily could feel Remus' edginess setting in. But he knew, he knew something, and he wasn't sharing.
"Do you much of anything at all, Moony?" Sirius grinned at him, because it was clear that this repetitive answer was souring Remus.
"Yes, as a matter of fact." Remus answered crisply and instantly. "I know how to blackmail someone I've shared a dorm with for the last six years, for instance."
"Anyway," James, who was looking mollified, interrupted loudly. "Sounds like we have a whole lot of questions and no sense to make of them. I'm not joining him, and the worst harm that was done today was Peter falling on his head and knocking himself out." He said firmly, in a sort of final tone of voice that left them with virtually little to talk about. "So does it even matter?"
There was a pause, and James narrowed his eyes, daring anyone to disagree.
"I guess not." Lily said finally, and with a start she realized she was acting civil, almost companionably, toward Ja- Potter. Producing a rock out of thin air must have been quite a bonding experience.
"Yes." Remus said too, a second later. "It's probably nothing."
And the probably hung in the air and somehow, without any of them verbalizing it, it was distorted and became certainly, and the nothing lost its meaning to its opposite and became something. They didn't speak of it again.
"Okay, so that's that." Sirius said, forcing a smirk. "Now, I heard Lily met a most brave, wonderful, handsome, adorable dog, and I would like to hear all about it." Now his smirk wasn't fake, and he looked at Lily in a very earnest look that begged in puppy-speak. "Go on, I've just been dying to hear this."
She stared at him some, certain she was being set up for something, and yet just as sure that she'd never find out what it was (unless she did something about it). It was almost the way he'd usually speak of himself. James was trying to pretend to be having a coughing fit and Remus was pointedly looking down. Peter, who hadn't spoken in a while (or at all), was the most telling, however – he was gnawing on his nails, looking distinctly nervous, a little bit entertained, and yet somewhat tentatively expectant. He had come out of the darkness, and now he was just sitting on the floor, looking up at all of them wide-eyedly.
"His?" She asked, deflecting with a raised eyebrow. "You call animals 'he' or 'she'? Besides, how do you know it wasn't a female?" She asked, defensively, focusing on details to delay anything that came after.
There was a pregnant pause, and then James roared in laughter. She instinctively smiled, because even Remus was reddening, Peter was hiccupping, and Sirius looked offended, so she figured that, without knowing how, she'd turned the spell back onto him.
"We've never really been sure." James gasped, pausing the hysteria for all of three seconds. "It's a problem, not knowing whether it's safe to undress in front of him." And then they were off in another fit, and James nearly fell off the bed, but now Sirius was laughing too. She seemed to be the only one not in on the joke.
Only it was a weird joke, mixing Sirius and the dog as one and the same. And then quite suddenly it wasn't a joke at all, because she remembered the Marauders and the School Term of Peace, when they hadn't done a single, little, tiny prank, before previous year's Easter, which seemed to have left them particularly worked up for the rest of the year. And then she remembered the hours, the impossible hours, that they had spent at the library looking at all kinds of books on Transfiguration (while they'd not been particularly terrible at it before, afterwards, they never faltered in their Transfiguration O's, and even Peter seemed to get an E with ease) – on animal transfiguration – on Animagi-
"You-!" She gasped, suddenly quite out of words.
Sirius, who had stopped his fit, turned to her with a lazy grin and a glint in his eyes. "I?" He mocked.
"You didn't!" She couldn't, for the life of her, be eloquent right then. She just kept staring at them all, Remus' anxious face (he was the worrier of the four, she knew), James' wolfish smile- "You didn't!"
"I didn't- what?" Sirius taunted, looking extremely pleased with himself. "Because, honestly, even if it's not that much, there's still quite a bit of stuff we haven't tried-"
She glared with all her anger at him right then. "Become illegal Animagus, you didn't!"
James was suddenly right there, hushing her and looking over his shoulder. "Yell it for the whole world to hear, why don't you?"
The confirmation was even worse than the idea she'd formed in her mind. She'd been fully prepared to be laughed at for the ridiculousness of the idea and be relieved at it. "You-" She sputtered again. "Do you even realize- That's the stupidest, most reckless, idiotic, pig-headed, dangerous-" She ran out of adjectives. "thing you've ever done!" She rounded on Remus, who was already cowering away as the others tried to contain their snickers. "What possessed you to let him?!"
"Remus didn't know, though." Peter piped up helpfully. "We did it all behind his back."
She turned to him, and he looked scared enough at that to clamp a hand over his mouth. "You- Wait, we?" She asked, becoming very still. "You- You all-"
"Not Moony." Potter interjected, looking fairly pleased with himself. "Didn't you just hear Wormy, Evans? He had no clue." He grinned at her, and she wanted to throw something at his face, break his glasses, he was such a moron.
"Are you out of your minds?!" It took her a full day of being in this company, and already she knew about flawless invisibility cloaks and was involved in obscure works of magic. "It's illegal! I know for a fact you're not registered!" And they still looked unconcerned, and Lily only felt her indignation rise at that. "I shouldn't even need another argument!"
A pause – then: "How did you do it?"
James didn't seem surprised, but Sirius recovered fast enough. They shrugged. "It took a while. We started working on it mid-third year, but we only managed last year. The final charms were the hardest. We got really drained at one point. Peter spent more time asleep during lessons than at night." Peter flushed.
Sirius grinned. "Remus was so pleased - he thought we'd actually been putting our heads into our OWL year, because we were getting so sloppy with the jokes' scheming and all."
Remus scowled. "Forgive me for assuming you had any sense of responsibility."
Lily had nothing more to tell them. Whatever scolding she'd been aiming for, she'd told them the essential, and Remus had apparently done the rest. She shook her head. "You're mad. You have no idea of how the average human behaves, and you think imagination is limitless when it comes to making it a reality."
"It is." Sirius said happily. "That's what makes it so great." James high-fived him.
"Ten-year-olds. That's what you lot are."
Remus wasn't scowling anymore, prompting her to put him in the same category as them – knowing things she never wanted to know apparently included realizing that Remus had to be behind some of the Marauders' most elaborate plans.
She wasn't completely sure why she was so angry – it was scarcely her business. But wondering why was as far as her thoughts went, because she didn't want them going anywhere else.
James shrugged, smiling. "You're still impressed." He teased. "And you've only seen Sirius yet. You haven't even seen me, and we all know who's superior."
And then, unexpectedly, a burning need to know what kind of animal James turned into - James and Peter turned into - came over her, only because James mentioned it. For some reason – partly because he was so smug already - she didn't ask.
"Yeah," Sirius said sarcastically, perfectly unwilling to not be a participant in the contest of arrogance. "it sure was you, saving the day in your hoofs." Lily giggled, she couldn't help it – then she assumed back her extremely stern expression when Sirius looked at her, because sense and logic and responsibility demanded it, even if she was now more fascinated and impressed than irritated.
"Hey!" James said indignantly. "At least I don't chase my own tail!" These were, Lily could clearly see from Remus' expression, jokes repeated a thousand times, and now a thousand and one for her benefit. "Besides, don't make it out to your innate bravery – I was the one who found your wand where you dropped it, remember?" James smugly pointed out.
"Let me get this straight." Lily said incredulously. "You went around, fighting five Death Eaters and Voldemort, without a wand?"
Sirius waved his hand dismissively. "Danger gives me a thrill." She could have slapped him right then, she could have. "It wasn't my fault, anyway. It fell out of my pocket when there were bits and pieces of The Three Broomsticks raining over us. James found it, it's all good."
"Yeah." James replied drily. "That's why I went into a panic. I thought Rabastan had gotten you or something. Then I found you staring down Voldemort as an unarmed and rather ugly dog, and I thought 'well that's alright then', and I relaxed, obviously."
Sirius pretended not to laugh. "Yeah, well, point is – I lost the wand." He shrugged. "I figured I'd be more useful as a dog."
"God," Lily said, wide-eyed and disbelieving. "I really need to say you're always more useful as a dog, but that same dog saved my life!"
Sirius mock-scowled at her. "You're welcome, Evans."
Lily's lips trembled, and she pulled him into a hug, which seemed two parts horrifying and a part shocking to him. "Thank you." She said very quietly and very seriously, pulling back. He struggled in a silent staring contest with her all of two seconds – then he nodded and it wasn't spoken of, ever again, that Sirius Black had ever been serious.
Then she glanced at James, and glanced away again, because it was much too intense right then. "Both of you. I'd be dead right now, if Sirius hadn't been reckless and you hadn't been-" She swallowed all the words that sprung to her mind. "If you hadn't been you."
James took a little before answering, but then he cracked a grin. "No problem, Evans. I'll be me any time and for anything you want."
They spent a long time discussing theories and ideas that only satisfied one as much as they rubbed another the wrong way, in hushed voices that they hoped weren't noticed, even though Sirius pointed out how weird it was that Madam Pomfrey hadn't come check why a Marauder's curtains were pulled shut, when she had a fair bit of experience in that area, and knew perfectly well that it meant there was non-allowed company with the young man in question.
The night, which everyone spent in their own beds except for Lily and Remus, went and the morning came, and they were all ushered to the Headmaster's office in the company of Alice and Frank as soon as Madam Pomfrey thought she'd spelled Lily's wound acceptably. By then it was nearly noon and Black claimed to be on his deathbed because there was no food nearby when they came face to face with Professor Dumbledore and a very pale-looking Professor McGonagall.
The chat didn't last long. When Lily described James' response to Voldemort's invitation through gritted teeth, only Remus remained solemn, as McGonagall was just livid and Alice still looked as though Lily was kidding.
"We'd used it before." Sirius explained cheerfully, but Lily's eyes kept flickering to her Professor's flaring nostrils. "Put it on repeat in the Slytherin Common Room, volume all the way up. Didn't let anybody sleep for two days straight until one bright individual had the disappointing thought that we might actually have used disgusting Muggle equipment instead of the magic they'd been testing the whole place for." He gave James a reproachful look. "It's not the Marauder way, reusing material, mate."
"I was nervous, it was Voldemort!" James defended himself, and Peter flinched. "Besides, Bellatrix hadn't heard it before, and I figured it was only fair that she got to."
"St. Mungo's eventually tracked the funny joke to Hogwarts, because, believe it or not, they got contacted. Several times." Black grinningly added before either of the Professors had a chance to interrupt. Dumbledore seemed perfectly happy listening, and Lily was starting to see the truth behind Sirius' earlier fondness statement."McGonagall made sure they had our full names, contact information and home addresses for the summer, and insisted we'd surely have a reasonable explanation, and to keep sending owls until one reached them."
Professor McGonagall looked equal parts furious and stumped.
"This would normally be the part where you ducked points or gave us detention." Sirius supplied helpfully.
Lily privately thought that, after, Sirius had stopped paying attention to the cockroach clusters (she didn't want to know) and started paying attention to the conversation only when Dumbledore asked, in that almost supernatural voice (so different, however, from Voldemort's), something so totally incomprehensible it had to be a prophecy of their fates – "Are any of you interested in a place among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix?"
Professor McGonagall froze, unfroze, blatantly called him mad, put down her foot (quite literally), called them young (which was the thing James and Sirius seemed to have taken most to heart) and finally relented when she realized just how willing the boys (except, perhaps, Peter, who seemed to have realized what was going on and looked incapable of opening his mouth without stammering) were. Alice and Lily were more hesitant at the idea, and then their hesitance combined and formed conviction. Their enthusiastic response to Dumbledore's further elaboration on his question clued McGonagall in. Sirius was still practically barking (it was so easy to draw comparisons after learning the truth) when she decided to cut it off."Well, as long as you're determined to do things recklessly, you might as well have clean-up help for when they go wrong." She snapped.
They hadn't, of course, run off to war right away and told their parents they'd reach them when they reached them. McGonagall had been right, but not that right, about their madness. They (apparently) had a line (or at least, she and Dumbledore did – not even Remus was opposed to the idea of being put to work earlier), which meant that they wouldn't be doing anything for anybody until the end of their seventh year. And no one, not even in the Order, was to know what had happened in Hogsmeade in full detail – Dumbledore was loathe to the idea that they put themselves in danger even before they finished school. It was likely because of this that James was so restless.
He was just fighting for his home, though, wasn't he? So was she. It was dangerous, maybe, but everything started with chaos and failures until perfection was achieved. If she pulled back because there was a good chance she'd die trying to save something she cared about – trying to save something other people cared about - who else would step up?
That was mostly the reason she wasn't going to tell her family anything, which was currently a bad thing, because she hadn't the foggiest on how she was getting herself out of this without making her mother super-alert and suspicious or wondering why she'd just lied. She tried anyway. "It's, uh-" She winced. "It's really nothing, Mum. It's, ah, teenage girl stuff. Not boys." She added hastily, immediately tracking her mother's thoughts to her previous matter of Potter. "No, it's just school, and- and, I'm getting closer to my last year, and you know how I am when it comes to my grades." She spun wildly, the lie getting more elaborate (and, surprisingly, more believable) the more she put the most obscure parts of her mind to it. "Extra pressure."
"Well, alright." She answered slowly, still obviously dubious. "You'll do fine, of course, you always do. Just – promise me you know you can tell me anything."
She smiled to hide her chagrin. At eleven, this all seemed like such fun, such a wonderfully magical place with magical people and she was a part of that, she was one of them, somewhere she belonged and would fit in. And then she realized that, even there, there were people who thought she didn't, that the way she was different in what had been her world so far wasn't enough to make her just like the rest in the world that then started being hers too. Changing that had to be enough reason to lie.
"I promise."