Chapter Thirty-One

Plant A Tree For Your Future

Lily barely left Mac's side for the next three days. She went to classes on Monday and Tuesday at Professors Cooke and Longbottom's insistence, but every other waking moment was spent with Mac, who remained uncharacteristically quiet. He had a letter and several more floo calls from his mum, but the news remained 'no change'. Lily abandoned all attempts at homework, focusing all her attention on trying to persuade Mac to sleep and eat.

On Tuesday night, Lily didn't come to bed. Mia awoke on Wednesday morning to discover the bed next to hers hadn't been slept in. When she got down to breakfast, she found Lily and Mac sitting at the Gryffindor table. Lily was working her way steadily through a plateful of bacon and eggs and trying to coax Mac into eating something.

Mia set down opposite them. She wanted to ask if there was any news, but contented herself with raising her eyebrows questioningly at Lily, receiving a tiny shake of the head back.

"Mackenzie."

The three of them looked up to see Professor Cooke walking down the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. "Your mum's in the fire for you," she told Mac.

Shakily, Mac got to his feet.

"Do you want me to come?" Lily asked. Mac shook his head, wordlessly following his head of house out of the Great Hall. Lily turned to Mia. "I hope it's good news," she said, sighing deeply. "Mac's gonna end up in St Mungo's himself if this goes on much longer."

"Were you with him all night?" Mia asked, starting on her breakfast.

"Yeah," Lily said. "He fell asleep with his head on my lap and I couldn't move him. I don't think he's got much sleep the last three nights."

"Did you get any sleep?" Mia asked. Her friend looked paler than usual and had dark circles under her eyes.

"Some," Lily shrugged. "It wasn't the most comfortable night I've ever head, but... if there's still no change which his dad, I'm going to ask Madam Pomfrey if she can give him a sleeping draught or something."

Mac hadn't returned by the time Lily and Mia left the Great Hall to go to class. They left it as long as possible, but eventually had to get up and hurry to Modern History of Magic. Mia sat down in her usual seat between Lily and Louis and rummaged around in her bag for her essay; Professor Nilsson was already walking round collecting them up. He came down their row and stopped before Lily.

"Miss Potter? Where's your essay?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, Professor, I haven't done it," Lily said. "Mac..."

Professor Nilsson hesitated. Then he nodded curtly. "You can have a week's extension – I'll need it next lesson."

"Yes, of course, sir," Lily said, nodding gratefully.

Professor Nilsson finished collecting the essays and headed back to the front to start the lesson. He was almost ten minutes into his lecture on Azkaban when there was a knock at the door. Professor Nilsson opened it with a flick of his wand, to reveal Mac standing in the corridor.

"Sorry, sir," Mac said. He was still clearly not himself, but Mia thought perhaps his voice sounded slightly brighter. "Please can I borrow Lily, just for a minute?"

Lily looked imploringly at Professor Nilsson. "Alright," he said. "Two minutes, Miss Potter, and catch up from someone's notes afterwards."

"Yes, sir," Lily said, leaping to her feet. "Thanks."

Lily shut the door behind her and looked expectantly at Mac. She hoped it was good news; she wasn't sure either of them could take bad news.

"Mum says he's turned a corner!" Mac said. "He's on the mend, and Healers say he should make a full recovery!"

Lily hugged Mac fiercely. "That's great news!"

Mac wrapped his arms around Lily's waist and lifted her a few inches off the ground. He spun the pair of them around and Lily started laughing.

"Careful! Don't drop me!" she protested.

Mac half lowered Lily to the ground and half dropped her so that she stumbled against the wall. He kissed her, hard, and then stood with his arms encircling her waist again. "I don't know how I would've got through these past few days without you," he said seriously, leaning down so their foreheads touched.

"It's nothing," Lily said dismissively.

"No," Mac said, "it's not nothing. You've been amazing, Lil." He kissed her again, and after half a minute, Lily reluctantly pulled back.

"I'd better get back to class," she said. "Nilsson's already given me an extension on my essay – don't want to push my luck."

"Alright," Mac agreed. "See you at lunch."

"Yep," Lily said. With her hand on the back of Mac's neck, she pulled him further down towards her so she could plant a kiss on his forehead. "See ya."

When Lily slipped back into class, Professor Nilsson was still talking about Azkaban, and her friends were looking at her expectantly. She grinned at them and gave them a thumbs up, then sat down and tried to give the lesson her full attention.

Lily spent the rest of the week catching up on homework. Most teachers had been understanding and given her longer to complete missing work, and by staying up past midnight on Wednesday she had been able to cobble together something which would pass as a Transfiguration essay. Mac still wasn't quite his usual self; he seemed to have grown up a lot in the past few days.

"I wish the tree planting thing wasn't tomorrow," Lily sighed at dinner on Friday. "I could do with time to get on top of all this homework."

"You don't have to be out there all day," Mia reasoned. "Come down, plant a tree, show your face to Mattie, then go back to homework."

"Yeah..." Lily said. "And at least there's no HEC meeting today. What shall we study tonight? I could do with picking your brains for my Muggle Studies homework."

"Alright, you can do that whilst I get on with my Potions essay – I want to get that out of the way first," Mia said.

"Hey, Lily."

Lily and Mia turned around to see Mac stood behind them.

"Want to study together tonight?" Mac asked.

Lily hesitated, glancing at Mia. Mia shrugged at her – she didn't mind either way. "Alright," Lily said eventually. "Where?"

"Library?" Mac suggested. "I'll save us a table."

"I'll come and find you," Lily nodded, and Mac walked off. Lily turned to Mia. "You could've said we were going to study together," she said reproachfully.

"So could you," Mia said. "Don't you want to study with Mac?"

Lily shrugged. "It makes me feel like a terrible person since his dad's been so ill, but I could use a bit of space. Like... when his dad was really sick I wanted to be there for him, but now he's going to be okay... I'm a terrible person, aren't I?"

"No," Mia said. "A terrible communicator, maybe... I'm going to the Inter-House Common Room – see you later."

After breakfast the next morning, Lily and Mia headed down to the edge of the Forbidden Forest where the tree planting was to take place. Although it was cold outside, it was still a beautiful spring morning. There seemed to be more students outside than was normal for the time of year, which Mia hoped was a good sign.

"I hope loads of people turn up for this," Lily said, echoing Mia's thoughts. "One, if they don't, Matilda will never let anyone hear the end of it. Two, if there are loads of people there, I can get away sooner. And three, it's good for the planet, of course."

When they reached the edge for the Forest, there were already about two dozen students there, along with half a dozen teachers. Matilda was right in the thick of it, in one of the oddest clothing combinations Mia had ever seen on her: a man's shirt which perhaps had once been white, and which was definitely far too large for her; a jumper featuring stripes of various materials, colours and thicknesses which Mia suspected Matilda had knitted herself; and a too-short floral skirt over faded jeans. The look was completed by muddy boots, faux dragon hide gloves, a knitted hat which matched her jumper, and her school cloak billowing out behind her as she rushed around trying to be everywhere at once.

"Lily! Mia! Come plant a tree!" she shrieked as she saw them.

"Oh, I thought we were here for a tea party," Lily muttered, nevertheless heading over to get stuck in.

Lily and Mia worked together to plant several trees. It was tiring work: the young trees were already fairly heavy and holes had to be dug for them and the earth built up around them afterwards. Nevertheless, Mia found herself enjoying it. Matilda was clearly in her element, displaying enough energy for at least three people. She kept flitting about from place to place, pausing briefly to dig a hole or help guide a tree into place before flitting on again. She tried to greet each new arrival, instructing them to 'go plant a tree for your future'. By ten o'clock, Mia thought at least half the school was down there, working in harmony across house barriers.

"How many do you think we've planted already?" Matilda asked Lily and Mia as the three of them carried a tree across to find a free space to plant it.

"Dunno, maybe-" Lily began, but she was cut off by a shriek from Matilda. Letting go of the tree, she rushed off, shrieking,

"Professor Cooke! Professor Reuben!"

Lily shook her head. "She is too much," she sighed. "Ugh, this tree's too heavy!"

"Can I help?"

Lily and Mia looked up to see Javan Cole walking tentatively toward them.

"We don't need your help," Lily scowled. She and Mia set the tree down and straightened up. Mia noticed Lily take half a step forward so she was almost standing between Mia and Javan. "Go away," she said forcefully.

"Alright," Javan said. "Look, Mia, I just wanted to say sorry for... you know. I was an idiot. I shouldn't've grabbed your wrist like that."

"No, you shouldn't've," Mia agreed.

"Well... I'm sorry, and I've come to plant a tree," Javan said awkwardly.

"And that makes everything okay, does it?" Lily demanded.

"No..." Javan said. "What do you want me to say? That I'll tell Professor Longbottom what happened? I will if you want me to."

Mia shook her head. "No – it's been too long. You can just stay away from me."

"Fair enough," Javan nodded.

"Why are you even planting trees if you think the HEC's so stupid?" Lily asked.

"It is stupid," Javan shrugged. "And she's the stupidest of the lot of them." He nodded over at Matilda. "But that doesn't mean she can't have good ideas sometimes." And he strode off to find a tree to plant.

"Need a hand with that, girls?" Professor Reuben asked, walking over with Professor Cooke.

"Yes please," Mia said.

"I can help too," Professor Cooke protested as Professor Reuben bent down to help with the tree.

"Nope," Professor Reuben said firmly. "Professor Cooke has a bad back, so we mustn't let her do any heavy lifting," she told the girls.

Lily and Mia ended up staying out until lunchtime, by which time about three quarters of the trees had been planted.

The following morning, Mia received a letter from her parents talking about the Easter holidays.

"What's it say?" Lily asked, leaning over Mia's shoulder at breakfast.

"Dad's on a business trip for most of the first week, then he's got time off at the end of the second week, just before Easter weekend," Mia summarised. "So Mum says if I want to stay with a friend or have a friend to stay then the first week would be best."

"Come stay with me," Lily said. "Mum and Dad have said you can whenever. James has officially moved out now – into the flat above Wheezes in Diagon Alley with Fred – and I'm taking over his room so there'll be plenty of room for you to stay. You'll be able to come visit Dotty then too."

"Alright, thanks," Mia agreed. "As long as you're sure it'll be alright with your parents."

"I'm sure," Lily nodded. "They always say I can have a friend to stay in the holidays, and Mum said in her last letter it'd be good to see you. I'll write to check but I'm sure it'll be fine."

Matilda and Emma came and sat down opposite Mia and Lily, both looking thoroughly windswept.

"Can you believe that there are no more trees left to plant?" Matilda asked, almost before she'd sat down.

"You did good, Mattie," Lily affirmed.

"Professor McGonagall came down and planted the last one last night after dinner," Matilda continued. "I wondered how she'd manage it, you know, because she's not exactly young, but she did it all by magic, so..."

"How come we didn't plant trees by magic?" Lily demanded. "I have a lot less blisters if we'd just used magic."

"It would've taken a lot of skill to do it properly," Mia reasoned. "You'd need good control to dig precisely and guide the tree properly into the hole."

"And it felt more worthwhile because we had to work hard for it," Matilda added. "Those blisters mean you did something that mattered, Lily."

"Hmm..." Lily replied.

Mia saw Cassie walking over from the Hufflepuff table.

"Hey, Mia, do you want to study for next week's Social Studies test together?" Cassie asked.

"Sure – now?" Mia asked.

"If you like," Cassie said.

"Yeah, alright." Mia got to her feet. "Matilda, remember Lily and I won't be able to come to the HEC meeting on Friday because of Care of Magical Creatures," she told the younger girl.

"I might move the meeting," Matilda said as Mia got up and started walking away with Cassie.

"Where should we go?" Mia asked as they reached the Entrance Hall. "The Inter-House Common Room will probably be too loud but Madam Pince will kick us out of the Library if we talk."

"We can go in here," Cassie said, leading the way to a disused classroom which Mia recognised as the room she'd found Cassie in after the Howler in January.

"Is Professor Cooke still screening your mail?" Mia asked as they sat down. "Sorry – don't answer that if you don't want to."

"It's fine," Cassie said. "Yeah, she's still screening it. She won't tell me if there are still letters she's not sending on, but I get the impression there are."

Mia had a sudden thought. Hoping Lily would forgive her, she said, "Hey, d'you want to stay at my house for Easter? I know you usually stay here, but if you wanted to..."

"Thanks, Mia," Cassie smiled, "but I'm actually going home with Al. James has moved out, so Lily's reclaiming his room and I'm going to stay in Lily's old room. His parents invited me a couple of weeks ago."

"Well, I might be there too for the first week," Mia said. "Lily just invited me at breakfast."

"And you thought you'd reject her offer and invite me to yours instead," Cassie grinned.

"Yeah, pretty much," Mia replied.

"It'll be fun, you being there too," Cassie said. "We can all hang out together. But where will you sleep?"

"There's a pull out bed under James' bed," Mia explained. "I stayed there a few times last time Lily stole that room – the year before we came to Hogwarts."

Cassie pulled out her Social Studies textbook and sighed. "Al wants us to go and talk to Aunt Narcissa over Easter," she said.

"And you don't want to?" Mia asked.

"I'd be perfectly happy to never see her again," Cassie said quietly. "She lied to me about how my mum died. She raised me in complete isolation – did you know the only places I ever went before I started Hogwarts was to deserted moors and forests so I could run around? She even used polyjuice potion when she dropped me off on the Platform for my first year so no one would associate me with her. And that was the only time she ever took me, even – since then I've just travelled by Floo by myself."

Mia reached over and took Cassie's hand, squeezing it in lieu of having something helpful to say.

"Sorry, Mia," Cassie sighed. "I shouldn't've dumped all that on you."

"It's fine," Mia told her. "You can always talk to me – that's what friends are for."

"Thanks," Cassie said. "Right, revision! What was the content of the Ministry's first ever Educational Decree?"