Their Seventh Year

Bit longer than usual chapter.  I’m posting this tonight, even though I should really be working on my short story for my writing class.  So everyone say “Thanks MetroDweller!”

Chapter 28- Encounters of a Nocturnal Kind

“It’s almost ; it’s time you were in bed.”  Lily informed two third years still in the common room.

“We have to finish our history of magic essays though!”  One of them protested.

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have left them until eleven on the night before they were due.”  She replied.  “But if Professor McGonagall comes in you’ll both get detention for still being down here.”

They seemed to consider their chances of winning an extended argument with the Head Girl, and then grumbled and began packing away their books.  Meanwhile, James reflected that Lily was quite sexy when she was being bossy.  Especially when she wasn’t bossing him.  As the two third years stomped up the stairs, he continued to watch Lily without her knowing.  The problem with a school like Hogwarts was that you were so rarely alone.  Oh, certainly there were places, like the Astronomy Tower or the Room of Requirement, but you practically needed reservations to find them unoccupied, and he suspected Lily wouldn’t like what being seen coming from either one would do for her reputation.

But then, James was nothing if not resourceful. 

Lily had the strangest feeling, as she idly straightened up the common room, that she was being watched.  She turned and looked at both of the stairs leading to the dorms, wondering if maybe a student had come back down for something, but there was no one.  Still, she could not shake the feeling that she was not alone.  She was laughing at herself for being paranoid when suddenly something tugged on her hair.  She whipped around, but only managed to grab a handful of air.

“Wha-?”  She looked around wildly, until a laughing James suddenly appeared seemingly out of thin air.

“Good evening.”

She gaped at him.  “How…what?  How did you do that?”

He held up a mass of silvery material.  “Have you seen one of these before?”

She shook her head.

“Watch.”  He swung it around and settled it over his shoulders, and his body disappeared, so that his head was just floating in midair.  “It’s an invisibility cloak.”

“So that’s how you’re always sneaking about?”

He shrugged, and then seized her hand enthusiastically.  “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”  He pulled her toward the portrait hole.

“But, what if we get caught?”

“Lily, do I need to explain the “invisibility” concept?”

As soon as they had stepped out of the portrait hole, James swung the cloak around so that it covered both of them.  It was easily large enough to cover two people, provided that they were standing quite close together, and Lily shivered a bit at how close James was.  He seemed to think she must be cold, because he put an arm around her.

He knew exactly where they were going, and she could only imagine how well he and his friends must know the Hogwarts Halls and passages if they had been sneaking around like this since first year.

They came to a stop in the middle of a seemingly empty corridor in front of a large painting of questionable taste.  Lily had never been one for the still life “bowl of fruit” paintings, but judging by how James was smiling, he was.  To her surprise, he reached out and…well…tickled the pear.  It began to giggle, and then turned into a doorknob.  Her fear of getting caught was forgotten, Lily was merely curious now as to what James was up to.

As soon as the picture closed behind them, he pulled off the cloak and led her by the hand into the cavernous kitchen.  Almost immediately, a house elf rushed over to them.  Lily had seen house elves around Hogwarts, but for the most part they were very elusive.  She thought they were funny little creatures, she had never actually talked to one before.  But they seemed to be well acquainted with James.

“Oh Mister Potter Sir!  Is Mister Potter needing something?  Is there anything Tibby can get for Mister Potter or Miss?”  It squeaked out.

“Tibby, this is Miss Lily Evans.”  James introduced formally.

“Tibby is so pleased to meet Miss Lily Evans!  So pleased Mister Potter is bringing Miss Lily Evans with him!  Is Mister Potter and Miss Lily Evans wanting something?”

“Perhaps a cup of tea?  And some scones?”  James suggested.  “Anything else?” he added to her.  She shook her head, amazed at the efficiency with which the house elves worked, bringing a steaming teapot and plate of scones.

“Thanks Tibby, that’s brilliant.”  James said.

“Mister Potter should just yell if Mister Potter needs something.  Tibby is happy to wake up to help Mister Potter.”

“You’ve been a great help already Tibby.”

The house elf beamed, and then they all seemed to disappear with the same efficiency.

James pulled out one of the chairs at the scarred wooden table with a gallant flourish, and she couldn’t hold in a smile.

“So, is this some kind of set-up you have with the house elves, bringing girls down here?”

He had the grace to blush slightly at her reference to his rather checkered past, but then shook his head.  “The only people who come down here with me are my mates, and I certainly don’t want the help of house elves to set the mood for them.  But I was coming down to grab something to eat, and I saw you in the common room, and I thought it was about time to let you in on some of the secrets we’ve learned about Hogwarts over the years.

“You have a lot of secrets James.”

He shook his head.  “Not from you.  I’m an open book.  Ask me anything.”

She rested her chin on her hand.  “All right then Mr. Open Book.  What’s your biggest secret?”

She expected some sort of glib remark, but he frowned for a moment and then promptly replied “I’m an unregistered animagus.”

She blinked at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing.  “Honestly James, if you don’t want to answer…”

She opened her eyes, recovering from her fit of laughing, and instead of James sitting across from her, a stag with magnificent antlers stood there, and she could swear the damn animal was grinning at her.  Lily gave a small scream, followed by “bloody fucking hell!”

He almost burst out laughing.  He was pretty sure he’d never heard her swear before, and certainly not so colorfully.

“I fear I may blush!  That wasn’t very ladylike.  As head boy, I might just have to deduct points for that kind of language.”  He commented when he had turned back into himself.

“How…how?”  She finally asked weakly.

“Well, it wasn’t easy.  It took the better part of three years to figure out.”

“Why?  Just to see if you could?”

For the first time, he looked uncomfortable.  “I meant it when I said I’d tell you anything, but that’s not my secret to tell Lily.”

She considered this for a moment, then nodded.  “All right.”

“Well then, to be fair and all, you have to tell me one of your deep dark secrets.”  He suggested.

“Oh.”  She searched her mind for something, she really did, but could come up with nothing that compared with being an unregistered animagus.  “I don’t know.”  She bit her lip, suddenly uncomfortable, she stood up and started to pace.  “I haven’t done anything so exciting as learning the animagus spell.”  She turned and looked at James still sitting there.  She realized one of the things that had been eating at her for weeks, and probably deeper than that, one of the reasons that she had been so reluctant to admit that she liked James in the first place.  Compared to him, she just did not think she was that exciting, and now she found herself terrified that James would realize that, and get bored with her, and then leave her.  The flashy, trouble-making, spotlight-loving James Potter could never stay interested in her.  “I guess I’m pretty boring.”  She admitted softly.

James was silent for a moment, regarding her with unreadable hazel eyes, and then he stood as well, so that he towered over her by several inches.

“Why would you say that?”  He asked quietly.

“Well, because I am.  I’ve never done anything that’s even interesting enough to be a secret.”

“I don’t think you’re boring Lily.”  He murmured, and placing his hands at her waist, as easily as though she weighed nothing, lifted her up so she was sitting on the table.  Their faces were close to level now, and he reached up and twisted his fingers in her hair.  “I don’t think you’re boring at all.”  He repeated.  “In fact, I find you fascinating.  You’re smart, and you’re beautiful, and….I think you’re wonderful Lily.”

“Oh.”  She was shocked by his words, and the evident sincerity behind them, but before she could say anything more, his mouth caught hers and she completely forgot whatever she had been planning to say.  It was more desperate, more intense than it had ever been before, and Lily felt herself lean into him, wanting him to be closer.  He put his hands at her waist again pulling her closer.  He drew away from her for a moment, looked at her somewhat questioningly, but she just murmured his name, saw his eyes flare slightly in the light from the kitchen fire, and he kissed her again.  His hands at her waist kept her still, not that she would have moved anyway, but slowly they slid up her back, and Lily shivered. 

That involuntary reaction had more of an effect on James than he cared to admit.  He had meant only to stop Lily from her ridiculous talk about being boring, because he was being completely honest when she said she was anything but, but now all of a sudden, kissing her like this, he wondered if he would ever be able to stop.  She had no idea what she was doing to him.

“You’re not boring Lily.”  He whispered again.  “You’re perfect.”

======

Sirius waited nervously outside the greenhouse as he could hear the class inside finishing.  It was fully dark, although it was only .  It was their last class of the day, so she couldn’t blow him off on the pretense of getting to her next class.  He had tried to think of another way, any other way, to find out, but he had come to the conclusion that he absolutely had to ask her.  The last thing he wanted to do was lay more stress on Flora.  He hated what had happened to her, he hated that it couldn’t be someone like his father, who deserved it, but he absolutely had to know, it had been rattling around the back of his mind since that night.

He had briefly considered getting Remus to ask her, it was pretty obvious they were an item, but then he had dismissed that idea because it had sounded like a secret, and it wasn’t his secret, he had just been a “stray dog” in the room at the time.

The class began to come out, and he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“Flora, can I have a word?”

She gave him a clearly confused look, but said “Sure.”

He drew her over to the side of the greenhouse, away from the curious gazes of Lily and Alice and Peter.  “Listen, I just wanted to ask you about something.”  He took a deep breath.  He had given it a lot of thought and decided it would be best to tell the truth.  “That night, when we gatecrashed your party.”  Gods, how he hated brining it up to her, but she nodded with a sort of dry smile.

“Yes Sirius, I remember.”

He went on.  “Well, at one point I was in the kitchen, but…er…no one else knew I was there.”  He did not have the inclination to explain he was an unregistered animagus, let her think he was hiding or something.  “There was a rather pretty girl, a few years older than you, brown hair and eyes, I’d guess your sister?”

She nodded slightly, indicating that was a fair guess.  “Marlene.”  She supplied.

“Right, well, at any rate, she was talking to these two other blokes.  One of them was a Bones, she said his name, but I’m not sure of the other one.  But the thing is, I think I heard something I wasn’t supposed to.  I don’t know who else to ask.  Flora, what is the Order of the ?”

She tensed, and stared at him as though he’d said some sort of terrible word.  Then she closed her eyes momentarily and muttered “Gods, how much did you hear?”

“Enough to know they have something to do with you-know-who.  Enough to know they suspected an attack was coming, thought they didn’t know when, and enough to know…well, the thing is, I heard them talking about people.  They mentioned you, and James, and Lily and…me.  And…” he paused and swallowed.  “-they mentioned Dumbledore.”

She gripped his shoulder urgently.  “Listen to me Sirius.  You’ve got the wrong idea.  I don’t know that much about it.  Honestly, they won’t let me into the meetings or tell me anything, but it’s not to do with you-know-who.  At least not in the way you’re thinking.  The Order of the is a secret group to fight you-know-who.  It was started by Dumbledore, to fight you-know-who because he felt that the Ministry wasn’t doing anything.”

Sirius felt that a huge weight had lifted off of his shoulders.  He had always felt that whatever happened, he could put his trust in Albus Dumbledore, and questioning that over the last few weeks had been horrible.  If he couldn’t trust the headmaster, who could he trust?

“I don’t know why our names were brought in.”  Flora was saying.  “Except that I know no one is allowed to join until they’ve left school.  Maybe since we are going to be graduating in the next few months they reckon to ask us to join.”

“Yeah.”  He nodded.  “It did kind of sound that way.  I guess, I kind of thought they meant to ask us to join some sort of Death Eater group, you know?”

She gave him a sympathetic smile.  “You’ve really been worrying about this, haven’t you?”

He shrugged, a little embarrassed.  “Well, when they said Dumbledore, I guess I sort of just panicked.  It sounded bad, and…”

She smiled, and laid a hand against his cheek.  “You can trust him Sirius.  Dumbledore is one of the few people we can count on these days.  But listen, it would be best if you didn’t tell everyone else, James and Remus and Peter, about this.  Dumbledore will tell them, when it’s time.”

He nodded.  “Of course.  Thanks Flora, for giving me a straight answer.”

She smiled.  “No problem.”

“Well, if you have no problems with answering my questions, then I might have a few about you and a certain mate of mine…”

She grinned.  “Don’t push your luck Black.”

======

It was just after twelve when Sirius arrived at the greenhouse and pulled off the invisibility cloak.  It was a bit harder to get James to lend it to him now that he had Lily to skulk around the castle with, but judging by the ridiculous grin on his friend’s face most of the time, Sirius figured they were managing just fine.  He found the greenhouse door unlocked and stepped inside, closing it carefully behind him.  It was pitch black and he was still for a moment until he heard her voice.

“Lumos.”

She was sitting on the edge of a row of shelves that held some sort of purring ferns, her legs crossed politely, feet swinging slightly.  She laid her wand, with its tip glowing, on the shelf next to her delicately and looked at him expectantly.

“Well?”  She held up a small scrap of paper, the note he had sent her.  “What’s this about?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

She gave him an annoyed look.  “Yes Sirius, the fact that I’m here does rather suggest that I can read.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets.  He hated apologizing.  “I wanted to apologize, for what I said the other day in the owlery.  I was entirely out of line.  I shouldn’t judge you based on your family.  I know I would hate it if people judged me based on my family.”

She looked more than a little surprised by this turn of events, and not quite sure how to react to it.  She blinked at him for a moment, and then regained her composure.  “Well, thank you.”

He carefully moved over some of the purring ferns and joined her on her makeshift seat.

“You got me here just to tell me that?”

He shrugged.  “I wasn’t exactly going to knock on the door of your common room, was I?  I have no interest in interacting with your little Slytherin posse.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “No?  I thought you said Maria was pretty.”

“Is that her name?”  He remarked carelessly.  “Perhaps she’s attractive enough, but not enough for me to want to deal with the accompanying sociopath tendencies.”

Her mouth twitched, but she did not seem the least bit perturbed by the slight to her house.

“Why did you feel the need to apologize to me?”  She pressed.

“Well aren’t you just a little cynic tonight.  Why all the sudden questioning of my motives?  Isn’t it possible I just wanted to be a decent sort of chap.  I am capable of admitting when I’m wrong.  I have lots of redeeming qualities.”

“Modesty is obviously not among them.”

Her wand, which was their only source of light, slipped from the table, and as she leaned down to retrieve it, the sleeve of her sweater, already pushed up to her elbow, slid up marginally further, revealing a series of small, finger sized bruises just above her elbow.  Sirius was about to ask her what had happened, until a sickening realization swept over him.  The other day in the owlery, when he had asked if she was a Death Eater, he had grabbed her by the arm.  He had no idea how hard.  She must have noted his horrified look, because she said “what?”

“Did I do that?”

She examined the bruises dispassionately.  “Most likely.”

“Gods Arianna, I am so sorry.  I had no idea, I didn’t mean to.  I wouldn’t hurt you, I-“

He felt sick.  He was not that kind of man, he hated himself for handling her that roughly, he would never have hurt her intentionally.  He had been angry, yes, that did not excuse grabbing her hard enough to leave a mark.

She was looking at him with an expression between perplexed and amused.  “Don’t worry about it.  You didn’t hurt me.  I bruise very easily, it’s certainly not the first time.  Look, if I was mad I wouldn’t be here, right?”  She seemed at a loss to figure out why he was upset.

After a moment of studying his face, she made a clearly annoyed sound and hopped down from her seat.

“Honestly Black, I’m not some helpless little girl.  Instead of just apologizing, this has to be some huge drama with Sirius Black as the star.  Believe me, you couldn’t hurt me, and if you did, I’d make sure you knew it.”  Hey eyes glittered in the faint light from her wand.  “If we’re finished here, I’m going to bed.  Nox.”

The light went out, and rather than be left in the dark, he followed her, catching up quickly with longer strides.

“So you’re friends with Snape?”  He asked, wondering why, when he had felt guilty just a moment ago, he was trying to antagonize her again.

“What makes you say that?”

“I’ve seen you talking to him.”

“That hardly makes us friends.  I talk to you, and I don’t like you.”  She shook her head.  “We’re not friends.  Severus doesn’t have friends.  He considers Lucius…an ally of sorts, that’s the only reason he talks to me.”

“Severus?”  He mimicked, sotto voice, her use of his first name.

“Why do you hate him so much?”

He snorted.  “What, are you taking a poll?  It’s a long list, and you did mention wanting to get to bed at some point.  More to the point, why do you care if I hate him?”

“It was just an idle question, but with all that suspicion you’re a good candidate for Slytherin.”

“Green really isn’t my color.”

They had arrived back at the entrance to the castle and he remembered that they were, in fact, out well after hours.  He pulled the invisibility cloak out.

“Are you going to manage to get back to your common room without encountering Filch?”

“I’ve managed it for the last six years without your help.”

“Or you’re just afraid what your little viper friends would think if they saw me?”

“You really are a legend in your own mind hm?  I hate to disappoint you Black, but most of them aren’t any more interested or concerned about the fascinating events of your life than I am, which is to say, they don’t care.”

Offering him one more smirk, she turned in the direction of the dungeons, he watched her until she turned a corner, and the swung the cloak over himself.  “For someone who doesn’t care, odd you’re willing to come out to the greenhouse in the middle of the night.”  He muttered to himself.