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Chapter Text

December 1995

Located alongside the first-floor corridor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, tucked to the right of a staircase, was Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall's office. Disregarding Professor Snape, McGonagall was perhaps the strictest, most no-nonsense professor in the entire school, but she always kept the fireplace warm and welcoming and always had a full tin of biscuits on her desk. However, while she was usually sprightly for her age, she looked older and more haggard at the moment as she bent over a stack of parchment, and her square spectacles sat crooked on her nose. 

I knocked on the open door to be greeted with a distracted, “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“That’s okay,” I responded cheerfully. “I can wait.”

Her sharp gaze shot up from the parchment and fixed on my position in the doorway. She immediately straightened her spectacles. “Lilianna Flores,” she exclaimed and climbed to her feet. “You are on the wrong island.”

I crossed the room and set down the parcel I was holding in order to take her hands in affectionate greeting. “I’m on the wrong ocean,” I laughed. “But I was given some time off, so I thought I would visit my family. It is good to see you, Professor.”

She smiled, which was an expression that had rarely been shown to me when I was a student, and said, “I’m not your professor anymore, Lily. Minerva will suffice.” She gestured for me to pull up a chair as she sat back down, and she gave me an intelligent look in the process. “I think I would know if you have family here though. A sibling of yours with the Weasley twins alone would be enough to wreck the school, never mind the other members of my house.”

“Gryffindor’s been giving you trouble this year?”

“Gryffindor has been giving me trouble since you left. Your seven years caused chaos, but at least it was split evenly amongst the houses. That is no longer the case.”

I laughed again. I hadn’t seen Fred and George Weasley since they were second-years, and even then they had been leaving destruction in their wake. Their skills had to have increased exponentially since I had been gone, and I had a hard time comprehending how much trouble they were getting into now that they were in their seventh year.

“The Weasleys are actually the reason I’m here,” I said. “I ran into Molly in London, and she asked me to deliver a care package for her kids.” I picked up the parcel and set it on her desk for her to see. “Should I leave it here with you?” 

McGonagall raised an eyebrow, and she studied me carefully before asking, “She couldn’t have sent it by owl?”

I smiled revealingly. “Some owls can be rather unreliable, you know? And besides, I don’t need much more than a terrible excuse to visit old friends and teachers.”

Her lips twitched, and I couldn’t tell if it had been a hint of a smile or something else. “Old? I see.”

“You know what I mean,” I said, waving a hand dismissively. 

“Indeed. Well, I can certainly take care of it, but if that’s your reason for dropping in, why not give it to them yourself? I’m sure they would love to see you.”

“Ah, well…” I grasped for words, “I would love to see them too, but it sounds like they have enough going on right now. I don’t need to complicate things.”

“Indeed,” she said again, neither her tone nor her expression revealing anything. My answer hadn't been necessary; she already knew my real reasoning. She had simply done me a favor by pointing out the hole in my story. 

“It’s interesting though,” I said in an attempt to change the subject, “that Gryffindor has all the troublemakers. The houses seem different.” I had walked the corridors before coming to the office, and what I had seen was surprising. In my school years, students of every house had mixed together happily, but now they seemed divided. They walked the halls in segregated packs, especially the Slytherins, who everyone else was giving a wide berth. I had never seen anything like it. 

“Things are different,” she agreed, “and there is disagreement about why that is the case.” There was an edge to her words, a sign that I had chosen a bad time to bring up the topic. 

“Surely it’s not all bad?” I asked, changing direction. 

She relaxed. “No, certainly not." Her eyes sparkled, and I suddenly got the sense that I wasn’t going to like what was coming next. “Forgive me for saying this, but I think my house has benefitted.” 

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” She ticked off her fingers. “We took back the House Cup, took back the Quidditch Cup, and, if I may boast, one of my Gryffindors, a fifth-year named Hermione Granger, is the top of every class. She is far above all the Ravenclaws, and I daresay she would have outmatched Rowan Khanna.”

“That’s rubbish!” I exclaimed. “You’re exaggerating.”

“I can take you to the trophy display myself.”

“I’ll hand you the trophies, but no one would have beat Rowan.”

“We can compromise there, but don’t dismiss the idea.”

“I don’t underestimate Gryffindors, but I’ll believe it when I see it.”

She laughed once. “You better believe it then.” She paused thoughtfully and then asked, “Have you spoken with Filius yet?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I was planning on saying hello to him next.”

She raised her eyebrows. “So you came to me before your Head of House? I should be honored.”

“Well, in all honesty,” I said carefully, “your position is more conveniently located, Deputy Headmistress.”

“Oh?” she said, although the surprise in her voice did not match the shrewd look on her face. She knew that I wasn’t talking about Flitwick’s office being on the seventh floor, and when she spoke again, the edge had returned. “Did I not just ask you to call me Minerva? These are stressful times. I would prefer it if I knew more people were on my side.”

“You can count on it...Minerva.”

She nodded in satisfaction. “That’s good to hear. Now, tell me how you’ve been. Working with the Australian Ministry of Magic must bring a fair amount of excitement. You oversee the import and export of magical creatures, correct?”

We were both aware that this was a horribly obvious change of subject, but it still had the intended effect. I was being told to follow her lead, and to do so carefully. 

“Sometimes,” I said happily, as if I didn’t notice. “The work varies with the contract. Invasive species are big, so I do travel with the creatures a lot. Make sure they get exactly where they need to go. I love it, but it does get tiring. I’ve been thinking about taking a position closer to home. Seems I’m not the only one.”

“You’ve met with Bill Weasley,” she stated more than asked. 

“I have, but I heard it from Charlie first.” My most recent job had involved escorting a dragon to Charlie in Romania, and once there, he had given me several shocking bits of information, including the confirmation of rumors I had desperately hoped wouldn’t be true. “I just couldn’t believe that our most adventurous Curse-Breaker would take a desk job with Gringotts,” I continued humorously. “I had to make a stop in London to see it for myself.”

“It is rather shocking. He has never been one to sit still. I wish I knew what made him change his mind about Egypt.” She had an impressively convincing act. Had I not known the truth, I never would have guessed that she was lying. 

“Maybe it was the heat,” I said with a shrug. “I ran into Nymphadora Tonks too while I was in the area, so it’s nice to know that at least someone likes their dream job. But everyone keeps saying strange things...you know, about the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament.”

Her mouth became a thin line. “You sound like you’ve been out of the loop.”

“Not out of the loop exactly,” I replied. “I just know that the farther information has to travel, the more likely I am to be misinformed.”

“Well said. If I may inquire, what new position were you thinking of taking?”

I hesitated, knowing she would disagree with my plan. “Well, since Tonks makes it look so cool, I was thinking of becoming an Auror.”

Her reaction was exactly as expected, as I was struck with a soul-cutting glare. “You have been misinformed,” she said sharply. “There is no security in such a position, not like there once was. And especially not for someone of your...particular talents.”

“Then what would you recommend I do?” I asked, slightly frustrated. 

“I recommend you go back to Australia for the meantime. For your own good. Things here are becoming complicated. It’s not safe.”

“Not safe?” I tugged up my left sleeve to reveal the scars that tattooed my arm—tributes to various burns, bites, scratches, and even the odd spell or two. “Have you ever worked with creatures from Australia?”

“Lilianna,” she said warningly, but her eyes were on my arm.

I pulled the sleeve back down. “I have my own reasons for returning to Britain, as you very well know. If I’ve heard correctly, things aren’t just going to blow over. They’re going to get worse. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

“ Lilianna. ”

I fell silent, partially out of chagrin. So much for subtlety...not that it had ever been my strong suit. 

McGonagall sighed and lowered her voice so that I could barely hear her. “Five years since you graduated, and you haven’t changed a bit. When there’s trouble, you always have to run towards it, never away from it like a sensible person. This is why I’m glad you were Filius’s problem and not mine.”

I stared at her suspiciously. That almost sounded like a joke.

She smiled, and I nearly fell out of my chair from shock. That had been a joke. 

“You say that,” I chuckled, “but I’m fairly certain you took more house points away from me than he did.”

She let her voice return to a normal volume. “I do think he was too fond of you for your own good, and I’ll never forgive him for teaching you how to duel as a first-year, but you were a good student. And I’ll admit I was softer on you than I should have been as well.”

“If he hadn’t taught me, then I would’ve found someone else,” I pointed out. 

“As you most clearly demonstrated, time and time again.”

I grinned at her annoyance, but I also couldn’t suppress a wave of guilt. I loved my old professors, but I had put them through hell for as long as I had known them, even if it had never been intentional. “I hope you know I hated disappointing him,” I said, “and you and Dumbledore, but it was always to do what I thought was right.”

“Even if it was stupid and dangerous and wrong, I know,” she said, and my grin became sheepish. “It is honestly a miracle you lived to graduate. I hope you’ll never do anything like that again!”

“No promises,” I laughed. 

She sighed again. “This is where you’re supposed to lie to me. I’ve had my own problems to deal with since you’ve been gone. Speaking of…” Her eyes flicked to the doorway. “Do you need something, Ms. Granger, or are you going to continue to eavesdrop from around the corner?”

I looked over my shoulder to see a student enter the room with a guilty expression on her face. She looked to be a fifth- or sixth-year, wore Gryffindor robes, and had a wild mane of curly brown hair. How long had she been listening in? Or—and this was even more pressing—how long had McGonagall known she had been listening in? 

“I’m sorry, Professor,” the girl said sincerely. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“That’s quite all right,” McGonagall said unconcernedly. “We were just catching up. What can I do for you?”

The girl handed her a small slip of parchment. “I was wondering if I could get your permission to check this book out of the Restricted Section. I want to do some extra reading on defensive spells….the theory of them, I mean.”

McGonagall adjusted her spectacles as she studied the parchment. “Oh?” she said, taking the exact same tone she had used with me just minutes ago. “These are highly advanced spells, well beyond the capability of the average fifth-year. Why not ask your Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor instead?”

I stared at her in bewilderment. That sounded like another joke, but I didn’t know why that would be.  

“You’re my Head of House,” the girl replied a bit too cheerfully. “I figured it would be best to go straight to you. I didn’t want to accidentally do something you would be unhappy with after all.”

I had told enough lies in my life to recognize one when I heard it, and this lie was bald-faced. There was no doubt that McGonagall was aware of this too, which is why her next actions were even more bewildering. 

“Well, I see no harm in letting you do some extra reading, so long as it is purely theory,” she said. “I’ll sign the permission slip only if you promise that I won’t catch you performing these spells. The same goes for Potter, Weasley, and whoever else. Understand?”

I didn’t miss the loophole in her conditions, and it was clear from the girl’s excited face that she didn’t either. “Yes, of course!” she exclaimed. “Thank you, Professor!”

“Don’t thank me,” McGonagall said seriously. “I will not bail you out if you get yourselves into trouble.”

I stared in amazement as she dipped a quill in ink and began to sign the parchment. I leaned toward the desk and murmured, “What happened to our conversation about Flitwick teaching me to duel?”

“I told you things are different,” she said without looking up from her task. “I probably should have asked you this first, Lily, but does Umbridge know you’re here?”

An image of the pink-clad, toad-faced old witch forced its way into my mind, and I had to fight the urge to shudder. She had all but assaulted me upon my arrival, which was the opposite of a pleasant introduction. She reminded me of Emily Tyler—that is, if Emily Tyler had fused with a manticore. “I haven’t exactly been keeping my presence a secret,” I said. “She demanded to know what I was doing here, so I told the truth: that I’ve been out of the country for a while and wanted to visit old friends, but she wouldn’t believe me. Insisted on personally inspecting the package. She finally left me alone when a chocolate frog mysteriously escaped and jumped on her face.” I winked at the girl. She remarkably didn’t laugh, but her lips pressed tightly together, which was enough for me.  

McGonagall gave me another stern look. “Know that I am serious when I say this: avoid her at all costs. You would do best not to get on her bad side.”

“Of course, Prof...Minerva. But I can’t go sneaking around or people will think I’m up to something.”

“Just try to behave. Both of you.”

“Excuse me,” the girl addressed me. “But did I hear correctly? Are you Lilianna Flores?” 

She had heard of me? That wasn’t necessarily a good sign. “I am,” I said amiably. “And you must be the student Professor McGonagall was just telling me about—the one that is outshining my old house. Hermione Granger, right?”

She looked thrilled that I knew her name. “Yes! Oh, it is such an honor to meet you! I read about you in the latest edition of Hogwarts: A History . Your rediscovery of the Cursed Vaults is legendary. And you’re one of the seven Animagi to be registered in the twentieth century, not to mention the youngest—registering at only thirteen, a few years before Talbott Winger.”

I was in history textbooks now? Oh, no, that was most definitely not a good sign. 

I tried to hide my discomfort as I chuckled, “None of that’s based off of Rita Skeeter articles is it?”

She smiled knowingly. “Only the parts that call you the Mad Witch. But I don’t read Rita Skeeter.”

I didn’t know whether to feel amused or sick, and the result was an odd combination.  

“All right, Ms. Granger,” McGonagall said sternly, handing back the piece of parchment. “Don’t you have a class to get to?”

“Right, Professor. I’ll get going,” she said. 

“One more thing.” McGonagall held up the parcel. “Can you deliver this to the Weasley siblings when you get the chance? It’s from their mother.”

Hermione blinked in curious surprise. “Oh, of course,” she said and tucked it under one arm. She gave me a wave with her free hand. “It was nice meeting you!”

“It was nice meeting you too!” I responded cheerfully. “I’m honored that you were honored.”

“And close the door on your way out!” McGonagall ordered. 

She did as instructed, but not before I heard an excited shout of, “Did you get it?” from the corridor, followed by a warning hiss. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and tried not to laugh. 

“Is that why you praised her?” I asked. “Because she was listening?”

McGonagall smiled with rare pride. “I would have even if she had not.” 

I glanced at the closed door. “Sorry for getting carried away.”

“It is all right. I doubt the act would have fooled anyone for very long when both of us are already under suspicion.”

“May I speak openly now?”

She nodded. “To a certain degree. There is a protective charm on the room, but be careful.”

I took a breath. This was it. We had finally reached the point in this entire roundabout conversation that we had been trying to reach, but now I barely had the courage to say the words aloud. “Is it true what they’re saying?” I asked quietly. “Has You-Know-Who returned?”

She took a deep breath as well and did not speak until after she had exhaled. “Here’s what I know. Officially, it has not been confirmed, but Harry Potter says he saw him come back. That boy is many things, but he is not a liar. And someone or something killed Cedric Diggory during the Triwizard Tournament. That was not an accident, not with the way the Death Eaters have been gathering. The evidence stands, but the Ministry denies it.”

“I see,” I murmured. 

She gazed at me in gentle concern. “How are you?” she asked. “I know he was a good friend of yours.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “I’m fine,” I said unconvincingly. In truth, Cedric’s death had hit me harder than I had expected it to, possibly because of the death it had reminded me of, but while it was the reason I had returned to Britain, it had little to do with why I was sitting in this chair.  

She studied me with a hard to read expression. “You already knew all of this. Why are you really here?”

I tried to smile, but I felt my face slip into a grimace. “It’s funny that she brought up Talbott Winger. You know his whole story.”

“Yes, the poor boy. Both parents killed by Death Eaters. He was lucky to have escaped.”

“He escaped because he was unregistered.”

“What are you saying?”

I picked at a loose thread on my glove. “Talbott was terrified to go to the Ministry. He was afraid that if he registered, it would happen again, only this time, he wouldn’t get out alive. I’m the one that finally convinced him to register. I told him it would never happen again. That You-Know-Who was never coming back.”

I always had good intentions. I always thought I was doing the right thing, but people usually ended up getting hurt anyway, sometimes in a way that was irreversible. 

Her expression softened. “You couldn’t have known. I didn’t either, or I never would have encouraged your transformation in the first place. Keep in mind that it would have been a greater risk to remain unregistered. Had the two of you been caught, as you certainly would have, you would have been sent straight to Azkaban.”

“So prison rather than death?” I said glumly. 

“You exaggerate. The Death Eaters pick their targets based on who they wish to persecute and who stands the greatest threat to them. Animagi are threatening not because of their abilities, but because of how they choose to use them. And if I may speak from personal experience, this does not mean our enemies know what you or I look like in our animal forms.”

“That was the case in the Wizarding War. You were able to work with the Ministry to fight You-Know-Who’s forces. But things are different now. The Ministry isn’t on our side, and I don’t know what to do. Who are we supposed to trust?”

“That is the question, isn’t it? I don’t know any more than you do.”

I leaned forward, hands braced against my knees, silent for a moment. A weight hung in the air—a weight that I was fairly certain hung over all of Britain...of Europe...maybe even the world. We were heading into a tunnel, and no one knew if there was an end in sight. 

Finally, I straightened and attempted a laugh. “You know, I was waiting for an I-told-you-so—about the dangers of becoming an Animagus.”

She gave a faint smile. “In truth, you deserve it. You deserve numerous more scoldings than I or any other teacher ever gave you. But I’ve always been too proud. You were my best Transfiguration student, even if you were the most troublesome. It has always been one of my greatest dilemmas.”

Now I truly did laugh. “Glad I could make such a lasting impression!”

“It is one of your talents.”

“Oh, I know.” I glanced at the clock on the wall and made to stand up. “I should get going. There are a few more people I need to see. Thank you, Minerva. I really needed this.”

“While we’re being open with each other, as did I. It was good of you to stop by, Lily.”

I gave her a small wave from the doorway. “Until next time.”

* * * *

After a brief friendly exchange with Flitwick, who insisted I call him Filius from then on, I was left with one more person to see. “Fizzing Whizbee!” I declared to the stone gargoyle as I tried to keep a straight face. As expected, the gargoyle leapt aside, granting me entrance to the Headmaster’s office. 

I would forever be awed by the great circular room, with its walls covered in paintings of all the old headmasters and its tables and shelves filled with mysterious moving bits and bobs. I had been given the liberty to explore many times while waiting to meet with Dumbledore as a student, so I felt an odd intimacy with its dust and clutter, like that of an old friendship. I had probably spent too much time here, since half the visits had involved a scolding for the latest bit of trouble I had gotten into. Still, I could spend the rest of my life in this office and never discover all its secrets. 

The silver-bearded Headmaster himself was seated at his desk, his phoenix, Fawkes, perched beside him. He smiled warmly when he saw me and gestured at one of two chairs before his desk. “Come, come, Lily! Have a seat!” He waited until I did as instructed before continuing, “I’m so glad you could meet with me. How have you been?”

“Quite well, sir. It is good to be back. And yourself?”

His blue eyes sparkled. “As well as can be, given the circumstances. You’ve seen the papers, so you know we’ve hit a bit of a rough patch. But I have faith the right people will prevail.” A rough patch was an understatement, but his optimism was comforting. Dumbledore always seemed to have a calming effect on people—or at least those that weren’t part of the Ministry of Magic. 

“I’ll admit I was surprised to get your Patronus,” I said. “I didn’t know they could do that.” Startled was perhaps the more accurate word. I had been surprised when the silvery phoenix had materialized in my bedroom, but I had knocked over a stack of books when it had started speaking in Dumbledore’s voice. 

“A little trick of my own invention,” he said cheerfully. “And you learned it so quickly too! By that alone I knew you were the right person for the job.”

“What is it you want me to do?” I asked. He had not given me any details other than that he had a task for me. My decision to drop everything and return home had essentially been based on nothing more than blind trust and a restlessness that had settled in my chest since Cedric’s death. 

Dumbledore’s kind expression told me he understood this, but he said, “If you will just be patient a minute longer, I promise I will tell you everything. One more person will be joining us, and I’d prefer not to waste your time by telling a long story twice. She’s an old acquaintance of yours in fact.”

An old acquaintance? That could have been numerous people. I barely had enough time to guess who it might be, however, when a voice spoke from behind me: “No need. I’m here.”

That voice. That soft, lilting voice with a rough edge forced into it—I knew that voice. 

My heart leapt into my throat and then slammed back down into my chest as I spun around in my chair to see none other than Merula Snyde striding across the room. She was the very last person I had expected. My brain had not connected “old acquaintance” with the girl that had declared herself my enemy from Year One. Not that we were enemies now, but still...

“Merula,” I greeted, unable to keep the stupefaction out of my voice. “It’s been a while.”

She smirked. “Five years. I wasn’t expecting to find you here, Flores. You look well.”

“As do you.”

It was no lie. She was dressed in all black from her cloak to her stockings, and she wore a tunic that was strikingly accented with silver and green. Her wand was strapped in a sheath at her hip, on which she rested one gloved hand, and she sported an old pair of combat boots. She had changed very little from when I had last seen her at graduation. Her chin-length brown curls with their fiery orange streak were still untamed, and black eyeshadow still lined her violet eyes, which were as sharp and cunning as ever. Maybe it was the outfit or the way she lifted her chin, but this once scrappy witch looked powerful —and she knew it. 

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, dropping into the seat beside me without waiting for an invitation. “I was held up by the old witch downstairs. She’s in a foul mood because she’s convinced someone set a rogue chocolate frog on her. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Flores?”

I winced. 

Dumbledore maintained a straight face. “It pleases me to see that you two are your usual selves, but I would request that you keep your more controversial tendencies to a minimum while under the scrutiny of the Ministry.”

To her credit, Merula adopted the same chastised expression I did as we both mumbled out apologies. 

Fortunately, he appeared more amused than angry. “Although, as they say, well-behaved witches seldom make history, which is partly why I called you here this evening. Now that Ms. Snyde has joined us, we may begin. Tell me, do either of you know anything about the Order of the Phoenix?”

“Only rumors,” Merula said. “Officially it didn’t exist. At least, the Ministry tries hard to make it seem like it didn’t.”

Dumbledore glanced at me, and I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“The Order,” he informed us, “was a secret organization that I founded during the First Wizarding War. It was made up of many noble witches and wizards who worked from the shadows to fight Voldemort and his Death Eaters, while at the same time protecting those he would persecute. We existed separately from the Ministry and the Aurors and thus could work without restrictions as the unseen frontlines of the war. I’m sure you know the names of some of the members—the Potters, the Longbottoms, and the Wingers were just a few of the great wizarding families that joined the cause. Of course, as you can also guess, there were many who lost their lives, and those who did survive were never the same.”

“And what does this have to do with us?” Merula asked him. 

He looked grim. “Regardless of what the Ministry is telling the public, both of you know the truth. Voldemort has returned, and he will not wait for the world to become aware of his presence before he makes his next move.”

I couldn’t help but flinch every time he said You-Know-Who’s name, and I had to fight to control my rising heart rate. First Wizarding War? He was making it sound as if...

Merula, on the other hand, was unfazed, and she straightened in her chair as she caught on. “So what you’re saying is...?”

He nodded. “Your thoughts are correct. While the Ministry fails to react, both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds remain vulnerable. For this reason, a new Order of the Phoenix has risen—the Second Order—with a new generation of witches and wizards to fight for it. You already know several of its members personally.”

“The Weasley boys,” I realized. “And Tonks.”

“Precisely.”

That likely meant some of the professors as well, including McGonagall. 

“So you want us to join the Order of the Phoenix?” Merula’s expression was fierce, although I couldn’t tell if it was from excitement or something else. 

“That is my proposal, yes,” he said. “It would be highly dangerous, and I cannot guarantee you would make it out of this war alive. It is for this reason that not all of your friends accepted when I reached out to them, and I do not blame them for their decision. But much as I would rather send you two far away from here, these are desperate times, and you are among the most talented young witches I know.”

War. The word echoed in my mind. We were going to war. It didn’t seem real. I swallowed back the unwanted feelings of panic as I inquired, “What would you have us do?”

He smiled, but the gesture was unusually subdued. “Now we get to the heart of the matter,” he said. “Each of you has your own unique talents and benefits to offer. Like, let’s say, a position inside the Ministry of Magic?”

Merula scoffed and shook her head. “It’s not as beneficial as you might think,” she said when she noticed me looking at her inquisitively. “Yeah, sure, I work in the Auror Office, but they don’t exactly let the daughter of Death Eaters go chasing after Dark Wizards. Your would-be inside source is currently chained to a desk.”

This was news to me. I had heard from Tonks and Talbott that Merula had become an Auror along with them, but neither had mentioned that she wasn’t allowed into the field. 

“If I wanted a person inside the government, that would pose a difficulty, true,” Dumblebore agreed. “But your position is unique for another reason. Merula, would you mind telling Lily what you told me?”

She abruptly stiffened, and something uncertain flashed behind her eyes. It lasted only a second before she composed herself and sighed, as if bored or disinterested. “I was approached,” she said, waving a hand uncaringly. “Apparently some people think I’m unhappy with my job. And they would be right. I’ve done everything the Ministry’s asked of me—passed all the tests, met all the qualifications, and they still stick me with the paperwork. I don’t pretend to think this is fair, so some old friends of my parents decided I might want a better opportunity.”

My eyes widened. “Death Eaters? Inside the Ministry?”

She nodded. 

“What did they want from you?”

“Nothing yet. Just to know where my loyalties lie. I implied I would be standing by to offer my support when the Dark Lord returns to power.”

“You did what?” I gasped. 

“What was I supposed to do?” she snapped. “Tell them to bugger off and then wait to be hit with the Killing Curse in my sleep? I don’t think so.”

“I...I mean, that makes sense.” The idea of being in that situation was simply horrifying to me. The enemy was inside the Ministry. That meant they could be anywhere or controlling anyone.

She blew out a breath at her fringe, and when that didn’t make it move, tucked her hair behind one ear. “Believe me, I don’t want anything to do with Death Eaters. ‘Pure-blood supremacy’”—she made air quotes—“is one thing. Murder is another.”

“So you went to Dumbledore?” I asked. 

“Er, not at first. I was 'strongly encouraged' to come around. Tonks thought it would be funny if she sent her nutter mentor to ambush me in my own home.” Her face twisted at the memory. “Nearly pulled my arm off when he checked it. And that was after threatening to blow me up on the spot. I’m pretty sure he would have if she hadn’t stopped him.”

Dumbledore chuckled. “Yes, Alastor can be rather intense, but he is a talented Auror and a truly loyal and dependable man.”

I nearly laughed. Of course she was talking about Mad-Eye Moody. I'd had plenty of my own experiences with the former Auror (Dumbledore's last ditch—and failed—effort to keep me from getting myself in trouble). “Rather intense” was a mild way of describing him. Paranoid would be another. Dumbledore was right though; I trusted Mad-Eye with my life. 

“His name is still accurate for more than one reason,” Merula grumbled. “Anyway, they’re the ones that have been setting up my communications with Dumbledore. They don't trust me, but as long as they never come into my home again, I don’t care.” She faced Dumbledore directly. “Is that what you want me to do, old man? Play double agent?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “At least not to an extreme. I have agents far inside the Ministry and far inside the Death Eaters, but not one on the edge of both. And for as opinionated as you claim to be, you have quite the, shall I say, Slytherin aptitude to not burn any bridges you don’t want burned, not to mention the influence of belonging to an old and respected family. You are in the perfect position to wait, to listen, and to prepare yourself for when the time comes.”

“When the time comes for what exactly?”

“When the balance of the world shifts, be it toward a good outcome or not.”

“I don’t get it.” She sounded annoyed. “If we have such an advantage, why do you need me?”

“That is the problem,” he said seriously. “We do not have an advantage. We only have the means to ensure we do not all die instantaneously when darkness and chaos descend, and even then nothing is certain. No, Merula, the world needs all the help it can get.”

She fell silent, and I could have sworn I saw her face whiten.

As terrifying as Dumbledore’s words were, I understood Merula’s annoyance. His plan for her didn’t make sense. What good would being on the edges of multiple sides do? She would never be trusted by any of them with that position. It sounded more like a hindrance than a benefit. 

“Have patience,” he said calmly, as if reading our minds. Maybe he was. “I will tell you all the details when I need you to act.”

Merula looked far from happy, so I took the opportunity to speak before she could share her opinions. “And me?” I asked. “What do you need from me?”

“What I need from you, Lily, is to make a choice,” he said. “After this meeting, you will return to your holiday, before the end of which you will receive an owl from a good friend with a business proposition. You can either accept the offer of the new job and move somewhere close by, or you can respectfully decline and return to your creatures in Australia, away from the thick of the mess of current politics. You do not have to decide now, and you will not be faulted for your decision, but I hope you know that, like Merula, you have a lot to offer.”

I hesitated in giving my answer. This was a lot to take in, and frankly, it all terrified me. We were going to war. People were going to die. Maybe even my friends were going to die. Maybe I would too. But deep down, I knew without a doubt what the right thing was to do. It just wasn’t the easy thing to do. “I’ll think it over,” I told him, “but I’m pretty sure I’ve already made my choice.”

“As have I,” Merula added. 

Dumbledore smiled. “I expected as much. I look forward to hearing from you soon.”

* * * *

Merula and I walked down the stairs from the Headmaster’s office in uncomfortable silence. I didn’t know what to say to her. I had an odd feeling similar to being hit with a stunning jinx, so my muddled thoughts didn’t make starting a conversation any easier. It hadn’t exactly been like we were the best of friends. 

Five years. Where had the time gone?

Fortunately, she broke the silence with a grumble when we reached the corridor: “Crazy old fool. He told us everything and nothing. How is that even possible?”

I laughed in relief. “With Dumbledore? Anything’s possible.”

“Almost anything,” she muttered, almost to herself. Her gaze fixed on something I couldn’t see. “Are you going to do it?”

“I think so. I feel like there’s more to lose if I don’t.” I had already come halfway around the world at the drop of a hat. I was being impulsive, naturally, but maybe that was for a good reason.

She rolled her eyes, a classic move I had missed. “Always have to play the hero, don’t you, Flores? For me, anything’s better than spending the rest of my life in that stuffy old building.”

“Almost anything,” I corrected her. 

Unexpectedly, she cringed. “R-right.” We paused as the corridor diverged. “Are you going a different way?”

I nodded. “There are a few more people I want to see before I go.”

“All right then. Sounds like I’ll be seeing you around. But take my advice and stay away from chocolate frogs in the meantime, for your own sake.”

Now I laughed for real. “I’ll try, but no promises. And, yeah, I’ll see you.” I turned to go, but her voice called my attention back. 

“Flores?”

“Yeah?”

She hesitated, lips parted uncertainly. A beat passed. Then, “Never mind. It’s just...never mind. I’ll see you.” With that, she spun on her heel and disappeared down the opposite corridor, leaving me alone in my confusion. Well, then...

I shook my head and continued walking. It was almost time to go home. 

Home. I was coming home.

Chapter Text

A sharp tapping at my window drew me out of my book, and I glanced up to see a tawny owl hopping up and down excitedly, waiting to be let in. After carefully marking my page, I nudged a complaining Pip off my lap and got up to open the window. The familiar bird gave a muffled happy coo and hopped onto my arm so that I could retrieve the envelope attached to his leg. I gave Penny’s owl an appreciative scratch on the head as I carried him over to my chair. 

“Thanks, Mudflop. It’s good to see you too. How’s Penny doing?”

He stepped off onto the chair’s arm, and Pip greeted him with a friendly purr after returning to her spot on my lap. I absentmindedly stroked her fur as I opened the envelope. Penny Haywood’s neat handwriting graced the parchment inside. 

Lily, 

I hope you are doing well! I heard you are back in Britain! It must be nice seeing everyone after so long. I trust your family is well? A lot has changed since you have been gone. If you have the time, come visit me in Hogsmeade before you leave. I enjoy our letters, but I would love to catch up in person!

The Scarlett Cauldron is doing wonderfully. It has become almost as popular as me! I kid, but it does have a steady stream of business. I have gotten so many requests for potions lately that I can barely keep up. One day, I had ten cauldrons simmering at once! Don’t ask how I accomplished that. It is a long story that involves several cats and an unhealthy amount of Wide-Eye Potion. The point is that I am considering hiring someone to help me out. Actually, to be more specific, I am considering taking on a partner. Since the majority of requests are for medicinal potions, I want to expand the Cauldron’s business to include other healing services. I think the villagers would appreciate not having to go all the way to Saint Mungo’s for every little illness and injury, so I am looking for someone that is good with people and has had some medical training. Preferably a talented and intelligent Ravenclaw that was apprentice to the Head of the Hospital Wing for some time at Hogwarts. Know anyone like that?

Okay, I will stop being subtle and just come right out and say it: I want you to work with me at the Scarlett Cauldron. It wouldn’t pay much right away, and it will certainly never beat your current salary, but I have found the work to be highly rewarding. You would be helping people everyday, and you would get to live close to your friends and family! And, with a little time and tough love, I think this business could really turn into something! I would love for you to be a part of that. I will understand if you say no, but I thought I would give you an out in case you were tired of traveling. 

I know I have given you a lot to think about, so I will cut a long letter short. It will be nice to hear your reply, no matter what it is. And no matter what it is, come visit me! I mean it!

With much love, 

Penny

I was grinning by the end of the letter. Of all the so-called business propositions I could have received, nothing could have made me happier than this one. Without giving it another thought, I grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill, and I began to write my reply.

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe you said yes!” Penny squealed, tackling me in a hug. I stumbled back from her surprisingly strong impact, and my feet slid on the icy ground. She grabbed my arm and held me steady with a laugh. “Sorry! I’m just so excited you’re here! I mean, I knew you would come, but I can’t believe you’re right in front of me!”

“Neither can I!” I agreed excitedly. “It’s good to see you, Penny.”

“And you too! I’m so happy that I finally get to show you the Cauldron. Look, isn’t it amazing?”

I looked up at the snow-dusted brick storefront that was carefully nested between the other shops and cafes along Hogsmeade’s High Street. A wooden sign depicting a hooded witch stooped over a deep red cauldron dangled above the clean-swept path to the door. The cauldron was engraved with the smoky, horse-like form of a thestral—a hint to the true origin of the business’s name, which was painted in large, elegant letters on the display window: the Scarlett Cauldron. A tantalizingly diverse sample of potion supplies and ingredients lined a table on the inside of the window, patiently waiting to draw customers in. 

“Very professional-looking,” I half-teased. “You would think a true potioneer works here.”

“Wait till you see the inside!” she insisted. “Here, let me help you with your luggage.”

“I can handle the trunk, but would you mind taking Pip and Aeris? I think they’re tired of me jostling them around.”

“Of course!”

I passed her the cat crate and owl cage, which allowed me to get a proper grip on my trunk, and she led the way through the front door of the shop. It was dim and cool inside but in a surprisingly pleasant way, like standing in the shade of a broad-leafed tree on a hot day. The stone walls, which were oddly reminiscent of the Hogwarts dungeons, were decorated with various engravings of runes and Latin phrases, but they were mostly obscured by shelf after shelf of jarred ingredients. What wasn’t on a shelf was carefully laid across the many tables. I saw every ingredient I could think of and more—from wolfsbane, to mandrake leaves, to griffin claws, to bezoars. 

Penny directed my attention to the different parts of the room. “Cauldrons and basic supplies are along that wall there, and books and recipes are in that corner right next to them. Organizing the ingredients was a little tricky, but right now I have them alphabetically in sections based on the kind of potions they’re used in. There’s antidotes and other cures right next to you, minor poisons over there, stimulants on the other side, herbological potions near…” She realized she was rambling and broke off. “Well, I’ll show you everything when you begin work. For now, know there’s the main counter. I keep some readymade potions behind it, including antidotes and fire-protection potions, just in case. Now if you’ll follow me this way...and watch the blasting caps.”

I followed her through a door at the back of the room, and she directed me down a narrow hallway and up a flight of stairs. I let her take the lead while I levitated my trunk up, and once at the top, we passed through a single door into a moderately-sized flat. The walls were made of stone brick like the rest of the building, but ample light flowed in through the windows and gave the place a bright, cozy feel. The main room we had entered appeared to be a combined kitchen, dining room, and living room. Much of the furniture, including the kitchen isle and small dining table, were made up of polished, honey-colored wood, and the rugs, couch, and various other decor gave the room the cheerful, bee-like palette of yellow and black. Numerous plants from cacti to flowers perched in the windowsills, hung from the ceiling, and graced the wooden shelves along the walls, and when one of the cacti waved at me, I nearly waved back. 

“It’s very Hufflepuff,” I commented. 

Penny beamed, clearly happy that I had noticed. “I based it off of the common room,” she informed me. “Wait until you see your room. Right over here.”

She led me through another door by the couch, and stepping through it was like stepping into the night sky. The quilt on the wooden bed, the curtains by the window, and the rug on the floor were all shades of deep blue, and while a pattern of fabric stars decorated the rug, what looked like real miniature stars twinkled from the ceiling. A desk and chair sat across from the bed, and it was there that I saw new writing materials and a little bronze statue of an eagle. It looked like...

“The Ravenclaw dormitories,” Penny said cheerfully. “I’ve never been, of course, but I took my best guess.”

I was in awe. “You’ve really outdone yourself, Pen. You didn’t have to.”

“Nonsense. You’re going to be living here now too, so I want you to feel at home. We can change it if you don’t like it.”

“No, I love it. Remind me to always come to you for decorating advice.”

She grinned. “I’m glad. My room’s a lot different. If you thought out there was Hufflepuff, wait till you see it. It’s even by the kitchen and everything. Oh, can I let them out?” She gestured at the animal cages she had set on the floor. “I put a perch for Aeris by the window. Don’t give me that look. I had a spare.”

I twirled a hand in affirmation. “Go ahead.”

Once free, Aeris flew straight for the perch, from which he ruffled his feathers irately and gave me a dirty look. Pip, in typical annoyed cat fashion, ignored me and amiably rubbed against Penny’s legs instead. Penny scooped her up and cooed sweetly at the purring tawny feline. 

“Hey, I’m sorry you guys don’t like traveling with me, but you don’t need to be rude about it!” I complained. 

Penny laughed as she scratched behind Pip’s ears. “You don’t have Mewles?” she asked. 

“No,” I sighed. “He died a few months ago.”

“Oh no. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right. He was an old toad. I think the worst part was telling Tulip. She still hadn’t gotten over Dennis when it happened.” Mewles had been a gift from Tulip as thanks for getting her toad a spot on the Frog Choir in our third year at school. He had been a great companion, but unfortunately toads didn’t live for much longer than a decade. The same went for Tulip’s best friend, Dennis. 

Penny smiled sadly. “They were quite the pair, weren’t they? Sometimes I could’ve sworn she could speak toad.”

“Oh, thank Merlin I’m not the only one,” I said. “I can never figure out if she’s messing with me by making me think she can’t when she can, or if she’s messing with me by making me think she can when she can’t.”

Penny shrugged. “It’s Tulip. That’s probably her intention.”

“True. But, yeah, Aeris is getting up there in years too.” I had had him since I started working, and barn owls weren’t supposed to live that long. “I think Pip still has plenty of time left though, if she behaves.” I gave my cat a stern look. 

Penny addressed her playfully. “Are you a troublemaker just like your human? Are you, huh? Don’t worry, I think we’ll still get along just fine.” She passed her to me. “I need to open shop downstairs, so I’ll let you get unpacked and settled in. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. Everything here is yours.”

I set the squirming cat down on the bed. “Thank you. So much.”

She gave me one last smile before heading out the door. “You know where to find me if you need me. I’m just so happy you’re here.”

* * * *

The next hour after Penny had left had me sitting on the floor with my trunk as I carefully removed and sorted my belongings. A single wave of my wand would have allowed me to be done in seconds, but I liked the nostalgia that came from lingering over each object. I reached for another shirt and paused as my hand knocked against something solid. I gently removed it and unwrapped the cloth around it, and I smiled to myself as I realized what it was. It was an old framed photograph—a Christmas present I had received in one of my mid years at Hogwarts. 

All of my friends, adorned in their respective house robes, posed in front of the fountain in the clocktower courtyard. From Gryffindor, there were the broadly grinning Weasley duo—Bill and Charlie, and the nervously smiling Ben Copper. In Ravenclaw attire stood Andre Egwu with his ever present scarf and style, Tulip Karasu with her usual mischievous smirk, and Rowan Khanna, whose dark brown eyes were wide with joyful excitement behind her glasses. The head of the hulking Slytherin Barnaby Lee appeared in the back with a goofily pure show of teeth, and the Hufflepuffs, Tonks and Penny, were nearly falling over. The pink-haired Tonks, her mouth wide in a fit of laughter, was leaning forward with her arm around Penny and was taking the young potioneer’s balance with her. Penny was laughing too, her sapphire blue eyes bright and happy. 

There were so many different people of so many different backgrounds and personalities all in the same place on their journey to becoming friends for life. These were my friends who had come together to take a picture for me . At the moment of receiving that gift, in spite of all my doubts and worries, I had never been happier. 

So much had changed since then. I had discovered new friends that hadn't been a part of my life at the time of that picture, including Jae Kim, Badeea Ali, and Liz Tuttle. I had also lost friends that should have been at my side instead of only existing as ink on paper. So much had changed, and so much still would change. 

One thing had clearly stayed the same though. Penny’s smile was just as radiant now as it had been all those years ago. Her long blond braids were just as neat, her lipstick just as cherry-pink, her flawless skin just as smooth, and her deceivingly dainty form just as elegant. She was as beautiful as ever. 

And, as they had been all those years ago...her smile, her laugh, her touch were just as electric as a spell gone wrong. They shocked my heart and sent billywigs through my stomach, and I wished they didn’t. 

Maybe it was only the excitement of seeing an old friend again. That had to be it, and it had to be. We had been down this road far enough before to learn that it wasn’t a road at all—not for me. My heartbreak and shame and her pity and discomfort had nearly been enough to end our friendship, or so I had thought. Penny was too understanding and too good of a friend to let that happen, but now that I was going to be living with her for who knew how long, I had to snap out of it for both our sakes. 

No matter how much it ached. 

With a sigh, I waved my wand, and all my belongings flew to their new homes—the clothes to the wardrobe, the books to the bookshelf, and the papers and parchment to the desk drawers. Maybe it was better not to dwell on the past. Or at least not so much, I thought as I looked back at the picture of my friends, which remained in my hands. I smiled again and carefully positioned it on the desk. There were some things that were too good to be forgotten.

Chapter Text

“That’s right. Now add more powdered moonstone until it turns gray.”

“Like this?”

“Yes, good! Then allow it to simmer for the next few minutes until it turns orange.”

“Is that it?”

“Almost. There are only a few steps left. Just don’t sweat in your cauldron or we’ll have to start all over.”

I leaned back from the dull, steaming liquid and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

Penny gave me an amused look. “You were really focused there,” she teased. 

“I was expecting it to be harder.”

“It’s supposed to be. You’re just a natural, which I’ve been telling you for years.”

“You have, but the problem is you are too nice.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Too nice?”

“Yeah. I’ve been conditioned by Snape, so unless you praise me like him, I’m never going to believe you,” I joked and then deepened my voice in my best impression of the Potion Master’s smooth drawl, “I’m impressed, Flores. In spite of your complete idiocy, by some unexplainable miracle, you continue to have a gift for potions.”

Penny clutched her sides, her whole body shaking as she broke down in a fit of giggles. “Stop!” she gasped. “You know that always gets to me!”

I smirked. “I know. That’s why I did it.”

She lightly smacked my shoulder with the closed recipe book, but couldn’t stop laughing long enough to keep a straight face. 

We were sitting at one of the many tables in the brewing room. Like the main part of the store, it was a dim, cool room of stone. There was one table covered with scales, knives, and mortars and pestles—clearly set aside for measuring and preparing ingredients—while the rest held cauldrons. There were at least a half dozen pots of various sizes and materials, and I sat in front of a medium pewter one, with Penny on a stool beside me as she instructed me on how to carry out the order. 

I adjusted the belt around my waist, which possessed several slots and pouches for vials, flasks, and ingredients. It was buckled over my robes—my favorite set. The sleeveless piece was form-fitting and sturdy but flexible—more tunic-like in appearance than typical robes. The black fabric was accented with a pattern of silver lines and swirls, and a sapphire stone was set in its chest. The stone was supposed to give longevity to the outfit’s protective enchantment, something that even extended to my matching black leather boots and fingerless gloves. It had served me well in protecting my vulnerable flesh from the fire and venom of the creatures I had worked with, and I figured the enchantment would be no less useful in my new occupation. 

Penny, in contrast, wore her potion belt over her simple white blouse and black skirt and stockings, clearly not worried about a potentially toxic liquid burning through her clothes. She probably didn’t have to. 

“Remember when Rowan was sweating so much that her glasses slipped off her face right into the Draught of Living Death?” she asked. 

“She was mortified!” I chuckled. “She had to go blind for the rest of the day until I could track down another pair for her. Honestly, that’s part of the reason I switched to contacts.”

“The potion,” she noticed. Indeed it had turned a vivid orange. “Okay, add the porcupine quills until it turns white. Remember to stir both clockwise and anticlockwise.”

I did as instructed until the liquid drained of its bright color. 

“Now it gets tricky,” she continued. “Lower the heat and allow it to simmer for precisely seven minutes.”

I carefully turned down the flames and wiped sweat from my forehead again. 

“You’re doing well!” she encouraged me. “We’re almost done.”

“What did you say happens if I mess up?” I asked. 

“You may put the drinker into a permanent sleep.”

“Oh.”

“But that shouldn’t happen. Trust me, brewing this potion will become second nature to you in no time. It’s one of my most requested. I guess a lot of people need something to reduce anxiety these days.”

“Right,” I said quietly. 

Penny looked at me in concern. “Are you all right?”

I hesitated and shrugged. “I suppose. A lot’s changing. I think I need more time to process it all.”

“That’s understandable.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “Hey, I know how you can get, but I don’t want you to think you’ll worry me or bring me down if you want to talk about it.”

“Thanks, Pen.”

She sighed. “But you’re not going to, are you?”

“Probably not. I appreciate it though. Really.”

“Always so stubborn,” she muttered before quickly perking back up. “What are your plans for Christmas?”

“I owe my family a Christmas dinner, so I’ll eat with them Christmas Eve, but other than that, I’m staying here.” I didn’t expect anything to happen, but I preferred to stay close to the school, just in case. “What about you?” I asked. 

“My family’s going to America to visit some relatives for a few weeks. Bea too. I can’t leave the shop for that long, so I’m staying here too.” She grinned excitedly. “This is great! We can have a party! We could invite Tonks, Talbott, and anyone else that’s able to come. Get the gang back together for the first time in a while.”

I found myself grinning as well. “I’d like that.”

“Me too! Oh, this is so exciting!”

Five more minutes passed, and the potion was ready to be finished. “Now for the last step,” Penny said. “You need to add exactly seven drops of hellebore. No more, no less.”

Holding my breath, I slowly and carefully squeezed one drop of the syrup at a time into the potion until I counted out seven. The liquid turned a bluish silver and emitted a similarly colored vapor. 

Penny leaned forward to give a sniff. “Let’s see. No sulfurous odor, no green sparks, and you didn’t explode or catch fire... Congratulations! You have successfully brewed the Draught of Peace!”

* * * *

“Thank you so much for bringing me the batch of Wide-Eye Potion, Lily. I would have fetched it myself if I had been able to.”

“Don’t worry, Madam Rosmerta,” I told her cheerfully. “It’s no trouble. I know how busy you always are.” 

The innkeeper gave me a grateful smile from behind the bar, where she was making a miraculous amount of drinks at once. “It’s good to have you back in Hogsmeade. Come back anytime I’m not juggling two trays at once and I’ll give you a butterbeer on the house.”

“I appreciate it.”

I made my way out of the Three Broomsticks onto the snowy brick streets of Hogsmeade. The sky was clear, and in spite of the cold weather, a number of scarf-bundled witches and wizards milled about outside the shops to enjoy the sunny December day. Many students, identifiable by their house-specific robes, wandered the streets as well, and those that weren’t in the Broomsticks were mostly clustered by Honeydukes and Zonko’s. Some things certainly hadn’t changed. 

I began my short trek back toward the Cauldron, but I barely made it a block before I heard a gasp of, “Watch out!” immediately followed by a wet splat. I leapt back as a foul-smelling liquid squirted up the side of my robes and turned to see the chagrined looks of two cross-legged Hufflepuff boys. They were sitting opposite of each other around a chalk-drawn circle, the round pieces of a Gobstones set between them. 

“Way to go, Mason,” one scolded the red-headed boy closest to me. “You’re supposed to let it hit you. That’s the game.”

“I’m so sorry, Miss!” Mason exclaimed. “Are you all right?”

“No harm done. It’ll come out,” I said reassuringly and pointed my wand at my skirt. The mess vanished with a simple flick of the wrist. Thank goodness it had only been Gobstone liquid and not something worse. “Aren’t you guys cold?”

The other boy, who was the lankier of the two, smirked. “We had a bet to settle. I just won.”

“Shut up, Tommy!” Mason snapped. 

I fought back a smile as I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What bet?”

Tommy’s smug look grew. “I bet that no one could beat me in a game of Gobstones, and looks like I’m right.”

“Is that so?” I put my hand on my hip. “I’ll have you know I rarely lose.”

He scoffed, “I’m not interested in playing you.”

“Why? Are you afraid I’ll beat you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine, but I only play for stakes.”

I indicated for Mason to scoot over and took his place on the cold pavement. “Okay. You win, I buy you anything you want from Honeydukes. I win...you admit your defeat to all your friends.”

“Is that all?” he laughed.

“Believe me, it’s more than enough. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal!” he declared confidently. “Just so you know, I like gourmet treacle fudge.”

“Don’t place your order just yet,” I informed him as I made my first shot. 

He raised his own Gobstone, clearly prepared to knock mine out of the way, and his thick eyebrows knit together in an expression of perfect concentration. 

Time to do something about that. “Hey, who’s that behind you?” I asked. 

His focus slipped for only a second, but it was enough for his shot to go wide. He was promptly rewarded with a spurt of sticky, brown liquid to the face. “No fair!” he growled as he wiped his face with his sleeve. “That’s cheating!”

“It’s not my fault you can’t keep your concentration,” I said calmly, giving him a wink. Mason burst out laughing while Tommy snarled at him. This will be too easy , I thought. 

And it was. Several well-placed comments and frustrated growls later, Tommy received one last foul blast in the face. I captured his last Gobstone with a grin. “Looks like I win after all,” I declared. 

“Fine,” he spat. 

“And our deal?”

“Fine! I’m cold, so I’m going inside.” With that, he stormed off. Mason continued to laugh at his retreating back. 

“He’s grumpy for a Hufflepuff,” I noted. 

“I would say he’s just stressed, but even then he’s only slightly worse than usual,” Mason noted cheerfully. “I’ve never seen anyone put him in his place like that. That was awesome.”

I climbed to my feet and stretched my stiff legs. “You could call it a talent of mine,” I said. “I work in the Scarlett Cauldron. He ever gives you trouble, look for me there.”

“Thanks, Miss!”

“Lily.”

“Thanks, Lily!”

“Take care now.”

I waited until he appeared to be safely on his way to the castle before I continued. I paused a moment to gaze fondly at the great stone towers in the distance and chuckled to myself. Looks like I still got it.  

I turned back in the direction of the Cauldron and backpedaled in surprise at the appearance of the black-clad figure a few steps in front of me. My hand instinctively went for the wand at my hip before I recognized the vaguely annoyed form of Merula. She had adorned a green and gray striped scarf around her neck and had her arms uncharacteristically crossed in front of her chest as if cold. 

“Bloody hell, Merula!” I gasped. “How long have you been standing there?”

She rolled her eyes in a recognizable expression of, You’re hopeless. “For the last dozen moves. I’ve said this a hundred times before, but you really are mad, Flores.”

“What? For having a bit of fun?”

“On the frozen ground? Tormenting a Hufflepuff? Yeah, fun.”

“You’re saying I was being cold and cruel? Sounds like something you would enjoy more than me.” I regretted the words the second I said them.

She stiffened and tilted her nose up derisively. “Always a pleasure,” she said with venomous sarcasm and turned her back to me. 

I sprinted to catch up to her as she strode away. “Wait!” She didn’t wait. “I’m sorry. That was mean.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m still sorry.” I struggled to keep up with her brisk pace. She was smaller than me, but her legs were long. 

She glared at me. “Must you follow me?”

“You’re going the same way I am.”

She didn’t say anything and kept walking, her boots crunching in the snow. 

“What brings you to town?” I prompted. 

Her jaw clenched before answering. “It’s complicated.”

I studied her face from my place beside her, but she turned her head to the side, as if looking at the storefronts. “What’s wrong?” I asked. 

“Why would anything be wrong? Nothing’s wrong.” She still didn’t look at me. 

“Right...”

“Flores!” she snarled as she rounded on me, stopping me in my tracks. I took a deep breath before her anger could become contagious. Snapping back would only make her mood worse, if not chase her off, which wasn’t something I wanted to do. Not until I found out what was going on.

Movement farther down the road suddenly drew my gaze beyond her. There were two students—an older Ravenclaw girl and a younger Slytherin boy—in conversation. Merula’s voice faded to background noise as I focused on them, confused about why they would have drawn my attention. There were students everywhere, and there was nothing odd about these two in particular, with perhaps the exception of their height difference. The girl was tall and had the strong and solid build of a Beater, which was in sharp contrast to the boy, who was so short and scrawny that he could have been malnourished. Then I noticed their postures, and I realized that this difference was exactly what had caught my attention. The boy’s shoulders were hunched submissively, making him appear even smaller than he was, while the girl stretched to every bit of her full height to loom threateningly over him. 

“Flores!” Merula snapped again, waving her hand at me. “Flores, are you even listening to me?”

I gently nudged her with my arm and jerked my chin at the kids, and her eyes narrowed as she spotted them. I began walking in their direction, and I could feel her quietly following me. 

“Just leave me alone!” the boy shouted angrily as I got closer. 

“Not until you and your family get what they deserve!” the girl spat. 

“Whatever,” he said, and turned around to walk away. 

I broke into a sprint when I saw her raise her wand, but it was too late. “ Slugulus Eructo! ” she shouted, and a jet of green light struck him squarely in the back. He toppled over face-first into the snow. 

“ Expelliarmus! ” I exclaimed, and her wand whipped out of her hand and arced into mine. Her hazel eyes widened, and I roughly grabbed her arm before she could run. She jerked in an attempt to escape, and the unexpected strength behind the movement nearly tore her arm from my grip. “Ah, no!” I ordered and held my wand up threateningly. She froze. She was as tall as I was, but I had handled too many creatures to let some fifth-year get away from me. 

Merula went to crouch by the boy, who had managed to climb to his knees, but she quickly stumbled back when he retched, spitting out several small, slimy slugs by her feet. Her face twisted in disgust. 

“What did you do that for?” I demanded.

The girl shrugged her broad shoulders. “He deserved it.”

“No! You never ever attack someone when their back is turned! Not in a fair fight. You have no excuse unless it’s in self-defense.”

“It was in self-defense!” she exclaimed irately. “His parents are Death Eaters! He would’ve attacked us all eventually.”

“He’s your classmate! Not a Death Eater!”

“He’s a Slytherin! We’re not even in the same house!”

“So what?” I demanded and pointed a finger at Merula. “I was a Ravenclaw; she was a Slytherin. You don’t see us trying to kill each other, do you?” I knew that was debatable, but that was beside the point I was trying to make. “Your house means nothing, and it certainly doesn’t give you an excuse to attack people when their guard is down!”

The boy retched again, and Merula stood by him awkwardly, clearly uncertain about what to do.

“You can be sure Flitwick will hear about this,” I told her seriously. 

Her pale face whitened further in horror. “No!”

“Yes. What’s your name?” I glanced back at the boy. “What’s her name?”

“Samantha Leigh,” he said weakly and then spat out several more slugs. 

“Okay, Samantha, you’re free to go.” I handed back her wand and released her, and she took off towards the castle, her black braid flying behind her as she sprinted as fast as she could without looking back. 

The boy whimpered and continued to cough up slugs. He looked no older than a third-year; this very well could have been one of his first trips to Hogsmeade. I kneeled by his side and gently put a hand on his trembling back. “And what’s your name?” I asked softly. 

“Robin.”

“Okay, Robin, we’re gonna go get you some help.” I slipped my hands under his arms in preparation to lift him up from behind. “Ready? One, two, three...” I pulled him to his feet, where he immediately swayed unsteadily and started coughing again. I stepped as far back as I could without letting go of him as more of the slimy mollusks splattered on the ground. “Merula, a little help here?” I asked. 

Her reluctant expression read, Do I have to? She looked as pale and green as her scarf, and honestly, I felt sick to my stomach as well. But I gave her a pointed look, and she supported Robin’s other side, giving us both the freedom to stand farther back. 

We half-carried him the next few blocks to the Cauldron, leaving a trail of slugs in the snow the whole way there, and brought him into the adjacent alley. I stopped by the side door and passed the shaky boy to Merula. “Wait here,” I said and then hurried inside to the brewing room where I grabbed a spare cauldron. I thrust it into Robin’s hands when I returned, and he promptly proceeded to fill it. 

Penny appeared in the doorway with a look of alarm. “Lily? Wait, Merula? What happened?”

“Slug-vomiting Charm,” I stated. “Please tell me you have something.”

“I... You should just come in.”

Merula and I hauled him into the brewing room and carefully set him down on a stool. His dark brown skin was visibly clammy, and he clutched the edges of the cauldron with a death grip. Penny crouched in front of him and proceeded to wipe his face with a rag. “Hey, love,” she said tenderly.

He whimpered. “M-make it stop.”

“I will.” She stood up and looked at me grimly. “That’s a horrible spell,” she muttered and disappeared into the adjacent room—the storeroom where she kept all of her personal ingredients and excess stock. Anything too rare or valuable to be left out front was back there as well.

Merula wrinkled her nose at me. “Yeah, it is,” she said. 

I raised my hands placatingly. “I only used it on you once! You’re the one that chose to torment first-years with it!”

“I should use it on you now, so you can remind me how it feels.”

“Oh, you really think you could beat me in a duel?”

Penny’s voice cut off her retort with a muffled question. “One of you wouldn’t happen to have any treacle fudge would you?” 

“Treacle fudge?” I echoed in confusion while Merula shook her head. “No. Does that do something?”

“You’d be surprised what it contains. Let’s see...” The potioneer’s voice continued to drift over as she mumbled to herself. “I have enough valerian to make a batch, but the prep time alone...” She reappeared with a rapid, “I’m going to Honeydukes. Be right back. Accio coat! ” and vanished out the door, her long blue coat chasing after her. 

Merula snorted. “I see the half-blood is as high-energy as always. You on the other hand...while you were learning to relocate flobberworms, I was in Auror training. I could take you.”

“Right,” I scoffed. “Like you take on so many Dark Wizards.”

She scowled. “You’re particularly nasty today.”

“No, your defense is down. What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” she growled. “Stop asking.”

Robin retched into the cauldron again, and I diverted my attention away from Merula into searching for another rag. Finding one on the preparation table, I moistened it in a clean bucket of water and put it around the back of his neck. 

Merula walked to the other end of the room and began to pace with tangible agitation. She would take a few steps in one direction, pause for a half second, and take a few steps in another direction. Her hands couldn’t settle in one position either. She clenched and unclenched her fists, crossed her arms, let them hang at her sides, and repeated the cycle. 

“You’re making me anxious,” I told her. 

“I can’t sit still.”

“I can see that.”

She continued pacing. 

“Merlin’s beard...” I sighed in exasperation. “Sit down and breathe before I kick you out. You’re not helping.”

She paused to look at me but didn’t sit. “I don’t have to take this, you know,” she said angrily. “I don’t have to be here.”

“No, you don’t,” I agreed. “So why are you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

My response was cut off by a small wail from Robin as he coughed up more slugs. He sniffled, tears rolling down his face. “Hey, shh,” I hushed, carefully rubbing his back. “You’ll be all right. Penny will be back with something to make it better soon.”

“I just want it to stop,” he cried weakly, his brown eyes glassy and tinged red. 

“It will. Just hang in there,” I said, but a part of me wondered if he wasn’t talking about the effects of the spell. 

Merula finally placed herself on a stool and crossed her arms, although she looked very unhappy about it. I bit my tongue before I could make another provocative comment lest she start moving again. It was doubtful the same miracle would happen twice. 

The room was uncomfortably silent for a while, with the exception of the sounds of the sick Robin. I absentmindedly rubbed his back and counted the seconds until Penny would return. 

“This reminds me of the Potions classroom,” Merula commented after the long interlude, sounding calmer. A least by a tad. 

“I think that was Penny’s intention,” I replied, not unkindly. “You should ask her about it.”

“How is she?”

Coming from Merula, the question took me by surprise. “Penny is...Penny. Always happy to be doing what she loves.”

She gave me a hard-to-read expression. “And you? Everyone expected you to stick with that curse-breaking job in Egypt. Not whatever it is you do now. Did.”

I shook my head. “That was a temporary position. Curse-breaking was more of a necessity than an enjoyment for me. When the Customs job came up, I took it. I liked the idea of traveling and working with creatures more.”

“Clearly not enough.”

I felt rubbed the wrong way. “It’s more complicated than that.”

The side door creaked open, and I heard Penny call, “Your wands better be away when I walk in there.” She walked in with an enormous paper bag in her arms. 

“How much do you need?” I exclaimed. 

She smiled sheepishly. “Well, it’s not all for him. There was a long line. I wanted to get my money’s worth.” She set the bag on the table and pulled out a chunk of fudge to offer to Robin. “Here, love, try to keep this down. It will help, I promise.”

He accepted it with an unsteady hand, took a little nibble, and then abruptly leaned forward as he coughed. Nothing came up, and after straightening in relief, he continued to nibble on the fudge. 

Penny pat his hand. “There we go. As soon as you’re feeling better, I’ll take you back to Hogwarts. We can Apparate to the front gate so you won’t have to walk as far.”

“That’s an idea, Haywood,” Merula snarked. “Hasn’t the kid been sick enough today?”

Penny didn’t appear insulted. “Fair enough. I’ll borrow a carriage then.”

“I’ll send an owl ahead of you,” I said, already rummaging around for paper and a quill. Penny flicked her wand, and they jumped up from behind the scales into my hands. “Oh, right. Thanks.” Trying and failing to hide my chagrin, I took a seat and began to scratch out my letter to Flitwick. 

“Why did this happen anyway?” Penny asked. 

No one answered right away. Merula and I exchanged an uncertain glance. Robin kept his head down so that his face was hidden, although he no longer appeared in danger of spitting up more slugs. 

“It was just a duel gone too far,” I said finally. 

“Are you kidding me?” Merula asked. “She cast the spell while his back was turned.”

“She?” Penny asked. 

“Samantha Leigh.” Robin spoke up without raising his head. “She likes to pick on me because my parents were Death Eaters.” He then added quietly, “Her parents are dead.”

My hand stilled, halting the quill mid-word. 

“I see,” Penny said. 

“No, you don’t,” Merula scoffed. A bell jingled from the main part of the shop, and she hopped off the stool. “Sounds like you have work to do, Haywood. I’ll take the kid back.”

Penny looked at me. “Go,” I told her. “It’ll be fine.” With a nod, she left the room. 

“Finish that letter, Flores,” Merula said. 

“You think so?” I asked implicitly. 

“All the more reason to.”

I continued the draft, being careful to take the complexity of the situation into account. She soon readied the tired Robin, and without any fanfare, they walked out. I was left feeling unsettled, and the feeling stayed with me after I had sent the letter with Aeris and returned to Penny. 

The potioneer was perched on the main counter when I entered the now empty shop. I shrugged before she could say anything. “I don’t know any more than you,” I said. 

* * * *

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. A few people came into the shop to browse or purchase standard ingredients, but as closing time approached, the afternoon could have been labeled as boring after that morning. I was glad for it. As I reorganized and re-shelved the books for sale, I found the monotonous action calming. If only potioneers could rely on the Draught of Peace for themselves; the process of brewing it was too ironically counteractive for my taste. 

The shop bell jingled to announce the presence of a new customer, not visible to me from my place behind the books. I heard Penny enter from the back, her voice calling ahead of her: “I’ll be with you in a moment! Just so you know, we close at...oh.”

I nearly dropped the book I was holding as Merula’s voice responded, “I want to talk with Lily.”

I stepped out from behind the shelf, likely mirroring Penny’s bewildered expression. Merula stood by the door, somehow looking both agitated and subdued with her posture, like a cat arching its back. “All right,” I said. “Why don’t we go upstairs for some tea? If you’re fine closing up on your own, Pen?”

“I don’t see why not,” Penny said. 

I led Merula up the stairs to the flat and waited until she was through the door before closing it behind us. She hovered near the couch but didn’t sit, though I gestured, and instead glanced about the room warily. “This is disturbingly Hufflepuff,” she said. 

I didn’t comment and proceeded to fill a kettle. “You called me ‘Lily,’” I half-joked. “Something must really be wrong.”

I could feel her eyes roll behind my back.  “Don’t get used to it,” she said. “And I told you, nothing’s wrong. Not really.”

I left the kettle on the stove and sat down on the couch, and only then did she sit too, albeit as far away from me as she could position herself. “Okay,” I said slowly. “Then what isn’t really wrong?”

She adopted her usual scowl. “You put it like that and I’m not going to answer. I don’t want you to try to fix me. I just want to talk.”

I nearly mentioned how that was a first, but I bit my tongue. “Then talk,” I told her instead. “I’m not going to attack you for it.”

“Flores,” she growled. 

“What?”

“You’re making this difficult.”

“What difficult? A conversation?”

“Yes,” she said. 

“I’m the reason we can’t hold a conversation?” I asked. 

“ Flores .”

I started laughing, which took her by surprise. 

“What is so funny?” she demanded. 

I laughed harder, and the words came out in gasps. “We...we can’t hold a conversation! This is so stupid!”

She looked away from me and covered her mouth with a hand. “You idiot,” she tried to say, but it dissolved into a laugh. Just one, but it was more than I had heard in a long time. When she removed her hand from her mouth, however, there was nothing more than the ghost of a smile. She shook her head. “Honestly, the only reason I’m here is because I haven’t got anything better to do,” she sighed. “The Ministry forced me to take, uh...an early holiday.”

“You were fired?” I asked in disbelief. 

“They wish,” she said. “Unfortunately for them, they’re too scared of me to dare.”

“What did you do?”

“Don’t freak out, okay?” she said, still without looking at me. “But I talked back to my boss...the Head of the Auror Office.”

I took a breath. 

“You’re about to freak out.”

“No,” I said, not sounding as calm as I wanted to. “No. Just explain.”

She crossed her arms, again appearing as if she was cold. “Scrimgeour’s not a coward like Fudge, but he’s got his priorities all wrong. He’s obsessed with catching Sirius Black and every wizard but the important ones. And for some stupid reason, he actually agrees with Fudge’s insane belief that Dumbledore’s plotting against them.”

“So you snapped?” I asked. 

“Yeah,” she said, clenching her fists. “I’ve been so frustrated. They keep me pushing papers and running errands like their personal secretary, not like I’m trained to catch Dark Wizards or anything. So I went to Scrimgeour, and I told him that I could help investigations go faster if he would let me work in the field. But the fool thought he was actually making sense when he said there are more than enough people in the field already and that what I’m doing is ‘important.’ So, yeah, I snapped, and I told him to say that to Voldemort.”

I flinched. “You didn’t.”

“I did more than that, but I’ll spare you the finer details. Long story short, we argued, and it ended with him yelling that I couldn’t risk panicking the public because of a rumor, unless I had an explanation for how I knew more than him. I said if he was accusing me of being a Death Eater, then at least that would mean I was right.”

“Oh, you didn’t.”

“He should’ve fired me right then and there,” she continued, “but instead the bastard had the nerve to say I was obviously overworked and that I should take a break until after the New Year—when I was ‘calmer.’ I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not calmer!”

She really wasn’t. There was color in her pale cheeks, and she had uncrossed her arms to ball up the fabric of her cloak in her hands—not to mention that she still had the agitated cat posture. The kettle shrieked for attention, causing her to jump, and I got up to finish the tea. I passed her a cup when I returned to the couch, and she accepted it with a murmur of thanks. I didn’t say anything as I waited for it to steep. 

She finally looked at me. “I can see what you’re thinking,” she said. 

“You can’t.”

“I can.”

“I wasn’t going to say it.”

“I need you to say something.”

I took a test sip of the tea, even though there was no way it was ready yet. “Can I play devil’s advocate?” I asked.

“Am I going to like this?” she asked in response. 

“Bear with me,” I told her. “Your situation is horrible, clearly, and I don’t know what can be done to make it better, so maybe you should take advantage of your time off. Take a break.”

“Take a break?” she echoed angrily. “How am I supposed to take a break when he’s out there? You heard Dumbledore—we’re going to war, but for some reason we’re the only ones that know that. No one at the Ministry cares about anything but appearances, and anyone that contradicts them is labeled as a criminal or insane! And you tell me how I’m supposed to sit still.”

“I’m not saying turn a blind eye,” I said calmly. “I’m saying you should take your moments of peace as they come—before there are none left.”

She quieted and turned her gaze to her teacup, as if she could see something deep inside it. If it hadn’t been full, I would have thought she was reading tea leaves. 

I took another sip. Better. “What are you doing for Christmas?” I asked. 

She gave me a confused look. “What?”

“We’re having a Christmas party here,” I said. “You should come.”

“I don’t need you to take pity on me,” she said, scowling again. 

“I’m not. Christmas is supposed to be a time to have fun and be with friends. Since you’re free for the next few weeks, I thought you might enjoy that. Unless you’d rather be with your aunt?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I mean...yes, I’ll come. Thank you.” She took a sip of tea and promptly put a hand on her chest, looking like she was going to choke. 

I chuckled at her. 

“Shut up,” she coughed.

Chapter Text

Christmas arrived with an explosion of color and festivity. Penny made sure of it. By the day of the party, she had decorated every inch of the shop and flat. Deep red poinsettias lined the shelves, wreaths were pinned to the doors, and holly hung on the walls, while twinkle lights and tinsel of silver and gold were woven throughout it all. There was even mistletoe dangling from the ceiling. Although, when I cheekily asked Penny if she was planning on kissing someone, one of the wreaths mysteriously fell on my head before she could respond. 

The overall effect was that the entire interior of the Cauldron looked like a sparkly winter forest, and it was amplified by the spectacularly ornamented tree that the two of us had managed to set up in the living area. Penny had wanted the biggest tree that could fit in the room, so it had taken more than a few magical adjustments to get it through the door—not to mention up the stairs. 

Between managing the store, decorating, and wrapping gifts to send to friends, Penny barely sat still long enough to eat, although I certainly made sure she did. On Christmas day, it was all I could do to convince her to let me help with the cooking, and she only relented when I wondered aloud if she was going overboard because of me. Rather than answer, she exclaimed something about leaving a cauldron simmering downstairs and ran to attend to it.

I was overseeing food preparation in the kitchen when a knock sounded on the door, and I practically sprinted to open it. Of all the friends we had sent invitations to, Tonks had been the only one to accept. Everyone else either had their own families to spend the holiday with, or like Talbott, was too busy with work. While I regretted not being able to see my other friends yet, I wasn’t too bothered. I would always be happy with Tonks’s company. 

When I pulled open the door, however, I was confused to see an auburn-haired witch standing before me—shorter than Tonks normally was—with a crooked grin beneath her dark eyes. “Long time no see, Lily Flores,” she said. 

“Tulip!” I gasped, and without thinking, I tackled her in a hug. She stumbled back with a laugh, and although the Tulip Karasu I had known had never been one for physical contact, she embraced me right back. 

Tonks chuckled from behind her. “Wotcher, Lily,” the young Auror greeted. “I thought you might like the surprise.”

I herded them into the flat, and I stared at Tulip in amazement as she shed her scarf and cloak. She looked like she had just come from a business meeting with her navy dress shirt and tie and her black skirt and stockings. This was a far more formal version of my former housemate than I was accustomed to, and I had the strong suspicion that the look had nothing to do with her job. 

“How?” I asked, stunned. “I thought you were having dinner with your parents?”

“I was,” she said, “and it was horrible. Tonks came to rescue me.” Wrinkling her nose, she pulled off her tie. 

“Thought she might need some help,” Tonks said, “so I disguised myself as a coworker and went over to their house with some story about dropping a crate of experimental dungbombs in the office. It was a very convincing act, if I do say so myself.”

“The looks on their faces alone were worth it,” Tulip added cheerfully.

I laughed and indicated for them to make themselves at home while I returned to the kitchen. “You two haven’t changed one bit,” I said as I set a kettle on the stove. 

Tonks plopped down on the couch. “I would hope not,” she said. “I rather like being me.” Tulip rolled her eyes and shoved her to the side so she could sit down too. 

I couldn’t deny that I liked Tonks being herself as well, including in appearance. With her bubblegum pink hair and Weird Sisters t-shirt, she looked like she was refusing to leave her teenage years behind. 

“Where’s Penny?” Tonks asked.

“Downstairs, making her famous eggnog,” I said while bending over to check the temperature of the turkey in the oven. “She’ll be up in a bit. I want to know how work has been for you guys.”

I had run into Tonks a few weeks ago in Diagon Alley, and she had told me about some of her adventures as an Auror. While I wanted to hear more about her training under Mad-Eye and her missions to track down Dark Wizards, I was also really curious about what Tulip had been up to. We had exchanged infrequent letters, and last I had heard from her was that her business was properly up and running. With a little help from Jae, it had been her plan to create a company that specialized in the design and production of pranks, and I was eager to hear how that was going. 

Perhaps conscious of this, Tonks let her speak first. “Great,” Tulip said. “Don’t tell Molly this, but I’ve been helping the Weasley twins get their business started. They’ve been sending me a lot of great designs to produce. There’s a big market for what they’re selling, especially at Hogwarts. It’s impressive.”

“They’ve come a long way,” Tonks said fondly. “I remember when they were two scrawny first-years that couldn’t hide properly. Now they’re causing more mischief than we could have dreamed of.”

That was one way to put it. Molly had told me about the many strongly worded letters she had received about her boys this year. One teacher in particular, it seemed, did not share the same fondness for their antics as my friends did. 

“How are they?” I asked. “Now, I mean.”

Their cheerful expressions faded. I felt bad about killing the mood, but I needed to know.

“They’re tough kids,” Tonks said sincerely. “The lot of them are. They’ll be fine.”

“And Arthur?” I pressed. 

“Saw him today. The Healers think he should fully recover.”

“That’s good.”

I made sure the dough was still shaping itself into rolls and then started the knife chopping the potatoes with a flick of my wand. As I worked, I tried to ignore the familiar weight that had settled over the room. The war was becoming more and more real by the minute. 

Tulip got up and moved to lean casually on the counter, as if unperturbed. “Are we the only guests?” she asked. 

“For the time being. Merula will be joining us a bit later, as soon as she finishes an errand for her aunt in Gloucester.”

“You invited her?” Tulip’s surprised question pulled my attention away from the food toward the startled expression on her face. Oh, no. 

“Of course,” I said uncertainly. I hadn’t thought twice about inviting Merula. Sour disposition or not, no one deserved to spend Christmas alone. But I had forgotten to consider what that might mean if Tulip showed up. Saying the witches had bad blood between them was like saying Polyjuice Potion tasted mildly unpleasant, and frankly that was a pretty major detail to slip my mind. “Are you going to be okay with that?”

She shrugged. “I mean, I have to be either way, don’t I?”

I did not find the vagueness of her answer reassuring, and unfortunately I had never been good at reading her thoughts—figuratively or otherwise. “I would prefer it if everyone was on their best behavior, yes,” I said. 

 “I’ll behave if she behaves,” Tonks said humorously.

“You never behave,” I said. 

“Not true,” she protested. “I know not to stir my own cauldron.”

I could think of a few counterexamples to that claim, but I decided not to waste my breath reminding her of that. “Well, consider Merula part of your cauldron. Aren’t you two supposed to be coworkers?”

She shook her head. “I rarely see her. Her cubicle isn't near mine, and she’s never in the field. The whole office definitely heard her the other week though, with that massive row she had with Scrimgeour.”

“So she told me,” I said and leaned on the counter opposite of Tulip. She straightened suddenly, and I glanced at her questioningly.

“Really?” Tonks asked. “Well, I bet she didn’t tell you about the row she had with Kingsley in private later. I never thought I would see the day that man loses his cool. The others even got dragged into it when nobody could decide what to do with her.”

“That is news to me,” I admitted. 

“It was a spectacle,” she said. “Mad-Eye and Sirius actually took her side, saying it would appear too out of character for her if she played obedient. Remus and Kingsley weren’t happy about that.”

“And how did she react?” I asked. 

“She was unexpectedly quiet, actually. There was the occasional, well, snide comment, but I had been expecting worse.”

“Maybe she knows when to keep quiet and not talk about people that don’t know each other,” Tulip warned in a low voice. 

Tonks shut her mouth instantly, which I didn’t know was possible, and she and I stared at Tulip in bewilderment. I agreed that we had gotten too careless with our conversation, but she was the last person that I would have expected to point that out. “What—” I began.

Tonks quickly cut me off. “She’s right. We can talk about work later. It’s supposed to be Christmas!”

“That it is,” Tulip said, remarkably cheerful again. “The decorations are beautiful!”

It was a poor transition between topics, and it reminded me of my previous talk with McGonagall. Only, this time, I got the feeling that I was out of the loop for real, but I had no idea what loop that might be. Had something happened with Merula that no one was telling me?

But the others were right. Now was not the time to discuss this. “It’s all Penny’s work, naturally,” I said, allowing the atmosphere to lighten. 

“Does someone need to drag her out of that dungeon, or…?” Tonks joked.

“No, I’m right here.” Penny’s voice appeared in the open doorway, although at first I could only spot her blond plaits behind the enormous cauldron that was levitating in front of her. “Take that kettle off, Lily. You have no faith in me.”

I wrinkled my nose playfully and turned the stove off while the cauldron set itself down on the table with a faint, shuddering thunk. 

“Happy Christmas, everyone!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Tulip! You made it after all!”

A chorus of hellos and holiday greetings were exchanged, and once Penny had given Tonks and Tulip each a hug, she began to dish out cups of the warm aromatic liquid in return for various grateful murmurs of thanks. I took a sip to taste a pleasant balance of sweetness and spices, with the addition of a subtle kick. Perfect as always. 

“What did I miss?” she asked. 

“Nothing entertaining,” Tonks groaned, slouching lazily in her seat. “We need a new topic.”

“Don’t tell me Lily’s that boring,” Penny chuckled. 

I opened my mouth to protest, but any sound I made was drowned out by Tonks’s sudden excited gasp of, “No, wait.” She shot me a grin filled with so much mischief that it sent a wave of anxiety through my chest. “Lily hasn’t told us about her adventures in the Land Down Under. Specifically her romantic escapades. Ooh, or maybe you had a wild night or two during your travels overseas. Tell me you didn’t hook up with a beautiful woman in Tahiti.”

I nearly spit out my eggnog. “Tonks!” I spluttered, feeling my face heat up.

“Oh, you did!” she said gleefully. 

“No!” I said too quickly. I took a breath and attempted to appear more collected before I continued. “Yes, there were relationships, but—”

“Ha! I knew it!”

“ But there were no wild nights and no hookups!”

“You never told me about this,” Penny said, looking a little hurt. 

“That’s because I don’t like talking about it,” I said. “It’s too weird. Exactly like it is right now.”

“But we want to know,” Tonks insisted. All three of them looked at me expectantly—even Tulip, who normally wanted nothing to do with romance. 

I gritted my teeth in discomfort. “There’s nothing to know. They were nice, but they didn’t work out. That’s it.”

“What I want to know,” Tonks said, maintaining her mischievous grin, “is what it’s like to shag another woman.”

Now I was certain my face was on fire. “What’s it like shagging a man?” I shot back. 

“Oh, I can give you details if you want.”

“Okay, okay, okay!” Penny waved her hands wildly. “That’s far enough!”

Tulip had covered her face with a hand, although I couldn’t tell if it was to hide embarrassment or laughter. I wanted to do the same...since there was no doubt that I bore the appearance of a lobster. 

Tonks took a new tack, but she didn’t stop. “This is brilliant! Now that you’re back, we can get you a girlfriend.”

I thrust both palms out in a gesture of finality. “No. No, you do not need to do that, and you are not going to do that. I don’t want a girlfriend.”

“Why not?”

“Why not—?!” I stuttered. “You...you don’t see me interfering in your love life, do you?”

“My love life is fine. It’s yours—” She broke off and shot Penny a look. “Something funny, Haywood?”

Penny pressed her hand to her mouth to smother another giggle. “Nothing. It’s just...” She shook her head and grinned. “Fine must be relative, considering you walk into walls when a certain someone’s in the room.”

Tulip and I burst out laughing, while Tonks’s pink hair smoldered a shade closer to red. “That happened once!” she exclaimed. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

“Uh-huh.” Penny spoke directly to me. “You should see how moony her eyes get when she’s around the werewolf.”

Now the Metamorphagus’s hair did flush red—a fierce, deep shade of scarlet to be exact. “Stop calling him that!” she snapped, sounding more serious than I had heard in a long time. “He’s a wizard, you know. With a name. You might try using it sometime.”

“You’re only proving my point,” Penny said calmly, not batting an eye at the sudden mood shift. 

“Whatever.” Tonks swung her focus back to me. “We were talking about Lily, not me.”

“And I said I don’t want a girlfriend,” I stated. 

“And I asked why not,” Tonks said. 

“Because relationships come with too many complicated feelings,” I said. “I don’t want to deal with that right now. Not when I need to focus.”

My response had been honest and perfectly valid in my opinion. Dating had never been easy for me because I had never been able to balance my life with someone else’s. It wasn’t fair to my partner if I always had to give more attention to my job than them. If I wasn’t worried about the world ending, then maybe I would find a girlfriend one day, but that definitely was not today. 

Tonks, however, clearly did not share my opinion. “It sounds like someone’s scared of love.”

I felt a flare of anger. “I’m not scared of love! I love you guys, don’t I? And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen Tulip and Penny chasing after relationships either.” I glared at the others. 

Tulip squirmed under my gaze and ran a hand through her hair. “I...uh, I guess I’ve been too busy.” 

“Same for me,” Penny said. 

“See?” I asked Tonks. 

Her mischievous look didn’t fade. “Oh, I’m not letting this go.”

“Yes, you are,” I said. 

“And why would I?”

“Because if you don’t, I will call you Nymphadora for the rest of the night.”

She stiffened, her face becoming stony. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

“Oh, I dare you. Then we’ll see just how—”

“Welcome, Merula! Please come in!” Penny declared overly loudly. 

Tonks and I both froze, with the former’s hair immediately shifting back to its usual bubblegum pink. I hadn’t heard the knock or seen Penny move, and yet the potioneer was standing by the now open door, revealing the wary appearance of Merula Snyde. 

Merula was slow to enter the room, as if she was walking into a dragon’s lair. “Am I interrupting something?” she asked. 

“Nonsense!” Tonks said cheerfully. “We were just talking about Lily’s—”

“No!” I shouted. “We’re done! There’s nothing to talk about, and no one’s ever going to bring it up again! No one. Ever.”

Penny shut the door with force, causing us both to jump. “Honestly, you two are like children,” she said in exasperation. “Tonks, you leave Lily alone. Lily, you take a breath.”

Tonks laughed while I sullenly took a sip of my drink. Better she got it out of her system with me now rather than with Merula later. In no way did I want to see that particular dungbomb explode. 

“Right,” Merula said slowly. She held up two small, carefully wrapped boxes in her arms. “I, uh, brought gifts for the hosts.”

Penny beamed at her. “Oh, you didn’t have to do that!” she exclaimed as she accepted them. “I’ll put them under the tree. Lily can get you a cup of eggnog.”

“Oh, no, I don’t—”

“It wasn’t a question,” I said humorously. 

“Just pretend to drink it,” Tonks said. “It’s what the rest of us do.”

“Thin ice,” Penny singsonged without turning away from the tree. 

I ladled the drink from the cauldron into another glass to pass to Merula. “Er, thanks,” she said as she accepted it with trepidation. 

“By the way, Lily,” Tonks said, “Tulip and I snuck your presents under the tree when you weren’t looking. Penny’s too.”

“You think that’s enough to make me forgive you?” I asked. 

“I do, actually, yes.”

I shook my head and turned my attention back to the kitchen. The turkey was nearly done, the potatoes were cut, the brussel sprouts were in a bowl to be served, the rolls were ready to be baked, and the pudding had been prepared a few days prior. One last touch of magic and everything would be done. 

Tulip was still standing near me, and the rigidness of her posture caught my eye. She and Merula were staring at each other not with hostility, but with something akin to nervousness. Their faces were both pale, and Merula kept running her thumb anxiously along the rim of her cup. When they noticed me watching, they both picked random spots in the room and looked there instead.

Penny abruptly appeared at my side with her wand in her outstretched hands. “My turn,” she announced and shooed me away. “Go set the table. Everyone can go ahead and find a seat. Dinner is about ready!”

I made a face but moved out of her way without protest. With another sweep of my wand, red and green placemats, cloth serviettes, porcelain plates, and silverware flew out of the cabinets to their designated spots on the table, and my desk chair floated from my room to create an additional space. Another short flick, and the center candle flickered to life. 

I sat down at one end of the table, while Tulip and Merula each took a seat on either side of me. Tonks squeezed in at Tulip’s other side, leaving the other end of the table for Penny to claim. The potioneer waved her hands like a conductor, and the steaming dishes hurried to their places before us as the savory smells of turkey and warm bread swirled through the air. 

Merula leaned over toward me. “Not good with food charms, Flores?” she asked in amusement. 

“I’m not horrible,” I murmured back. “Pen’s just better.”

With everything in its place, Penny finally sat and raised her glass in a toast. “I know everyone couldn’t be here tonight, but it makes me so happy to see part of our old group back together again...especially the parts that have been away for a long time.” She gave me a fond look, and I had to turn my face away to avoid blushing under her gaze. “So, to good friends and a happy Christmas!” she declared. 

The rest of us raised our glasses to meet hers with a collective exclamation of, “Happy Christmas!” Merula’s reaction was noticeably more hesitant and subdued than the others, although I didn’t blame her. She was out of her element and visibly uncomfortable about it. Her posture was straight and tense, and she had resumed eying Tulip uncertainly. Tulip appeared as equally uncertain about her position across from her, and her eyes landed on the table more often than they met Merula’s. 

“Tulip,” Merula greeted warily. 

“Merula.”

“I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“True. I suppose there hasn’t been any reason for us to cross paths.” With Tulip’s matter-of-fact manner, the words could have been intended to be harmless, but Merula couldn’t keep from grimacing. I didn’t know what was going on between them, but I did know that the fact that Merula wasn’t a part of “the old group” wasn’t helping. She wasn’t even really a friend. Not to the rest of them at least. 

“So, is it always this, uh...” Merula trailed off in search of the word. 

“Fun? Exciting?” Tonks suggested. 

“I would’ve said chaotic, but let’s go with that.”

Penny chuckled. “I think some of us are a little more wound up than usual,” she said with a pointed look at Tonks, “but on a good day, yes. Oh, Lily, this is excellent!”

I covered my mouth with my hand and attempted to swallow my bite of turkey before I spoke. The food was excellent, but likely not due to me. “Call it a team effort,” I said.

Merula looked at Penny. “So you’re the mastermind behind this place, right?”

“If you want to call me that, I won’t object,” Penny said with a teasing glance in my direction. 

“Then explain some things to me,” Merula continued and counted off her fingers. “Valerian in treacle fudge, eggnog in a cauldron...is it common to cook using potion supplies? I’ve never done it.”

“Oh!” Penny’s face lit up, and they promptly launched into a discussion of unconventional potion uses and techniques. I lost the complicated dialogue within seconds. I had forgotten Merula excelled at potions as well, and it was clear she had kept up with it after school. 

Tonks leaned toward Tulip and me. “Now she’s done it,” she whispered. “Good luck getting them to talk about anything else.”

“They’re doing you a favor,” I whispered back. “If you were to keep talking, then you would never get a chance to eat.”

Tulip laughed and then immediately burst into a fit of coughing as she tried not to choke on her food. Tonks and I laughed at her, and the entire table buzzed with amiable conversation. Between the familiar ribbing, the good food, and the holiday cheer, I felt like I was sitting with one big happy family. In a way, I was. 

Perhaps I had been reading too much into the tension. We weren’t kids caught up in school drama anymore; we were adults that had all grown and aged in our own ways. 

“Why the Scarlett Cauldron?” Merula’s question snapped my attention back to the other end of the table. 

“Pardon?” Penny said cautiously. 

“Scarlett's a name, right? What does it mean?”

I set my fork down, and Tonks and Tulip paused in their meal as well. Merula’s shoulders slid back, and her eyes darted to each of us in alarm at the sudden silence.

Penny held up a hand. “No, it’s all right,” she said quickly. “I suppose I shouldn’t have chosen the name if I didn’t want people asking about it.” She smiled, but it held more melancholy than reassurance. “Scarlett was a good friend of mine. We grew up together. But she was killed by a werewolf when we were thirteen.”

Merula winced, and to her credit, she appeared genuinely apologetic. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“There was no harm in it. It’s not like you could’ve known.”

“Yeah...I hadn’t heard anything about a student being killed by a werewolf.”

Every breath in the room seemed to hang frozen in the air, and Penny hesitated before saying, “That’s because she didn’t go to Hogwarts.”

There was a pause, like before ice splits from a glacier, and Merula’s eyes widened as she realized what that meant. “Oh.”

“ Oh, ” Tonks scoffed, and I flinched. “That change things for you, Snyde?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Merula demanded. “You think I’m happy that a Muggle’s dead?”

“You said it, not me.”

“Guys,” I warned. The universe loved proving me wrong, didn’t it?

“No, we need to make something clear,” Merula said. “There is a difference between believing in blood purity and being a Death Eater. And you sure as hell are not accusing me of being a Death Eater.”

“That’s enough,” Penny said, placing her palms flat on the tabletop. “We are not discussing politics at the dinner table.”

“Wait,” Tulip said. “I want to see how this plays out.” Four heads turned in her direction, and she gazed back at us with an excited spark of curiosity in her dark eyes. Merula leaned back in her chair, away from her, and crossed her arms. I felt uneasy as well. When Tulip wanted something, it usually involved chaos, and that sounded like the opposite of a pleasant meal to me. 

“I’d rather not,” I said. 

“Think about it,” she said eagerly. “In this room, we have three pure-bloods and two half-bloods, all from different backgrounds. It’s the perfect environment to learn about and examine all sides of the issue.”

“Pure-blood or not, I’m outnumbered and you know it,” Merula said. 

“I’ll play devil’s advocate then,” Tulip said. “We keep it calm, we keep it civil, and we see where the discussion goes.”

Merula scoffed. “Yeah, you’re the devil’s advocate all right.”

“Tulip,” I asked seriously, “what are you up to?”

“Just a social experiment.” She held up her hands innocently. “Best behavior, remember? I promise to keep it that way.”

Tonks crossed her arms, mirroring Merula’s posture. “You know what,” she said, “I want to give this a try.”

I exchanged an uncertain glance with Penny. With the outspoken personalities in the room, there was no way this experiment could possibly end well, but I wanted to leave the final decision to the head of the household. “I suppose it could be worth a shot,” she said slowly. 

“Is everyone in agreement?” Tulip asked. She was met with shrugs and hesitant nods. “All right then. Merula, educate the table in pure-blood supremacy.”

Pulling her shoulders back, Merula raised her chin. “For one, I don’t like that term,” she said. “Sure, I believe that Muggles are inferior, but—”

“And that’s where we disagree,” Tonks interrupted. 

Merula opened her mouth to defend herself, but Tulip indicated for her to wait with a raised hand. “I would argue that’s subjective,” Tulip said. “With regards to our magical abilities, we are far above them. But in terms of intelligence, their development of technology in the absence of those abilities is most impressive. Not to mention that we are almost biologically identical. We could go back and forth about both sides all night.”

Merula raised her eyebrows at Tulip, as if surprised that she had been telling the truth. “Okay, agree to disagree there then,” Merula said. “Even if I believe Muggles are inferior, I don’t believe they should die for it, and I don’t believe we should rule over them either. Those are Death Eater ideas, and they’re both completely ludicrous.” 

“Then what do you believe?” Tonks asked. 

“I believe we shouldn’t mix with them, or even associate with them really. There’s too much that can go wrong for both camps when magic and non-magic mix, and sorry to say it, but Haywood’s friend just supported my point.”

“You support the American policies then,” I said. 

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but essentially, yes.”

“I can see where you’re coming from in theory,” Penny acknowledged, “but it doesn’t work out in practice. You can’t stop people from forming friendships or falling in love. If you could, I wouldn’t be here. And what about Muggle-borns like my mum or Tonks’s dad? It’s not like they have a choice about existing.”

“Fair point,” Merula said, “which is why you don’t see me trying to change any laws. My concern lies more with the pure-blood families that still exist.”

“You’re talking about tradition,” Tulip said.  

“Exactly. The old families have had power and respect for centuries, passing down their wealth, history, and customs to each new generation. Strength lies in blood, and when the blood gets mixed, there’s the question of whether the following generations can truly be considered descendants of the family.”

“That’s nonsense,” Tonks huffed. 

Merula took a breath, but she remained remarkably calm. “Look at it another way,” she said. “How would you feel if you belonged to a family of great importance but then suddenly had to watch all these half-bloods and Mu...Muggle-borns take your importance away?”

“I don’t see how you can think you’re more important than me just because of your birth,” Tonks said crossly. 

I could have sworn that I could hear the ice cracking in the invisible glacier in the room, and with the way Tonks and Merula were glaring at each other, I was waiting for the moment it would calve. What was with these two? They had never been friends, but they had never had a problem with each other either. 

Fortunately Penny spoke up, “Would you believe that Muggles have this same debate?” 

Merula looked at her curiously. “You’re joking.”

“It’s true,” the potioneer said. “They call it ‘old money’ versus ‘new money.’ Simply put, they have old families that have been passing down their wealth for generations, but in the past century, people have found ways to acquire wealth without inheriting it and have been uprooting the power of the ‘old money’ families.”

“So the debate is the same,” Tulip realized. “Old versus new. Tradition versus change. Both sides are tricky to argue. I can see how tradition is important, but I can’t see how you can fight change, especially if you consider what we’re doing right now.” 

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

She chuckled and gestured at the food laid out on the table. “I’m referring to Christmas. We’re celebrating a holiday that is a mess of borrowed and altered traditions. Yes, the Muggle churches have recently claimed it, but some of its origins go back thousands of years into both Muggle and Wizarding history. We’ve mixed so much since then that no one can tell which practices originated with which group.”

“You forgot to mention that wizards mostly mixed with Muggles because they had to keep their powers hidden out of fear,” Merula said. 

“Which is unfortunate,” Tulip agreed. “But my point is that it is difficult to fight change without untangling traditions, and that is an action that might require its own radical changes—not to mention some morally gray methods.”

“And I told you how I feel about that,” Merula said. 

“My issue with this,” I interjected, “is that I don’t believe a family should be respected only for its age and blood status. Its actions need to be respectable too.”

“I actually agree with you,” Merula said. “That’s why I became an Auror.” We stared at her, stunned, and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. You honestly think I’m under the impression my parents upheld a ‘respectable’ reputation? I didn’t join the Ministry for the fun of it, you know. I did it to fix the name— my name—that they dragged through the mud.”

Several long beats passed. No one had an argument for that. 

“Fine,” Tonks said. “But I still don’t understand how blood purity is supposed to make you a more powerful witch.”

“Merula’s actually not wrong,” Tulip pointed out. “Historically, powerful witches and wizards have had powerful children, so the idea of wanting to keep the family line ‘pure’ makes sense from that standpoint. But, of course, there are plenty of exceptions.”

“True.” Penny glanced in my direction. “Lily lost the first time we dueled.”

“And we don’t need to say much about Ben Copper,” I added. 

Merula rolled her eyes again, but Tulip spoke up before she could say anything. “Short of carefully examining every duel between different blood statuses, there is an easy solution to that debate,” she said with a grin. 

Merula picked up on her meaning before anyone else, and her teeth flashed in determined excitement. “You mean a duel between us.”

“Oh, you’re on, pure-blood,” Tonks declared. “You and me, first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Your funeral,” Merula laughed. “And when I win, Flores owes me a rematch.”

“Deal,” I said. 

Tulip laid her hands down on the table in a gesture of finality. “Then if no one has anything else to say, that concludes our debate.”

Everyone exchanged appraising looks. No one looked like they wanted to kill each other. There had been no screaming, no flying objects, no angry Apparition, and no spontaneous duels. Well, not exactly spontaneous. 

“Thank you, Tulip, for mediating,” Penny said. “And thank you, Merula, for putting up with that.”

Merula shrugged. “It wasn’t horrible.”

“It was an interesting experiment,” Tulip said. “There’s validity to both sides of the political spectrum, but I wanted to see if I could get them to acknowledge that. And they did. Or you ladies did at least.”

“You probably shouldn’t try that with anyone else,” I told her. “It might not go as well.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, and she gazed back with another expression of wide-eyed innocence. Tulip Karasu was never innocent. 

“So!” Tonks said suddenly. “What’s next? Pudding or presents?”

Penny pushed her plate away with a contented sigh. “Presents, if you don’t mind. I don’t have the room for pudding at the moment.”

I scooted my chair back with the intention of helping her to clear the table, but I paused when I noticed Merula subtly trying to catch my attention. I leaned toward her. “I need…” she murmured and glanced out the dark window. “Before it gets too cold...is there a place…?”

For a few seconds, I failed to comprehend her vague request. Then I remembered that Christmas all those years ago, with the songbook and the snow. “Oh,” I said. “Yeah, of course. If you go out the side door, you can head out back by the greenhouse. We’ll wait for you.”

“Thank you,” she said, so faint that I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. “I’ll be right back,” she told the others, and then stood up and walked out the door. 

Tonks and Penny stared at me with eyebrows raised. Tulip stared into her empty glass. “What was that about?” Tonks asked. 

I gave a small smile. “Tangled traditions,” I said. “I suppose we all have them.”

Apparently not going to question it, they stood up as well and got to work cleaning up. With a series of graceful sweeps of her wand, Penny sent the food and the magically clean dishes to their rightful places, while Tonks and Tulip helped me drag some of the chairs over to the tree. To no one’s surprise, Tonks stumbled over a chair as she was moving it and knocked several ornaments off the branches, which shattered on the hardwood floor in bursts of red and silver. Penny cried her name in exasperation, and we spent the next minutes on our knees while we tried to identify which pieces came from which orb. Tonks and Penny soon got into an argument about the former’s clumsy attempts to help, so I took the opportunity to whisper to Tulip next to me.

“I’m going to ask you again,” I said. “What are you up to?”

“It almost sounds like I’m in trouble,” she joked as she flicked a silver fragment into a matching pile. 

“Should you be?”

“Of course not. Reparo. ” She tapped her wand on the silver pile and passed me the completed ornament to hang. “I think you are forgetting that I’m the one that stabbed her in the back. Not the other way around.”

Crash!

“Tonks!” Penny cried again. 

“Sorry!”

I crouched back down to accept another ornament from Tulip. “I’m not talking—”

“Are you not?” she interrupted, giving me a shrewd look. 

I grimaced. She was right. I had been assuming that, because of her rocky history with Merula, Tulip would take the chance to be petty about it. I realized that was a horribly unfair assumption to make, but it still didn’t mean that she wasn’t up to something. 

She held a red fragment over two different piles in an attempt to match it. “Listen,” she said softly, “things happened after you left. We had a talk…” Her words trailed off. 

I nudged her hand over to the left pile, and she gave it a tap. “Did you fix things?” I asked as I hung the red ornament a branch over from the silver one. 

“No. It’s...complicated. But debts are owed. On both sides.”

My hand bumped against a gold ornament, causing it to bounce off the branch. In one swift motion, Tulip caught it safely in her palm and held it up to me. I didn’t take it. “You were giving her a chance,” I realized, “to tell her side to the others.”

Tired of waiting, she replaced the ornament herself, and it swung back and forth between the green needles, jolting our distorted reflections. She was a few centimeters shorter than me in height, but in the glass she looked so much bigger. “Few people understand her like we do,” she said, still facing the tree. 

I didn’t know how to respond. Tulip was so analytical sometimes that I often forgot about the kind of person she truly was. She was cunning and devious, yes, but she was also someone that cared deeply about those she was close to. The girl that had once tried to set a horde of nifflers loose in the school was the same young woman that had taken care of me in the times when no one else could. I owed her a lot, and it was strange to think that Merula did too. 

I really wished I knew what had happened while I was away though. 

As if sensing the questions that were balancing on the tip of my tongue, she glanced at me out of the corners of her eyes. “Do you trust me?” she asked. 

My answer required little thought. “Only most of the time.”

Her lips curled up slowly before breaking into a full grin. “Good. I knew I had been keeping you as my friend for something.”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “For something.”

* * * *

By the time we had finished fixing the ornaments, Merula had been gone for nearly twenty minutes, so I grabbed a cloak and went outside to check on her. Night had fallen quickly, and I had to squint while my eyes adjusted to the low light behind the shop. Merula wasn’t out back as expected, but the moon was bright enough to illuminate a fresh pair of tracks in the powdery show, which trailed in the direction of the greenhouse. An orange glow indicated that a light was on inside. 

When I stepped into the warm, humid interior of the frosted glass building, there was no sign of her at first, only row after row of plants that flourished in their shelter from the cold outdoors. I jumped as a flitterbloom brushed against my arm and then promptly made a mental note of the location of every dangerous plant. Had that been something like a snargaluff or venomous tentacula, my moment of carelessness could have cost me my arm. 

I finally found Merula around the other side of a wiggentree, absentmindedly tracing her fingers along its bark. Her eyes calmly slid to me as if I had been standing next to her the entire time. “I didn’t think this place could get any more Hufflepuff,” she said, “but I was wrong.”

“What are you doing in here?” I asked. 

She shrugged. “I was cold.”

“Come back inside then. Everyone’s ready to exchange gifts, and I’m pretty sure Tonks has been eyeing the pudding for the past ten minutes.”

“You guys can go ahead. I still need to cast the charm.”

“What have you been doing all this time then?”

She shrugged again and looked back at the tree. “You know I normally spend Christmas alone. This is a bit much for me.”

I nodded in understanding. “Tonight is a bit overwhelming. But you shouldn’t pay attention to anything Tonks says. She’s been acting strange since she arrived, so it has nothing to do with you. And I know it can’t be easy seeing—” I broke off before I complete the sentence. It probably wasn’t a good idea to bring up a sensitive subject multiple times in one night. 

“I’m not bothered by that,” she said to my surprise. “It’s…” She hesitated, her lips remaining parted uncertainly, and I was immediately reminded of our conversation after meeting with Dumbledore. I still didn’t know what she had wanted to tell me then either. 

“What?” I asked. 

“Never mind,” she said with a shake of her head, exactly as she had done then. Before I could press, however, I was distracted by her smirk. “I’ve never seen you blush like that,” she added teasingly. “What were you two arguing about?”

I winced. Oh, right. She had walked in on the middle of the most awkward conversation ever. “Something that must never be said aloud again,” I said. 

She grinned mischievously, and I was startled by her sudden similarity to Tulip. “Whatever it was, she must’ve really been playing with Fiendfyre for you to play the name card. Although, I don’t think you should be the one to talk, Lilianna. ”

“Hey, I like my name,” I said. “I just think it’s too long to be convenient.” That and I had given up trying to correct everyone that kept mispronouncing it. There were only so many times I could repeat "lil-ee-AHN-uh" before I decided to give them the easy part of my name and be done with it.

“Mm.” She pulled back her lips and stuck her tongue out like she had tasted something funny. “You’re right. That felt weird.” 

I laughed, and she proceeded to stick out her tongue rudely, which only made me laugh harder. 

“Whatever,” she sighed. “I’ll find out one day. I bet I could get Penny to tell me since I think she’s the only one that actually likes me.”

“I doubt it. Pen’s too much of a saint.”

She narrowed her eyes. “To tell or to like me?”

“To like you,” I said and then shoved her shoulder when she scowled. “I mean to tell! Of course she likes you. You helped save her sister.”

She shoved my shoulder back with more force. “That’s not funny.”

“I think it is.”

“You know what? Whatever your argument is, I side with Tonks.”

I clamped a hand over my mouth, fighting back a wave of laughter. The thought of Merula Snyde attempting to find me a girlfriend was almost too much to bear. A part of me wanted to tell her just for the chance to witness it. 

“What is it?” she demanded. I was struggling to breathe so much through the rising giggles that I could only shake my head, and she sighed with resignation. “I just agreed with something completely stupid, didn’t I?”

“You really want to know?”

“Well, I did …”

I took a breath to stop my voice from wavering with laughter and said as seriously as I possibly could, “Merula, we were arguing about my sex life.”

She covered her face with a hand. “Bloody hell,” she swore, her ears turning pink. “I did not need to hear that.”

“You asked.”

“I was trying to push your buttons.”

“And that’s why I answered.”

She removed her hand so that I could see her roll her eyes. “Fair enough. But since you brought up the topic, I get to ask one more question.”

My stomach did a somersault. Not her too! “You can ask,” I said warily, “but I didn’t agree to these terms.”

Her mischievous look had faded, and unexpectedly, she hesitated again, as if uncertain how to begin. “You and Penny,” she said slowly. “Are you two, you know...together?”

My eyes widened. “No!” I gasped, a little too quickly. “No. Pen’s not...like that.”

Was my sexuality really that obvious? Surely I had to be doing something unconsciously, but I didn’t know what.

If Merula had an answer, she didn’t say. Instead she backpedalled, her ears instantly pink again. “I’m sorry! I just thought, with the way you two act…and you live together, so…”

“It’s all right!” I said earnestly. “I’m not offended or anything. But we’re just friends. Really good friends, but just friends.”

“Noted.”

I could feel my face begin to burn again. Why did everyone want to talk about my love life? There had to be topics that were far more important, like...literally anything else. 

Unable to look at her, I began to turn away. “I, uh...I’ll leave you to cast your charm. But we’re not starting without you, so you better not keep us—”

“Wait.” She caught my wrist, forcefully spinning me back toward her. Her violet eyes widened to match mine, and as quickly as she had grabbed me, she let go. “Uh, sorry,” she stuttered, seemingly surprised by her own action. “I just wanted...I mean, er, sorry, but…” She closed her eyes and sighed in exasperation. “Never mind.”

Was she flustered? What was going on? Tonks was picking fights, Tulip was scheming, and Merula had apologized three times in the past minute. This holiday was turning everyone mad!

“No, quit saying that,” I said. “I want to know.”

“I’ve been trying,” she groaned. “I told you, Flores, you never make this easy.”

“What have I done this time?” I asked in disbelief. “It’s not like I’ve cursed you to speak Latin or something.”

Her smirk suddenly returned. “Do you speak Latin?”

“No, actually.”

“Good. Ego sum rabidus et culpa tua est. ”

I raised an eyebrow. “Translation?”

“Learn Latin.”

I wrinkled my nose at her, and she laughed. It was a real laugh—one that bounced off the walls of the greenhouse, not one that she felt the need to hide behind her hand, and the purity of it made me smile. 

“Cast the spell with me,” she said abruptly.

My smile widened into a grin. “Really?”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “You cast it with me the last Christmas we spent together, so why not?”

“Well, I’m honored,” I teased. 

“Don’t push it,” she warned, and turning her back on me, she strode out of the greenhouse in an apparent huff. Still grinning, I hurried to catch up.

Outside, our boots sank into the snow, and I stumbled for a moment before I could locate my original path in the darkness. Merula had paused in the middle of the yard to draw her wand, and I did the same, the cold burning my exposed fingers as I wrapped them around the frigid marble handle. Each of our breaths hung in the air as clouds of crystalized vapor, and I tucked my free hand into my cloak as I shivered. A thin layer of clouds smothered the stars, only allowing meager beams of moonlight to shine through, and as we stood there with snow up to our shins, I began to think we would be frozen in place forever if we stayed outside much longer. 

When I looked at Merula again, however, I decided that wouldn’t be a bad thing. She did look frozen—timeless even—with her head tilted back and her arm stretched toward the sky. It was as if the entire world could cave in at that moment, and she would still be standing there, not because of defiance or sheer willpower, but because that was where she belonged. 

In great, slow circles, she swept her wand over her head, and then the sky appeared to fall. Flurries of snowflakes filled the air and swirled around us, although no wind blew. I mirrored her motions with my own wand, and the snowflakes began to swirl faster and faster. They twirled and spun and danced...and then they halted. Each with its individual pace, the little crystals drifted down to join the powder on the ground, with some interrupting their descent to cling to our hair and clothes. I laughed, feeling a little giddy. I hadn’t cast this spell in years, and I had forgotten how much I loved it. 

“Is that what I look like?”

I brought my gaze back to earth to see Merula studying me. She had wrapped her arms around herself, and I noticed that she was shivering too. 

“What?” I asked. 

“It’s this look you get,” she said, “every time you cast the charm. I don’t know. It’s like you’re in love with the world or something.”

“I have a look?” I said in amusement. 

She pursed her lips in annoyance, already regretting bringing it up. “I just want to make sure I don’t look that stupid,” she grumbled. 

I pretended not to hear that last part. “No,” I said honestly. “You don’t. You have...something different.”

“What—”

“What in the name of Merlin’s baggy y-fronts do you kids think you’re doing?!”

I whirled around so fast that my shoulder collided with Merula’s, and I was instantly blinded by a wand light shining into my eyes from the neighbor’s back door. She caught my arm to keep both of us from falling over into the snow, but her nails dug painfully into my skin through my sleeve, causing me to grit my teeth to keep from crying out. Once the spots behind my eyes faded, I was able to make out the hunched, withered form of an elderly man scowling at us from behind his illuminated wand. 

“Quit adding to the snow!” he ordered in his gruff voice. “It’s thick enough already!”

“We’re sorry, Mr. Darrow!” I called out politely while I tried to remove Merula’s nails from my arm. Realizing what she was doing, she quickly let go. “We’ll go back inside now!”

“You better!” he shouted. “I don’t need to trip over your frozen bodies in the morning!”

“Yes, sir. Have a merry Christmas!”

Rather than return the holiday wishes, he stormed back inside with a harrumph. 

“Pleasant fellow,” Merula said dryly. I shushed her, despite my own attempts not to giggle. Mr. Darrow already didn’t like me; I didn’t need her to make that situation worse. 

“Come on,” I said through chattering teeth. “Let’s go get warm.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” she said, and we continued our awkward shuffle back through the snow to the Cauldron. As we stamped our boots at the doorstep though, I couldn’t help but think that she had a point. I didn’t know what Mr. Darrow was so unhappy about—it was a very merry Christmas after all.

Chapter Text

“Oh, for the love of…! Are both of you wearing fingerless gloves? Honestly…” 

Penny barred the doorway to the flat, preventing me and Merula from coming in any further until she had vanished the clumps of snow on our clothes and hair. I swatted at her, trying to push her wand away so that I could do it myself, but she easily deflected my numb fingers. 

“We’re fine, Pen,” I said. “It’s just a little—” Merula sneezed, drowning out the rest of my sentence. 

Penny’s frown deepened, and she pointed at the chairs by the tree. “Sit down while I get some blankets,” she ordered, and then vanished into her room, ignoring the protests that trailed after her. I exchanged a glance with Merula, and she turned up her palms, unbothered. We each picked a chair, and Penny returned with two blankets, which she forcibly wrapped around our shoulders before either of us could complain. 

Tonks and Tulip watched us curiously from their position on the sofa. “You two were out there a while,” Tulip said, her voice unusually flat. 

“It’s a nice night,” Merula said casually. They locked eyes, and despite the warmth of the room, I found myself still feeling oddly cold. Merula and I hadn’t done anything worth keeping a secret; then why did it seem that way? I supposed it had been a private moment, but I had no idea what that meant. 

“Right,” Tonks said, shifting uncomfortably in her seat between them. “So, how about those presents?”

Penny’s face instantly brightened. “I vote Lily opens one first,” she said, and the others all seconded her proposition. 

Again, my protests went ignored, and soon I had a rectangular package shoved into my hands. When I tore off the colorful paper, however, my discomfort at being forced into the spotlight vanished at the sight of the book in my lap. The cover was engraved with a beautiful tree with deep red berries, beneath which were three words inscribed in silver: 

Infinite, Unbroken, Forever.  

They were the same words that were inscribed on the silver ring on my right hand, and when I traced my thumb along the many branches of the tree, I realized what it was. It was a rowan. 

I flipped to a random page to be greeted with the sight of Barnaby Lee, his arms outstretched and his forehead wrinkled in intense concentration as he balanced an impossible number of fluffy puffskeins on his head. I flipped to another page to see a photo of Charlie Weasley grinning broadly as he posed next to the sleeping form of a Ukrainian Ironbelly. Another page: Diego Caplan proudly holding up the cover of the Daily Prophet with the headline “Britain’s Youngest Duelling Champion” over his picture. Another: Liz Tuttle sitting cross-legged in a forest with a baby unicorn in her lap. As I skimmed through the rest of the album, I saw that every page held a photograph of one or more of my friends, some taken during our Hogwarts days but most from the past five years. 

“Penny,” I said, my throat so tight that I almost choked on her name. 

She smiled and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Did you see the first one?” she asked softly. 

I turned to the first page, and my breath caught as Rowan grinned back at me. I knew this photo; Penny had taken it in our fourth year at Hogwarts. In it, Rowan and I perched on the edge of the courtyard fountain, our arms linked before the wing of one of the great stone eagles. I was leaning into her, laughing so hard that my eyes were watering. 

Penny squeezed my shoulder. “I got the idea from that picture on your desk. I thought you might like some more photos, so I sent owls out to all our friends. Everyone responded.” 

“Bet you thought we had forgotten all about you,” Tonks said with a grin. 

I laughed weakly, still looking at the album in my hands. “Never,” I said. “I just...I don’t know what to say.”

“Need a moment to cry, Flores?” Merula chuckled. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Penny said. “We can get the attention off you now. I just wanted to make sure you know that all of us are happy that you’re back.”

My throat was too tight to answer. It had been over a decade since we had first met. Over a decade. Friendship really was forever, wasn’t it?

With my awkward emotional moment out of the way, everyone else began to exchange gifts, and the room was once again filled with noisy laughter and exclamations of surprise. Even though I had already sent Tulip her present, she had waited until now to give me mine, which was a miniature broomstick with a realistic toy mouse attached to it. It was a prototype from a pet toy line that she was developing, and though I wondered if I was being used as a test subject, I (along with Pip) loved it all the same. 

To Tonks I gave a mokeskin pouch that I had purchased during my travels, and she happily hooked it on her belt before tossing a massive package in my direction. I flinched as I raised my arms to catch it but was surprised to feel that it was light for its size. Uncovering the misshapen mass revealed a new backpack, complete with an Extension Charm on the inside, which I promptly gave her a hug for. 

Just as I finished giving Penny her gift (a limited edition poster autographed by the Wigtown Wanderers) I noticed repeated glances from Merula’s direction, where she sat with a small box in her hands. When I looked at her, she held it out to me and mumbled, “It’s not much.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said as I removed the lid. 

My heart skipped as I looked inside, and stunned, I carefully reached in to pull out a clay dragon. Its pearly white body fit within the palm of my hand, and at the end of its long neck was a head with short, silver horns and multicolored, pupilless eyes. “An Antipodean Opaleye,” I breathed. 

“You’re one of the few people I know that’s crazy enough to love something that has tried to kill you,” she said. “Multiple times, I might add.”

Instinctively, I wrapped my free hand around my dragon pendant as I held the figurine up to the light. I was grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, well,” she cleared her throat and gestured at the Opaleye, “I figured you might miss those guys, being back here and all.”

I really did. The Antipodean Opaleye was a beautiful and relatively peaceful breed, and I had always loved watching them fly over the hills. Although, their tendency to migrate from their native New Zealand over to Australia had tended to make my job harder, especially when they got to attacking kangaroo populations. 

“Did you make this?” I asked. 

“Mostly. It does have one trick. Hold on.” Leaning forward in her chair, she pointed her wand at the figurine and declared, “ Draconifors! ” and made a rapid slashing motion with her wrist. A bolt of fiery orange light engulfed the clay, causing it to grow warm in my hand, and then faded. The dragon abruptly stretched its pearlescent wings, raised its head, and yawned, shooting out a small puff of vivid red flame. I stared at it in awe as it sniffed at my hand. Its body was now covered with scales instead of smooth clay, and its rainbow eyes shone like the jewel it was named for. 

“It’s exactly like the real thing!” I exclaimed. 

Merula nodded. “Minus the danger of losing a limb or two. Any simple untransfiguration spell should be able to turn it back. Reparifarge! ” There was a burst of white light, and the dragon curled back up on my palm, still and silent. I gently slipped it back into the box for safe keeping. 

“I could hug you right now,” I told her. 

She leaned back warily. “I’d rather you not.”

Penny came over to peer at the figurine, and I passed her the box so that she could get a better look. “This is amazing,” she said. “How did you learn to do this?”

“I’ve been going through my parents’ old artifacts, trying to figure out how to safely get rid of them,” Merula said. “I’ve found lots of stuff. For example…” She reached down to pick up a bigger box off the floor, which she held out to Penny. “I’m giving you a choice.”

“What?” Penny asked. 

“Just open it.”

Bewildered, Penny accepted the package and kneeled down to lift off the lid. “Oh, my!” she gasped, and I heard glass clinking as she rifled through the contents. “Moonstone, acromantula venom, dragon’s claw, unicorn hair, and...oh!” She held up a pure white horn. “Unicorn horn! These are extremely rare ingredients.”

“They’re yours to keep if you want,” Merula said. “I have more than I know what to do with.”

“I…” Penny looked at the ingredients with an excited gleam in her eyes. It was clear she desperately wanted to accept, but she hesitated, her forehead creasing. “These are worth a fortune,” she said slowly. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” Merula said. “Not with that box.”

Tonks sat up straight. “Now would be a good time to explain what you mean,” she said seriously. “Quickly.”

Merula nodded again. “I have one more thing...er, optionally,” she said and glanced at me. “You remember when I told you my mother owned a unicorn?”

I nearly dropped my dragon. “You don’t mean…?”

“Yeah.” Reaching into the folds of her cloak, she pulled out a vial full of a thick mercury-like substance. “Three guesses what this is.”

“That’s not…” Penny stammered. “That’s not unicorn blood!”

“And we have a winner,” Merula said wryly. 

“But that stuff is illegal!”

“I’m well aware.” She twirled the vial in her fingers, gazing at it impassively as she said, “I can’t sell it; anyone that would want to buy it shouldn’t have it. And I definitely don’t want it, but I don’t know how to dispose of it.”

“And you thought I would?” Penny asked, shocked. 

“I thought that it would be safer in your hands than anyone else’s.” Merula let the vial fall into her palm and held it up to Penny. “But the choice is yours.”

Penny stared at the silver blood, her face almost as pale as the snow-white horn in her hands. I felt as horrified as she did. Merula was literally holding the death of purity and innocence in her palm. It was a dark substance, one that should not have existed, and yet here it was in this room. Merula was right; it was too dangerous to dispose of easily, but to pass the responsibility off to Penny… I wasn’t sure that was the best solution. 

Tonks jabbed a finger at the vial, and I realized that her hair had shifted back to a furious red. “That stuff right there,” she said in a low voice, “that’s half the reason there’s going to be a war. You need to get rid of it—turn it in to the Ministry right away.”

“You actually trust the Ministry?” Merula scoffed. “Yeah, sure, I bet they’ll keep it quite safe—right after they throw me in Azkaban.”

“You’re an Auror!”

“What makes you think that’ll stop them? In case you’ve forgotten, Scrimgeour and I aren’t exactly on good terms right now.”

“And I wonder why that is,” Tonks said dryly.

The silence that followed was electrified as we waited for the ice to come crashing to the ground. Merula’s upper lip slowly curled into a sneer, and her fingers wrapped so tightly around the vial that her knuckles turned white. She leaned forward, shrugging the blanket off her shoulders, and reached inside her cloak with her other hand. Tonks’s eyes traced the movement, and she quickly placed her hand on her hip, right where her wand was. 

“Stop it!” Everyone flinched at the shout, and Tonks let out a pained yelp as Tulip twisted her wand arm, forcing her fingers to let go of the handle. “Nymphadora Tonks!” Tulip roared. “You are going to drop this right now!”

Tonks tried to pull away from her, but she tightened her grip. Tulip’s face had flushed almost as red as her hair, which was in sharp contrast to Tonks, who had suddenly lost her bright color. “Have you lost your mind?” Tonks exclaimed. “Let go!”

“I’ll let go when you drop it,” Tulip growled. “It’s not your fight.”

“Not my fight my arse! You—ow!”

Tulip had twisted her arm again. “Not. Your. Fight.”

The rest of us stared at them in astonishment. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had seen them argue, not to mention the last time that Tulip had lost her cool. From the unnatural pallor of Merula’s face, it was apparent she hadn’t either.

Merula sat up again, revealing that her fingers were intertwined only with the fabric of her cloak. The gesture had been an unconscious tic, one likely done to calm herself down, not to threaten, and the moment that Tonks noticed this was visible. She took a deep breath, and as she exhaled, her body slumped in defeat. Tulip released her and then glared at everyone else, waiting for us to stop gaping at them. 

“Well, I, uh,” Penny turned back to Merula, searching for words, “I can’t say I don’t appreciate you bringing it to me, but I don’t think I’m the best person to take it.”

Unsurprised by this response, Merula tucked the vial back in her cloak. “It was worth a shot,” she said.

“Maybe you should take it to Dumbledore,” I said. “If anyone would know what to do with it, it would be him.”

Merula cocked her head thoughtfully. “You know, that’s not a terrible idea, Flores. I’ll consider it.”

I felt strangely pleased with the rare compliment, although showing that would not have exactly befit the atmosphere of the room. 

“Right then,” Tulip said, more to the floor than to anyone in particular. “We should probably find a room at the Broomsticks before it gets too late.” 

“Nonsense!” Penny exclaimed. “You haven’t had any pudding yet.”

“She's right,” Merula said, preparing to stand up. “You guys should stay. I think it’s time I got out of the middle of your family reunion.”

“Ah, don’t even think about it,” I told her. “Not until you’ve opened your present.”

“My...what?”

Grinning at her surprise, I pulled the final gift out from under the tree—a flat, rectangular package tied with green and silver ribbon. “Don’t tell me you weren’t expecting anything?”

She accepted the package like she had accepted the eggnog, as if she was expecting it to be a cruel prank. Feeling smug, I stood by her shoulder as she tore the paper at the corners and slid it off the gift with an unexpected delicacy. At the sight of what it had contained, she went impossibly still. Surrounded by a dark ebony frame was an oil painting of a blackbird amidst a white winter setting. It hopped from branch to branch in an oak tree, occasionally shaking its glossy feathers free of the snow that was swirling around. 

“This one has a trick too,” I said, and then, leaning over her shoulder, I instructed, “Sing.”

Opening its orange beak, the blackbird released a brief fluted warble, and as it did so, hand-painted letters drifted up from the snowflakes, coming together to form words: “I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think. - Rumi.”

“Badeea Ali’s work,” I said. “Apparently it’s a quote from a famous Muggle scholar. I know Muggle culture isn’t really your thing, but I guess it kind of reminded me of you.” I realized that the gift held more irony now than it had at the start of the night, but when Badeea had shown it to me, I could only think of Merula. The snow, the birdsong, the way she was so unapologetic for who she was...there was a beauty to it that the painting captured perfectly. 

She tilted her head so that I couldn’t see her face. “You’re a mystery sometimes, you know that?” she said. 

“Is that a good or bad thing?” I asked. 

“It’s not horrible. At least not right now.”

Another Merula-esque compliment. That meant I had done something right.

“Badeea said the background should change with the seasons,” I said. “Knowing her, you might want to expect some other surprises.” After she had sold it to me, she had heavily implied that she had imbued the painting with an experimental charm, but she had refused to tell me what kind when I had pressed. 

“Should I be worried?”

“Probably not.”

Gingerly, she pulled the paper back over the painting, giving it a temporary protective cover. “I still won’t hug you, but…” She raised her head, revealing a small smile, just enough to show a sliver of front teeth. “Thank you, Flores.”

I maintained my grin. “Don’t mention it.”

Penny came over and picked the blanket up off the floor, which she carefully folded over her arms. “We’re all family here,” she said, “even if we are at each other’s throats part of the time.”

Merula nodded, although her eyes darted uncertainly over to the couch. When I followed her gaze, however, I realized that Tonks and Tulip were not looking back. Tulip’s head was hanging low, her eyes on the floor as her shoulders slumped tiredly. Tonks was leaning close to her, murmuring something in her ear. When Tulip didn’t respond, Tonks closed her mouth, appearing concerned, and then reached over and took her friend’s hand. Their fingers intertwined. 

We were all family here; that was true enough, but this particular family was complicated in ways I had yet to learn. Then again, we always had been.

* * * *

The weather the next morning was perfect for a duel. The sky was bright and cloudless, allowing the sun to warm the brick surfaces of the buildings and sparkle dazzlingly on the remaining snow. In the interest of not disturbing the neighbors that were out enjoying the pleasant day, we decided that it was better to move the fight away from the village, so we settled on a clearing in the nearby forest. It was within walking distance from the Cauldron, and though these woods were technically an extension of the Forbidden Forest, they lay outside of the centaur herd’s territory. This latter detail was especially crucial since none of us had any desire to become human pincushions. Er, or would that be arrowcushions? 

Tonks was the only one in the clearing when I arrived shortly after breakfast, and she greeted me with a grin, seemingly back to her usual cheerful self. “Wotcher, Lily. Been a while since we’ve had a good snowball fight here, hasn’t it?”

“Don’t go getting any ideas,” I chuckled. “Tulip not with you?”

“She was getting ready when I left. What about Penny?”

“Finishing up a batch of Wiggenweld Potion.”

Tonks raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “Oh, come on. That’s not necessary.”

“I’d beg to differ.”

“It’s just supposed to be a friendly match. We’re not going to kill each other!”

“I’m more concerned about you trying to kill her,” I said, and then added softly, “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

Her face creased in confusion. “What’s wrong? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Really? Because you’ve been acting unusually antagonistic.”

Her eyes widened for a beat before her expression morphed into a grimace. “Oh, that. Look, it’s not my place to tell,” she said, and then abruptly, she groaned. “Oh, Merlin, I’m worrying you, aren’t I?”

“Should I be worried?” I asked in alarm.

“No!” she exclaimed, holding her hands up placatingly. “Listen, you trust your friends, right? You trust me?”

The question was almost identical to the one that Tulip had asked me the previous night, and I found it more concerning than reassuring. “Of course,” I said warily. 

“Then trust that we’ll work it out. It’s okay for you to spend a little less time worrying about us and a little more time worrying about yourself.”

I frowned. “Why should I worry about myself?”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “Honestly, mate...you’re hopeless sometimes.”

Before I could ask what in the name of Merlin she was going on about, there was a sharp crack, like a spell backfiring, and Merula popped into existence. Her eyes flicked around, taking in her surroundings, and then fell on us. “Oh, it’s you two,” she said flatly.

“Good morning to you too,” I responded goodnaturedly. 

“Are you ready?” Tonks asked with a smirk. 

“I’m always ready,” Merula shot back. 

Two more quick cracks and Tulip and Penny appeared. Penny’s potion belt cinched the waist of her blue coat, and a vivid green liquid was visible within several of its vials. I had left mine at home to avoid breaking any glass in case I got dragged into a duel with the victor, but I was starting to wonder if that had been a good idea. 

“Oh, good, everyone’s here,” Penny said cheerfully.

“There’s no rush,” Merula said. “It’ll be over quickly.”

“Aw, I think you should give yourself more credit,” Tonks told her. “I’m sure it will take you longer to lose than you think.”

“Very funny.”

“Five paces, you two,” I said, purposely interrupting their banter. We would never get the duel started if they were allowed to continue. “Start counting.”

They obeyed, and each counted out five paces in opposite directions, treading lightly on top of the frozen ground. I stamped one of my boots in place, relieved that it seemed solid enough to allow for good footing. If it was too slick or powdery, then Tonks’s lack of grace would put her at a disadvantage from the start. I didn’t know who I wanted to win, but I preferred it if everyone had a fair chance. 

Once they were the proper distance away, they turned to face each other with wands raised, awaiting my signal. Since I had the most experience, I would be refereeing, and Penny and Tulip, who stood on either side of me, would serve as judges. Tulip would be watching to see which spells hit Merula, while Penny would be doing the same for Tonks. I would be monitoring the fight as a whole, and in the end, the final call would come down to me.

“Remember, no contact, no Apparition, and no leaving the clearing,” I said. “First one to yield or go down for thirty seconds loses. Now bow.” They did, although they did so stiffly and without lowering their eyes. “Ready? Then duel!”

The bolt of red light that came from Tonks was so fast that it appeared to burst into being from pure air rather than from any movement of a wand, and it shot toward Merula with all the intensity of a bolt of lightning. There was no humanly possible way that she could block such a spell, and she didn’t—she dodged it. Like a dancer, Merula pulled one leg up and spun out of the way, and before her foot was back on the ground, she had fired her own blast of red light back. 

Tonks arced her wand toward the ground, and the air shimmered in front of her as the spell collided with her invisible shield and ricocheted off to the side, sending up a shower of snow as it struck the ground. By the time the powder had resettled, Merula had launched another scarlet burst, and Tonks barely managed to side-step in time, which gave her the opportunity to retaliate. Without a second of hesitation, Tonks launched a barrage of spells that pelted towards Merula in a wave of red, blue, and white light.

Penny gasped beside me, but my reminder to keep her eyes on Tonks died in my throat as Merula dodged every single bolt. She ducked and leapt and spun with ease, not flinching as the spells burned by her skin. This was not the Merula that I had repeatedly dueled over the years; that girl had stubbornly stood her ground and attacked with raw power. This witch was untouchable. The way she danced out of the way of her opponent’s spells was reminiscent of Diego Caplan’s fighting style, but while Diego danced with a flourishing grace, Merula’s movements radiated refined power and focused intention. Every step and leap had a purpose, and no gesture of her wand was wasteful. She hadn’t been kidding; she really had been training while I was away. 

With a single, calculated sweep of her wand, Merula reflected one of Tonks’s spells right back at her, forcing her to break off her attack to side-step again, and then Merula was on the offensive. Tonks arced her wand again and again as shield after shield shattered under the onslaught of blinding bolts of energy from her fellow Auror. Every time Tonks cast a protective enchantment to defend herself, Merula gained a second to launch another spell, and it was only when Tonks threw herself out of the line of fire that she managed to regain enough time to send a spell back. 

Having learned from this, Tonks began to physically dodge more of Merula’s spells, which started a kind of back and forth of dodging and firing between the two of them—cast, dodge, fire back, dodge, repeat. It looked exhausting. Sweat rolled down their faces and caused their hair to cling to their foreheads, and their lips were parted like they were breathing heavily. If it was a fight to see who would be worn out first, though, Tonks was losing. Her movements were more awkward, and her feet kept catching on the ground, which meant that she had to block more often than Merula did. At this rate, she would soon have to stay so focused on defense that she wouldn’t be able to return a spell at all. 

For this reason, Merula kept the upper hand for a while. She continued to attack ruthlessly, intent on wearing her opponent down, when suddenly she slipped. Panic shot across her features as her heels slid forward and her arm jerked, sending her spell wide. Various alarmed yelps and cries arose from my judges as we ducked, and a beam of white light heated the air over our heads before slamming into a tree branch with a massive crack. The splintered branch broke free, and Tonks was back on the offensive even before it thumped to the ground. Merula stumbled again, struggling to regain her footing, and she was forced to clumsily block the barrage of spells that was once again directed at her. 

“What’s going on?” I asked, unable to figure out what I had missed. 

Tulip pointed at the ground by Merula’s feet. “The snow. Look.”

With her direction, I saw it, and I realized what had happened. The spells that Tonks had missed or reflected had partially melted the snow around Merula, causing it to become slick and slushy. The main advantage she had over her opponent—her ease and coordination of movement—was quickly disappearing, and her frustrated scowl said that she knew it. 

Tonks grinned, happy to see Merula brought down to her level, and Merula’s scowl deepened amidst the bursts of colorful light around her. Then, unexpectedly, the scowl turned into a smirk right as Merula slipped again—on purpose. Aided by the slickness of the ground, her leg slid back, and Tonks’s spells flew over her head as she dropped onto one hand. Tonks’s eyes widened, and she quickly blocked the sudden low counterattack. With the precious recovered seconds, Merula hopped back to her feet and launched another rapid spell. 

Tonks was halfway through casting a second Shield Charm when she gasped, “No!” and was engulfed in an explosion of fiery orange light. The curse knocked her down, and she just barely managed to roll out of the way as a Stunning Spell sparked against the ground where she had fallen. Shouting in determination, she jumped upright and furiously returned the curse, and Merula dove to the side as the ground exploded behind her, causing dirt and snow to rain down on her head.

Rolling back to her feet, Merula raised her wand again, and Tonks leapt back as flames suddenly scorched the ground in front of her, missing her by a meter. She retaliated with another scarlet bolt, which for some reason appeared to catch Merula off guard. Rather than dodge as usual, Merula blocked the spell and began to slowly shift back, away from the center of the clearing. Triumphant, Tonks moved forward to press her attack. 

“Oh, no,” Penny said. 

Since Tulip had alerted me to it, I knew what Penny saw. Merula’s Fire-Making Charm hadn’t missed; she had aimed it right where she had wanted it. Distracted by the opening that Merula was giving her, Tonks didn’t notice that the snow that she was about to step on wasn’t as solid as it used to be, and sure enough, as soon as she put weight on her boot, it slid on the muddy slush and sent her wobbling. 

“ Depulso! ” Merula shouted. It was the first verbal spell of the duel, and Tonks could do nothing to stop it as it swept her legs out from under her and sent her sprawling on her stomach. 

“ Locomotor Mortis! ” she choked out as she went down, and Merula yelped as rope tangled itself around her ankles and snapped her legs together, causing her to tumble over backwards. 

Merula quickly pointed her wand at the rope with an exclamation of “ Diffindo! ” before scrambling back to her feet. Tonks stumbled upward as well, and they began to circle each other with anticipation, both panting in exhaustion. The melted snow around them had forced them closer together, and they eyed each other as they assessed the new situation, neither volunteering to make the first move. Their clothes were soaked with mud and freezing water, but despite this, they were both grinning.

“You’re determined, I’ll give you that,” Merula said without lowering her wand. “That’s a very Slytherin trait.”

Tonks laughed. “It’s an overlapping one. Ruthless cunning though, that’s all you guys.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Of course you would.”

They continued circling with slow, deliberate steps as each waited for the right moment. What moment that was, I didn’t know, and I watched carefully to see who would break first. They were having fun, yes, but the tension between them was also palpable. There was pride at stake here, and possibly something else—something that remained hidden to me.

For half a second, Merula’s eyes flicked in my direction, and in the breath that my blue met her violet, something in the back of my mind snapped. A roaring filled my ears, and the world folded itself into black, taking me with it. I closed my eyes, terrified as my existence appeared to collapse around me, pressing me into nothingness, not unlike the feeling of Disapparating. The roaring grew louder and louder until it burst into a cacophony of shouts and distant explosions. A gust of wind tugged at my robes, and the ground shook beneath my feet, pulling me back into being. I stumbled, and my eyes snapped open as I caught myself on a cracked stone wall. I was no longer in the clearing. 

My surroundings were distorted and blurry at the edges, like my contacts had shifted out of place, but I could see that I was in a corridor filled with broken stone and rubble. Statues lay in pieces on the floor, and there was a massive hole in the wall—the source of the wind—that opened up to a cloudy night sky. 

From the smoke at the end of the corridor, a figure emerged and stalked steadily toward me. It looked like Merula, but not the Merula that had just been with me in the clearing. Dust coated her hair, and patches of soot and blood streaked her robes and skin. I tried to open my mouth to call out to her, but my lips remained glued shut. As she came closer, her face showed no sign that she recognized me; her features were impassive, all except for her eyes, which were cold with fury. 

I raised my hands to signal that I was a friend, and was startled to find that I was holding an unfamiliar wand. Her lips pulled into a snarl at my gesture, and as she raised her wand in response, she spat out a word that had lived in my nightmares for years: “ Crucio! ”

Now my voice came to me, and it came out in a horrid scream. I fell to the ground, clawing at my robes, at my burning skin, wanting desperately to rip out my innards, which felt like they were on fire. My bones seemed to be filled with magma, my throat with nails, and my stomach with hornets. Tears blurred my vision, and I screamed and begged, but any sound I made was lost to the walls. Merula continued to stare at me impassively, her face disturbingly empty, as if she was looking straight through me to the floor. 

I writhed and screamed and cried, hoping for relief...or death, whichever came first, and then for a terrifying heartbeat, my wish seemed to come true. The pain vanished, as did any sense of being. I couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and it was...okay? I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t feel any need to. I had no body, but I felt very much present. A familiar presence engulfed me, one I couldn’t place. It was like a distant memory, the kind that lives in the back of the mind—always present but just out of reach.

My sight slowly came back into focus, revealing another, equally damaged corridor. Strangely enough, I could not figure out where I stood, almost as if I was a part of the wall rather than there in person. Still unable to move, my vision remained focused on one spot: the remnants of a large fallen pillar. Light burst behind it, and then a pink-haired witch vaulted over it just in time to dodge the spell that exploded over her head. Wand in hand, Tonks crouched low, using the pillar as cover from the madly cackling assailant on the other side. Like Merula, she was covered in dirt and soot, and blood trickled from a cut on her forehead. 

Swiping the blood away from her eyes, she hopped back up with a shout of, “You won’t keep me from him!” and launched multiple spells down the corridor. Her opponent returned fire with an intensity unlike anything I had ever seen, and Tonks dove back to the ground as red and green bolts sparked all around her. She rolled to her feet, prepared to attack again, when suddenly she gasped and swiped her wand in a desperate attempt to cast a shield. The air in front of her shattered as a single green bolt cut through her defense and slammed into her chest, throwing her body several meters backward before it fell to the ground, limp and lifeless. 

I wanted to scream again, but I remained trapped and mute in my wall-like state. The blurry edges of my vision converged, slowly obscuring the devastation around me, and the shouts and explosions in the distance faded back to a dull roar. As the world began to fold once again, an unidentifiable voice arose, seeming to come from the depths of my own mind: 

Soon. Be prepared to wake…

And with that, I was pulled back into nothingness.

Chapter Text

A bitter liquid, tinged with the taste of metal, filled my mouth and yanked me back to consciousness, only for me to start choking as I struggled to remember how to breathe. I bolted upright in a fit of coughing, and then clamped my hands over my mouth as a wave of nausea swelled to the base of my throat. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, not daring to see if the world was spinning as dizzyingly as it felt. 

“Woah, woah, woah!” Penny’s voice rang out, too loud and panicked, and a hand gripped my shoulder to keep me from sitting up any further.

“She looks like she’s about to be sick.” Tulip’s voice now, also close by.

I was still in the clearing, although I didn’t remember how I had ended up on the ground, which was where I had to be. There was cold earth beneath my legs and tailbone, and my clothes were damp all the way up my back. Everything had seemed so real though: the battles raging through the corridors, Merula’s blank stare, the excruciating pain of the Cruciatus Curse, and then Tonks’s limp body hitting the rubble. And that voice...it lingered faintly in the distance, not yet gone.

Soon. Be prepared to wake…

I dug one hand into the freezing mud, trying to ground myself as shivers wracked my body. It had all seemed so real, but it couldn’t be. None of that could be real, because if it was, then that would mean… But, no, it couldn’t. 

“Give her some space,” Penny said. “Tonks, go check if Merula is all right.”

Tonks and Merula. I opened my eyes, wincing in pain at the sunlight’s intensity, and blinked several times to clear my fuzzy vision. Penny was kneeling at my side, her face pale and an empty potion vial in her hand, while Tulip stood farther back with her arms crossed. Tonks and Merula were behind them, the latter of which was flat on her back on the ground, clutching her face with both hands. 

“Sorry there, mate,” Tonks said, bending down to offer her a hand. “I didn’t hit you too hard, did I?”

Merula gave a drawn out groan, clearly both conscious and annoyed. “I think you broke my nose.”

I took a shaky breath. They were all right. Of course they were. It had just been a weird...vision? No, not “just”— it had been a vision. But that was impossible; I didn’t get visions, at least not in that way. 

“I don’t get it,” Tulip said. “Did she get hit with something?”

Penny cupped my chin, gently pulling it so she could get a good look at my face, and she carefully dragged her thumb across my cheek to wipe away the damp streaks that trailed down it. Embarrassed, I pulled away and swiped at the rest of the tears with a trembling hand. I had been crying, and I hadn’t even known it. 

“Talk to me, love,” Penny said softly. 

“I...I’m fine,” I croaked. “I’m fine.”

“Fine?” Tonks exclaimed, abruptly letting go of Merula, who she had been helping to her feet. Merula stumbled and thanked her with a glare. “You collapsed and started thrashing about like a maniac! We thought you were having a seizure.”

“I did?” I recalled the taste of metal and swallowed hard. I must have bitten my tongue. 

“Merula saw you go down first,” Tulip said. “I think she tried to stop the duel, but, uh, some of us weren’t so quick on the uptake.”

The witch in question was gingerly dabbing at her nose with her sleeve, trying to stem the blood that was trickling from it, and Tonks looked back at her sheepishly. “Right, sorry!” she said. “I can fix it.”

Merula’s eyes widened. “No!” she gasped, holding her hands out in front of her. “Stay away from me!”

“Just hold still. Episkey! ”

“No—agh!” There was a sharp, unnatural crack, and Merula doubled over, clutching her face again. “You made it worse!”

“Oops.” Tonks chuckled nervously. “You know what, maybe you should just borrow my handkerchief instead.”

“Hey, tune them out and look at me.” As ordered, I brought my attention back to Penny, and she took my hands in hers. I was painfully aware of how much I was shaking, and with the closeness of her face to mine, it was impossible to miss how her sapphire eyes tightened in concern. I wanted to close my own eyes again so I wouldn’t have to see it. “What can we do to make it better?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” I said weakly. 

Moving to my other side, Tulip kneeled down and murmured, “Did you see something?”

“I—”

“ See something?” Merula had appeared at my feet, a cloth pressed to her nose. “Like a Seer? Is that what happened?”

“I’m not a Seer,” I said. Three miserable years of Divination had made that more than apparent. 

“But you are a Legilimens.”

“That’s not—”

Tulip cut me off. “So you did see something.”

Under the weight of their stares, I could feel my heart rate rising, and my nausea along with it. Drawing my legs up, I pressed my forehead to my knees and tried and failed to focus on lengthening each shallow, shuddering breath. “I don’t know,” I whimpered. “I don’t know.”

There was a long silence as they, without a doubt, exchanged panicked glances. I knew I was terrifying them, but I felt too sick and achy to think clearly. 

Penny was the first one to break it. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. We can figure this out back at the Cauldron. Do you think you could Apparate?”

My heart jolted, and I raised my head with a gasp of, “No!” The sensation of the world folding, my sense of being dissolving as I lost all ability to feel or breathe—I didn’t want to feel anything like that again. What if I got stuck, trapped in that feeling of in between?

Penny pressed her lips together, misunderstanding my protest. “You feel that sick, don’t you? We could try walking. Are you able to stand?”

“Merula and I might be able to carry her if we work together,” Tonks suggested. 

“And draw the attention of the entire town while we’re at it,” Merula said wryly. “What?” she added when Tonks glared at her. “All I’m saying is that there are no good options. Any form of transportation is unpleasant when you’re ill. Just be glad we don’t have to use a Portkey.” The others turned to look at her, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot, suddenly appearing nervous. “What?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Tonks said, “but you have more experience than the rest of us when it comes to traveling while injured.”

Merula glowered behind the handkerchief. “I was tortured,” she said bitterly and gestured at me. “We don’t even know what—” Abruptly, her words dissolved into a sharp intake of breath, and she scanned up and down my body. I dropped my gaze the second her shocked eyes met mine, afraid that she had somehow seen the thoughts that I had been trying to keep hidden. “Let’s get her back,” she said seriously, and my stomach flipped. “Quickly.”

“Right,” Penny said. “We can do Side-Along. I’ll try to make it as smooth as possible, okay?” I nodded reluctantly, and Penny and Tulip hauled me to my feet. My legs wobbled, and I had to grip Penny’s arm tightly to remain upright. “Ready? Three, two, one…”

She turned, and I was pulled with her as the world folded into black. Similar to my vision, I was assaulted by the sensation of the air pressing in on all sides, compressing my existence into something other. Rather than being pressed in nothingness, however, I had the feeling of being crushed, like hot metal bands were wrapped all over my body, tightening with each passing second. When we reappeared at the side door of the Cauldron, my body seemed to expand with a loud pop, and air rushed into my lungs too quickly. With impressive reflexes, Penny hooked an arm around my waist to keep me from falling forward as I leaned over and retched up my breakfast into the alleyway, my head spinning. 

Worst. Apparition. Ever. Now I had a better idea of why Merula still hated traveling by Portkey. Magical transportation truly did suck when you were miserable. 

Three subsequent sharp cracks rang out as the others followed, and I heard them all leap back, away from me. “Did she just—” Tonks stuttered. “Oh, no, this is bad.”

Merula sighed. “Sometimes I hate it when I’m right.”

Penny swiped a hand, signaling for them to shut up, and helped me straighten. Her face was uncharacteristically stoic as she looked at me, albeit a bit pale, and it made me feel worse.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped.

Her eyes softened pityingly. “Don’t apologize, love. It’s all right.” She vanished the puddle of vomit with a flick of her wrist. “I was going to have everyone get cleaned up in the brewing room anyway.”

Inside, she handed me a damp rag to wipe my face, and everyone shed their wet cloaks, boots, and gloves on the brewing room floor before moving upstairs, with Tulip and Tonks half-carrying me to the first floor. Penny placed a cauldron next to my feet as they lowered me onto the sofa, and I put my head in my hands as I continued to fail in my attempts to steady my breathing. Air ripped unevenly from my lungs, and my whole body shivered, even after one of them wrapped a blanket around me. Involuntarily, my mind conjured up the images again: Merula’s stare, excruciating pain, the green bolt, Tonks…

“I haven’t seen someone shake this much since the cursed ice problem,” Tonks exclaimed. “She’s not going into shock, is she?”

Someone gently pulled my hands away from my face, and Penny put the back of her hand to my forehead with a worried frown. 

“I said I’m fine,” I chattered, pulling away from her. 

Four pairs of eyes stared at me in disbelief. A scoff drew my attention to Merula, who had collapsed into my desk chair over by the tree. She kept Tonks’s handkerchief pressed against her nose, but blood had soaked clean through the fabric and was beginning to smear across the rest of her face. “Obviously,” she said dryly. 

Tonks reached for my shoulder but immediately drew back when I flinched as the green light flickered behind my eyes. 

Penny kneeled in front of me without touching. “Lily,” she said, “if it’s really that bad, you need to tell us what you saw. Whatever fear or anxiety you’re feeling right now—you know what it’s like for me when I let it get out of hand. Don’t make this harder on yourself.”

Guilt roiled inside me, but not strongly enough to make me tell them, especially not Tonks. I would scare them even more than I already had if I told them about my vision and the implications it held. “No, it was nothing,” I said. “It came on stronger than expected, that’s all.”

“But what did?”

“It was nothing.”

“Lily…”

I was feeling trapped again, like I would burn to ash if I stayed the center of their attention, and it was painfully suffocating. “I need space!” I snapped, startling Tulip, who had just sat down next to me. “I can’t breathe!”

Tonks retreated to the tree, and Penny stood up and took a step back, although Tulip remained seated at my side. Penny unhooked a vial from her belt and held it up for me to see the blue liquid within. “Lily,” she repeated, the rest of her statement implicit yet understandable.

My heart beat even faster in alarm. “No!” I gasped.

“Yes,” she insisted. “It will help.”

“No, I’ve never taken a Calming Draught in my life. I’m not about to start now!”

“Great, now she’s panicking about calming down,” Merula muttered.

Penny pursed her lips, not looking away from me. “You’re unwell, love. You need it.”

“No, I don’t!” I responded with more force. I hated being called “love,” and it was even worse that it was coming from Penny, who should have known better. 

“Then what do you want us to do?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just want to be left alone. I can calm down on my own.”

“Sorry, mate,” Tonks said softly, “but that’s not happening.”

“Well, I won’t take it, and you can’t force me!” 

They were exchanging glances, as if seriously debating their chances of holding me down and shoving the potion down my throat, when Merula gave a sigh of, “For the love of Merlin,” and rolled not just her eyes but her entire head toward the ceiling. “You’ve known her for, what? Twelve years? And you’ve still learned nothing,” she said and held her free hand out to Penny. “It’s my turn.”

Penny, at a loss, handed the vial to her without protest, and Merula planted her feet in front of me with determination in her eyes and blood now dripping down to her chin. “Merula, your nose,” I said, disturbed by the unnatural intensity with which it was bleeding. 

She nodded. “That’s right, my nose,” she said, sounding stuffy and muffled through the handkerchief. “Apparently you’re the only one here capable of a decent healing spell, but a lot of good that’ll do me while your hands are shaking. So I guess I’ll just keep bleeding out until you either take that potion or find another way to calm down. I hope you don’t mind if I get blood on the floor—or pass out, because it will be your fault if I do.”

“Always so dramatic,” I responded flatly.

“Says the one throwing a fit over taking a Calming Draught.”

I stared at her. She tried to hide it, but her face was tight and pale, as if she was in a lot of pain. A normal broken nose didn’t behave like that, meaning it should have gotten proper attention right away. Who knew what could happen if a magical injury was left unattended for too long. “Okay,” I sighed, holding out my palm. “I’ll take it.”

She smirked and passed the vial to me. I knew I was being manipulated, but that didn’t stop her words from being true. That was one of the many dilemmas that came with knowing Merula Snyde. As I tried to pull the stopper from the vial, however, I gave a helpless laugh when my shaking fingers repeatedly slipped off the cork. 

“You’re hopeless,” Merula said and kneeled in front of me. She wrapped her hand firmly around mine and directed me to rest the vial on my leg while Tulip opened it instead, releasing a whiff of peppermint and lavender. I closed my eyes while I drank, not wanting to see the expressions on their faces, but I heard Merula say with quiet satisfaction, “There we go.”

Someone took the vial from my hands, and I felt Tulip tuck my hair behind my ear. I leaned into her, allowing her to put an arm around me as the potion kicked in. Within seconds, my heart rate slowed, my breaths lengthened, and my shaking subsided, leaving me feeling warmer and more comfortable. For perhaps the first time that day, I felt truly safe.

I opened my eyes to see Merula looking at me expectantly while the others stared at her back in astonishment. Drawing my wand, I gestured at her. “Let me see,” I said. Hesitantly, she removed the handkerchief, and blood began to run down her face, dripping onto her robes and mine. Her nose was hugely swollen and purple, although not crooked. Definitely a botched healing spell. It shouldn’t have hurt so much had it been properly cast the first time, not to mention that it should have been far less bloody. “You may want to brace yourself,” I said and then instantly changed my mind. Quicker would be better. 

She frowned. “What do you—”

“ Episkey! ” I declared, and the rest of her words dissolved into a tortured yowl as she once again doubled over, cupping her face. Tonks’s spell shouldn’t have hurt, but there had been no avoiding pain with mine. I tugged at her wrist. “Let me see,” I repeated, more gently. 

She shakily uncovered her face, revealing a normal nose of normal shape and color, which she thanked me for with an angry, watery glare. “More warning next time,” she grumbled.

“Has it stopped bleeding?” I asked. 

“Yes.”

I pointed in the direction of my room. “Then please clean up before I throw up again.”

She grinned, showing off the blood that even coated her teeth, and the rest of us groaned and looked away. Merula left the room cackling. 

“And you call me a troublemaker,” Tonks said. “She’s insane.”

No, she’s scared too, I thought. She just does a better job of hiding it. 

Would she still be scared if she knew what I had seen her do? The Merula I had met twelve years ago had been angry and violent, picking fights left and right, but she had ultimately changed into a person that wanted to protect others rather than harm them. Surely she didn’t want to hurt me in that way, not when she had experienced the torture of the Cruciatus Curse firsthand. Merula was my friend, right? I trusted her.

I also trusted her to do almost anything to get what she wanted, and that thought made me more uneasy than I would have liked. 

With a wave of her wand, Penny removed the few spots of blood from my skirt and then sat down on my other side, resting her hand on my back. “How do you feel?” she asked. 

“Tired,” I said honestly. It was like I had been ill for a long time and was now finally well enough to sleep. I was also embarrassed at the vulnerability of my weakened state, something that had come on so suddenly. One moment I had been refereeing a duel, and the next I had been on the ground. I wanted the attention off me so I could go curl up in my bed and hide from everything until I felt better. 

Penny traced circles on my back with her thumb. “You don’t have to tell us until you’re ready,” she said. 

“But we’re not leaving until you do,” Tonks added, taking the other chair by the tree. 

Tulip began to play with my hair, attempting to make little braids despite its short length, and I leaned more heavily into her while I fought the dread rising in my chest. I wasn’t going to get out of this without giving them something, and it terrified me, even with the potion numbing my emotional response. 

Merula returned a few minutes later, her face and clothes blood-free. Her skin was still pale, but she flashed me a now clean grin as she plopped back down in my chair. A part of me found her impish behavior reassuring, but the other part kept seeing her raising her wand, pointing it at me, and then pain, pain, pain. 

“What’s that look?” she asked me. 

“You worry me sometimes,” I said, avoiding the question. 

She scoffed. “You’re mad. Really.”

I shrugged in response. I’d had that label for well over a decade. It was nothing new. 

“Is what you saw really so bad that you think we can’t handle it?” Penny asked. 

“No, I… How would you feel if I asked what’s going through your head right now?” I defended weakly. 

“Worrying about you,” came the collective response from all except Merula. She gave me another eye roll, which I assumed meant the same thing, not that she would ever admit it.

“Fine,” I groaned. “Fine, fine, fine.” Several beats passed as I searched for the best way to phrase my story, and unable to look at either Tonks or Merula, I looked at my knees. “It wasn’t clear,” I began slowly. “Everything was fuzzy, but there were these big stone corridors, and a lot of violent noise, like a battle was going on. There was light and rubble and...and pain. It felt...it felt like someone was being tortured.”

 “It felt like?” Penny echoed, realizing the full meaning of the statement.

“Yeah,” I said quietly.

Absentmindedly, Merula began to wrap her arms around herself, but she caught the tic mid-movement and clasped her hands in her lap instead. “I had wondered,” she said, sounding oddly distant. “The way you looked…”

“And that’s everything?” Tonks asked. 

“I can’t give you anything else,” I said, and everyone took a moment to process this. Tulip continued to play with my hair while Penny continued to distractedly rub my back. Despite strongly feeling their presence, I couldn’t look at anyone, certain the deception would be written across my face. 

Everyone jumped as a sharp tapping drilled into the room, and Penny hopped to her feet and hurried to open the kitchen window, presumably to let an owl in. 

A laugh burst out, and the remainder of us turned to face Tonks in surprise, although I soon saw that there was no humor in her expression. She was bent forward in her chair, her head low and her arms on her thighs. “I feel like this is my fault,” she said somberly.

“How so?” I asked, taken aback. 

She looked at me in earnest. “Lily, I’m sorry, I’ve been a real pain from the start. You talked about not stirring the cauldron, but I did, and I prompted a duel on top of everything, and maybe if I hadn’t put you under so much stress—”

“Now she’s mad!” Merula exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. 

“I’m going to make this clear right now,” I told Tonks sternly, “if I’m ever stressed or angry, it’s never because of you. Never. You understand?”

“I…” Tonks stuttered, and she was interrupted as Penny walked back over with an envelope in hand.

“This is for you,” Penny said, holding it out to her. 

Frowning, Tonks accepted it, and her hair shifted through several shades of pink as she read the letter that had been enclosed within. “You have got to be joking,” she said. “It’s Boxing Day!”

“They’re not calling you in to work,” Merula said in sour disbelief. 

Tonks shook her head. “Work, but not that kind of work. Argh, that bastard, skiving off again! And they seriously think I have nothing better to do?” She groaned. “Oh, this is bloody fine timing, this is.”

“Everything all right?” I asked. 

“All right?” She crumpled the letter and gestured at me. “I don’t know, you tell me! You’re the one that had this...this vision? When have you been getting visions?”

“I haven’t,” I said. “I told you, I’m not a Seer. I can see inside people’s minds, sure, but I can’t Divine anything. You were in Divination with me; I made up just as much stuff as you did.”

“But whatever you saw had to have come from somewhere.”

She was right about that, and that was what terrified me. 

“It doesn’t matter if it was a vision or not,” Tulip said. Our heads turned toward her, but she kept her gaze directly on Tonks as she stated calmly, “Whatever she saw, it only confirms what we already know. As much as we hate to think about it, we know war is unavoidable. That means there are going to be battles and there is going to be pain. The best way to deal with this is to keep doing what we have already been doing.” She pointed at the crinkled letter. “That is what you’re being asked to do, is it not?”

Tonks shifted in her chair, as if uncertain if she should stand up. She looked to me for the answer. “It’s all right,” I said. “It was more shocking than anything. I’ll be fine.”

“You focus on what you have to,” Tulip told her. “I will let you know what we have figured out when I see you in a few days.”

Finally climbing to her feet, Tonks crossed over to me and gripped my shoulder firmly. “Then you better rest,” she ordered.

On impulse, I put my hand on her arm, squeezing it harder than I meant to. “As long as you stay safe,” I attempted to say lightly.

The concern on her face intensified, but she briefly rested her hand on mine. “Naturally.”

“Come visit again soon,” Penny said and gave her a hug.

Tonks clasped hands with Tulip and then pointed at me. “You guys take care of her for me. You too, Merula.”

“Well, somebody has to,” Merula said. “You know she won’t do it herself.”

The two Aurors locked eyes, conveying something between them that I couldn’t read. Merula stuck out her chin, emanating an aura akin to pride or defiance, although neither was quite right. Tonks nodded slowly, as if coming to an understanding—or an agreement. “Okay,” she said and swept her gaze over the rest of us. “Keep in touch.” And then she walked out the door, leaving a sense of emptiness in her wake. 

I opened my mouth to ask what that had been about, but my words hooked on my tongue as Merula raised a hand, cocking her head to the side attentively. After about ten beats of observing the silence that followed Tonks’s departure, she met my gaze and smiled grimly. “You know,” she said, “you’re still a terrible liar.”

Penny and Tulip started. I tried not to wince. “I’m not lying,” I said. 

“You’re not telling the truth,” she countered. “What are you protecting us from?”

“I’m not—”

“Dragon dung,” she snapped. “You saw Tonks, didn’t you? Or me. You made eye contact with me right before you went down.”

I gritted my teeth and glared at her. It was the only action that gave me enough courage to maintain eye contact, but her violet irises stared back, calm and unfazed. 

“Lily,” Penny said quietly. It was then, with that one use of my name in spite of how often it had already been said that day, that broke me. I hung my head while Merula raised hers in triumph.

“I think…” I breathed, “I think I saw Tonks die.”

There was a moment that was very much like being hit with the Impediment Jinx. Time slowed to a crawl. Every moment, every sound, every breath became imperceptible, if at all existent, and it seemed like we would be stuck in this state for eternity: me suffocating under the weight of three pairs of eyes that had all gone wide in horror. 

“Oh,” Merula said faintly. 

“What?” Tulip gasped.

“No, no, no, that can’t be,” Penny stuttered. “Maybe you were mistaken. You misinterpreted it.”

I wanted desperately to believe that, but with everything I had seen, I didn’t know how to interpret it any other way. Pulling away from Tulip, who was no longer supporting me, I took a shaky breath and braced myself on my legs. “I saw broken stone and debris everywhere,” I said. “There was a duel going on. I couldn’t see the attacker, but there was a bright green flash, and Tonks...her body hit the ground. And I...I don’t know if...but it was exactly like when Rowan…” 

Penny put both hands to her mouth. I swallowed, physically unable to say any more. 

“You said it felt like someone was being tortured.” Merula had paled to a shade of green, but despite that, her voice was level and calm. 

I nodded, allowing her to focus my thoughts. “There were two parts to the vision, two different corridors. Tonks was in the second. That...that was in the first.”

“And? Who was being tortured?”

“Me, I think,” I said. “But I’m not sure. I couldn’t exactly take in much after the spell was cast.”

“Now that’s all?” Merula asked. “You’re telling the whole truth?”

“Yes,” I said, still struggling to hold eye contact. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously but didn’t press further.

Maybe I would tell her eventually, but now was not the time to do that, not while the others were here. I had to get to the bottom of this first, otherwise there was no point in forcing her to experience any more distrust and scrutiny than she already did. Because she was my friend, right? I had to trust that she was my friend, no matter how much the image of her screaming that curse at me kept replaying in my head. 

Penny began to pace, her eyes distant and her arms wrapped around herself. “We have to tell her,” she said. 

“No!” I shouted, shooting to my feet. Tulip jumped up to support me as I wobbled unsteadily, and Merula was soon on her feet too, sporting her agitated cat posture. 

Penny looked at me in alarm. “We can’t keep this from her! What if she can avoid it?”

“Or we send her to seal her fate!” I exclaimed. “We can’t!”

“Tulip!” Penny begged. 

“Visions and prophecies can be tricky,” Tulip said slowly. “They don’t always come true, but when they do, it is usually because of something unavoidable, and often as a result of trying to avoid it. Although, not always… I don’t know.”

“You’re not saying we should do nothing,” Penny said in disbelief. 

“I’m saying trying to change things could make them worse,” Tulip responded.

“Worse! How could they get any worse? She’s going to be murdered!”

“You think I like this?” Tulip snapped, causing Penny to flinch. She jabbed a finger at the door where Tonks had disappeared. “That’s my best friend. My best friend. I will not see her become another Rowan—or Cedric, but I also refuse to be the cause of her death.”

“Tulip,” I said. “She’s our friend too.”

That stalled her. She jolted, like she had been shocked, and then took a breath and collected herself. “Right, I know,” she mumbled.

I looked back at Penny. “We can’t cause her to spend the rest of her life in fear of something that may or may not happen,” I said. “Not without knowing more.”

Appearing as unsteady on her feet as I did, Tulip gently pushed me to sit back down on the couch and returned to her seat beside me. I felt distantly sad, like I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to cry or not, and the distressed look on Penny’s face indicated that she was feeling something similar. 

“Merlin’s beard.” Merula ran a hand through her hair and then gestured at no one in particular. “Look, she’s not dead yet, so stop acting like she is. It’s not doing anyone any favors.” Tulip glared at her, and Penny opened her mouth to protest, but she continued as if she didn’t notice. “Lily, you’re certain you’re not a Seer?”

I wrapped my arms around my stomach, and Tulip wrapped the blanket back around me. I wasn’t cold anymore, but I was so, so tired. “Ninety percent sure.”

“But you’ve seen things before?”

“When we were in school, yeah, but only about the Cursed Vaults. Rakepick said it was their way of communicating with me—as a Legilimens.”

I hadn’t said that name in years, but here it was: in a conversation about death and torture. The sound of it caused no change to Merula’s present stoicism, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. 

“And what was that like?” she asked.

“Just flashes of what was inside. Sometimes there was something like a...a voice.” The realization struck me like a blow to the chest. Soon. Be prepared to wake… I had thought there had been a familiar sensation throughout the vision; it was the same sensation that appeared when there was another presence in my mind. 

Tulip sat up straight as she caught on. “So you didn’t have a vision—at least not in the traditional sense. Someone or something was planting images in your head.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Penny said. “Why show Tonks in...in that way?”

“My guess?” Tulip said. “One of two reasons. Either someone saw the future and wanted to show it to Lily...or it’s a trick and the images were false.”

“A trick? Something that specific?”

“No offense, but Flores isn’t a hard person to read,” Merula said. “She was watching Tonks duel me. It wouldn’t have been difficult for something to look in her head at that moment and immediately manipulate her fears.” She turned to me. “I’m guessing you haven’t been keeping up with your Occlumency, have you.”

“I’ve been practicing a little,” I said sheepishly, and she rolled her eyes. 

“See? My point exactly,” she sighed. “You don’t know if what you saw will come true, so you guys need to cut this out. You’ll make yourselves die sooner if you keep worrying.”

All the attention was on her. She appeared calm, nonchalant even, and it had a ripple effect. Penny and Tulip both relaxed a fraction, and it felt like a collective sigh had been released from the room. But that didn’t prevent a weight from remaining, pressing down on all our chests. Now it was my turn to narrow my eyes suspiciously. I doubted Merula was really as collected as she seemed.

Suddenly, panic shot through her features, and I jumped as something slammed into the sofa by my head. Penny struck again, this time connecting with my shoulder. “Don’t...you...dare...keep”—with every word, she struck me, and with every blow I flinched—“something...like that...a secret!” She raised her hand once more, and both poor Tulip and I shrunk away, although she didn’t strike. “Lilianna Flores, if something this big ever happens again, you tell us. Us, your friends. You don’t keep it to yourself. Got it?”

“Crikey, Haywood,” Merula said, reaching out to grab Penny’s arm. “I don’t think you need to—”

Penny rounded on her with such a stone-hardening glare that she stumbled back with her hands raised and, to my disbelief, actual fear on her face. “Don’t,” Penny growled, pointing a finger at Merula’s chest. 

“Hey, I was going to say the same thing,” Merula said, her hands still by her head. “You beat me to it.”

I rubbed my shoulder. Crikey was right—Penny could hit hard. “Are we done with this?” I asked, my voice coming out closer to a whine than I meant it to. “Please?”

“No!” Penny shouted. “Not until we talk about the fact that something got so far inside your head that it physically hurt you. Or the fact that something might want to hurt you. Or...or all of it!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Merula said. “It doesn’t!” she insisted when Penny rounded on her again. “I’ve spent enough time with my parents’ stuff to know that anything that tries to get in your mind is bad, no matter what the intention is. The only solution is Occlumency, which I swear, Flores, if you don’t start practicing harder, I will—”

“I will!” I exclaimed, alarmed at the sudden hostility I was receiving from multiple directions. “I promise.”

“You better.”

Penny studied my face, and her expression softened. “Okay,” she murmured, squeezing my hand in silent apology. “Okay, we can be done with this, but only if you rest, and...” she glanced over her shoulder, “and if you do what Merula says.”

I nodded, but unexpectedly, a drop of fear slipped through the potion’s cracks. What if the visions came again while I slept, even with my weak Occlumency? I didn’t want to see what kept flickering behind my eyes. Not right now.

“You can lean on me,” Tulip said, and I did. As I curled up on the sofa, I rested against her and closed my eyes. It was a familiar position. When Rowan had died and everyone else had been a mess, Tulip had seemed to come out of nowhere to take care of me. On the nights in the dorm when I had woken up screaming and Skye and Badeea hadn’t known what to do, Tulip had been the one to calm me down. This girl, the one that had always favored logic over emotion, had hugged me while I cried and lain next to me to ensure I felt safe falling asleep. To this day, I loved her for it, but I also wished it hadn’t been necessary, including in this moment. This entire situation was bringing back memories I normally kept buried. 

With my head against her, I felt every breath she took, and though she hid it well, that included the inconsistent frequency at which the air passed through her lungs. “Tulip,” I said, without opening my eyes.

Taking another, deeper breath, she whispered with unusually transparent anxiety, “I don’t envy you. It sounds horrible to say, but I don’t. I don’t want—” I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through. I didn’t need to read her mind to know her thoughts. 

“I know.”

And I didn’t blame her. In the twenty-two years that I had been alive, I wouldn’t have envied myself for a single day. But the story I lived was rarely about me. More often, it was about the people that I failed to protect. 

After a while, Merula and Penny began to chat in the kitchen, their voices low and at ease, which was an odd contrast to the shouting that had taken place over the last hour. Their words washed over me, unintelligible yet soothing enough that I was able to retreat to a safe place inside of me. Occlumency was the practice of clearing the mind of thoughts and emotions. In order to accomplish it, I needed to be blank, empty, at peace…

A gasp snapped me out of my near stupor, rudely dragging me back to full consciousness. “Oh, Merula, I’m so sorry!” Penny exclaimed. “I’ve had Wiggenweld Potion on my belt this entire time.”

Merula chuckled softly. “I knew.”

“You...knew?”

“Haywood, you carry every potion on that belt.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t tried.”

“I’d prefer to tell you to belt up instead.”

Merula chuckled again, and Penny quietly joined in. This right here was my messy little family, the people that fought to protect me as often as I fought to protect them. I just hoped that, for once, I had the ability to return the favor...before it was too late.

Chapter Text

January 1996

The new year arrived in bold—almost literally. The first month had barely begun before disaster struck, and by the following morning, every witch and wizard in the country was doing the same thing: staring at the cover of the Daily Prophet with nauseating horror and dread. 

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN

“We have confirmed that ten high-security prisoners, in the early hours of yesterday evening, did escape,” Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge told Daily Prophet reporters. “And of course, the Muggle Prime Minister has been alerted to the danger. We strongly suspect—”

Penny ripped the newspaper from my hands before I could get halfway through the article, and I had to quickly pull my legs back as she slammed it down next to me on the countertop. She bent over the paper and ran her finger over the lines of black words, her lips moving as she muttered something that I had to lean forward to catch. “...Dolohov, Rookwood, Travers, Mulciber…”

“Snyde?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer. 

She paused, brought her finger up to the top of the paper, and traced it down again. “No,” she said finally. “At least, they don’t mention it here. I’m not too familiar with any of these names, except…” She pointed at a picture: a headshot of a gaunt woman with a wild mess of dark hair and with even wilder and darker eyes.

I read the name beneath it. “Bellatrix Lestrange? That’s—”

“Tonks’s aunt, yes,” she finished for me, a slight waver in her voice. “Lily, you don’t think…”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I told you, I didn’t see her attacker.”

This was far from the first time I had said so, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. In the weeks that had passed since the duel, I had not been assaulted by another vision, but that had not prevented the barrage of questions I had received from my friends in that time, especially after I had told them about the voice. As much as I enjoyed their company, I was ashamed to admit that I had been relieved when Tulip and Merula had left, leaving me only with Penny. Penny had done her best to restrain herself, but even when she succeeded, I could feel her anxious thoughts from across the room. They were too loud to miss.

Make that another reason to keep up with my Occlumency. 

I had really tried at first, honestly. Merula had even stayed in town for the rest of the week to make sure of it (or so she claimed). I had meditated every night, willing myself to be calm and empty, but as the month came to an end and the shock of the incident began to fade, my desire to know the truth began to outweigh my fear of what I would see. My nightly meditation became half-hearted, and sometimes I would skip it entirely. In those instances, I continued to retire to my room early to keep up appearances for Penny, but I would usually be reading instead, trying to find out anything I could on Legilimency and Sight—so far to no avail. Just as I had failed to have another vision, I had failed to find anything I didn’t already know. 

Tulip and Merula had separately promised to do their own research once they returned home. I suspected they had underlying motivations, which became evident when each had chosen to individually corner me when I had been alone. Tulip had wanted more details about what I had seen of Tonks, and although I gave her everything I could, I could tell she was frustrated by the lack of certainty. Merula, on the other hand, had pressed about the first half of my vision. She knew I was hiding something, and knowing she was too smart to be fooled, I didn’t bother to pretend otherwise. But I still didn’t tell her the truth. I wouldn’t, not until I found more information. 

To say she was also frustrated when she left would be an understatement. I understood though, more than they knew. It was hard not to spend every waking minute obsessing over what I had seen, trying to find some hint that it wasn’t real, or if it was, that it could be prevented. I had barely slept in weeks, and I had nothing to show for it. 

Now, the newspaper that was sitting with me on the counter was far from reassuring. Ten Death Eaters had escaped Azkaban—those were ten murderers and psychopaths that hated people like Penny and Tonks with every drop of pure blood in their veins, and Tonks was related to one of them. If Bellatrix Lestrange came after her niece…

“They’re blaming Sirius Black for it,” Penny said, having returned to the paper. 

“Of course they are,” I muttered. “Merlin forbid the Ministry owns up to anything.”

“Then that means…?”

“I’m assuming so.” It was impossible for a person to fight their way in or out of Azkaban, no matter how skilled they were, so that could only mean one thing: the Ministry of Magic was no longer in control of the Dementors. “Can you do me a favor?” I asked. “Please practice the Patronus Charm. I don’t want to take any chances.”

She nodded resolutely and handed me back the paper. “You don’t need to tell me,” she said. “I got attacked by a Dementor once. I’m not going through it again.”

“Good.”

We were in the shop area of the apothecary. It was my shift, so I was in my usual cross-legged position on the main counter. There was a chair behind it of course, but I got antsy when I had to sit in it for too long. Being on the counter was comforting for some odd reason, although Penny often made cat jokes when she caught me up there. But neither of us were in the mood for joking today. 

“I’m going to finish Mrs. Byrne’s order,” she said. “Are you okay by yourself?”

“I’m sure I can handle it,” I said lightly. 

“Call me if you need anything,” she said, and disappeared into the back. 

I had no qualms about asking her for help, but I doubted that I would need it. There was an air of apprehension over the entire town. I had felt it in the unusually silent streets when I had stepped outside to tend to the plants. People were afraid, and fear tended to keep people indoors—at least until the initial panic wore off. 

Or not, I thought as the bell over the front door jingled. I turned to welcome the unexpected customer, but my rehearsed greeting vanished from my mind at the sight of a scrawny, curly-haired boy in Slytherin robes. He walked into the shop hesitantly, with his shoulders scrunched and his head on a swivel, like he was expecting someone to leap out from behind the shelves. 

“Hi there,” I said as he shuffled up to the counter. “Robin, right?” He nodded, his eyes aimed more to my left than at me. “I don’t think I properly introduced myself. I’m Lily.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, his voice as small and quiet as his appearance. 

“Are you doing all right?”

His shoulders snapped back down, as if surprised that I had asked. “I...I’m fine,” he said, his eyes dropping to my feet. “That’s thanks to you, I guess.” His words drifted off without coming to a full stop, so I patiently withheld my response, waiting to see what he had to say, but his mouth clamped shut as his eyes locked on something on the counter. 

I followed his gaze and then gave him a reassuring smile as I held up the newspaper that lay next to me. “Are you worried?” I asked softly. “About your parents maybe?”

He returned the smile with a tinge of wryness, and then slowly, he shook his head. “No, they didn’t escape.”

“You’re certain.” There was no question. 

“I don’t really think they could have crawled out of their graves, so, yes, pretty much.”

I swung my legs off the counter so I could face him directly. I didn’t know what surprised me more, the revelation or the sarcasm, and both left me speechless. 

“Sorry, that didn’t sound as bad in my head,” he said with a grimace. “You really don’t need to worry about them though. They died in Azkaban a few years back. Stopped eating apparently.” 

The emotionlessness of his delivery sent chills down my spine, and yet it was unsurprising. Every child of Death Eaters I had met always spoke of their parents in this same way, sounding dull and detached as if they were reading a chapter of a history textbook. But I knew it was just a front, and often a necessary one. They had to keep their real feelings buried deep, if only for the sake of their own survival.

“But are you worried?” I repeated. “Do you feel safe when you’re not at Hogwarts?”

He rubbed one arm, still not looking at me. “Safe enough. My aunt and uncle take care of me. They don’t have a lot of money, so the neighborhood is kind of rough, but they’re good people. Good enough for the rest of my family to disown them anyway.”

“That’s good.” 

“Why?” The question was so sudden that I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly. I raised my eyebrows, and his shoulders curled forward, making him smaller. “I, uh...I mean…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “You keep being nice to me, even after Samantha said the things she did. No one does that. I want to know why.”

“Why I helped you?”

“Yeah.”

I wanted to be shocked by this sentiment—the idea that it was uncommon to do the right thing for its own sake—but again I wasn’t. I had come across far too many twisted and broken people for that to be the case. “I just know what it’s like,” I said gently, “being judged for something your family did. It’s not something you should have to suffer for.”

There was a pause. Then, “Madam Snyde said something like that,” he quietly told the ground. “She said that you were a good person to talk to.”

“Merula said that?” I asked, holding back my amusement. Never in my life had I heard her called “Madam Snyde,” and you could bet your wand that I was going to tease her about it the next time I saw her.

“Well, er, that was the translated version.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Professor Flitwick did too. He called Samantha and me to his office after I got back. And I don’t know what he said to her ’cause he spoke with us separately, but she hasn’t bothered me since then. So, uh, I guess I should thank you for that too.”

I gave him another smile. “You’re welcome. If something like this happens again, don’t be afraid to tell me. Or Professor Flitwick. I know he’s not your Head of House, but he cares about all his students.”

Finally daring to lift his head, he hesitantly met my eyes and returned the smile, genuinely this time. “I think I will.”

“How do you feel about keeping me company until the end of my shift? It’s a slow day today, not many people out and about.”

“Maybe not today,” he said apologetically. “I need to go before I get in trouble. But…” He stumbled over his words for a moment, and then finished quickly, “Is it all right if I come back?” 

“Of course. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“Thank you...Lily? Thank you, Lily. Thanks.”

I laughed. “See you later, Robin.”

With a sheepish grin, he left the shop, looking significantly happier as he walked out the door than he had walking in. 

I slid off the counter, taking a moment to stretch before I sat back down to finish my shift. It occurred to me as I rolled my shoulders that Robin’s skulking posture was similar to Merula’s, albeit far more timid, and I tucked that realization away in my mind for future reference. Thank Merlin he seemed open to accepting help because, the second he had entered with his ducked head and lowered eyes, I had already made up my mind to protect this boy whether he wanted me to or not.

Merula had often mocked me in the past for my tendency to take in outcasts without question. Good thing she was a complete hypocrite. We were all children of the First War, and if we wanted to survive the next one, then we needed to stick together—regardless of blood. 

* * * *

As Penny had pointed out, with the exception of Lestrange, there were no familiar names in the story on the Azkaban breakout, but Robin’s visit got me thinking. While it wasn’t always the case, there were children of Death Eaters that wanted nothing to do with their parents, but that didn’t mean that they were safe from that world. The fact that Merula had already been approached proved it, so who was to say that others weren’t at risk?

It didn’t help that the Ministry was covering up what really happened either. Fudge was in denial, and that denial was making him easy to manipulate. If he wasn’t the source of the misinformation, then someone was, and there was a good chance that someone could have twisted other information as well. The question was, information about what?

In an attempt to find an answer, I spent the next several weeks sending letters to different parts of the nation and, in some cases, different parts of the world. The first response arrived at my bedroom window one evening, attached to the leg of a large snowy owl that I had rented from the post office, and I tore the letter off as fast as I could without hurting it. Aeris hissed indignantly from his perch as the white-feathered bird nicked one of his owl treats, but I barely noticed, distracted by the sloppy handwriting of one of my favorite fellow Magizoologists. 

Dear Lily,

Thank you for checking up on me, but I’m fine, I promise! Things are going great, and I’m really happy here. I think we discovered a new arctic species of puffskein. They are just like regular puffskeins, only bigger and fluffier and pure white! I’ll include a picture so you can see them too. They are very cute. I’m trying to figure out what they eat since there aren’t many insect species here. I hope it’s not the butterflies or ladybirds. Maybe weevils? I don’t really like weevils. 

Greenland is really cold and isolated, so there aren’t many people out here. That would have made me sad in the past, but right now it seems like a good thing. I am sad that you’re not with me though. I hope you liked the pictures I sent Penny, especially the puffskein one. Maybe I can set a new record with the arctic puffskeins. What do you think?

You are really smart, so you have probably figured out that I’m stalling. I don’t like talking about this, but you are my friend and you really care about helping your friends, so I will help you too. You’re right, my parents were part of the breakout from Azkaban. It’s strange that the Daily Prophet doesn’t mention them, but I can guarantee both of them have the Dark Mark. I’ve seen it. Neither have tried to reach me, and I want it to stay that way. Dad always said I was too weak to be a Death Eater, so I hope he still believes that. 

You asked about our other Slytherin friends. I don’t know much, but I know some things. Merula’s parents broke out too, but I don’t think she has been in touch with them either. She hasn’t been sending me letters as often now though. Liz is okay. Her family doesn’t have any direct ties to Death Eaters, and she is going to keep staying in Brazil to be safe. 

Ismelda I am worried about. The Murks are traditionally a family of Gryffindors, they have never had any connection to You-Know-Who, so I have never believed her talk about the Killing Curse and the Dark Lord and all that stuff, but now I’m not so sure. She hasn’t returned an owl in months. I really hope she hasn’t gotten herself in trouble. I mean, all that stuff was just an act, right? She never meant any of it?

My hand is cramping, so I should probably stop writing now or I won’t be able to hold the new puffskeins. Let me know what you think about everything, and stay safe, okay? I’m not close enough to Apparate to you if you get in trouble, so that means you have to take care of yourself until I can see you again. Or, if you decide to join me in Greenland, I wouldn’t mind!

Love,

Barnaby

P.S. You didn’t send Aeris. Is he all right?

I read through Barnaby’s letter multiple times before I fully processed it, not having expected my suspicions to be confirmed. Both his and Merula’s parents had escaped? It was one thing for the Daily Prophet to leave details out; it was something else entirely to not mention four additional missing Death Eaters. Barnaby was right to stay away; he would be much safer on a different continent from this one. Liz too. 

I hadn’t heard anything about Ismelda recently either, although that in itself wasn’t concerning. We had never been great friends, so we hadn’t stayed in contact after school. But it was odd for her to stop writing to Barnaby. I was well aware of her obsession with the Dark Arts, but she had channeled it into a career in anthropology, the most harmless thing she could have done. She wasn’t a bad person. Lonely and frustrated and...odd at times, but not a bad person. Admittedly, that loneliness and frustration did make her spiteful on occasion, but surely she was too strong-willed to be taken advantage of?

Except one person had taken advantage of her, in the past. 

I looked at Aeris, and his black eyes narrowed to slits on his heart-shaped face, grumpy that I had allowed the theft of his treats. “Do you feel like flying south for a bit?” I asked him, tossing him another owl treat. Instantly perking up, he began to chirrup excitedly as I prepared another letter, which was a significant change from the ill-tempered behavior he had demonstrated ever since I had hired the post office bird. I had only been acting in his best interest—a trip over the ocean would have been too much for a bird of his age—but I guess I wasn’t the only one that was tired of feeling useless. 

Less than two days later, Aeris returned with the reply, looking ragged but otherwise pleased with himself, and I made sure to praise him as I untied the envelope from his leg. This letter was much shorter than Barnaby’s, and the words were as sharp as they looked. 

Flores,

I had thought you would know to be careful with the kind of questions that you’re asking, but I guess not. Honestly, do you want to get accused of causing a panic? Because I’m sure it would surprise a lot of people to hear that the Ministry is downplaying the Azkaban breakout. Not that anyone would believe you. Only a madwoman would say that more than the ten “high-security” prisoners, including my parents, escaped and that Sirius Black isn’t behind it like the government insists. Completely ludicrous. You’ll never hear me confirm it to be true. 

If you absolutely must know: yes, I’m fine, and no, my parents haven’t tried to contact me. In case you’ve forgotten, they have a less than stellar relationship with Aurors. I have instructions for what to do if anyone does show up, and they are absolutely none of your concern. You should be more worried about yourself. The same goes for Barnaby. Tell him not to worry about Ismelda; I’ll deal with her. Knowing her, she purposefully got herself lost in some old catacombs or something. 

Don’t let the town burn down while I’m back at work. Those are the people you’re supposed to be protecting, not the rest of us. 

M.

What was with everyone telling me to worry about myself? I was starting to get really tired of that, especially now that it was coming from Merula. Like she was the one to talk—if my parents were murderers and had just broken out of prison, my emotional state would be a mess. But that was Merula. She didn’t become a mess; she dealt with things on her own, and it made me want to strangle her. When I had said she worried me sometimes, I had meant it. 

I supposed she was right though. She had her assignment, and I had mine, not to mention that she also knew Ismelda better than anyone. And I was being careless communicating by owl when there was a high risk of interception. I wanted to say that I was annoyed at being left out of the loop and leave it at that, but that was a poor excuse. 

Perhaps I was having a harder time adjusting to my new lifestyle than I had originally thought. It was a big difference to go from traveling every other week to sitting still and just waiting, especially when the Death Eaters were doing anything but. They were out there, threatening my friends, and I could do nothing. 

Regardless of these thoughts, I sent Aeris back out with one last series of letters, but the next day, I was surprised to find a female tawny owl at my window instead. Anxious, I let her sit on his empty perch while I read the two responses she had brought me, starting with the shorter one. 

Lily, 

I passed your message on to Felix, and I am including his response here. The bird carrying these letters is my own. I figured that my reputation at work is good enough that she would be less likely to be intercepted than yours, and frankly your owl looked like he needed a break. Do not worry, he is okay. I will send him back in a few days once he has had time to rest. 

It is good to hear from you, even if it is all business. We should meet for lunch the next time you are in London. I want to know what you have been up to that does not involve spreading chaos (or spending half your time as a prefect in detention—I will never quite forgive you for that). 

Best regards,

Chester

I cringed. The next time I saw my old prefect, I would have a lot of explaining to do, with the possible addition of an apology. And Aeris definitely deserved an apology. It was my fault for sending him to the other end of the island so soon after his last trip. He really couldn’t handle much anymore, could he?

I moved on the second letter, which looked as impossibly prim and proper as Chester’s. 

Lilianna, 

Chester gave me your letter. I know why you reached out, but I am afraid you will be disappointed. My father and brother were both killed in the war, so I do not have much information to give you. All I can say is that you are correct about the Daily Prophet coverup. The ten Death Eaters that were reported to have escaped are part of the Dark Lord’s inner circle, but his influence extends much further than that. There is hierarchy among the Death Eaters, even among those that are Marked, but do not let that fool you into underestimating those beneath the lieutenants. The Lee and Snyde families may be lesser known than the Lestrange and Rosier families, but their devotion to their master is just as strong. 

The Ministry and the Daily Prophet have made the mistake of hoping that people will have forgotten these “lesser” families and their crimes in order to hide just how badly they messed up. The problem with this is that by hiding the fact that there are more than ten escapees, they are failing to warn people about how big the threat they are facing truly is. 

I do not know any more, and even if I did, I would not tell you. None of my family’s old acquaintances have tried to contact me, but I am not counting on it to stay that way for long. By the time Chester sends this letter back to you, I will have returned to tracking dragons in the rainforest, far away from the mess that Europe is about to become. Do not write to me again. I will not be in a place where I can easily be found, and I do not need owls ruining that for me. 

Sincerely,

Felix Rosier

As I reached the signature, I sighed. At this point, Felix was simply confirming what I already knew—or had already guessed, although I doubted that Merula would agree that she was part of a “lesser” family. But that was part of his point. Lesser or not, according to my friends, the Lee and Snyde Death Eaters were insanely fanatical, and now both were secretly on the loose. In other words, this was bad. Extremely bad. 

I didn’t know if this information would be useful, but I decided to pass it on to the Order anyway. If we were really as worse off as Dumbledore claimed, then every little bit had to help. Unfortunately, I couldn’t speak with Dumbledore directly, not while the Ministry’s scrutiny of him continued to increase with each passing minute, but I was able to send a message to Headquarters the next morning. 

“Wow,” Tonks exclaimed when, through the Cauldron’s fireplace, I explained what I had learned. “You’ve been busy.”

“Hardly,” I said. “I’ve barely left the shop.”

She was sitting on the floor before the fireplace, the peeling walls and dusty furniture of the parlor of Number 12 Grimmauld Place visible behind her. I shifted my hands and knees on the brick beneath me as it dug uncomfortably into my skin. Sticking my head into a fire never got any more dignified, no matter how many times I did it. 

“You’ve only been there a month,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re tired of it already.”

Well, I felt guilty when she put it that way. “No, it’s not that. Not exactly.” I shifted my weight to one hand. “I’m just...anxious.”

“We all are,” she said patiently.

“But you actually get to do something.”

Three figures dressed in Muggle clothing entered the far end of the parlor, too distracted by whatever they were whispering about to glance in our direction, and Tonks waited until they had exited out the other side before she responded. “If by do something you mean stand in one spot for hours without moving, then, yes, I get to do something. It’s not like it’s all fun and games over here.”

I winced. “Sorry.”

Crossing her legs, she leaned closer to the fire. “Look, whatever is going through your head right now, cut yourself some slack. Your job is important too.”

“That’s the thing,” I said in exasperation. “I don’t even know what my job is. All Dumbledore told me to do was wait.”

“Then that sounds like what you should do. Dumbledore usually has good reasons for saying the things he does. Not that we ever know what those reasons are, but I’m sure they’re good.”

“I know,” I sighed, well aware that she was being more patient with me than I deserved. 

She chuckled. “I don’t mind you ranting, honest. It’s refreshing, actually. Now you know how we normally feel while you’re charging off on your quests.”

“So, what? This is supposed to be karma?”

“Something like that.”

I playfully rolled my eyes, and she chuckled again. “I don’t need to ask if you’re being careful, right?” I said, returning to seriousness.

Now she rolled her eyes. “You and Tulip,” she said with a shake of her head. “I swear neither of you have left me alone since the breakout. Actually, nobody has left me alone since the breakout. You should see Mad-Eye. If you thought he was paranoid before, he’s gone completely bonkers now. I’m supposed to have someone with me whenever he’s not around—his orders—and it’s driving me insane.”

“That bad?” I asked, hoping I sounded more sympathetic than relieved. 

“Well, maybe not all bad.” She craned her neck, checking if the room was empty before she turned back to me with a grin. “Not when he keeps assigning Remus to be my partner.”

I grinned back at her, all anxiety momentarily forgotten. “Oh, so it’s ‘Remus’ now, is it?” I said slyly.

“Don’t you start,” she said, and then worriedly gave another glance over her shoulder. When she spoke again, she kept her voice low. “But, yes, it’s ‘Remus’ now. He’s really a very sweet guy. Caring, down-to-earth...handsome.”

I snorted and promptly attempted to disguise the sound as a cough. Not fooled, she swatted in my general direction. 

“Isn’t he a lot older though?” I asked. There had to have been at least a decade in age difference, if not more. 

“That doesn’t matter! If anything, it makes him better. Means he’s more experienced. With life!” she added quickly when I snorted again. “Seriously, how old are you?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” I gasped as my apology morphed into laughter. “Nope, I’m not sorry. Wait until Penny hears about this.”

“Don’t you dare tell her!” she ordered. “I’ll never hear the end of it!”

“It would serve you right. What’s that called again? Oh, yeah: karma.”

“Don’t!”

“Tonks?” a voice called from across the room, outside of my line of sight. “Who are you talking to?”

Tonks’s eyes widened, and she scrambled to her feet. “It’s just Lilianna!” she shouted, darting toward the corridor. “Get out of here, Sirius!”

“This is my house! I need to use—hey!”

She had started chucking pillows at him. “Go on! Leave us be!”

A pillow flew back at her, and she ducked, allowing it to sail right over her head into a vase on a table behind her. There was a horrific crash, followed by a terrifying, ear-splitting shriek from the corridor. 

“MUDBLOODS AND BLOOD TRAITORS AND FILTH IN MY HOME! TAINTING THE BLACK FAMILY NAME! GET OUT! GET OUT, ALL OF YOU! LEAVE OR DIE IN A PUDDLE OF YOUR DISGUSTING BLOOD—”

“Now you’ve done it!” Sirius roared. “You get five more minutes, and then I’ll—SHUT UP, YOU HORRIBLE OLD HAG!” His voice drifted away, becoming unintelligible as it merged with the shrieking of the old woman. 

Tonks returned to her spot by the fireplace and calmly waited for the noise to stop, acting as if this was a daily occurrence. 

“I take it that’s my cue to leave,” I said once the screams cut off. 

Rather than answer, she leaned forward and lowered her voice again. “Please, Lily, don’t,” she said, sounding surprisingly desperate. “I’ll tell her myself. Just...just let me have this for a bit.”

Her sincerity sobered me, and I nodded, although I didn’t stop grinning. “You have my word,” I said. “Have fun for me, all right?”

She laughed quietly. “I’ll try.”

“Tonks!” Sirius ordered, storming into the room. 

“Fine! She’s leaving!”

Swallowing my own laughter, I pulled out of the fireplace and straightened my stiff legs, now firmly back in the bumblebee hued living area of the flat. Tonks was clearly having no trouble living her life while this whole mess was going on. The revelation made me happy, certainly, but it also brought about an emotion I couldn’t identify, like there was a smouldering ache deep in my chest, dulling the edges of my amusement. Whatever it was, it was uncomfortable.

“What are you smiling about?”

I glanced up to see Penny leaning against the doorway, her eyes sparkling with good humor. “I’m not allowed to tell,” I said teasingly. 

“Ooh, how scandalous.”

“It is, very much so.”

She began to cross the room but paused and angled her body toward me, squinting at something above my eye level. “I think you have soot in your hair,” she said, pointing. 

“Huh? Where?” I wildly dragged my fingers along the side of my head. 

“Hold still, I got it.” Facing me, she reached her hand up to brush it out, and I went rigid as her fingers grazed my neck. I gazed nonchalantly across the room and attempted to breathe normally, as if I wasn’t bothered by the fact that she was close enough for me to smell the lavender on her skin. Oblivious to my distress, she held up the ends of my hair in order to inspect them, giving a thoughtful hum as she did so. “It’s almost at your shoulders,” she noted. “I could cut it for you this weekend, if you want.”

“I would like that, thank you.”

She moved on to her bedroom, and only then did my throat relax enough to allow me to take in oxygen again. I felt kind of giddy, but in a pleasant way.

Oh. Oh, no. This was one feeling I was not supposed to like. 

Still...maybe Tonks had the right idea. If I was going to be stuck waiting for a while, then there was nothing wrong with living life in the meantime. What was it that I had told Merula about taking the moments of peace as they come? 

I brought my hand to my neck, right where Penny’s fingers had been, and concluded that there were some moments that would be nice to have more of, at least for now.

Chapter Text

February 1996

“Try moving it now. How does that feel?”

Conall flexed his arm, moving it with ease. “It’s perfect,” he said in relief. “Still can’t believe I broke it though.”

I returned my wand to its sheath on my belt. “Could’ve happened to anyone. The ice seems to come out of nowhere sometimes.”

He smiled and shook his head, not believing me. “How much do I owe you?”

“The spell took two seconds. It’s on the house.”

“I can’t accept that.”

“You can and you will. Consider it a discount for a regular customer.”

“You’re a saint, Lily. You truly are.”

I laughed. “I don’t think your father would agree.”

“Nonsense,” he said, and then amended his statement when I raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, he would like you if he got to know you.”

“It doesn’t bother me, really.”

After two months of working at the Scarlett Cauldron, I was gradually becoming acquainted with the locals of Hogsmeade. Conall Darrow and his father, Logan, lived next door, where together they ran a wand and broom repair business. Apparently Conall and I had attended Hogwarts at the same time, but because he was a few years older and had been in Hufflepuff, we had never met, although he certainly knew of my family reputation. Fortunately, he had only ever been friendly toward me, and I enjoyed holding conversations about wand wood whenever he came into the shop. Penny called him handsome, and I supposed I could see it with his dirty-blond hair, scruffy stubble beard, and broad-shouldered frame, but he wasn’t really my type. 

Logan Darrow, on the other hand, had been the opposite of pleasant from the moment he had learned my name. He had never been outright hostile during our brief interactions, but he had the tendency to scowl in my presence, and he rarely initiated conversation unless it was to complain about something. At first, I had assumed that he was simply a bitter old man, but then I learned that Penny had never had the same problem. That wasn’t too much of a surprise; everyone liked Penny. But I got the sense that his dislike of me was much more personal. 

Conall shrugged, looking a little sheepish. “Speaking of, do you have Dad’s order ready?”

“I think so. Let me check.” I walked over to the stacks of crates that lined one wall of the brewing room and skimmed through the labels on each of them until I found the one that I was looking for. “Yep, here it is,” I said, handing the crate of vials over to Conall. “Penny can ring it up in the front.”

Holding out his arms with trepidation, he accepted the crate and then broke out into a grin when his newly mended bone held up. “Right, thank you.”

I followed him out into the main part of the shop where Penny was stationed by the counter, sitting in the chair like a normal person. She greeted Conall happily when she saw him. “I see the arm’s all better,” she said.

“Good as new,” he said. “She won’t let me pay her for it though.”

“Of course not. Twelve Sickles for the potion batch will be enough.”

“Told you,” I said.

He chuckled and set the crate down on the counter in order to count out the money. “In that case, it’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

“How’s your father doing?” Penny asked as she accepted the silver coins. “He hasn’t come in here in a while.”

“He’s doing fine. I think the cold weather is hard on his joints, is all,” he said, although I noticed his eyes slide in my direction. “On the bright side, that means I get to see more of you lovely ladies in his place.”

Penny pretended to shyly duck her head, but she was grinning broadly. “Oh, well, I suppose it’s not all bad then. But if he needs something for that, let me know.”

“Will do.” Purchases in hand, he bid us both farewell and strode—or I would dare say strutted out the door with his head held high and chest puffed out. Penny giggled at his intentionally exaggerated exit. 

I waited until he was no longer visible from the front windows before I said, “He was flirting with you.”

“Was he?” Penny asked innocently, not looking at me as she marked the Sickles in the ledger. 

“You were blushing.”

“What?” she gasped, her head shooting up in time to catch my cheeky expression. She lightly smacked my shoulder with the book. “Was not!”

“Gotcha,” I teased. 

She wrinkled her nose at me and reopened the ledger. “Anyway, he was flirting with both of us.”

“Yeah, but only one of us isn’t gay.”

“That’s true.” While she stared intently at the page before her, the quill in her hand was still. After a long pause, she asked, “What do you think my chances are?”

Snorting in disbelief, I turned away and began to walk back into the brewing room. 

“What does that mean?” she called after me. “Lily!”

I didn’t answer. Penny was brilliant in so many ways, being both intellectually and emotionally intelligent, but if she thought she didn’t have a chance with Conall—or any potential romantic partner for that matter—then that was just stupid. Guys had been lining up for her for years; the only issue was that none of them could keep up with her.

I could, but I didn’t count. 

The weird smouldering feeling returned as my chest tightened, and I had to brace a hand against the cool stone of the brewing room wall as I reclaimed my breath. This wasn’t fair. Even after all this time, I still couldn’t get over it, and I was beginning to feel like I was cursed. 

But that was okay. If Penny and Conall and everyone else were happy, then that was all that mattered. My stupid heartache wasn’t nearly as important, no matter how often it hurt to breathe. 

* * * *

Besides the Darrows, I was becoming familiar with the other regulars of the Scarlett Cauldron. There were those that I was already acquainted with. Madam Rosmerta frequently ordered Wide-Eye and cleaning potions to help manage the Three Broomsticks, and Aberforth Dumbledore often came by with requests from the Hogshead Inn patrons (although their tastes were far more questionable). Silvanus Kettleburn had even come in a few times for Fire-Protection Potions to carry with him on his trips to the dragon reserves. I especially enjoyed his visits. It was nice to see that my old professor was doing retirement right. 

Then there were those that were new to me. One of my favorite customers was an elderly witch by the name of Dana Byrne. Formerly a tailor, she was now retired and often needed draughts to help steady her shaky hands, but that didn’t stop her from acting years younger than she actually was. Contrary to Mr. Darrow, she had taken a shine to me from our first meeting and always went out of her way to talk to me if we passed each other on the street. She even brought over the occasional home-cooked meal or basket of baked goods in exchange for her monthly potions, which was an arrangement that both Penny and I were very happy with. 

Robin had continued to come by as well, hanging out in the shop while I carried out my shift. I initiated conversation more often than he did, and even then we rarely talked about anything serious, our topics ranging from school rumors (“Do you really think Professor Snape is a vampire?”) to some of my adventures overseas. Most of the time, he elected to sit quietly in the corner and do his homework, but I enjoyed his company regardless. I also felt better about his well-being when he was somewhere that I could see him, especially now that he was beginning to look a little less scrawny. 

Robin wasn’t the only student to become a repeat visitor to the Cauldron. Mason, the red-headed fifth-year Hufflepuff from the Gobstones match, had begun to drop in from time to time as well. And, unlike Robin, he was very talkative. But I didn’t mind that either. An aspiring Magizoologist, he had been ecstatic to learn about my previous work with magical creatures, and we had passed quite a bit of time discussing everything from Newt Scamander to which dragon species would win in a fight. 

“Woah, no way,” he exclaimed, leaning forward excitedly in his chair. “You can see thestrals?”

“I can,” I said, shifting to a more comfortable position on the countertop. “I’ve been able to since I was eight, I think. A great-uncle caught dragon pox too late in his life.”

Like a light dimming, his excitement faded. “Oh,” he said, sounding unusually subdued. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He was old, and I didn’t know him that well.” 

Still, it had been hard to forget. I remembered standing in a blindingly white room, surrounded by sobbing family members, while my uncle lay too still in a hospital bed, his skin a horrible greenish hue. One moment he had been there, breathing shallowly, and the next moment he hadn’t. It had been the first time I had truly grasped the concept of death. But it hadn’t been the last—or the worst. 

“I wish I could see them though,” Mason said wistfully. “I mean, I don’t. I really don’t. But I do.”

“No, I understand. They’re beautiful creatures, in a weird, dark way.” I thought for a moment. I was tempted to show him the thestral herd, but getting too close to the Forbidden Forest probably wasn’t a good idea with current tensions. “Are you doing anything this afternoon? I could take you out to the creature reserve. Nowhere near the forest, but we could probably find a knarl or porlock in the grasslands. Maybe an abraxan if we’re lucky.”

“Really?” He bounced in his seat, and even his freckles seemed to become brighter. “I’d love that! Can we go now? I’m ready to go now.”

I held my hands up, my palms out. “Slow down there,” I said in amusement. “My shift doesn’t end for another hour, remember? And I need to make a delivery today too. We can go afterwards.”

He pumped his fist in the air. “Wicked!”

The front bell chimed, and I craned my body forward to see past Mason to the figure that was carefully stepping through the door. Recognizing the small form swamped in green-trimmed robes, I was ready to give him my usual greeting, but I was beaten to it. “Hey!” Mason called out cheerfully. “I know you!”

Robin froze mid-step, his brown eyes going round like a jackalope caught in a wandlight. 

“You’re Robin Feare, right?” Mason asked. Robin nodded slowly, eyeing the older Hufflepuff boy warily, but if Mason noticed the Slytherin’s guardedness, he didn’t show it as he continued. “Professor Sprout talks about you. She says you’re the best Herbologist in your year!”

“Is that so?” I said, trying to keep a straight face as Robin gaped at him. 

Ears flushing a shade darker, Robin ducked his head and mumbled something about “an exaggeration.”

“Of course it’s not!” Mason replied. “You know how seriously Professor Sprout takes Herbology. There’s no way she would lie about something like that.”

That was certainly true. There was no telling how many times I had seen the professor on the verge of tears after Tonks had killed yet another plant. And one time I had thought she would murder Billingsley when he broke off a branch of the Whomping Willow on a dare—never mind that he had already broken his ribs in the process. 

Mason jumped out of his chair and held out his hand to the startled Robin. “Mason Bellamy. It’s nice to meet you.”

Lightly grasping his hand, Robin gave it a limp shake. “Robin. I mean, you already know that. Er…” He winced, his ears flushing even darker. “I, uh...nice to meet you too.”

“You like Herbology then, Robin?” I asked.

Robin dropped Mason’s hand and turned toward me, looking relieved at the diversion. “Yeah!” he said with more enthusiasm than I had heard from him yet. Or at all. But he was quick to smother it, and he attempted a nonchalant shrug before he continued, his voice forced back to a calmer level. “Er...it’s a nice hobby, I guess. Relaxing.”

I chuckled. “Well, I’ll tell you what. Mason and I are going out into the creature reserve this afternoon. If you want to tag along, I can show you our greenhouse afterwards. You might find some plants there that Professor Sprout hasn’t shown you yet...as long as you don’t tell her that.”

The facade shattered instantly as his face lit up. “Really? Oh, yes, thank you!”

“This is great!” Mason exclaimed, grinning at Robin. “Hey, you want to help me get some milk from the kitchens beforehand?”

Robin’s forehead wrinkled. “What for?”

“For the knarls of course! We won’t be able to tell them apart from hedgehogs otherwise. Come on, we can grab some snacks while we’re at it too.” Mason was already halfway to the door.

Overwhelmed and still a little wide-eyed, Robin looked at me uncertainly. “Go have fun,” I told him. “I’ll send you boys an owl when I’m finished here.”

With a nod, he sped after Mason, asking, “We’re not going to get in trouble for this, are we?”

“Only if we get caught.”

“Wait, what?” The door drifted shut, cutting off the remainder of Robin’s startled exclamation. 

I laughed again, the sound addressing nothing other than the shelves and vials of the empty shop. Maybe I was being a bad influence, but I also had the suspicion that they needed no help getting themselves into trouble. There was a reason both my Head of House and my old prefect had taught me to duel; it was better to learn how to get out of trouble than to never get in it in the first place. 

On the other hand, there was also a reason why I spent over a year in detention, so maybe I wasn’t the best authority on the subject either.

* * * *

“Lilianna, I am forever in your debt.”

“I only walked five blocks.”

“Well, that’s more than I did, isn’t it?”

“Mrs. Byrne,” I chided lightly. 

“Fine, fine,” she sighed, leaning dramatically against the doorframe. “Not in the mood for my humor today, I see.”

“No, that’s not—” I started to protest, but I broke off when she smiled broadly, her gray eyes crinkled with mischief. “Only when that humor is self-deprecating,” I said dryly instead. 

“Good lass,” she laughed. 

Dana Byrne wasn’t a big woman—a little on the stout side, maybe, but still under a meter and a half in height. Despite her small size, however, she had a powerful laugh, one that was much bigger than herself, and it was one that I heard enjoyably often. There was something about her that made her look like a fun person. Maybe it was her wild curly hair that refused to lose the last of its brown, or maybe it was the fact that she always smiled with her eyes even when she didn’t with her lips. Whatever it was, be it five blocks or five kilometers, I would gladly deliver a crate of potions to this woman anytime, over any distance. 

“How are you doing?” I asked. 

“Better than before. It’s heartbreak, I’m telling you. As soon as Ronan gets home from his trip, all the aches and pains will disappear, mark my words.”

“Well, until then, the draught should help.”

“That it should. Do you want to come in for a biscuit or two before you walk back?”

I shook my head. “Not today. I promised to take some kids on a fieldtrip after this.”

“Ooh, how fun. Let me know how it goes then.”

“Will do.”

Although it wasn’t far from the Cauldron, the part of the village where Mrs. Byrne lived contained more residences than shops, and as a result, the few people that were out and about weren’t lingering to window shop. It was quiet here, and there was more space between the buildings than there was on the High Street, allowing for more privacy for their occupants. I enjoyed the peacefulness of my walks in this direction, and if I didn’t have somewhere to be, then sometimes I would continue down the road towards the hills where the houses split into farms.

It would be refreshing to get out with the boys later, I thought as I walked back toward the center of town. I had almost completely lost my tan, a sure sign that I had been inside too much these past two months. 

Lost in my head as my mind jumped from one random thought to the next, I rounded a corner and then was snapped back to reality as I nearly collided with a black-robed figure going the opposite direction. They leapt back, startled. “Sorry!” I exclaimed. “That’s my fault. I—” My apology tripped over itself when I recognized the black braid and the strong build of the person in front of me. It was the Ravenclaw girl that had cursed Robin—Samantha Leigh. 

Recognizing me as well, her face blanched, and she promptly spun on her heel and fast-walked away. 

“Hey, wait!” I called and began to jog after her. She picked up her pace. “I just want to talk!”

She broke into a full sprint, her robes flying behind her as she darted down an empty street. Acting more on instinct than any conscious decision, I shifted, trading hair for fur, hands for paws, and nails for claws. The world grew bigger, and distant rooftops that I had once seen with perfect clarity now became fuzzy. Colors lost their richness and dulled to shades of blue and green. But I didn’t need good eyesight to keep up with her—all sounds and smells had intensified to aid me. I could hear each thud of her shoes on the ground and smell the strangely familiar herbal scent that trailed in her footsteps. 

I bounded after her, my paws lightly striking the damp stone beneath them—stone that rapidly transitioned into dirt as the street morphed into a narrow path leading away from the houses. A large, dark mass rose in the near distance. Ah, the Shrieking Shack. Apparently I was scarier than a haunted house. 

I didn’t give her the time to get more than thirty meters; I shot past her, turned on my tail, and then shifted back, blocking her escape route. She skidded to a stop, gaping at me in shock. “You—you’re a cat!” she gasped. 

“Part time, yes,” I said. “Why’d you run?”

Quick to compose herself, she molded her features into a defensive scowl and drew her wand. “I don’t need to talk to you,” she spat. 

Eyeing her wand, I stated matter-of-factly, “You’re not going to fight me.”

“Oh, really? Watch this. Flipendo! ”

She was stunningly fast, but she had also given me plenty of warning. In one swift motion, I drew my wand and slashed it in front of me, and the air shimmered as the spell rebounded off my shield and into the ground. I returned a spell without a word, and in the next moment, her wand was in my other hand. 

“Hey!” she protested. 

I studied the pale wood. “This is fir, right?” I said, holding the handle out to her. “Wands like these aren’t big fans of indecisiveness.”

She roughly snatched it from my hand. “I’m not indecisive.”

“Obviously not. But it’s not responding as well as it could be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded. 

“Let me see your stance.”

Despite narrowing her eyes at me, she bent her knees, shifted one foot behind the other, and raised her arm. I circled her, giving the occasional light touch to her elbow or heel to get her to adjust to the right position. “See, you’re too solid,” I said. “You still need to be able to move.”

“What?”

“Do you play Quidditch?”

She frowned. “Yeah. Beater.”

I had thought as much. “Me too. So, you should know that Beaters need to be fast and precise as well as strong and sturdy. Think of spells as bludgers. When you’re launching them, you need to be smart about the timing and direction of your attack and not rely only on the strength you use to hit them. When one is coming at you, you need to be fast enough to dodge or retaliate or else you might get hurt. Make sense?”

“I think so.”

“Good.” Drawing my wand again, I took a few steps back. “I’m going to try to disarm you again. I want you to either block— Protego ”—I repeated the slashing motion with my wand—“or dodge.” I swung one leg to the side and leaned backward. “Ready? Expelliarmus! ”

The jet of red light shot towards her, but this time she moved her feet and leaned out of the way. It flew past her, sparking against the ground a ways down the path. 

“Good!” I praised. “Now try doing the same to—”

“ Everte Statum! ”

Before I could blink, I was tossed through the air and crashed to the ground on my back, jolting the air from my lungs. My chest stung where the spell had struck me, and I clawed at it, desperately gasping for breath. “That’s…better,” I coughed. “Much better.”

Her face smirked down at me, blurry through my watery eyes, and she silently offered a hand. I shakily accepted it, and she pulled me to my feet. 

“I had my guard down though,” I said.

Her smirk didn’t fade. “I’m sure you did.”

I chuckled at that. Maybe my ego was a little dented, but I wouldn’t admit it.

“Why teach me this?” she asked abruptly. “How do you know I won’t use it to hurt someone?”

The thought had crossed my mind. But I wanted to take a chance. Now it was a matter of whether it would pay off. “I don’t,” I said. “I only know that knowing this could mean the difference between life and death. Better to live to see another day, I think—no matter who you are.” Well...it almost didn’t matter who. 

“Hmph. You’re more useful than our Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor at least.”

So I had heard. I supposed I could take that as a compliment. “I’m Lily,” I said, perhaps a little too hopefully. 

She scowled again. “I still don’t have to talk to you.”

“That’s okay.”

“Well, uh...bye then,” she mumbled and stalked off towards the heart of the village without so much as a thank you. I watched her rapidly retreating back thoughtfully, allowing her time to gain some distance from me before I returned to the Cauldron. It had been worth a shot.

After about a minute, I took a step in the same direction and immediately winced as pain spiked through my ribs. That had certainly been a good shot. And I still had to make the trip out into the creature reserve. Dear Merlin, this afternoon was going to be rougher than I had expected. 

* * * *

Hogwarts students weren’t granted another trip to Hogsmeade until the end of the month, so after two weeks of nonstop work, I spent the days leading up to it in a good mood. I had begun to look forward to boys’ visits almost as much as they did. Maybe it was because they reminded me of the happier moments of my school days, but the enthusiasm with which they asked questions and desired to learn was contagious. When Mason had successfully coaxed the knarl we had found out of hiding, he had gazed at it with such a wonderstruck expression that I was forced to regard the tiny common creature in a new light. And when Robin had stepped into the greenhouse, he had practically become a whole new person, buzzing around the plants in chatty excitement (“Did you know that touching the bark of a wiggentree is supposed to protect you from evil?”—“Belladonna is so fascinating, isn’t it? It can be used both as a poison and a homeopathic medicine.”—“Ooh, what’s that?”).

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” Penny told me one morning in the brewing room. She was grinding up griffin claws with a mortar and pestle, and her nose was wrinkled as she struggled to work away at the tough material. “I saw all those times you worked with first-years when you were a prefect. You’ve always been good with people.”

“Not like you,” I said. “Everyone likes you. And I mean everyone. ”

“That’s not true. You can’t win them all.” Pausing to take a breath, she set the pestle down and looked at me. “What’s wrong? You never worry about popularity.”

“It’s nothing. Just...a weird feeling.”

When I had been outside the greenhouse with Mason and Robin, I could have sworn that someone was watching me, their gaze causing the hairs to stand up on the back of my neck, but when I had turned around, there had been no one in the alley. Mr. Darrow had trudged out his door soon after, but even his usual glare hadn’t matched the intense malice I had felt aimed at me a few seconds prior. 

“You’ll tell me if this feeling gets bad, right?” Penny asked. 

“Of course.” She narrowed her eyes at me, unconvinced, but I was saved from having to defend myself when the shop bell jingled. “Off to work then,” I said lightly. 

“Right…”

As I entered the front room of the apothecary, the visitor stood with her back to me and was gazing up at the top shelves, which held jars of the more high-end ingredients. Away from the windows, her dark hair seemed dull, and her skin didn’t appear as unnaturally pale as it did outside. When she glanced over her shoulder, her hazel eyes lingered on me for no more than a second before she started to walk towards the door. 

“Samantha, wait,” I said. It wasn’t a command, simply a request. 

To my surprise, she stopped and turned to face me with arms crossed and a perpetual frown on her face. She waited for me to speak.

“Do you need something?” I asked kindly. 

“No,” she said tersely. “Just looking.”

“Anything catch your interest?”

“No,” she repeated, but her eyes darted to the top shelves again. Begrudgingly, she added, “This place is better stocked than J. Pippin’s. I never knew it was here.”

“It’s no chain apothecary, but we do our best. Especially Penny. Are you interested in becoming a potioneer?”

Her frown deepened into a familiar scowl. “Stop that,” she snapped. 

“Stop what?”

“Stop pretending to be nice to me. It’s patronizing.”

“I’m not pretending.”

“You’re not being genuine.”

Oh, she wanted to talk about the erumpent in the room, did she? Fine, we could talk about the erumpent in the room. Leaning back against one of the tables, I said calmly, “Okay then. Why did you attack Robin?”

She scoffed. “He deserved it.”

“Robin wouldn’t hurt a pixie if it bit him. What did he do to you?”

“It’s not what he did,” she said, and then added when I raised my eyebrows disbelievingly, “You wouldn’t get it.”

I crossed my arms, mirroring her posture. “Try me.”

“I don’t think I will, thanks. ‘Cause if you want me to talk about my feelings, you’re out of luck. I already get enough of that from Flitwick—which is your fault, by the way.”

“What did I do?” I asked in sincere confusion. 

“This is all because of that stupid letter you sent him. I’ve had to meet with him every week for months to learn about ‘finding a healthy outlet for my emotions.’” She made air quotes, rolling her eyes as she did so. 

I tried not to smile. Flitwick had taken my thoughts into consideration then. “How’s that going?”

“How does it look like it’s going?” she snapped, her face turning pink.

“I don’t know. I haven’t had to disarm you today, so that seems positive.”

The pink tinge to her cheeks flushed red, and she jabbed a finger aggressively in my direction. “You see that, that’s called being patronizing.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I had forgotten for a moment that I wasn’t dealing with Merula. With her, I knew how many buttons I could push before she took it personally, but with this girl I was unable to say the same. 

She crossed her arms again. “You know, Flitwick says I have to apologize to you. I think that’s rubbish. I don’t owe you an apology for anything.”

“That’s true.”

Without warning, her lips curled into a snarl, and she appeared to draw herself up to a full head taller in height. “I said stop that!” she ordered again. “Stop being nice to me.”

“You want me to...stop being nice?” I found that to be a strange request. 

“How are you so calm? I’ve done nothing but attack you and shout at you and...and…” Too angry for words, she settled for throwing up her hands in emphasis. 

Bringing my arms to my sides, I casually rested my elbows on the counter behind me. “It’s because I’m used to people trying to bully me. Getting worked up about it doesn’t solve anything.”

“Who would want to bully you?” she scoffed. “Too many people get bored to death with your wand wood trivia, or what?”

“No,” I said, still keeping my voice level. “I was bullied because a member of my family did something bad, so some people assumed that I would cause trouble too.” I nearly asked if that sounded familiar, but I didn’t need to. The enormity of her reaction was confirmation enough. The rage that had been rising in her like flames abruptly flickered out, and almost fearful, she flinched back, knocking her elbow into a jar of puffskein hair. The jar wobbled, paused, and then teetered right off the edge of the table. Belatedly, she lurched forward to catch it, but it shattered against the hard stone, scattering shards of glass and clumps of golden hair in all directions. She was forced to throw her hands out to catch herself instead—right on the glass-coated floor. 

I was crouched by her side before the pained cry had finished leaving her lips. Penny’s panicked dash into the room was only a little slower, although she stumbled to a stop before stepping on the dangerously sparkling shards. “What happened?” she exclaimed, taking in the mess. 

“Just a little accident,” I said. “It’s fine.”

Her eyes squeezed tight, Samantha tucked her hands against her robes, hiding her palms from my sight. “No! Don’t touch me!” she exclaimed when I tried to tug at her wrist.

“At least let me see them,” I said. 

Reluctantly, she uncovered her trembling hands, and I had to lightly touch the backs of them to hold them steady enough to examine. There were several minor cuts, and blood gathered at the edges of two or three deeper ones. I carefully wiped the glass off her palms while Penny repaired the jar and summoned a broom and dustpan to sweep up the hair. 

“I’m sorry,” she said faintly, her eyes still closed. “I can pay for it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Penny said kindly. “Puffskein hair is easy to clean. Easy to replace too.”

“Hold still,” I said as I pulled a small vial from my belt. As soon as a few drops of the Essence of Dittany touched the cuts, the skin began to knit itself back together, and within seconds, it was like there had never been an injury at all. 

Finally daring to look at them, she flexed her hands and then quickly pulled them away from me. “Uh...thanks.”

“Really, it’s not—”

“No,” she said sharply, silencing my attempt at reassurance, but she wasn’t looking at me. Instead, she was staring intently at the floor, her hands tucked against her ribs as she muttered almost inaudibly, “I’ve messed this up.”

“And what is that?” I asked. She didn’t answer, but I saw her jaw tighten, like she was gritting her teeth. I exchanged a glance with Penny, who silently twirled a finger, signaling to switch swifts, and I nodded in confirmation. “Let’s go into the back,” I murmured to Samantha.

She let me lead her into the brewing room without protest where, once inside, her eyes traveled over the various cauldrons and tools on the tables, although they continued to avoid me entirely. When she sat down on one of the stools, she did so without a word. 

I remained standing. “Can I get you something?” I prompted. “Water? Tea? I think we have some butterbeer too.”

She mumbled something I didn’t catch. 

“Come again?”

“I said how many times do I have to repeat myself? Stop being nice to me.” It sounded more like a tired plea than a command.

“Why should I?” I asked sincerely. 

Her face twisted, but even the sneer she gave the floor didn’t hide the break in her voice. “Because I don’t deserve it.”

I had to take a breath before I could speak again. This wasn’t the first time someone had said something like that to me, and it broke my heart that it had been said at all. I wanted to reach out to her, but I knew any such gesture would be more likely interpreted as pity than kindness. So, I kept my arms at my sides and said, as plainly as a Ravenclaw possibly could, “I don’t think that’s true.”

She shrugged off the statement. “You probably won’t believe this, but I did come here with the intention to apologize. I just got angry.” She clenched her fists. “I always feel so angry, all the time.”

“What’s causing that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t think that’s true either.”

“I don’t know!” she snarled, hopping off the stool. “What do you want me to say? That everything makes me angry? ‘Cause it does! I’m mad at you, Feare, Flitwick—everything!”

I sat down, unperturbed. “That doesn’t seem feasible.”

“Stop it! Who do you think you are? I don’t even know you! You’re not my mother! You’re...you’re…” Her breath caught on the edges of her words, and she clamped a hand over her mouth in apparent horror. Numbly, she sank back down onto the stool, her voice wavering through her fingers as she said, “Please stop. Please, just...just stop.” She swallowed hard on the last word, sounding like she was about to choke, and blinked her downcast eyes too quickly. 

Leaning forward, I braced my arms against my thighs, but I didn’t dare go over to her. “Okay,” I said gently. “I’ll back off. Can you just answer one more question for me? Then I won’t press anymore; I promise.”

She swiped furiously at her eyes with her sleeve. “What do you want?” she grumbled.

“Are you okay when you’re not here?” I asked, exactly as I had done with Robin. “Do you have someone to take care of you?”

She swallowed hard again, and for a moment, I thought that she wasn’t going to respond. But then she said quietly, “My sister is supposed to, but she’s never around. That’s not her fault though, having to work two jobs. I’m fine taking care of myself.”

“And you and your sister get along?”

“Most of the time.”

“That’s good.”

“That’s also more than one question.” She raised her head, revealing just how red and irritated her eyes were. “Why do you even care? Want to feel good about yourself by saving all the lost children?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I wasn’t in a good place when I was around your age, so that might have something to do with it.” By the time I was sixteen, I had lost, found, and then lost my brother again, had nearly died several times, had watched one friend be tortured, and had seen another friend murdered in front of me. And that was on top of realizing that I was gay. So, yeah, I didn’t think anyone deserved to have teenage years that rough. 

“Do I have to hear your sob story now?”

“No,” I chuckled. “I’ll spare you details. But as a Ravenclaw you might want to consider that there is more to most people than meets the eye.”

“You don’t need to tell me.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice suddenly thick. She sniffled, and then added bitterly, “You want to know something about me? I hate being called Samantha. It sounds so stuck-up, honestly.”

“What would you like to be called then?”

“Sam,” she answered without hesitation. “I prefer Sam.”

“I can do that.”

For the first time since I had met her, Sam’s lips pulled into an honest smile, but it was watery, and I lost sight of it behind her sleeve when she returned to swiping at her eyes. Finally daring to close the distance, I put a hand on her shoulder, and though she flinched, she didn’t pull away. 

“Hey, Lily, are you back there—oh.” I turned to see Mason and Robin walking through the door, Robin carrying a book that was nearly as big as his chest, and they both froze at the sight of Sam.

“No! Go away!” she shouted, hiding her face behind both sleeves now. 

“Hey,” I hushed. “Don’t do that. They’re friends.”

There was an uncertain silence, broken only by the muffled sounds of her sniffling, but then Robin passed the book to Mason and stepped forward, holding out something in his hand. Peering out from between her sleeves, Sam cautiously lowered her arms and accepted the clean piece of cloth to wipe her face. 

“Sam,” I said. “Do you have something to say to Robin?”

She glared at him but couldn’t hold it for more than two seconds before her shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

Robin appeared genuinely surprised, although his face soon became hard to read. “That’s okay,” he said with a shrug. “I’m used to it.”

“That’s a stupid thing to be used to.”

“Not really.” He paused and then added sadly, “I’m sorry I look like the people that hurt you.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

There was another long pause while Sam stared at the handkerchief in her hands. Mason shifted awkwardly, but Robin hopped onto a stool next to her and asked, “Do you want to go looking for abraxans with us?”

She eyed him with wary disbelief. “Why should I?”

He shrugged again. “Because it might be fun.”

That seemed to take her off guard. “I, uh...okay.”

“Great!”

I grinned, half in amusement and half in relief. Sometimes it seemed rare that anything positive happened in the world these days, but I counted this as a win. A small win, but still significant. 

“Did you guys need something?” I asked. 

“Oh, right!” Mason exclaimed. He rapidly flipped through the massive book until he reached a page near the end, which he held up for me to see. “You wanna tell us why your name is in a history book?”

Oh, dear. “Right...that.” I laughed uncomfortably. “That...I guess I never mentioned that, haha…”

He read a passage aloud. “‘Lilianna Flores, the infamous child curse-breaker...later dubbed by some sources as the Mad Witch…’ You fought a dragon?! Underground?!”

“Because that’s the most important thing she did,” Robin said dryly, rolling his eyes.

“But it was a Hungarian Horntail!”

Sam went rigid. “You...you’re Lilianna Flores,” she said slowly. 

“You’ve heard of her?” Robin asked.

“Every Ravenclaw has. Is it not the same in the other houses?”

Robin and Mason exchanged a bewildered glance. Apparently not, and admittedly, I was perfectly fine with it staying that way. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time for old stories,” I said. “Later though.”

“Oh, come on!”

“You can’t just act like it’s nothing!”

“Do you know how heavy this book is?”

“Penny!” I called in distress. 

She appeared in the doorway almost spontaneously. “Ready to switch back?” she asked with a grin. 

“Yes, please.”

“Okay, you three,” she told the others, “you can continue to bother her in the front. Just go easy on her, all right?” Three voices gave their confirmation, albeit in a cheekier manner than I would have liked. 

I herded them out of the brewing room, but I paused at Penny’s shoulder before I followed behind. “Thank you,” I murmured. 

“Told you so,” she whispered happily.

“I know.”

Chapter Text

March 1996

Another month passed, and life continued on, drawing ever closer to spring. The requests for potions and minor healing kept coming in, and the visits from the kids stayed consistent. Robin and Mason had become joined at the hip, and occasionally I caught Sam tagging along with them. 

Despite Robin’s olive branch, Sam didn’t instantly agree to become friends. She still picked fights and often alternated between shouting and sulking when she was in their presence, but they tolerated her with far more patience than she deserved. Mason was never bothered by much anyway, so he calmly sat through most of her outbursts until she was finished. Sometimes Robin copied him; other times he quietly withdrew into himself, and to her credit, Sam began to apologize more frequently when he did this. 

With or without the boys, she was at her calmest within the Scarlett Cauldron. As I had correctly guessed, she had a love for potions, and Penny let her assist her in the brewing room whenever she came in. Penny was the one person I had never heard Sam raise her voice at, and each time they attempted another new and complex recipe together, it was clear that they were having fun...never mind the odd exploding cauldron or two. 

But even with these peaceful days, the underlying tension in the air continued to grow stronger—both with the unnerving silence from the escaped Death Eaters and with the worsening crisis at Hogwarts. To the shock of everyone, High Inquisitor Dolores Umbridge had fired Sybill Trelawney from her position as Professor of Divination. I had never liked Trelawney, but I never would have wished for her to lose her job. Not in that way.

“Umbridge is furious,” Mason had told me. All three of them had been there to witness the entire disaster, along with half the school. “She keeps losing things under her control, first with that Quibbler article and now with the new Divination professor.”

“Who’s that?” I asked. 

“Not just who,” he said excitedly. “He’s a centaur! You should have seen the look on her face when Dumbledore appointed him!”

“You’re joking,” I exclaimed. “Do you know his name?”

“Yeah, Firenze or something like that. Everyone’s wishing they had chosen to take Divination now.”

Firenze. I wanted to laugh at Dumbledore’s wonderful audacity, but a part of me felt sick. Out of all the centaurs, Firenze and Torvus had been the only two to show me any kindness, and from this I knew that, for a centaur, showing kindness to humans came with a horrible price. If Firenze had agreed to live and work among humans, then that couldn’t mean anything good for him. 

Oh, my friend, what have you done?

I would pay him a visit soon maybe, if I had the chance to avoid drawing attention to myself. But not now. Not if Umbridge was really as furious as Mason said. If she had attempted to kick out Trelawney in a fit of rage, then I didn’t want to see what else she would do when provoked. 

That night, I lay on my bed, which was still fully made, and stared at the blurry stars on my ceiling. Penny had gone to sleep hours ago, but I was wide awake as my thoughts buzzed—not forming any coherent words or images, but simply providing an anxious background noise. Merula’s dragon climbed up and down my arms, occasionally weaving through my fingers or hopping around on my chest. Pip’s tail flicked as she watched the little reptile from where she was crouched on my desk, but I had made it very clear that this was not a toy she could have. I found great comfort in the dragon, who I had named Pallas, because she brought back a feeling that I could neither capture nor name. It was warm yet chilling—in a good way, like standing in a swirl of stars and snow. 

With the faint pressure of Pallas’s feet in the bend of my elbow and with the echoes of that feeling lingering deep in my chest, the buzzing in my head grew fainter, and I began to drift off. Or I started to before a fluted warble, coming from within the room, pulled me back to full consciousness. For a second I thought it was Aeris, but he had never made a sound like that in his life. 

Scooping Pallas into my hands, I sat up and grabbed my glasses from the bedside table, and as the room was brought back into clarity, my eyes were drawn to movement in the painting on the wall over my desk. It was a painting of a Hebridean Black on top of a rocky cliffside overlooking the ocean—a gift from my mum in celebration of getting the Australian contract—but the large dragon lay still, curled up in a deep sleep. Pip’s tail continued to twitch, but her eyes were now on something near the bottom edge of the frame, something not unlike a dark ball of feathers.

Quickly untransfiguring Pallas, I leapt out of my bed and rushed over to the painting where, perched on a rock in the corner of the frame, the little blackbird waited for me. His feathers ruffled as a breeze appeared to sweep over the cliff, and with it, hand-painted letters drifted through the air before rearranging themselves to form words:

What am I going to do about you? I don’t know how to sing like a stupid bird. I can’t even… Wait! Where are you going?

“Merula?” I asked, dumbfounded. The blackbird cocked his head to the side. “Are you Merula’s bird?”

Without providing an answer, he beat his wings and took off not out the side of the painting like most subjects did, but directly into the background. He flew out over the ocean, becoming an ever shrinking speck, until he disappeared in the distance. 

I sat down at the desk, and stared at the painting as the words faded. The sleeping dragon snored softly, oblivious to the disturbance in its setting. In the years that I had owned this piece, that had never happened. This was an ordinary painting; the one I had given Merula on the other hand… What had Badeea done?

Unconcerned by the strange development, Pip yawned and stretched herself out on my desk. I scratched her head distractedly and waited to see if the bird would return. 

He did. Less than a minute passed before the dark speck in the background grew bigger, and the blackbird returned to his perch on the rock with another warble. More letters swirled into being with a gust of wind: Is that you? Who is this?

“Is this me?” I echoed in confusion. “Are you Merula?” At the sound of my voice, the bird cocked his head to the side again, so I tried speaking directly to him. “This is Lily. Is that Merula?”

The bird took off again and reappeared a moment later with another message: Why the hell did you go to Lily? I didn’t tell you to do that! Flores, this is Merula. You better have a good explanation for this.

I pressed a hand to my mouth as I snickered, not wanting to wake Penny. “This must be the charm Badeea put on your painting,” I said. “This is fascinating.” The bird cocked his head, but he didn’t fly away after I had finished speaking this time. I repeated myself more slowly, “Tell Merula this must be the charm Badeea put on her painting.”

He took off, although there was a longer delay before he returned with the reply: I said Lily! You know, Lilianna Flores? Why aren’t you listening to me? Tell Flores, hey! Wait!

I studied the bird while he waited patiently for my response. What if…? “Do you need to say the person’s name first?” I asked him. He continued to stare at me silently. “ Merula, do you need to say the person’s name first?” 

That did it. He disappeared over the ocean and reappeared within seconds: Looks like it. Nice catch. Send it back quickly. I want to try something.

I gave the bird my confirmation, and once he left, he failed to return in the next five minutes. I continued to stroke Pip, who had lost all interest in prey that was made of oil paint, and tried to figure out what this meant. Badeea had seemed to think that the blackbird painting would be useful, and a form of personal communication definitely fit the bill. However, there were other ways to send messages, so what was her intention with this one?

Another warble sounded, almost ten minutes later, and the bird landed back on the rock: I sent it to Ida. It seems to work with any name as long as you visualize the recipient. He didn’t say anything of course, so looks like there is a time limit of a few minutes before the bird comes back to me. See if you can send it to someone else from your end. 

Interesting. So it worked with animals as well as people. “Let’s see, shall we?” I told the bird, sending a silent apology to my flatmate as I did so. “Penny, are you awake?” The bird tilted his head but didn’t move. I tried again, this time visualizing a head of spiky pink hair. “Tonks? This is Lily.” Again, the bird remained perched on his rock. “Merula, nothing happened.” Now he took off, returning less than a minute later. 

Probably whoever has the main painting has control then. Good to know. 

Indeed. But that left one burning question. “Merula: You said my name to the painting?” I asked, slightly amused at the thought. 

There was a long delay. Then: Don’t let it go to your head. I was just reminiscing about how idiotic you can be sometimes. 

A likely story. “You called me ‘Lily’ a few times there. Are you finally going to start using my first name now? Literally everyone else does.”

And why would I want to be like everyone else?

“You’re special, got it,” I teased. “Can’t ruin the ‘thing’ we have going.”

Damn right. But we don’t have a thing.

“You reminisce about the idiocy of everyone you know then?”

There was another long delay before the letters drifted up, looking almost as dry as the words: You shouldn’t be proud of that. 

I laughed into my hand again. Merula was Merula, whether on paper, in paint, or in person. “What are you doing right now?” I asked.

You first.

Well, that was unfair, but okay. “I was about to fall asleep. What about you?”

She was slow to answer, and when she did, the letters seemed oddly small. Or perhaps that was my imagination: I couldn’t sleep. 

“What’s on your mind?”

Nothing I want to talk about. 

That concerned me, and I wondered if it had something to do with her parents. She still refused to mention them in the occasional exchanged owl, and I had not had the opportunity to ask her in person. However, I doubted that pressing her now would do much good, not when I couldn’t see her face. “That’s okay,” I said after some deliberation. “What do you want to talk about?”

The blackbird was gone for so long this time that I began to think she had left. But then his fluted warble carried such an unexpected response that I had to bite my tongue to keep from barking out a laugh: Puffskeins. 

“Puffskeins?” I said with a grin. She had to be teasing me. 

I imagined her shrugging as she said, Sure, why not? Let’s talk about puffskeins.

“Okay. Has Barnaby told you about the arctic puffskeins?”

At great length and with many pictures, yes. They don’t look that special. 

“They are fluffier than normal puffskeins. That’s an amazing trait.”

That’s probably only because they don’t have any crazy potioneers trying to shave them. 

“Right, because the frozen tundra has nothing to do with it,” I said wryly.

Right. I happen to be a puffskein expert, thank you very much. 

“Oh, forgive me. I didn’t realize that, as a Magizoologist, I wasn’t educated enough.”

I’m glad you finally came to that conclusion. 

I chuckled, but my amusement dulled as our conservation reminded me of something. “Hey,” I said, my voice sounding more serious, even to my own ears, “did you ever hear back from Ismelda?”

How the hell did puffskeins remind you of Ismelda?

“They didn’t, not exactly. Barnaby did.”

Perhaps sensing the change in my manner, Pip rolled over to the edge of the desk and butted her head against my chin. I scratched behind her ears, waiting as the minutes ticked by for Merula’s answer. 

I did. She’s fine, she said at last. I don’t want to talk about her right now. 

I didn’t believe that, but it seemed pointless to say so. “Okay, we don’t have to then.”

You're not going to interrogate me?  

“Not tonight,” I sighed. 

That’s not like you. Are you feeling okay? You’re still keeping up with your Occlumency, right?

I took my turn to offer a half truth. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to bring down the wrath of the Most Powerful Witch, would I?”

Now I’m going to have to assume you’re lying. Please don’t actually be an idiot, Flores. I can’t save you from yourself. 

Ah, perhaps she knew me a little better than I gave her credit for. “I’m fine,” I said, despite not expecting her to believe me. 

I think you should go to bed, she told me. 

I felt oddly chastised, like a naughty child that had been caught staying up too late. “You’re the one that woke me,” I reminded her. “I’ll only go to bed if you do.”

Fine. If I can take your word for it. 

“The same goes for you.”

Touché. Goodnight, Flores. 

“Goodnight.”

The blackbird took off one last time, vanishing into the brush stroke horizon, and in his absence, I had the strange feeling that I had lost something. However, when I went to set my glasses back down on the nightstand, the feeling grew warm as my fingers brushed against the snowy form of Pallas lying still by my bedside. I glanced over at Pip with a grin. “How long do you think it will take her to admit that we’re friends?” I asked the cat. 

She flicked her ears to acknowledge that she had heard, but she didn’t bother to give me a response, electing instead to pretend to sleep on my desk. She would start running around the room once I had been in bed for a few hours. 

I looked at the clay dragon again and then back at the sleeping dragon in the painting, and decided to pretend that she had answered anyway. “Eh, I’ll take that bet.”

* * * *

“It actually works! I’m so happy you figured it out!” 

Badeea Ali clapped her hands together, full of giddy excitement that was too contagious not to share. Suppressing a laugh, I set down my coffee mug and tapped the side of my nose, indicating the paint smear on her face that had been distracting me for the past five minutes. She vanished it without a concern. 

“I don’t know if ‘figured it out’ is the right phrase,” I said. “It took nearly three months, and we discovered it completely by accident. You didn’t make it easy.”

“You said three months?” She pulled a notebook from her bag and jotted something down using what the Muggles called a pencil. “Don’t worry, it wasn’t supposed to be obvious. Hmm, but that was fairly fast…” She backtracked through the pages of the notebook. “Although, I did expect you to be a special case, and I was right. That’s great!”

I casually leaned back in my chair. “Why do I get the feeling I paid to be a test subject?” I asked with good humor. 

“Don’t think of it that way. Think of it as having multiple functions, all of which are important.”

“Are you talking about me or the art?”

“Both,” she said without hesitation, and I shook my head with a laugh. 

“Can I at least know what the test is?” I asked. 

It was, afterall, the whole reason we had agreed to meet. The morning after Merula and I had discovered the charm on the blackbird painting, I had sent an owl to Badeea to both marvel at her and politely request an explanation. I still thought the painting was a brilliant gift, even more so than when I had first bought it, but I also didn’t doubt that she had ulterior motives for selling it to me. She came from the same house as Tulip (and me), so if there was one thing I knew, it was never to take a Ravenclaw at face value. 

In her reply, however, Badeea had refused to provide any information and had instead requested that we meet for brunch. So, we had decided upon a café in Diagon Alley that she was certain used mostly halal ingredients, and we made it a girls’ day out. I enjoyed seeing my old dormmate again. When you shared a room with someone for seven years, you either loved them or hated them, and fortunately in her case it was the former. 

We were sitting at a table outside the café with our beverages and pastries, watching the odd assortment of witches and wizards that passed by as they went about their shopping. Badeea picked at her banana bread, taking her time in answering me, and I noticed her eyes slide to the patrons at the other tables. As soon as she glanced in their direction, a few heads looked down at their drinks. 

For once, I got the sense that I wasn’t the one drawing attention. Most witches and wizards didn’t practice a religion, and those that did rarely expressed it in public. But Badeea, with her starry blue hijab, made a clear exception, and she had always drawn a few stares because of it. In true Badeea-fashion, however, she had never appeared to be bothered by the attention, even in the face of people that failed to understand. She was confident in who she was and what she believed, having found a way to align faith with magic, and I greatly respected her for it. 

She took a sip of her tea and said calmly, “I cast the Muffliato Charm. They can’t hear us.”

“What?” I said in surprise. “When did you do that?”

“About two minutes ago. The same time you pointed out the paint.”

Clever. Very clever. I wouldn’t have suspected that she had done anything other than clean her face. “You really are up to something,” I said. 

She smiled. “I may or may not have sold you a prototype of a project I’m working on. How do you like it?”

“I already told you it’s amazing,” I said sincerely. “Your work is always beautiful, but turning it into a direct form of communication? That’s mind-blowing. I’m assuming the messages can’t be intercepted?”

“That’s the intention, yes.” She took another sip of her tea. “Paintings are great at delivering messages, but they’ve always been limited in where they can go. I wanted to see if I could overcome this limitation, and I wasn’t the only one.”

“You were hired,” I realized. “Don’t tell me you’re talking about…”

“Yes!” she said happily. “Dumbledore heard about my idea and recruited me. The plan is to place a painting in the home of every Order member and any other house under their protection. This is why your news is so great. Once I’ve finished testing them, I can begin to distribute them.”

“That’s brilliant,” I said. I was excited for her, genuinely, but one thing still wasn’t clear. “I don’t doubt you, but help me understand your logic. How is this superior to other forms of communication?”

She didn’t appear insulted. “Well, it’s not in some cases, but in the context of our particular organization, it will be most useful. The Floo Network runs the risk of being monitored or shut down, and owls can be intercepted. There’s a corporeal Patronus, which is an ideal messenger, but not everyone can easily form one, and they can be a bit flashy at times. A painting of this kind is much more subtle, direct, and secure. The only unfortunate downside is that it’s not portable, but I plan to work on a solution to that next.”

“That really is great,” I said with a grin. “Dumbledore was right to have you join. You’re the best spell inventor there is.”

Her smile widened. “I don’t know about that. I’m not a good duelist, so I don’t know how much I can help the Order if there’s a fight. But this...this I know I can do.”

“Definitely.”

I nibbled on my scone and glanced at the street as I was distracted by the sound of breaking glass, followed by a cry of dismay. A woman’s bag had broken, and a jar of newt eyes had shattered on the ground, causing the man behind her to slip and fall along with the tower of packages he had been carrying. I watched the chaos unfold for a little bit as they struggled to identify which purchases belonged to which person until the foot traffic moved around them, blocking them from my view. Just a typical day in Diagon Alley, at least for most people. 

I turned back to Badeea, who seemed bored by the disaster that had just occurred. “Was I testing the charm for you?” I asked. “Is that what happened?”

“Something like that,” she said. “I wanted to see how long it would take you to figure it out. If it’s too obvious, then that defeats the entire purpose. But your case was a bit of an outlier. Because you gave it to Merula, it represents your emotional connection, so one of you was bound to trigger the charm eventually. I’m confident that someone else, like a stranger or a trespasser, wouldn’t look at the painting twice.”

I was struggling to follow her logic again. What was she saying? That she had expected Merula to say my name? That seemed like an odd prediction to make. Also, “How did you know I gave it Merula?” I asked. I had told her that I had wanted to find a gift, but I didn’t recall naming who it had been for. 

“Because I painted it,” she said with a shrug, as if that explained anything. “The point is, I knew you would give it to someone you trust and care about, so it would be more likely to be triggered. And it worked!”

“That it did,” I agreed, despite being dumbfounded. “And it was perfect too.”

“I know. I’m glad, but I know.”

I laughed and took advantage of the break in conversation to take a sip of my coffee. I hadn’t really touched it, and yet I was beginning to feel jittery. Badeea could tell that I trusted Merula? I mean, I knew I did, but I wondered if she would share the same worries as me if she heard what I had seen in my vision. 

Badeea paused before she could take a bite of her banana bread and set it back down on the plate. “What’s that look?” she asked. 

“What’s your opinion on prophecies?” I asked abruptly. 

She tilted her head as she considered it for a minute, giving a thoughtful hum as she did so. “I don’t feel strongly about them,” she said finally. “They either happen or they don’t, and sometimes they only happen because you choose to fulfill them. It doesn't matter to me personally. I’m comfortable with the path laid out for me, even if I may not know where it’s going. Why do you ask?”

“Let’s just say that I’m asking for a friend,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. Not entirely. 

“Well, I wish them the best then.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Me too.

Chapter Text

April 1996

The Dark Mark was over Hogwarts. I had never seen it in person before, but I had heard the fearful whispers too often to not recognize it. The outline of a giant emerald skull hung in the black sky in a haze of green smoke while a massive serpent protruded from its mouth. The serpent undulated, gliding towards the towers of the castle as if it wanted to swallow them whole. Screams rose up from the grounds—the screams of both students and teachers. Pain and grief wailed, strangling the throat and drilling into the chest, and I wanted to cover my ears to block it out. I couldn’t see what was happening, but I didn’t need to see to know: someone had died. No, not just died; someone had been killed, and the whole school was being tortured by the loss. 

Abruptly, all my limbs unlocked, and I was slammed back to consciousness with a horrible jolt. The Dark Mark vanished to be replaced by the starry ceiling of my room, and I realized that I was tangled in the blankets of my bed, sweating profusely. I kicked them off me and sat up as I gasped for breath. My heart was pounding, and I felt dizzy and nauseous, exactly as I had back in December. I shakily wiped the sweat and—to my dismay—tears from my face and concentrated on steadying my breathing. 

Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...exhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...inhale, 1, 2 , 3…

Gradually, my breathing and heart rate slowed, and I managed to get a little control over myself again. That was better. This time was better. 

But it had happened again. I had had another vision, and it had been another vision of death. 

I swung my legs off the bed and ripped the curtains back from the window, startling my pets as beams of sunlight burst into the room. It was just after sunrise. Surely that meant no one had been killed right at this moment...unless an attack had happened in the middle of the night.

No. No, I couldn’t jump to conclusions. Someone from the Order would have alerted us if that was the case. Surely they would have.

I yanked open the door to my wardrobe and pulled on clothes as fast as I possibly could, not bothering to brush my hair or put my contacts in. As soon as I was minimally presentable, I would go straight to the school to speak with Dumbledore. I didn’t know why I hadn’t done that after the first vision. Besides Professor Snape, Dumbledore had been my advisor in all things Legilimency. Even if it had only been a nightmare, he would have the best advice on how to handle it.  

Grabbing my glasses, I tiptoed into the kitchen and left a note informing Penny where I was going in case she woke up before I got back. I would fill her in after I made sure everything was okay first. 

Once outside, I Apparated to the front gates of the school, which was as far as I could go, and continued the rest of the way on foot. Maybe it was because I was slow to adjust to the warming spring temperatures, but I still felt sweaty and shaky as the sun climbed further over the horizon, and I had to pause to take a breath before I could step through the massive doors of the castle. In the entrance hall, only the giant suits of armor glared down at me from their stations along the walls; not a student or ghost was to be seen. I supposed the average person wasn’t awake yet, but I hoped that didn’t apply to Dumbledore. 

I started down the corridor in the direction of the Grand Staircase, but just as I reached the foot of the stairs, I was halted mid-step by a shrill exclamation from behind me: “Trespasser! What do you think you are doing?”

I whirled around, and my heart sank at the sight of the very last person I had wanted to run into. Standing there, in a horrid fluffy pink cardigan, was a squat, toad-like witch with a disproportionately large black velvet bow on her head. The deep-lined frown on her face said that she was most unhappy to see me.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said scathingly. “Ms. Flores, was it? What do you want? I didn’t authorize this visit.”

I winced as I felt her poorly concealed venom. When I had first met her several months ago, she had at least pretended to be sweet, despite how sickening her sugary manner had been. Now it would appear that I had caught her at a bad time. That, or she had figured out that I had intentionally caused the chocolate frog to jump on her face. 

“High Inquisitor,” I politely greeted. “I’m here to see Professor Dumbledore.”

Her frown twisted further into a scowl. “And why, might I ask, do you need to do that?”

“Oh, um…” I thought quickly, well aware that a wrong answer could get me in big trouble, and I said with something like honesty, “Because he gives good advice. There was an issue at work—I’m a potioneer, you see—and I was hoping Dumbledore could help me solve it.” I paused to gauge her reaction, and I was terrified to see that her bulging eyes were popping with fury. Desperate to escape this situation, I began to edge towards the staircase, adding, “He should be expecting me, and I don’t want to keep him waiting, so if you don’t mind, I really should be going…”

Abruptly, she smiled with all the niceness of a manticore crouched before its next meal, and this change terrified me more than her visibly increasing fury. “Oh, well,” she said sweetly, “if that’s the case, then I’ll just go ahead and call the Aurors to take you to Azkaban.”

I felt ice crystals grow outward from my heart to the ends of my limbs. “What?” I squeaked, certain I had misheard her. 

Her wide mouth pulled into an even bigger smile. “Albus Dumbledore is a wanted criminal. Last night, it was revealed that he was plotting to overthrow the Ministry, and in the process of evading arrest, he attacked and incapicitated several Aurors, myself, and our very own Minister for Magic. If you say he is expecting you, then I will have no choice but to assume that you are in league with him.”

Dumbledore had done what? “No, no, no, no,” I stuttered, barely able to remember how to speak. “He...what? I had no idea. I—I swear, I had no idea. That doesn’t...that doesn’t sound like Dumbledore at all.”

“Well, unfortunately the man you thought you knew is not the same as the man he truly is.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Unless the same could also be said of you. Tell me, what ‘issue’ was so great that you needed to inconvenience the headmaster— former headmaster in order to solve it?”

Oh, I was dead. I was so, so dead. Dumbledore had tasked me with protecting the school and surrounding area, and not only had I just blundered into a person that could put my entire position on the line, but I had somehow lost the headmaster overnight. Now he was gone, Penny was probably still asleep, and there was not a teacher in sight. I was on my own with no easy way out. Merlin’s beard, I was feeling sick again. 

Wait. Sick. That was it. I brought my fingers to my forehead, which was thankfully still warm and damp to the touch, and concentrated on the dizziness and nausea that had been lingering since I had woken up. “I…” I began and then let myself fall against the wall, throwing one hand out to catch myself. I leaned heavily against the cool stone, as if I could barely stand, and breathed shallowly. It wasn’t hard; the illness and panic I was feeling were very real.

“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded, but she shifted nervously without coming closer. 

“I’m sorry,” I panted. “It’s what I wanted to talk to Professor Dumbledore about. A client came in—a Dragonologist, claiming to have caught some weird ailment from dragon’s blood. We couldn’t figure it out, but I thought since Dumbledore is an expert... I do hope it’s not contagious. Oh…” I let myself slide further down the wall, half-closing my eyes. 

Turning pale, she pulled the collar of her cardigan over her nose and took a full step away from me. “Dumbledore isn’t here!” she said shrilly. “So, you better take your nasty ailment elsewhere before I—”

“Lily?” another voice exclaimed. Footsteps hurried in my direction, and then Penny was at my side. Like mine, her hair was unbrushed and unbraided, and her clothes were disheveled. It looked like she had run straight here as soon as she had woken up. “What’s going on?” she asked, reaching towards me without touching. 

I looked directly into her wide eyes, silently willing her to catch on as I said, “It’s the dragon blood problem. I wanted to talk to Dumbledore about it, but I didn’t realize…”

Her gaze briefly flicked to Umbridge, who was still shielding her nose and mouth, and then returned to me with a subtle nod. “What were you thinking?” she scolded me. “I told you I would take care of it. You need to stay in bed.” Wrapping an arm around my waist, she pulled me upright and turned to address Umbridge. “I’m so sorry for the misunderstanding. We’ll leave right now.”

“Who are you?” Umbridge asked suspiciously. 

“Penny Haywood. I run an apothecary in town—or I try to when my workers aren’t running off.” She painfully pinched my side in emphasis, and I had to clench my teeth to keep from reacting. “Bouts of confusion aren’t uncommon in this business, I’m afraid. Again, I’m very sorry for any trouble.”

Seeming to realize that her behavior was ridiculous, Umbridge straightened both her cardigan and her posture. “That is quite all right,” she said, adopting a more dignified tone to match Penny’s polite manner. “But for the safety of the staff and students, I am going to have to request that neither of you return to this school. As the new headmistress, I have a duty to keep everyone safe and healthy after all.” 

Penny smiled, seemingly unaffected by this revelation. “I understand. We’ll be on our way. I wish you the best in your new position.”

“Indeed.”

Keeping her arm around my waist, Penny half-dragged me through the entrance hall without another word. I tried to limit how much weight I was putting on her, but I didn’t dare stand up on my own, not when I could feel the eyes of the High Inquisitor following our retreat. It was only after we stepped out the great doors that Penny brought her lips close to my ear and murmured, “I’ll let go of you when we reach the gates. I want to make sure she’s not still watching first.”

“Your timing was impeccable,” I murmured back. “Mine was disastrous.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Tonks sent a message...I don’t think it could have been more than five minutes after you left.”

“She waited until this morning? She should have woken us up the second it happened.”

“That’s not her fault either. It sounds like things have been pretty chaotic. Kingsley and McGonagall were the only members there when it happened, and Dumbledore forbad them from stepping in. He even stunned Kingsley. I’ll tell you everything when we get back to the Cauldron.”

So, there really had been a fight. I had been hoping that Umbridge was lying, but if Dumbledore had stunned one of his own men…

As soon as we passed through the black metal gates that marked the edge of the school grounds, Penny released me as promised, and we Apparated to the side door of the Cauldron. Away from the strangely hostile walls of the castle, I felt like I could properly breathe for the first time this morning. 

“I owe you one, Pen,” I said as we made our way up the stairs to the flat.

She pushed open the door with a sigh of relief. “I’m just glad you left a note. And that you know how to think quickly.”

“I was about to say the same of you. You caught on instantly.” Shaky with hunger, I grabbed an orange from the kitchen and sat down at the table to peel it. Penny grabbed one as well and joined me.

“Honestly, anyone that knows you wouldn’t have been fooled. You try to hide it when you’re sick, not—” She placed the back of her hand to her forehead and pretended to swoon. 

“I was that overdramatic, huh?” I chuckled. 

She brought her thumb and forefinger together. “Just a bit. You’re lucky Umbridge doesn’t know you that well or you might have ended up like Dumbledore.”

I anxiously shredded my orange peel between my fingers. “What happened?”

She filled me in. It was exactly as Umbridge had said, with the exception of one crucial detail: Dumbledore hadn’t been plotting to overthrow the Ministry. That was simply Fudge’s paranoia, and the headmaster had used it to take the fall for something he hadn’t done—all in the name of protecting the students that had been learning to defend themselves in secret. But, of course, he had refused to come quietly, having chosen to go on the run instead of being taken to Azkaban.

“No one knows where he is,” Penny finished. “Not even McGonagall.”

I put my face in my hands with a groan. “This is the Circle of Khanna all over again, but worse. What are we supposed to do?” 

Dumbledore was missing. Our leader in this war was missing, and I still didn’t know what his job for me was. I was supposed to protect people like any other member, yes, but he had also told me to wait without giving me any idea of what I was waiting for. Without his instructions, I was at a complete loss. 

Penny began to arrange the pieces of her orange peel in the shape of a flower. “I don’t know any more than you,” she said. “I guess we keep doing what we’ve been doing. Maybe while keeping a closer eye on the school from now on.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. I had shredded my peel into such tiny bits that I was having to work them out from under my fingernails. 

She watched me carefully, her face tight with concern. “Why did you need to see him so urgently? It was like you—” She dropped the orange slice that she had been holding with a gasp. “You had another vision, didn’t you?

I winced. “It might have just been a nightmare,” I mumbled, knowing she wouldn’t believe me. 

“Tell me anyway.”

I did, and she listened with visibly increasing horror as I described the Dark Mark in the sky over Hogwarts. By the time I finished, her face had drained completely of blood.

“Oh, no,” she said weakly. “This is horrible timing.”

I touched my fingertips to my temples, feeling a headache coming on. “Nothing’s changed,” I said, trying to reassure myself more than her. “We still don’t know if or when anything will happen, so the only thing we can do is what you just said: what we’ve been doing.” I hated every word that came out of my mouth. There had to have been something better than that.

Half-heartedly, Penny nudged her fallen slice of fruit on the table and took a deep breath. She looked as sick as I felt. “We should get ready to open,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I...I don’t know what else we could do right now. I need to process everything.”

“Agreed,” I said tiredly. Every month seemed to bring a new feeling of helplessness, each worse than the last. 

After an anxious and miserable day at work, I sat at my desk later that evening with a quill in my hands, but I couldn’t focus on the blank piece of parchment that lay before me. My eyes kept drifting to the window where the fading light increasingly obscured my view of the outside world. For some reason, it was easier to look at nothing than at any of the objects in my room. I wanted to write to someone, ask some kind of question, track down any information that I could use, but I didn’t know where to start. The resulting feeling was similar to all the times that I had been locked out of the Ravenclaw common room, unable to solve the door knocker’s riddle. Only, this time, I doubted another person would come along to solve it for me. 

A melodious call sounded right above my head, causing me to drop my quill in alarm, and I looked up to see that the little blackbird had returned to his rock in the corner of the painting. Words swirled up with a gust of wind, exactly as they had before:

Are you there?

The little bird hopped in place as the letters faded, apparently happy to have been able to deliver a message today, although the resident of the painting didn’t share his sentiment. Disturbed by the sudden commotion, the Hebridean Black opened one violet eye to gaze upon the trespasser with mild annoyance, but unimpressed by what he saw, he closed it again and returned to his nap. 

Relieved that the bird wasn’t going to be eaten by my dragon, I gave him Merula’s name and confirmed, “Yes, I’m here.”

With a shake of his glossy feathers, he took off and returned a moment later with another question: Are you alone?

I glanced from the closed door to the window, and I got up to pull the curtains shut before I answered, “Yes.”

Good. We need to talk. When can you get away from work?

An unexplained bolt of nervous energy shot through me, almost akin to panic. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “Does this weekend work, or do you want to meet sooner?”

It won’t make a difference. Friday afternoon at the Snyde Manor. Six o’clock. Can you make it?

“Y-yes, I can,” I said, startled by the spontaneity of her request. A meeting at Merula’s place? She had never invited me over before. 

Perfect. The fireplace in the parlor is connected to the Floo Network. Use it. I’ll wait for you there. 

“Okay. Is there anything I should know beforehand?”

No. Just come alone.

I had gathered that much, yes, given that she had made a point of contacting me in secret. “If you say so. I’ll see you Friday.”

See you Friday.

I sent the blackbird off with a final farewell, which ensured that he wouldn’t linger to listen to me for the next few minutes, and turned to look at my pets. Both of them gazed back at me through lazily narrowed eyes. “I don’t suppose either of you know what that was about?” I asked. Rather than answer, Aeris startled cleaning his feathers, and Pip rolled on her back. “No, neither do I,” I said.

Groaning again, I laid my head down on my desk and accepted the fact that worried and confused would be the tone for the rest of this week. But at least this was some kind of progress. Merula had reached out to me, which she rarely did, and she had invited me to her house, which she never did. No matter what she had to say, I considered this a step up in our relationship. 

That was the bright side of today. Too bad the downside was that we had slipped one day closer to hell. I decided that, if Dumbledore ever came back, we would have a very, very long talk about what was to come. 

* * * *

By the time the kitchen clock struck six Friday evening, I was feeling jittery with nervousness and, if I was being honest, a bit of excitement. I was actually getting the chance to see where Merula lived, even if the invitation had held a serious tone. Also, I hadn’t seen her in person since my first vision, and I was anxious to see if anything about her had changed between then and now. 

Taking a handful of Floo Powder from the dish, I tossed it into the fireplace with the declaration of, “Snyde Manor!” and stepped into the now vivid green flames. I tucked my elbows in as brick whirled dizzyingly across my vision, and I was assaulted by the uncomfortable sensation of falling through a long, dark hole. Then, my feet slammed into the ground, and I stumbled forward into a large, open room, barely managing to avoid tripping on the rug as I did so. Here it was: the parlor of the Snyde family manor...and I was here alone. 

I scanned the room. An antique grandfather clock in the corner showed that it was six o’clock on the dot, and yet Merula wasn’t waiting here for me as she had said she would be. The room was empty of people, albeit not empty of interest. 

It was definitely the parlor of a manor, although it had depressingly dim lighting, which was emphasized by the dark-colored furnishings. The thick velvet drapes were a deep forest green, the couch and seats were all dark brown leather, and the tables were made of ebony. A pair of French doors led out onto a veranda, but the fading sunlight coming from them and the narrow windows barely penetrated the room, giving the olive wallpaper a drab quality to it. 

The more I looked around, however, the more subtle details I noticed. Painted vines of ivy ran along the edges of the wallpaper, and I realized that the silhouettes of songbirds had hidden themselves among the leaves. Besides this, the room was strangely empty of decoration...and signs of life. There was dust on the seats and tables, and there were discolored rectangles on the walls, like someone had removed the frames of many paintings. In fact, there was a single painting in the entire parlor, hanging overtop of a grand piano, and it was the painting of a familiar blackbird in the branches of an old oak tree. 

At the sight of the painting, I knew without a doubt that I was in the right place. But where was Merula? Surely she hadn’t forgotten our arrangement. I rocked on the balls of my feet, wondering if it would be rude if I wandered around in search of her. 

There was no need to debate the idea for long. Coming from a corridor beyond the piano, voices drifted into the room, too faint for me to hear what they were saying. I moved closer, trying to pick out Merula’s voice from among them, but all I could identify was a jumbled and heated mess. Deciding that was all the prompting I needed, I followed the angry voices down the corridor until I reached a pair of ebony doors that were propped open to reveal a massive library. Shelves of books covered every wall and stretched from the floor to the ceiling twenty meters overhead, if not more. Off to the side, her hands braced flat against the surface of a writing desk, was Merula in an argument with an older woman. The stranger had her back to me, but I could see that she was tall and thin with a wave of golden brown hair that fell halfway down her back. 

The older woman appeared to be in the middle of speaking, and I hesitated in the doorway, afraid to interrupt. “...throwing things out, selling family heirlooms, and now you’ve taken down all the portraits of your ancestors!” she shouted, furiously ticking off her fingers with each example. “It’s like you are trying to erase your family name!”

Merula smacked a hand against the desktop with a loud thud! “I’m not trying to erase my name!” she shouted back. “I’m trying to cleanse it!”

“Cleanse it?” the woman said incredulously. “That’s a laugh. Have you forgotten who you are? You belong to one of the oldest and most powerful pure-blood families in all of Europe! What is there to cleanse?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Merula scoffed. “Why don’t you ask your sister? Or—and here’s a good one—how about you tell me what my father did with half his inheritance? My inheritance!”

The woman shook a finger at her, yelling, “Don’t you dare take that tone with me!” There was a ringing silence following this outburst, during which they glared at each other. Then, the woman took a deep breath and brought her palms together, as if to collect herself. “Okay,” she said with forced calmness. “Forget about the name for the moment. You will lose it when you marry anyway. What’s important is blood, and you are the only descendent of the Snyde and Ingram bloodlines that is capable of maintaining their purity.”

Merula rolled her eyes. “My God…”

“No Muggle language,” the woman scolded, before pausing to take another breath. “You need to start thinking seriously about the future. You are twenty-two years old, and what have you accomplished?”

Merula spread her hands. “I graduated with N.E.W.T.s in all my classes, I have a job at the Ministry, and I’ve been cleaning this place up. What more do you want from me?”

“You know this is not about what I want. It is about your role in life, which has been your role since you were born into this family. Your parents were already married when they were your age. You need to consider your options soon, or else it will be my job to find someone for you.”

Putting her face in her hands, Merula sank into a chair with a groan. “No. Oh, please, no.”

“Yes,” the woman said firmly. “The Malfoy family has a lovely son—”

“He’s seven years younger!”

“That shouldn’t matter.”

“But he’s a brat!”

“You better not say that to any of their faces. But fine. There’s the Rosier boy…”

“Who disappeared into the jungle,” Merula muttered. 

“Well, if you have a better suggestion, then I would love to hear it,” the woman snapped. “The number of eligible partners is too limited for you to be picky.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Merula said sardonically. “Is that why you never married?”

Fury swelled within the woman, pulling her upward to tower over the desk, but when she spoke, her voice was terrifyingly calm and level, with only the slightest hint of a shake. “I truly am trying here, Little Bird, so it would help if you put in an effort as well. The things you do with your eyes and hair…”

The violet-eyed witch looked affronted. “I happen to like it.”

“For your sake, I hope your future husband agrees. If you are trying to be like Celandine, then you are succeeding.”

Whatever that meant, it was a painful blow. Merula’s face blanched as the words struck her, and she sank further into her chair, suddenly becoming small. 

Realizing that now would be a good time to intervene, I knocked on the open door, which caused them both to jump. They whirled to face my direction with startled expressions. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt,” I lied. 

Merula glanced at the clock that stood opposite from the desk, and she scrambled to her feet. “Merlin’s beard, no,” she said quickly. “My aunt was just leaving.”

“No, wrong,” her aunt scolded. “Try that again.”

Merula’s nose wrinkled as she fought back a scowl, and she took a deep breath before saying flatly, “I mean, please come in and meet my wonderful aunt, the woman I owe everything to for raising me.”

Her aunt narrowed her eyes, but let it slide. “Better. Now you may introduce us.”

“Of course.” Beckoning me into the room, Merula attempted to smile politely, but her eyes said she was in pain. “Aunt Lin, this is Lilianna Flores. Flores, this is my aunt, Linnet Ingram.”

Madam Ingram extended her hand to me, and I carefully took it in greeting. Up close, I could see the lines on her face and the streaks of gray in her hair, putting her age about in her mid-forties. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” I said.

She smiled, although the expression didn’t reach her green eyes. “Ah, a Flores. I have heard many things about your family. Jacob Flores is your brother, correct?”

It was an effort not to wince. That was never a topic I liked to start a conversation with. “Yes, that is correct.”

“How interesting,” she said, as if she was talking about a discolored potion or an oddly shaped cloud. “I’m afraid I’m not too familiar with your parents, so let’s see if I can remember everything… Your mother was a Healer, but she quit her job to become...oh, what was it? Ah, yes, a tailor. And what does your father do? Something involving dirt…”

“He’s a Herbologist,” I said quietly, while my stomach sank with each passing second. Her tone of voice was pleasant, but her words...less so. The condescension wasn’t hard to miss. 

“A Herbologist, that’s right!” she exclaimed with an excited clap of her hands. “And you are a Magizoologist? No, no, a potioneer. Or was it a curse-breaker?”

“I’ve had a few jobs since I graduated. But I’m a potioneer currently.”

“How nice,” she said, although she didn’t make it sound nice at all. “I heard your brother has become quite the successful curse-breaker himself—despite all the trouble he caused when he was younger. Is that right?”

I forced myself to match her fake smile. “That’s right.”

“Please forgive the interrogation,” she said, maintaining her pleasant tone. “Your family reputation is simply fascinating to me, especially since it is my understanding that your bloodline is pure. Tell me, is that true? Because, from the way people talk, it sounds like you have the tendency to...mingle.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially on the last word. 

“Both my parents are pure-bloods, if that is what you are asking,” I said politely. It wasn’t the first time I had been interrogated on my blood status, and it wouldn’t be the last. Overtime, I had learned to ignore all the “blood traitor” accusations, even if I was tempted to strangle the occasional purity-espousing wizard or witch.

“Hmm.” She put a finger to her lips thoughtfully. “In that case, do you know if your brother is interested in someone? A lady friend perhaps?”

Nope, nope, nope. No way in hell was I going to play matchmaker for Jacob. “Not as far as I know,” I said, as if I wasn’t dying inside. “We don’t talk much these days.”

“No, I imagine not,” she said, and I immediately felt a flare of anger. What did that mean?

“That’s enough, Aunt Lin,” Merula said sharply. “Leave her alone.”

“My apologies, my dear,” Madam Ingram purred. “I’ll leave you two to your… What was it you were planning on doing?”

Merula gritted her teeth before answering. “I came across something in the house that I need a certain expertise to deal with. Unless you would care to ask Mother about that as well, it would be best if you weren’t here.”

Madam Ingram waved a hand dismissively. “Very well. I can tell when I am not wanted. I will see you next weekend.”

“Oh, I’m looking forward to it,” Merula said with thinly veiled sarcasm.

“Good day, Ms. Flores,” Madam Ingram said, and with shoulders back, she marched stiffly out the doors. 

Merula closely watched her exit, and once her aunt was out of sight, she placed her palms back on the surface of the desk and closed her eyes. As she took several deep breaths, I was startled to see that she was trembling. It looked like she was about to either scream or throw up. 

“Come on,” she said suddenly, storming past me to the doors. “I need air.”

I jogged after her into the parlor, where she shoved open the French doors and stomped out onto the veranda. Outside, she gripped the black metal railing with white knuckles and continued to breathe deeply, keeping her eyes straight ahead as she did so. I leaned on the railing next to her and followed her gaze, and what I saw immediately distracted me. 

The veranda we were on overlooked a beautiful, if slightly overgrown garden. A stone path wove through tall bushes and beds of flowers, with benches scattered along its length, and water trickled soothingly from a gorgeous fountain in the center. Trees, weighted with ivy, stood here and there, filtering the dying sun through their leaves, while an old oak towered over everything. The oak, with its thick and gnarled trunk, was not unlike the one from the blackbird painting, and while I couldn’t explain why, the sight of it calmed me. It was as if the garden itself was drawing out all negative emotions and purifying them in its flowers and leaves. 

“I’m sorry you had to experience that,” Merula said, pulling my gaze back to her. Her hands tightened on the railing, and her voice shook as she added, “She just...she just makes me so angry sometimes.”

“Do you have to deal with that a lot?” I asked. 

“It’s been getting worse since I graduated. But it’s not like she ever would have won the ‘guardian of the year’ award.” That last part was muttered towards the garden, and I got the feeling she wasn’t really talking to me. After a pause, though, she glared in my direction and added fiercely, “And for the record, I’m never marrying your brother.”

“Oh, God, no,” I agreed, my wording intentional.

Noting this, she relaxed and leaned back against the railing. The light breeze tousled her already messy hair, causing it to play around the smirk forming on her lips. Now that I could get a good look at her, I could see that nothing about her had changed significantly in the past few months. Her hair was a bit longer, beginning to curl past her jawline, and there were bags under her eyes, but she appeared to be the same witch I had always known. 

“I can’t even imagine it. That would make me your sister-in-law.” She scrunched up her face in mock disgust. “Wow, I bet that would be dreadful.” 

I laughed. “I think I could tolerate that part of it, but I would have to disown you for marrying Jacob in the first place.”

“True. Merula Flores just doesn’t sound right either.” She shuddered as she heard her own words. “No, it definitely doesn’t.”

“It would also be problematic for you. If we had the same last name, you would have to call me by something other than ‘Flores.’”

“Merlin forbid,” she chuckled. There it was. There was the genuine smile I had been looking for. It was small, but present all the same. 

Another breeze swept through the veranda, and I shivered at the approaching night temperatures. “Do you actually need help with something in the house, or was that a fib?” I asked. 

“It was a fib. Well, mostly.” She waved a hand toward the doors. “I’ll show you what I’m talking about.” I followed her back inside, and we returned to her desk in the library where, to my confusion, she ducked underneath. When she resurfaced, it was with a thick book in her arms, which she plopped down on the desk with a solid thunk. “That woman thinks she owns this place, always popping in unannounced. I was afraid she was going to see this.” She rested her hands on the worn cover, but made no move to open it. 

“And what is that?”

“First thing’s first…” She let herself fall into her chair, and with a wave of her wand, another seat zipped over for me. I accepted it with a murmur of thanks. “I need to know,” she said seriously, “did Dumbledore tell you anything before he vanished? Give you any instructions, provide any new information—things like that?”

I shook my head. “No. He hasn’t told me anything since the very beginning, and all that was just to stay in the village and wait.” And it had been driving me crazy for months. “What about you? I don’t suppose he’s told you anything new?”

“No, it’s the same for me. I have his original instructions, but this definitely wasn’t part of the plan.” She stared distantly at the cover of the book and murmured, “That settles it then.”

“What?”

Pulling the thick tome closer to her, she began to flip through its pages, her eyes suddenly sharp and focused. “You were always the teacher’s pet, so if he didn’t tell you anything, then I doubt he told anyone. All we know is that something went wrong and it has left the rest of us in a hell-broth.” She paused in her skimming and traced a finger along the page. “I’m not going to bet my life on the off chance that he’ll magically pull us out of it, so...” Shoving the open book towards me, she stated, “I want a safeguard.”

I looked at the chapter heading, and then I looked at it again. When the words failed to change, I skimmed over the ingredient list that lay beneath them—an all too familiar ingredient list. “You’re not serious,” I gasped. “This isn’t a safeguard.”

“If Dumbledore can fail, then any of us could fail,” she said, her voice low and level. “The only difference is, we don’t have the ability to snap our fingers and vanish from existence. If I end up in a similar situation and I need to disappear, then this is the next best thing.”

The next best thing? How had she decided that permanently altering her humanity was a good backup plan? “It’s too risky,” I said. “You don’t know what you’ll change into—if you even manage to change. You could end up as...as…” I stammered as I tried to find words to describe the images of the horrible mutations that came to mind.

“I’ve seen the pictures,” she said dismissively. “I think they’re on the next page if you want a reminder.”

“I don’t, thank you.” Just the thought made me nauseous.

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? Because you seem to have forgotten that you don’t look like any of them.”

I didn’t have a good response to that, and I realized that I had just walked out onto cursed ice. Telling her that she couldn’t do the same as me never had good results.

She leaned forward, bracing her arms against the desk. “Look, I gave you that dragon for Christmas. You know I’m good at Transfiguration. And I’m even better than you at Potions. I can do this.”

“I don’t doubt that, but…” I ran a hand through my hair. “An Animagus, Merula? Is that really what you want?”

“And why wouldn’t I want it?” she demanded. “You’ve been an Animagus for years, and you’ve been fine.”

“It’s not that simple.”

She crossed her arms. “Then explain it to me.”

Unexpectedly, I felt my anger rising, fueled by another, stronger emotion—one that sent chills beneath the waves of heat. “You really want to know?” I said, my voice raised. “I’m terrified. I’m terrified every single day that someone will see my name in that register and decide that I’m too dangerous to be left alive. They’ll come after me and whoever happens to be in the way at the time, all because I was stupid enough to paint a target on my back.”

Silence filled the room, broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock and the roaring of my blood in my ears. She gazed at me with unexpected calmness, unfazed by the outburst that had surprised even me, and after several beats had passed, she said, “I already thought about that. That’s why I’m not going to register.”

My anger vanished, fleeing in the path of dread, and I closed my eyes. “Of course you aren’t,” I said flatly. “Breaking the law is a perfectly safe and logical thing for a Ministry official to do.”

“I’m going to pretend you’re not mocking me. You know this entire mess is the Ministry’s fault.”

“I know.”

The book made a soft, grating sound on the surface of the desk as she pulled it back towards her, and her voice adopted a slight edge to it as she said, “I’m going to do this no matter what you say. I just thought it would be nice to have your help for once.”

“I know,” I repeated with more emphasis, “and I’ll help you no matter what.”

She stiffened in surprise. “What?”

I tried to maintain a serious face, but it was hard not to smile at her astonishment. “I don’t agree with this at all. But you’re my friend, and I can’t let my friends do stupid stuff alone, so I’ll help you.”

“I, uh…” She coughed into her arm, buying herself a few seconds to remember how to speak. I suspected she had been counting on more resistance on my part, but I meant what I said. If she was going to get herself in trouble with or without me, then I preferred that she did it with me. “Good,” she said, finally having collected herself. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

“Do you have everything you need?” I asked. 

“Almost.” She pointed at the ingredient list. “I have everything but a mandrake leaf, and I want to get that before this month’s full moon.”

“Not a problem. I can bring you some from the greenhouse.” An uncomfortable thought suddenly came to mind, and I said slowly, “I’m assuming you don’t want Penny to know about this?”

“No. This stays between you and me only.” She narrowed her eyes. “Is something wrong with that?”

I hesitated before pointing out, “Penny is the one that brewed the potion for me. Her abilities might—”

“Between you and me only. The fewer people know, the better.”

As much as I hated to admit it, she wasn’t wrong. What we were about to do would guarantee a life-sentence in Azkaban if we were caught. It would be better if Penny didn’t become involved unless she absolutely had to. But still, I hated lying to her. 

Taking a deep breath, I nodded my agreement. “Okay, I’ll get you that mandrake leaf. You know what to do with it?”

“Keep it in my mouth from full moon to full moon.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “This is going to be pleasant.”

“Oh, most definitely,” I said cheerfully, and she rolled her eyes at me.

Closing the book, she tucked it under the desk, safely out of sight. Although we hadn’t done anything yet, it felt like neither of us could back out now. I was committed; I truly was, but I also had my doubts. What if helping Merula with this plan—this highly illegal plan—somehow enabled my visions to come true? I could help her gain this ability, and it could put her on the path to doing things she would regret. Or it could be that refusing to help her would be the catalyst for the visions instead, which meant that I should actually help her after all. Uh, that made sense, right?

My attempts to untangle my own logic were bringing on a horrible headache, and it must have been twisting my expression, because Merula gave me a quizzical look when she reappeared from beneath the desk. 

“Were you being honest?” she asked suddenly. “Are you really terrified?”

I grimaced. “I’m terrified of a lot of things. This war, my visions, my—” I broke off before I could say “my feelings.” Now was not the time to tell Merula Snyde that I had an unrequited crush on my flatmate...who was a woman.

Oh, Merlin’s pants. Was Tonks right? Was I scared of love?

Merula looked at me sharply. “Visions? Plural?”

Oops. Reluctantly, I described the dream I had about the Dark Mark and how it had come to me right as Dumbledore had vanished. She was glaring at me by the time I had finished. 

“Well, that definitely settles it,” she said. “We’re doing this.”

“I thought we had already decided that?” I asked.

“We did, but now I need to do one more thing.” Standing up, she walked around behind my chair, and before I could turn to see what she was doing, stars burst across my vision as something collided with the back of my head.

“What was that for?” I exclaimed, clutching the spot where she had smacked me.

She appeared blurry through my involuntarily watering eyes, but it was impossible to miss her smirk. “That was for not practicing your Occlumency. Have you eaten yet?”

“Have I...what?”

“Eaten. I want to make dinner. Do you want any?”

It took me a moment to find my voice. “Uh...no. I mean, no, I haven’t eaten. That would be nice, thank you.”

She chuckled. “Come with me. I’ll show you what a real food charm looks like.”

Shepherding me out of the library, she led the way to a room that was not unlike a smaller version of the Hogwarts kitchens. There were multiple large pots and ovens, shelves on shelves of various ingredients and spices, and several long tables for food preparation. A plain wooden dining table also sat off to the side, like the kind servants might have used if there had been any. Wait, did Merula have servants? I was certain she would have bragged about that at some point in our relationship if she did. 

While I tried to wrap my head around everything I had heard this evening, in addition to the many questions that had been raised, I was floored impossibly further by the theatrical display that Merula proceeded to give me. One of the ovens burst to life the second she walked into the kitchen, and vegetables and spices seemed to hop into a bowl before she pointed her wand at them. She barely glanced at anything she was doing, never mind using measurements, and let the meal throw itself together. I sat out of her way at the dining table (after she had aggressively rejected all offers of help), and watched her work in awe. After a quarter of the time it would have taken without magic, she was setting two plates of cottage pie down on the table before us, both of which smelled heavenly.

“I should come over more often,” I said as she handed me a drink. 

She accepted the compliment with another smirk. “You’ll have to. I need that mandrake leaf.” Taking the seat across from me, she raised a glass of wine over her plate and declared, “Here’s to becoming outlaws.”

“And to aiding and abetting,” I laughed, raising my water glass as well. We clinked them together, sealing the pact.

Chapter Text

May 1996

“There’s the moon. Let’s hurry before we lose it again. Go ahead and spit out the leaf.”

Without hesitation, Merula stuck her fingers in her mouth and pulled the leaf out from the inside of her cheek, which she deposited in the vial I was holding up. A beam of moonlight illuminated the leaf through the glass, revealing it to be partially chewed and slimy with saliva. 

Merula spat into the bushes with a grimace. “Ugh, I’m never going to get that taste out of my mouth,” she groaned. 

I glanced at the sky again. It was just after midnight, and the full moon was about halfway from its zenith. A thin line of clouds brushed its underside, not enough to block its light, but it wouldn’t be much longer before it was completely covered. Based on the lack of stars over the garden’s western wall, I guessed we had five minutes. 

“Now the strand of hair,” I said. Merula dropped a short strand of brown hair into the vial. “Then a silver teaspoon of dew...the moth chrysalis last...good.” I stoppered the vial and wrapped it in a thick black cloth, shielding it from any more light. 

“So now we wait?” Merula asked. 

“Now we wait. If the potion turns red at the next lightning strike, then we’ll know we did everything correctly. You have a dark place to keep it until then?”

“In this house?” she said jokingly. “I’m sure I can find somewhere to put it.”

I handed her the cloth-wrapped vial. “Perfect.”

We followed the garden path back towards the veranda of Snyde Manor. The path was barely wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, so leaves and twigs whipped my legs as I tried not to bump into Merula, who wasn’t paying much attention to where she was going. Her head was tilted back as she breathed deeply through her mouth, as if tasting the air.

“It is so nice to talk normally again,” she sighed. “I’ve barely been able to speak for a month.”

I chuckled, remembering my own experience with the mandrake leaf. I had been so afraid to accidentally spit it out or swallow it that I barely ate or spoke for the entire time I had it in my mouth. Unfortunately, I had still been in school at the time, so it had made spellcasting challenging. McGonagall, who had been aware of what I was doing, had been understanding. The other professors not so much. 

“How was that?” I asked.

“Terrible. My boss thinks that I’m finally well-behaved, and my aunt thinks that I’ve been sulking. For the record, only one of them is right.”

We both snickered at that.

We entered the house through the French doors, and I sat on a loveseat in the parlor while Merula went in search of a place to hide the potion. Through one of the narrow windows, I watched as a thick blanket of clouds drifted over the moon, throwing the garden into near darkness. We had made it just in time. 

Merula returned about five minutes later, looking uncharacteristically chipper. Her good mood must have been contagious because, despite how late it was, I had too much energy to want to go to bed. 

“Hey, do you take care of this place all by yourself?” I asked, gesturing vaguely out the window. Ivy was beginning to climb along its edges, blocking the already meager light.

“Mm,” was her hum of confirmation. She hooked her thumbs through her belt loops. “I hire a gardener sometimes, but there’s no permanent staff. No one wants to stick around anyway, even if I could afford it. Which is a pain—the weeds are a nightmare to keep up with.”

She spoke casually, but I felt my stomach sink as I remembered her story about the death threats that had shown up after her parents’ arrest. I wondered if she still received them, or if people had finally given up taking their anger out on someone that had lost as much from the war as they had. Given recent events, I doubted the latter. 

“I thought your family had a lot of money,” I said. 

“ Had. We still do, I guess, just not as much as there used to be. My father didn’t have the greatest spending habits. Doesn’t. Didn’t. Whatever.” She grinned at me, which was odd in this context. “I could afford a house-elf, but Lizard would kill me if she ever found out. Would probably Apparate here directly from Brazil too.”

I couldn’t bring myself to laugh at the joke, and when I didn’t give her the reaction she had been hoping for, she rolled her eyes.

“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “I just have to budget a bit. I bet I still have more money than you do.” 

That...wasn’t wrong. I might have belonged to a pure-blood family, but we were nowhere near as wealthy as the likes of the Malfoys and Snydes. With this reassurance, I finally matched her grin. “No,” I agreed. “I was just thinking that you wouldn’t need to worry about Liz. I would come after you first.”

“Oh, I would love to see that.”

“I bet you would.”

She plopped down next to me on the loveseat, purposely bouncing me with her weight, and I had to grip the arm of the seat to keep from falling into her. But as quickly as she had sat down, she hopped back to her feet. “That reminds me,” she said suddenly. “I want to show you something.”

“Okay…?”

I followed her down a short corridor that ended in another pair of ornate ebony doors, and as she pushed them open, the room inside burst into light. I went still with awe at the grandiose space the doors contained. It was a ballroom...or it had used to be a ballroom. With its high ceiling and long hardwood floor, it looked like the room could easily fit over a hundred dancers. Wide windows lined the entire wall to our left, ending just before an enormous mirror at the far end of the room. This mirror reflected the light from a crystal chandelier that dangled in the center of the ceiling, helping to illuminate the room’s other features—features that Merula had obviously altered. 

For one, there were more discolored rectangles on the walls where many more portraits had been removed. The only paintings that remained were those of landscapes or animals, like one of a unicorn resting in an ivy-covered garden. For another, a long dueling mat took up half the room, while scorch-marked training dummies stood resolutely in the other half. As beautiful as this space was, I got the feeling Merula didn’t use it for dancing. 

Merula leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. “There’s a benefit to owning a big house,” she said. 

“I’ll say.” No wonder her dueling had improved so much since I had been gone, if she had a place like this to practice. 

She gave me a strange look that I couldn’t identify, and I raised my eyebrows at her, waiting for her to say what was on her mind. “I’ve been thinking about what you said,” she began slowly, “about being terrified.”

I leaned against the doorframe opposite of her. “Yeah?”

“If something like that happens...if someone comes after you, contact me. I don’t care what time it is, send a Patronus—which I know you can do. You have no excuse for hesitating.”

I grinned. “Really?”

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and grumbled, “You always say we work better as a team. It would be stupid if you died trying to be a hero.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Don’t push it.”

“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “I mean it.”

“Yeah, well, consider this my way of paying you back.” She gestured at the ballroom. “I was also thinking you could start training with me, if you want. You probably want to get back in shape, unless flobberworms put up more of a fight than I remember.”

Now I crossed my arms. “Are you trying to provoke a duel?”

She chuckled. “Not tonight.”

“In that case, I’ll take you up on it.” Some extra dueling practice would be nice. I had a training dummy set up behind the Cauldron, but there wasn’t much I could do with the limited space...or without infuriating Mr. Darrow. I wouldn’t have to deal with those limits here, and I would admit that I was eager for a rematch with Merula, especially now that she was a fully trained Auror. “You’ll have to show me that footwork you used with Tonks. She couldn’t keep up.” 

“I’ll definitely do that,” she said, “if you promise one thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“You convince Tonks that I would have won that duel if you hadn’t collapsed. She refuses to accept it, and I’m this close”—she held up her thumb and forefinger—“to knocking some sense into her.”

“Deal,” I laughed. 

I lingered for only a little while longer before, fearful of overstaying my welcome, I decided to make my exit. Merula walked me back to the fireplace, where she promised to contact me by the next lightning storm, and we said our farewells. 

As I stumbled out of the Cauldron’s fireplace, I was blinded by the lights of the flat, which were a sharp contrast to the dim manor, and I had to blink several times until spots stopped dancing across my vision. Confused, I glanced at the kitchen clock, which indicated that it was close to one in the morning. Had I left the lights on by mistake?

As if answering my thoughts, the door slowly creaked open, and in crept Penny with a basket and a pair of dirty gloves in her hands. Her eyes glanced past me and then immediately did a double take. “God, Lily!” she screamed, dropping the items she had been carrying. A few leaves scattered out of the basket as it hit the floor with a bounce. Penny clutched her heart with one hand and covered her eyes with the other, her chest heaving. “I didn’t know you were awake,” she said weakly. “Good God, you scared me.”

I forced my fingers to let go of my wand handle, not remembering having grabbed it. “Sorry about that,” I said and knelt down to pick up the contents of the basket.

Uncovering her eyes, she knelt down as well, and I could see that there was a smudge of dirt on her face. She frowned at me. “Are you just getting home?” she asked. 

“Yeah. Are you?”

“I was in the greenhouse. Full moon, remember? These ingredients need to be picked now.”

“Oh, right.” I had completely forgotten that Penny was always awake during full moons. Many potion ingredients had properties that could only be utilized during this part of the lunar cycle, which is exactly the reason that I was out of bed as well. This was horrible planning on my part, and was something I should have accounted for. 

“I don’t suppose this involves the thing you’re doing for Merula?” she asked. 

“Possibly.”

“The thing you can’t tell me about?”

“That’s the one.”

She blew out a breath. “I don’t want to know—”

“Yes, you do.”

“—but please be careful,” she finished with a glare. 

“Always.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” she muttered. Setting the basket down on the dining table, she began to pull empty jars out of the kitchen cabinets. “If I make you a list, can you gather some wild plants for me tomorrow? They need to be fresh for the batch I’m brewing.”

“Sure. It’s a Hogsmeade trip tomorrow. I’ll take the kids.”

“Thank you.”

I smiled cheekily, amused at her tired grumpiness. “Anytime.” 

“ Goodnight, Lilianna,” she stated, glaring at me over the jars, but the look was offset by the dirt on her nose.

“Goodnight, Pen.” 

* * * *

“What are we looking for again?” Robin asked. He had one arm linked around a small aspen and was leaning as far out as he could possibly go, trusting the tree to hold his weight as he gazed deeper into the woods. As usual, he looked completely at home while surrounded by plants and soil, and it was a look he didn’t demonstrate often elsewhere. 

I checked Penny’s list again. “Nothing fancy. Thistle, horsetail, some mushrooms, moss...moss from the south side of an oak tree? That’s specific. Hopefully we won’t have to leave the edge of the forest.” 

As we had been walking through the woods, I had been making sure that the grassy hills remained visible through the tree trunks that surrounded us. We weren’t near centaur or acromantula territory, but I didn’t want to take any chances while I had the trio with me. The last thing I needed was to explain to Dumbledore how I had let some of his students get eaten by wild beasts.

...If Dumbledore ever came back that is.

“Hey, there’s some moss there,” Mason said, pointing at a young oak. “Which way is that facing? I can’t see the sun.”

“Let’s see. Point me. ” My wand, which I had been holding flat in my hand, spun one hundred and eighty degrees on my palm and pointed in the opposite direction of the tree. I shook my head. “It’s on the north side. We’ll have to keep looking.”

Not deterred, Mason eagerly tried the Four-Point Spell for himself. “Neat!” he exclaimed when his own wand pointed in the same direction.

I smiled, ready to provide a lecture on the spell’s many uses, but I was distracted by a tug at my arm. Sam had appeared at my side, her eyes unusually wide. “Lily,” she whispered breathlessly, extending a finger towards the shadows beneath a clump of pines. “Look.”

Alerted by her fearful tone, I tightened my grip on my wand and scanned the shadows for whatever danger she saw. That’s when I realized that the shadows weren’t coming from the trees at all; they were from the bat-like wings of a skeletal creature that was half-hidden in the bushes, watching us. A familiar skeletal creature, like that of a dark horse with a wiry black mane. 

Relaxing, I sheathed my wand. “It’s okay,” I told Sam. “It’s just a thestral.”

“What?” Mason gasped. “Where?” He squinted at the bushes to the left of where it stood. 

Sam didn’t let go of my sleeve, and her voice stayed an octave higher than normal. “I know that. It doesn’t make me feel better.”

“They’re harmless. Watch.” I brought my fingers to my lips. 

“No, Lily, don’t—”

I gave a loud three-note whistle, and Sam leapt behind me with a squeak as the thestral trotted towards us, bobbing its head excitedly. Out of the thick bushes, a long scar became visible on its right flank.

“I thought that was you!” I exclaimed happily. “Hi there, old girl. You remember me? It’s been a few years.” Nyx nudged me with her bony nose, and I pressed my forehead to hers, stroking the fleshless skin of her cheek. “Of course you remember. It’s good to see you.”

I had trained Nyx myself as a favor to Hagrid, who had wanted to see if wild thestrals could be conditioned to work with people. The favor had benefited me as much as him; I had gained a beautifully clever and gentle friend from it, one that I had used to visit often while I had been in school. Nyx had also helped me cope when I had needed reminding about the nature of death, and I owed her for it. 

The thestral sniffed at the satchel resting on my hip, and I pulled it away before she could stick her nose in it. “Sorry, I don’t have any food for you right now. I’ll come back with a nice steak later though. How does that sound?”

She shook her wings, which I assumed was a sign of assent. 

Sam edged backwards, her breathing shallow. I caught her wrist before she could slip away and gently pulled her in front of me. She went rigid, squeezing her eyes shut as Nyx sniffed at her clothes and nibbled at her hair. “It’s okay,” I said, guiding her hand towards the thestral’s neck. “She’s not going to hurt you.”

She pressed into me, doing her best to shrink despite her formidable build, and said, “I don’t like this. Oh, I really don’t like this.”

“It’s okay.” I placed her hand on Nyx’s side. “Look, you feel that? Do you feel how calm and slow her breathing is? Focus on that. Feel that deep breath in...and out. In...and out.”

Being that thestrals were all skin and bone, it was difficult to see that any life existed within their oddly reptilian bodies, but up close, you could feel the warmth of their blood and the power of each great breath that passed through their lungs. They may have looked like death, but these gentle creatures were far from it. 

Sam’s breathing slowed, nearly matching time with Nyx’s, and hesitantly, she brought her hand up to stroke the thestral’s dragonesque head. “She’s like a horse,” she murmured.

“That’s right,” I said. I glanced over my shoulder at the boys. “Can either of you see her? Mason, I know you can’t.” I was given two head shakes, although Robin stared intently in the thestral’s general direction, his face pale. I beckoned them over, and with my direction, they pet her coat as well—Mason with bubbling excitement, Robin with nervous reservation. “This is Nyx. She’s an old friend.”

“This is awesome,” Mason breathed. 

Sam had grown quiet, although she was notably calmer, especially as she scratched Nyx behind the ears. Leaning close so that only she could hear me, I asked gently, “How long?”

“Since I was eight,” she said quietly. “You?”

“The same.”

“When does it stop? When you see them, I mean.”

I assumed “it” referred to her memories of death. That was what came to my mind whenever I saw a thestral. It’s what came to most people’s minds, hence the fear that surrounded these creatures. “It doesn’t,” I said. “Time helps though. And this.” I reached past her shoulder to give Nyx a friendly pat. 

I wasn’t surprised that Sam could see thestrals, but I had been hoping that she couldn’t. Because, if it had been her parents’ murders that she had witnessed, then that meant she had been present for an act absent of all mercy. I still didn't know exactly what had happened, but I had heard enough details to know that it hadn’t been quick or pretty. 

“These guys will never stop being freaky,” she said, running her fingers through Nyx’s mane. “But I like horses in general. My parents owned a ranch, so they used to take my sister and me riding all the time. Kat had to sell the place after they died, but I would give anything to ride a horse again.”

“Do you want to ride her?” I asked. 

“What?” she gasped. “No, no, no, I said a horse, not a skeleton.”

“Come on, we can go for a quick flight. I thought you liked flying?”

“On a broom! I can control a broom. Not...not this.” She pressed into me again as she tried to step back, away from Nyx, but I held my arms out, blocking her escape. 

“I’ll be up there with you,” I assured her. “I won’t let you fall, I promise.”

She dug her heels in. “Nope, no, not doing it.”

I let my arms drop, deciding it was better not to push it. “Okay, I won’t force you. It would be fun though.”

Mason eagerly raised his hand. “Can I go?”

“Of course. Come here.”

As Mason couldn’t see Nyx, in addition to never having ridden an equine creature before, it took a few tries to get him on the thestral’s back. I had to move his hands to where they needed to be, and he had to step on my knee in order to boost himself up, although the first time he did so, he swung his leg too far over and fell off the other side. Eventually, Robin placed his hands on Nyx’s withers to give him a better idea of her size and location, and Mason finally managed to climb up without serious injury. 

“Woah. This is weirder than I expected,” he said, staring directly downwards. I could only imagine what it looked like from his perspective since, to him, he was sitting on nothing.

I hauled myself up in front of him, and he wrapped his arms around my waist. Robin and Sam stared up at us—him wide-eyed, her having adopted a scowl. “Hold on tight,” I told Mason. “Make sure to grip with your thighs, not with your heels or calves. You ready?”

“Yep!” he said. 

“Then here we go.” I leaned forward to speak directly to Nyx. “Can you take us around the fields? Not too far into the mountains, please.”

She gave an odd, grating chirp and promptly broke into a canter towards the edge of the forest. I grabbed her mane to steady myself at the sudden movement and willed my body to stay relaxed in preparation for what was coming next. Within seconds, the shady forest burst into open sunlit fields, and before my vision could fully adjust to the change, Nyx raised her massive dark wings and thrust them downward. Mason tightly squeezed my waist as her rough, rocking gait turned weightless and the ground fell away. Another beat of her wings...another, and we rose up, up, up until it felt like we were gliding above the world, the golden green hills hundreds of meters below. 

“This is terrifying!” Mason yelled over the wind that was blasting in my ears. “I love it!”

My stomach fluttered as Nyx banked, steering us away from the steeper mountains, and we were granted a stunning view of the rugged peaks. I craned my neck, trying to see if I could spot a giant or a troll among the rocks, but if one was there, it blended in well.

“Look!” Mason exclaimed. “Birds! We’re flying with birds!” 

Sure enough, a flock of little swallows darted past us, their wings like arrows leading the way. I laughed at his excitement, but the sound quickly turned into a yelp of alarm as Nyx dove for the birds, snapping at their tail feathers. Sliding on her slick coat, I clung to her mane before I could slip off, and I yelled at her to stop as Mason shouted incoherently from behind me. The swallows scattered, safely escaping into the forest below, and with her meal lost to the trees, Nyx leveled off with a frustrated snort. 

Deciding that was all the experience I was willing to give the Hufflepuff, I instructed Nyx to bring us back down to the others. Complying, she entered a gentle dive, and Mason whooped while my heart rose into my throat with the decline. There was jolt as her hooves thudded into the grass, and she walked us into the shade of the trees where Robin and Sam stood waiting. 

Mason clumsily slid off her back and stumbled over to his friends, the biggest grin stretched across his face. “That was awesome,” he said. 

I hopped off as well, feeling giddy with the adrenaline running through my system. I didn’t get to do this often enough. “Robin, you want a go?” I asked. 

“I, uh…” Robin shifted nervously and glanced at Sam, who was still scowling. He glanced at the thestral, then back at Sam, then at the thestral again. Steeling his expression, he nodded determinedly and stepped forward. Like with Mason, I had to give him a boost, but he managed to climb on with significantly more grace. Once he had his arms securely around my waist, I instructed Nyx to take the same route around the grasslands, minus any detours for birds. 

Compared with the first one, this flight was uneventful. I only spotted a single eagle in the distance, which made me think of Talbott, but whether Robin saw it, I couldn’t tell. His grip on me was uncomfortably tight, and I could feel his face pressed against my back. When we landed, he staggered away from Nyx on shaky legs.

“That was fun,” he said weakly once we were firmly back on the ground. “Let’s not do it again.”

“Good on you for giving it a try,” I said sincerely. Giving Nyx a grateful pat, I looked to the remaining member of the group. “Last call, Sam.”

The Ravenclaw girl crossed her arms defensively, watching as Robin slumped against the mossy oak tree. “Fine,” she growled. “But I get to sit in front.”

“Be my guest.”

I moved to help her climb up, but she batted me away and, in one smooth motion, hauled herself onto the thestral’s back. For all her nervousness around the creature, she sat comfortably, swaying naturally with each of Nyx’s little movements as if this was something she did everyday. However, when I pulled myself up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, I could feel the shallowness of her breathing. 

“Remember to relax,” I said into her ear. This close, I could smell wood polish on her robes. 

“I know,” she muttered. 

“Take your time. When you’re ready, tell her where to go and she’ll listen.”

Taking a deep breath, she nodded and gripped Nyx’s mane with white knuckles. “Okay, uh...take us the same way as the others, I guess.”

Once again, Nyx lurched forward into a canter, and we were soon breaking away from the trees. I felt Sam flinch as we rose into the sky, rocking with each wing beat and air current, and once again, the ground fell far away while the fields and forest blurred into blankets of green. With no protection from the wind that was tearing at our hair, Sam’s long braid whipped me in the face, and I had to tuck it in the hood of her robes to keep it out of my eyes. I was glad my own hair was short, otherwise I would have owed Mason and Robin an apology. 

“How are you doing?” I asked once we had leveled off.

“I still prefer a broom!” she shouted back, raising her voice over the wind. 

I laughed. “But it’s not a bad view, right?”

She turned her head towards the mountains, where masses of gray rock cast shadows on the green-patterned world below us. “There are better ways to see it!” she said, but I felt her body loosen a little beneath my arms. 

I scanned the grasslands, idly taking in the view on the other side, when a spot of gold and white caught my eye. Grinning, I pointed over Sam’s shoulder so that she could follow my gaze. “Look, you see that?”

She squinted at it. “Is that a horse?”

“Too big. Ask Nyx to take us closer.”

She did so, and Nyx circled down until the creature in the grass came into focus. At a glance, it could have been mistaken for a palomino horse, but that was if you disregarded the white-feathered wings...or the fact that it was the size of an elephant. The abraxan raised its head as we passed over it, and apparently annoyed that we had interrupted its grazing, it stretched its massive wings and took off, disappearing beyond the mountains in an impressive amount of seconds. 

Sam laughed as it passed us by. “No way! The boys are going to be so jealous!”

“Definitely,” I said. “Ready to go back to them?”

She hesitated, and then asked begrudgingly, “One more lap?”

“I think we could do that,” I said, laughing again. 

Per her request, we did one more loop around the fields before we returned to the boys in the forest. Once we both had our feet firmly on the ground, Nyx gave me a friendly nudge and then silently trotted deeper into the trees, perhaps to find the lunch that had escaped from her earlier. I called out a farewell to her retreating tail, repeating my promise to bring her a steak as soon as I could. 

“How did it go?” Robin asked, notably steadier as he leaned against the oak. 

“Saw your abraxan,” Sam said with a smirk. 

“What?” Mason exclaimed. “You’re lying.”

“Nope. Big, golden, winged horse. Couldn’t miss it. Well...I guess you did.”

“Not fair!” Mason turned to me. “Lily, could we go look for it? Please?”

I shook my head. “Not today. We need to finish gathering ingredients for Penny before it gets too late. We’ll find it again, I promise.”

“Aww…”

Our little adventure over, we continued our scavenger hunt along the edge of the forest in search of the things on Penny’s list. Despite their disappointment at not having been able to see the abraxan, Mason and Robin remained chipper, and with the effort they put in, we were able to find most of the ingredients with ease. Sam, on the other hand, returned to trailing quietly behind me. When the only thing remaining on the list was the moss, I caught her staring distantly at the ground instead of searching the tree trunks like the rest of us. The longer this went on, the more I feared that I had done something wrong. I had thought that she’d had fun, but maybe not. Maybe I had pushed her to face something she hadn’t been ready to face. 

By the time we began our walk back to the Cauldron (with moss in hand), guilt and worry were swirling rapidly in my chest. I slowed my pace, letting the chattering boys gain some distance ahead, and fell into step with Sam. She didn’t look at me, but she didn’t move away either. 

“Hey, I’m sorry I kept pushing,” I said, keeping my voice low enough so that it didn’t drift to the others. 

“Yeah, that wasn’t great,” she stated, and I winced. “It’s definitely a habit of yours, I’ll tell you that. But it’s not like I don’t get it. The Magizoologist-at-heart doesn’t want me to be afraid of thestrals, is that right?”

“A little.”

The thatched-roof cottages of the village were coming into view now, and she kept her eyes on them as she said, “I know I’m not supposed to be afraid of them. And I’m not. I just...I just don’t like what I see.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Her lip curled. Not quite a scowl, but it was close. “I don’t need your pity.”

“And I would never give it to you,” I said kindly. “I get the sense you’ve overcome too much for that.”

She gave me a sidelong glance, like she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing. “I’m still working on some things,” she said slowly. 

“I’ve noticed. That’s good.”

“Hmph.” 

We lapsed into silence, albeit a comfortable one. A light breeze swept over the path, washing away some of the heat from the midday sun. Summer was fast approaching, and it wouldn’t be long before all of the students returned to their respective residences for about three months. Hogsmeade would be quiet in their absence. Maybe a little lonely too. 

“You know,” Sam said, “Nyx isn’t that bad. I didn’t hate the flight, even if it wasn’t on a broom.”

I smiled. “You could come with me the next time I visit her, if you want.”

“Er...one step at a time.”

Feeling better about my standing, I gave her a light bump with my shoulder, indicating to pick up the pace, and we caught up with the boys as we turned onto the high street. We made it back to the Cauldron in good time, and Penny was waiting for us at the main counter as we pushed through the front door. 

“Did you have trouble finding anything?” she asked. 

“Nothing too difficult,” I said, handing her my satchel. “We have everything right here.”

She beamed at us, clearly in a better mood now that she had gotten some sleep. “Wonderful! I’ll get started on the potion right away then. Could you watch the shop?”

“Of course.”

“Sam, you want to help me with this?” she asked. 

Sam grinned. “You have to ask?”

Penny and Sam vanished into the brewing room, taking the satchel with them, and I was left with the boys. Mason rocked on the balls of feet, still giddy with excitement after the thestral ride. “What can we do?” he asked. 

“Do you mind keeping an eye on the counter for a few minutes?” I asked. “I need to do something in the greenhouse. If I could get Robin’s assistance, that is.”

“Not a problem,” Mason said. 

Robin’s eyes lit up. “What are we doing?”

“Come with me,” I said. 

I led the way to the boxy glass building behind the apothecary, where I let Robin enter first. Once we were both inside, I shut the door behind me, isolating us with the rows of plants and humid air. Robin looked at me in confusion, and as he searched my face, his expression morphed into one of dread. 

“Oh,” he said flatly. 

“Mm-hm,” I hummed. “You want to tell me why you hid it?”

His eyes immediately angled towards the floor, and he anxiously picked at a loose thread on his sleeve, mumbling something that sounded like, “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on. You moved a bit too easily around Nyx for someone that can’t see thestrals.”

He didn’t say anything, simply continued to stare at the dead leaves on the floor. 

“Robin,” I said gently, “please talk to me.”

He mumbled something else that, this time, I wasn’t able to catch. 

“What was that?”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” he said quietly. 

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not good for the son of Death Eaters to see thestrals. People will think it was something my parents did—or something I did. I...I can’t deal with any more rumors. You saw how Sam acted just because of who my parents were. If it looks like I killed someone...I can’t...” He wrapped his arms around himself, like it would be physically painful for him to finish the sentence. 

I wanted to say that was a ridiculous assumption, but I was stopped from doing so as my thoughts drifted to Merula and her years of dealing with death threats. People didn’t need a good excuse to take their anger out on others, and Sam was unfortunately a good example of that. Merula was too, now that I thought about it. At least, she had been in the past. 

“Sam’s getting better,” I said.

“She’s the only one,” Robin muttered. 

“Mason doesn’t judge. You could tell him.”

He shrugged. 

“At least talk to me,” I said. “How long have you been able to see them?”

“Just this year. Or last summer technically. The Muggles in my neighborhood fight each other a lot. Some kid got stabbed while I was walking home.” Exactly as it had been when he had told me about his parents, his tone was emotionless, and it caused my heart to sink. 

Not knowing what else to say, I swore softly. 

“That sums it up, yeah,” he said wryly. 

“Are you safe going home this summer?” I asked. 

“I mean, I am a wizard…”

“I’m serious. Muggles have persecuted plenty of wizards before.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, but I wasn’t at all convinced. 

“You know you can talk to me, right? I want you to talk to me. I also want you to talk to your friends. Don’t keep stuff like this to yourself.”

He gave me a strange look.

“What?” I asked. 

“You sound like my aunt.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No. No, it’s not,” he said, and I was startled to hear his voice crack. 

“Hey, come here,” I said, and I pulled him into a hug. He wrapped his arms tightly around me, hiding his face against my shoulder, and I rested my chin on his head. 

“I’m fine,” he mumbled into my armpit. 

“You don’t have to be,” I said, rubbing my thumb against his back, and when he didn’t answer, I added, “I’m proud of you today, you know? I know facing thestrals isn’t easy, but you flew with me and everything. That’s really impressive.”

I felt him shrug. “I’m not a fan of them, but I figured if I flew and Sam didn’t, it would make her look like a coward. The pros outweighed the cons.”

I was about to comment that Sam had flown anyway, but then I realized that was his point. The pros outweighed the cons. “That was very Slytherin of you,” I laughed. 

“I know,” he said, an uncharacteristic amount of pride in his voice. When he pulled away, I was relieved to see that his eyes had regained some of their earlier spark. 

“Will you please consider opening up to your friends?” I asked. “It will make things a lot easier.”

He took a deep breath and then nodded. “Okay.”

I wondered if he was being sincere or if he was just saying what I wanted to hear. Either way, it had to be good enough for now. “Okay. That’s all I wanted.”

I turned to reopen the greenhouse door, but before I could, he caught my arm, stopping me mid-step. “Wait,” he said and then hesitated, the words he wanted to say teetering on his parted lips. Finally, he murmured, “Thank you, Lily, for...for everything.”

Smiling, I looped an arm around his shoulders. “You’re very welcome.”

* * * *

The following week, I received a message via blackbird that a storm front was approaching Snyde Manor and that I should head over as soon as I was able. Sure enough, when I arrived a few minutes later, the evening sky was dark and heavy with moisture, although Merula informed me that there had been no rain or lightning yet. So, we waited, leaning against the black metal railing of the veranda, watching for the first flash of light and crack of thunder that would signal it was time for the change to begin. 

However, after fifteen minutes had passed, there was still nothing. The clouds hung in the air, gray and silent. Thirty minutes and Merula began to pace, her boots beating a steady tempo on the wood beneath them. Forty-five minutes and the sky darkened further without giving up a single drop of rain. 

An hour into waiting, Merula climbed the oak tree. She clambered halfway up it with surprising speed and grace, where she perched comfortably in a fork in its thick branches, giving me the impression she did this often. Taking more care, I climbed up after her to settle on a nearby branch, where I was able to sit with my back to the trunk. There we chatted idly, bouncing from topic to topic with no real agenda or intention, so for a while, the conversation never turned serious. 

Then, during a lull, I asked abruptly, “What do you know about the Feare family?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Ooh, asking the scandalous questions, are we? Is this about the kid?”

“Partially. Not just him though. What do you know?”

“I know that the family’s a mess, even more so than your typical Death Eater coven. Old, old name, but the family itself? Not so much. They claim to be pure, but there’s a lot of mixed blood there if you ask me. Or I should say that there was. ”

“How so?”

She absentmindedly scraped beneath her fingernails, as if bored. “As far as I know, Robin Feare is the last descendant, and I doubt he takes purity as seriously as his parents did. He does have a maternal aunt, but the family disowned her for marrying a Muggle, and I don’t think they have any children. It won’t be long before the bloodline dies out.”

“What kind of Death Eaters were they?” I asked. 

She wrinkled her nose. “The insane kind. Fanatical. Worse than my own parents, or so I’ve heard. I never met them, but everyone knows what they did.” She paused and gave me a teasing look. “Well, almost everyone.”

“Educate me then,” I said dryly. 

“I always do. You should read the paper every once in a while. Anyway, when it looked like Voldemort had—for Merlin’s sake, it’s a name!” she exclaimed in exasperation when I flinched. “Grow a spine, honestly.”

I gritted my teeth. “Just continue.”

“Anyway, when it looked like Voldemort had been defeated, most Death Eaters did one of three things: they either renounced their master and blamed the Imperius Curse for their actions, refused to stop fighting and died for their stupidity, or they went into hiding and waited for the right moment to get revenge. You know what the Lestranges did—waited all of two seconds before they decided to torture the Longbottoms. My parents were a little more patient, but of course, they snapped too. I don’t know why they thought it was a good idea to kidnap and kill an Auror, but that’s what happened.”

“So, that’s what the Feares did?” I asked. “They snapped?”

“That’s one way to put it. They lasted a few years before they got tired of waiting. Maybe they thought they could still carry out their master’s plan without him, I don’t know. But they tracked down a blood traitor family, and...well, it wasn’t great.” She hesitated, and for a moment, I thought that she wasn’t willing to give me the details. But then, to my complete horror, she said darkly, “They tortured the kids in front of the parents and then killed the parents in front of the kids. Aurors showed up to arrest them eventually, but it’s not like it would have done any good by then.”

I swallowed back a wave of nausea, and it was several seconds before I was able to open my mouth to speak. “The family they attacked,” I said faintly. “What was the name?”

Merula smiled grimly. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

I closed my eyes and rested my head against the rough bark of the tree trunk. That wasn’t the answer I had wanted to hear.

“We were in school when it happened,” she said. “It was in the paper.”

“I was a little distracted then.” 

“Yeah, I suppose so.” Something in her tone caught my attention, and when I glanced at her, she was clenching and unclenching her fists agitatedly. “They tortured children, ” she said, her words laced with bitterness. “Who does that? Even my parents aren’t that sadistic.”

The image of a smirking red-headed witch came to mind, but invoking that name in Merula’s presence had never been a good idea. Years had passed, and I doubted she had gotten over that incident any more than I had. 

“I would never use the Cruciatus Curse on someone that doesn’t deserve it,” she muttered. 

Alarm fluttered in my chest. “You shouldn’t use that curse at all!” I exclaimed. 

She gazed at me levelly. “I know that. But if I have to, then I will.”

“No! How can you say that? You of all people—”

“I, of all people, am willing to do what needs to be done when this war finally breaks out. I don’t expect you to understand that.”

“Then help me to understand. What situation could possibly arise in which you would have to torture someone?”

Her face twisted into a sneer. “That’s a stupid question. This is war, Flores. The enemy is not going to hold back just because we are. If you won’t resort to extremes, then someone needs to be able to.”

“Please,” I begged. “Please promise you’ll never use that curse. Ever.”

“I can’t promise that. But, like I just said, I’ll never use it on someone that doesn’t deserve it.”

“Based on whose judgment?” I said sharply. “Yours?”

She glared at me. “You don’t trust my judgement?”

“No, that’s not it! I just…it’s just...” At a loss for words, I tore at my hair with a groan. 

“I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up about this. It’s not like you were the one who—” Her breath caught, trapping the words in her throat, and she stared at me with intense scrutiny. I had the odd sense of being examined under a magnifying glass, and it made my skin crawl. “Your vision,” she said slowly. “Who tortured you in your vision?”

“No one,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t betray how my heart had just leapt into my throat. “I told you, I couldn’t see them.”

“You’re lying,” she snapped. 

“I’m not!”

“You are. Who was it?”

“I don’t know!”

“Yes, you do. Tell me who.”

“I don’t know! I really don’t!”

“Lily.”

I flinched. Now she decided to use my name? This was a horrible time to play that card, and she knew it. “I can’t tell you,” I said, closing my eyes again.

There was a long silence, during which I could only hear the sound of my heart beating in my ears. Behind my eyelids, I was back in that broken corridor, frozen as Merula raised her wand and pointed it at me moments before the world exploded into pain. I trusted her. I wanted to trust her. But I kept seeing this version of her, no matter how many times I tried to block it from my mind.

I heard her take a deep breath, and the leaves rattled as she shifted on the branches. “Okay,” she said quietly. “I won’t use the curse.”

I looked at her in surprise. She looked at the sky. “You promise?” I asked, almost afraid to hope.

“I promise.”

I sighed in relief, relaxing against the tree trunk. “Thank you,” I said. It was a sudden change on her part, and the reason for it concerned me, but I didn’t know what I would have done if she had refused to back down. I didn’t even want to think about it. 

She grunted her acknowledgement. Her head was tilted upward as she watched the silent sky, and the shadows of the leaves hid her face from my view. “The clouds are moving away,” she said, her voice expressionless. “We should head back inside.”

I eyed her uncertainly. I really wished I knew what was going through her head, and the fact that I couldn’t read her was making me anxious. “Right,” I agreed after a beat of hesitation. “I should go home before Penny starts to worry. I didn’t tell her where I was going.”

“You do that,” she said, and before I could move so much as a finger, she grabbed a branch and swung down to the ground with ease, leaving me to carefully climb down the unfamiliar tree by myself. By the time my feet hit the ground, she was already at the doors, and as I trailed after her, I found myself feeling faintly sick again, although not for the same reason as before. 

When I entered the parlor, she was waiting for me at the fireplace with her arms crossed and another hard-to-read expression on her face. 

“What?” I asked warily.

She curled her fingers, scrunching up the fabric of her sleeves, which I had been learning to recognize as a self-calming gesture. “We’re friends, right?” she asked. 

“Of course. I said that earlier, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“Then you can believe it.” I paused and then added, “I mean, if that’s what you want?”

Hearteningly, her lips pulled into her usual smirk. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a say in the matter.”

I chuckled. “No. No, you haven’t.”

“Hmph. I’ll see you around, Flores.”

“I guarantee it,” I said.

I doubted our argument was truly over. Merula never let things drop that easily, and anything that was left simmering tended to boil over later. But, for the moment, we were okay, and that was all that mattered. We could deal with that issue the next time it arose. 

I just hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ways my nightmares said it would.

Chapter Text

As summer approached, working in the greenhouse became less and less enjoyable, not only for me and Penny, but also for the more light-sensitive plants. When Penny noticed spots on the vines of the venomous tentacula, I was tasked with covering part of the building with shade cloths and checking the soil moisture in the pots twice a day. Fortunately, most of the plants, such as the dittany and the aconite, seemed to be doing well with the increasingly intense sunshine, but for some reason the white-flowered asphodel had developed spots as well. My Herbology guide had said they preferred abundant natural light, which there was, so I didn’t know what was wrong. I would have to send an owl to my dad; he would know how to solve the problem better than me. 

Finished with tending to the plants for the morning, I dropped my gloves and shears back in their box and exited the greenhouse. I wondered if I had enough time to write a letter before I had to take over for Penny in the shop. What time was my next shift?

As I reached the side door of the Cauldron, the back door of Darrow & Son’s swung open and out shuffled Mr. Darrow with a rubbish bag in hand. Unable to slip inside without being noticed, I called out pleasantly, “Good morning, Mr. Darrow!” as if his presence didn’t make me uneasy in the way it always did. 

Thud! The rubbish went in the bin with a startling amount of force, and he turned to glare at me with his gnarled face. “You don’t need to speak to me,” he grumbled. 

I winced. There it was as usual: completely unprovoked hostility. “Er, I think maybe I do,” I said. “If I’ve done something wrong, then please tell me. I want to be able to fix it.”

He snorted. “You think you’ve done something wrong? Lass, if you don’t know what you’ve done, there’s no point in explaining it to you.” Putting the lid back on the bin, he grabbed the doorknob to go inside. 

“Wait,” I pleaded, hurrying around to the base of his steps. “Please, I know I did things when I was in school, and I know it’s my fault people got hurt, but I’ve been trying to make things better. I want to help people, and if I’ve hurt you in some way—”

“In that case, you better stop trying,” he said brusquely, “because this goes well beyond whatever trouble you caused in school. You’re a curse, girl; that’s what you are.”

I flinched back from the venom in his words. A curse? 

Turning away from the door, he growled, “You want to fix things?”

“Yes,” I said sincerely. 

“Then stay away from everyone else. You stay away from me, stay away from my son, and you sure as hell stay away from those kids. And if you have an ounce of good conscience, you’ll stay away from Penny Haywood too. Good day!” With that, he slammed the door in my face. 

I gaped at the shuddering wood frame, stunned into silence. I didn’t know what to think, how to react, or even what had just happened. I had wanted to solve the issue between us, and yet here I stood, feeling more confused and horrible than before. A curse? What did that mean?

Surely he hadn’t been talking about me being gay. I wasn’t out here, not to anyone besides my friends. There was no way he could have known. 

I had to have done something—hurt someone, insulted someone, caused some kind of mess, but I had no idea what. I had caused so many messes in my life it was impossible to guess which one had caused Mr. Darrow to hate me. All of them had been accidental of course, but that didn’t make them any more forgivable. 

Shaken, I walked unsteadily back into Cauldron where I sank onto a stool in the empty brewing room, surprised by how fast my heart was beating. It felt like it was spasming in the base of my throat, cutting off my air as it tried to climb its way to freedom. I braced my arms against the table, forcing myself to breathe deeply. 

Why are you reacting this way? You don’t care what people think about you. That’s who you are. You never care what people think about you. 

“Lily?” Penny’s voice rang out from the direction of the shop. “Are you back inside yet?”

“Yeah!” I called back, hoping the shake didn’t come through in my voice.

“Can you come here, please?”

“Yep! Just...just give me one moment.” You never care. It doesn’t matter. You never care. It doesn’t matter.

“Lily? I think you’ll want to see this.”

“One moment!” Dear Merlin, just breathe. Breathe…

“Ignoring your boss?” asked a voice much deeper than Penny’s. “Tsk. Some employee you are.”

I slammed my knee into the table as I spun around to face the speaker, and I ended up sliding halfway off the stool with a shout of pain. “Jacob!” I yelled. “I’m going to kill you!”

Jacob grinned at me from where he was leaning against the doorframe. “Love you too, Pip,” he said teasingly. 

I slid the rest of the way off the stool, standing up so that I could get a good look at my brother. I couldn’t tell if he had grown since the last time I had seen him or if I had simply forgotten what he looked like. He was tall—over a head taller than me—with broad shoulders and strong arms that suggested he used his physical strength as often as his magical strength. His hair was certainly longer than I had seen it last, now spiking out from where it had once been close-cropped. With his brown leather boots, gloves, and trench coat, he looked like he should have been digging around in some ancient ruin rather than standing in an apothecary, and unless I was wrong, that is actually what he should have been doing at this moment. It was where I had left him four years ago anyway. 

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He held his arms out. “Come here first.”

Despite rolling my eyes, I didn’t hesitate to cross the room to meet him, and we embraced, with me holding onto him more tightly than I would care to admit. He pet my head once and then gripped my shoulders, pushing me back to look at me from an arm’s length. His eyes narrowed as he studied me in concern. 

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You’re pale.”

“I’m fine. I just got a little overheated.”

“Have you had any water? You need to drink something.” Without letting go of me, he began to look around the room. 

“I’m fine—”

Penny poked her head in the doorway. “God, I told you to let me know if the new shifts are too much. I’ll go get you some,” she said and vanished before I could protest.

“Thank you!” I called after her. 

“Look at that,” Jacob said. “You have a nice boss.”

I crossed my arms. “We’re partners. Business partners.”

“If you say so.” He grinned at me again. “How are you doing, Pip? Besides fine.”

“Confused why you’re not in the middle of the desert. Bill said you were going to remain on site for a while.”

“I did, and now I’m here. It would have drawn too much attention if we had both come back at the same time, so we decided that one of us should wait a year. I’m a little early, but I couldn’t exactly wait any longer with everything that’s been going on here.”

My eyes widened. “So you’re back? For good?”

He chuckled. “For as long as it takes, same as you. Did you miss me, or do you still want to kill me now?”

“Both.” I forcibly shoved his shoulder, but he barely shifted. 

Penny reappeared with a glass of water, which I gratefully accepted, and she closed the door behind her as she returned to the shop. With Jacob and the cool liquid to distract me, I felt calmer—almost calm enough to forget what had happened moments before. 

Jacob gestured where Penny had disappeared. “I was talking with her while you were back here ignoring us...and slowly dying, apparently. And you should know that we need to have a long conversation.”

And now my anxiety was back. There were many things Penny could have told him that I didn’t want him to know. “Am I about to get a lecture?” I asked warily. 

“Not right now, but I can guarantee you will later.” He leaned against the wall. “What I did want to tell you right now is that I got Penny to let you off work middle of next month.”

“What? Why?”

He gave me a mischievous look. “It’s an early birthday present. I can’t say exactly what it is, but I suggest you clear the third week of June on your calendar—and pack as if you’re going camping. That’s important.”

“I can’t leave for a week! The school—”

“It won’t be for the full week, only a few days. I’m not sure the exact day it’s supposed to happen, so we need to be prepared to leave anytime around then, that’s all. You can trust Penny to take care of things for a day or two, right?”

“Jacob,” I groaned into my hands. “What have you done?”

“You’ll love it, I promise,” he said, and then abruptly, he pointed at my chest. “I see you’re still wearing my necklace.”

I wrapped my fingers around the bronze pendant, out of habit more than anything else, and tried not to give him the benefit of a smile. I failed. “It’s a dragon. I can’t take it off.”

“I know,” he laughed. “You’ve never changed. You could have stayed with me in Egypt, but no, you had to go chasing after your creatures, just like when you were little.”

His teasing was good-natured; I knew that, but his words didn’t sit right with me. Mostly, they hit too close to home. “Yeah, well, I’m good at chasing things,” I said with a shrug.

“Obviously,” he said lightly, but it sounded more forced than before. He had slipped up. We both had, but neither of us would talk about it. We had barely discussed it before, and the more time passed, the less likely we would discuss it in the future.  

I held up the pendant, as if I wasn’t bothered. “We’re not leaving the country, right?” I asked slowly, gesturing between him and the bronze dragon. 

He chuckled again. “No, I won’t take you out of Scotland. Don’t think about it too much. You’re not supposed to guess what it is right away.”

The pendant slipped from my fingers. “Should I pack Fire-Protection Potions?”

“ Pip. ”

“I can’t help it!”

He shook his head. “At least you’re excited now. But, ” he held up a hand before I could say anything, “that doesn’t mean it’s what you’re thinking of.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked with a smirk.

“And that’s my cue to leave,” he sighed. 

“What? No. You just got here! Don’t—” I broke off, surprised by my own rising voice, and forced it back to a calmer level. “I mean, you don’t have to go yet.”

“I do, unfortunately. I have a work meeting. Never a good idea to keep the goblins waiting.” Pausing to give me a crooked smile, he added, “That didn’t stop me from seeing you first though.”

I gave him another eye roll, but I couldn’t help but match his expression. “Well, don’t get fired because of me!”

“Funny.” He gave me a quick hug from the side, which I returned. “See you next month, okay? I’ll be at Gringotts if you need anything.”

“I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Opening the door, he began to make his exit, but he halted halfway through and poked his head back in. “Oh, one last thing. Visit Mum, will you? She says you haven’t been home since Christmas.”

Grimacing, I ignored the rising wave of guilt in my chest. Ah, of course she had told him that. “I’ve been busy,” I protested weakly. 

“I understand that, but it won’t stop her from tracking you down. You have been warned.”

I sighed. That was another problem to add to the list. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.” With a wave of farewell, he vanished from the room, leaving it without a trace of his presence. And yet, the walls didn’t feel as quiet and empty as they had before. 

Jacob was back. We were both back—at the same time. That hadn’t been the case for a very long while, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Excited, yes. Happy, yes. But it was never that simple. 

I rejoined Penny in the shop, and she looked up from the ledger with a grin. “Your brother’s sweet,” she said. 

“You’re only able to say that because you’re not his sister,” I groaned, leaning against the side of the counter opposite from her. 

“Hey, I get it,” she said sympathetically. “I have Bea, remember?”

“At least you’re the older sibling.”

“It’s not an easier job, trust me.” She closed the ledger and returned it to its safe spot beneath the counter. “How are you guys? You’re on good terms now, right?”

“I think so.”

I loved Jacob. I always had, but in truth, our relationship was complicated in an almost supernatural way. The age difference between us should have been similar to the age difference between me and Robin, and technically that was true. But when Jacob had been trapped in that portrait, he had been trapped in an odd state of stasis for almost eight years, and since I had freed him, we had been around the same age physically. The result had been an entire shift in our relationship dynamic. It had been years since I had been the helpless seven-year-old he had known and since he had been the fearless protector I had known, and adjusting to the difference had been difficult. 

This difficulty had been worsened by the traumas we had endured without each other. We had both lost people we loved, had both been subjected to curses and betrayal, and worst of all, had both lost the childhoods we should have had. And, when it had all been over at last, we had barely had time to talk about any of it before my graduation rolled around and we both had to move on with our lives. I knew he still suffered from those eight years in complete isolation, and he knew I still suffered from the hardships that had occurred in those eight years without him.

But what could we say? I didn’t know of a single arrangement of words that would fix the problem—that would return us to a normal that no longer existed. So, in the times we did see each other, we said nothing. We joked, we laughed, we fought—we behaved like any normal pair of siblings, and we pretended everything was fine. 

“How are you and Bea these days?” I asked before my thoughts could go any further down that rabbit hole than my sanity would allow. 

Penny tilted her head thoughtfully. “We’re doing well, I think. She doesn’t protest when I hug her anymore, and she has finally lightened up on the eyeliner. Hasn’t stopped wearing black though.”

I laughed. “Good.”

Then again, maybe my situation with my brother wasn’t as extreme as I thought it was. We weren’t the only pair of siblings to have a supernatural dilemma come between our relationship; the Haywood sisters could vouch for that.

With this wild start to my morning, I took over Penny’s shift at the counter for the rest of what was otherwise an uneventful day. I managed to send Aeris out that afternoon with questions for my dad about the struggling asphodel, and I was pleasantly surprised to receive his response later in the evening:

Anna,

I can’t know the exact problem without seeing the plant but best guess is overwatering. Asphodel likes well-drained soil. Check the soil moisture. May need a different kind of soil or pot with more holes. Also pay attention to how much you are watering it. May need to cut back the amount or frequency. 

Could also be some kind of fungus or disease. If that’s the case, there might not be a treatment for it and you will need to cut away the diseased parts. If there’s no saving it, get rid of the whole plant as soon as possible to prevent disease spread. Better to replace one plant than lose an entire row.

Are you coming home for your birthday? Asking now so you’ll think about it. 

Love you.

-Dad

After reading the letter, I didn’t know whether to sigh or laugh. Dad never needed to sign his messages for me to tell who wrote them, that was for sure. It was helpful advice though, even if it wasn’t much to go on. I supposed I should start researching plant diseases to make sure the problem wasn’t something that would affect the rest of the greenhouse. 

As for my birthday, I didn’t want to think about it, which is doubtlessly why he had asked me two months early. I wondered if Mum had put him up to it or if he was just as concerned about me as she was. Neither answer to that question was enheartening.

I laid my head down on my desk with a groan, something I seemed to be doing with more frequency nowadays. Hearing my distress, Pip hopped up next to me to investigate, and I could feel her sniffing at my hair. Pip—the cat I had named because of my then-missing brother. 

Why couldn’t dealing with family ever be easy?

* * * *

“You’re distracted today.”

“Am I?”

Hands on her hips, Merula watched as I launched another spell into the training dummy, sending it wobbling. We were an hour into reviewing every spell in my arsenal, from defensive to offensive to anything in between, and I was painfully aware of her eyes on me as my arm burned and sweat ran down my back. She had been carefully tracking every movement I made, and I could sense her judgement, although she had withheld commentary until now. 

Before the dummy could stabilize, I made my final strike—the one that should have knocked it to the ground—and missed. The orange bolt went wide and slammed into the far wall, scorching a black mark across the wallpaper and missing the ballroom mirror by centimeters.

“The wall thinks so,” Merula said. She waved her wand, repairing the damage in an instant.

“Sorry!” I exclaimed, feeling my face heat up. “It’s weird with you watching me.”

“Oh, my apologies,” she said sardonically. “I’ll be sure to tell the Death Eaters to close their eyes while they’re attacking you. Would that help?”

“Shut up,” I growled and launched a second orange bolt at the dummy. This time I hit my mark, and shards of wood and metal flew in all directions as I burned a hole halfway through its chest. 

Merula smirked. “Better. I like it when you’re angry.”

“I don’t,” I grumbled. Relying on my emotions for power in my spellcasting had always made me uneasy, especially since that was a technique associated with the Dark Arts. If I lost control, then I was as likely to hurt my friends as I was the person I was aiming at. 

“Relax. You’re doing well.”

“Really?” If I wasn’t mistaken, that had been an actual compliment. 

She put her hands back on her hips. “You’ve always been a good spellcaster. Maybe—and I mean maybe —a bit better than me. That doesn’t mean you’re powerful, or even good enough to win in a fight, but it does mean you shouldn’t die right away.” 

“Uh, thank you?” There was no mistaking it: that had been a compliment.

She frowned at me. “What’s with you? You don’t need me to tell you this.”

“It’s nothing. Nothing big anyway.” Pointing my wand at the training dummy again, I did my best to repair the hole in its chest, but a few chips and dents lingered as a testament to the previous damage. “Jacob’s back.”

“What, like permanently?”

“Sounds like it.”

“Oh, wonderful, we can get married now. Aunt Lin will be thrilled.” She launched a spell of her own, and it sliced the dummy’s head clean off, which tumbled to the mat with a soft thump.

“Not funny,” I said. 

“I agree.” She went over to inspect the severed metal head, and although she nudged it with her toe, she didn’t hurry to put it back where it belonged. “Want to work on your footwork?” she asked. 

“Sure, if you don’t mind. What did you—”

“ Flipendo! ” In a blur of motion, she slashed her wand in my direction, and before I could fully comprehend what she was doing, invisible hands shoved my chest, toppling me over to land on my tailbone—hard enough that my teeth jolted with the impact. 

Merula stood over me, clicking her tongue. “And a verbal spell too. That was disappointing.” Grabbing my arm, she pulled me back to my feet. “We need to work on your reaction time.”

“This never happened,” I grumbled, my face burning again.

“Whatever you say.” She returned her wand to its sheath. “Let’s start with what I learned from Diego. Basic steps first, and then we’ll move on to matching your opponent’s rhythm. Come on, copy what I do.” She adopted a position that was much more relaxed than a traditional dueling stance—her feet apart, but not significantly so, and her knees slightly bent—which I mirrored. “As you move one leg in any direction, extend the other one. Less of that heel to toe motion.” She slid her left leg to the side, straightening her right one as she did so, and I followed suit. “No, don’t drag your feet either. Good. Keep doing that. You can go diagonal too.”

I slid my leg diagonally to my back right. “Like that?”

She lightly tapped my foot with her own, shifting it into the correct position. “Like that. It gets more complicated, but we’ll keep it simple for today. I want to test your rhythm more than anything.” She walked over to the record player that was perched on a small table against the wall, and swapped out the vinyl that was already on the machine. Gentle orchestral music swelled to fill the ballroom, carrying with it the three-quarter time of a waltz: one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three…

“I knew it,” I laughed. “You really do dance when you duel.”

“Laugh after you’ve tried it for yourself. This is level one. I will make it harder later on.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“Good.” She pointed at the long dueling mat at my feet. “Move from one end of the mat to the other. Match the music.”

Performing the movements she had taught me, I attempted to do as she said, carely bending and extending my legs in time with the music as I crossed the mat. With each step, I counted in my head, focusing on that one-two-three, one-two-three beat.

When I reached the end, however, Merula shook her head. “No. Try again.”

I did, moving back to the other side, my eyes half-closed in concentration as I silently counted my steps. Still, Merula shook her head again, and again with the next attempt, and with the next. Once I had returned to my original starting point for the third time, she said, “You’re still offbeat. Close your eyes all the way.”

I did, but with my first step into the self-imposed darkness, I lost all sense of where I was in the huge room, and as the emptiness pressed down on me, my heart began to adopt its own nervous beat. “You won’t let me walk into anything, right?” I asked. 

“Do it right and you won’t,” she said, not at all to my reassurance. “Relax, listen, and focus. It’s not like this is the Celestial Ball.”

Eyes closed, dancing by myself in Merula’s ballroom, I almost felt more vulnerable than I had at the Celestial Ball, and that was saying something. I certainly felt more ridiculous. Nevertheless, Merula’s voice enabled me to reorient myself, and I was able to cross the rest of the mat without slipping off it, following the music the whole way. When I hesitantly opened my eyes less than a meter from the edge, it was to see her grinning at me. 

“Better. Much better,” she said, and then walked out onto the center of the mat, beckoning me with a hand. “Do it again. Come to me.”

I started back out across the mat, but knowing that she was in front me, somewhere I couldn’t see, I shuffled my feet uncertainly, listening more to the unnerving silence of Merula than to the music.  

“You’re offbeat,” she singsonged, her voice still a distance away. “Am I that scary?”

I chuckled, forcing myself to relax, and with less hesitation, I followed the music for several seemingly long beats until I felt a shift in the padded fabric beneath my feet, like there was another weight on it. “You’re right in front of me, aren’t you,” I said.

“Mm-hm,” hummed her voice, startlingly close to my face. “Not bad. You might get the hang of this after all. Ah, keep those eyes closed,” she scolded, although I could hear the smile in her words. “Arms out.” 

I held my forearms up in front of me, and as her surprisingly cold hands grasped them, I felt the shifting of her weight as she swayed her hips and shoulders, causing me to sway with her. If I had felt vulnerable before, then I was defenseless now that I was quite literally in her hands. She was close enough that I could feel the heat from her body and smell the scent of cloves that always lingered on her skin, but I couldn’t see her, and it made me nervous for reasons I couldn’t explain. 

“You need to get better at sensing your surroundings,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what kind of spellcaster you are if you can’t tell what your enemy is doing. Feel the little changes in my movement. When I step forward, I want you to step back. If I step to the side, you should do the same. Got it?”

“I think so,” I said, although blood was beginning to rush in my ears, making it difficult to hear the music. 

“No, you better not think. Feel. That’s the point, birdbrain.”

“Snake,” I muttered, not caring for the old house insult, but I relaxed enough to fall into sync with her swaying. 

Ever so slightly, her fingers shifted on my left arm, and I took that as a cue to move my left foot back, just in time for her right foot to slide into its place. This was shortly followed by a shift on my right arm, so I moved my right foot back as she stepped forward with her left. Left, right, left...and then there was a different change in pressure as her body swayed to the side, and I swayed with her, both of us gliding to my right. 

“Not bad, Flores,” she said with an audible smirk. “You actually can turn that brain off sometimes.”

“Not easily,” I joked. “You know dancing isn’t my thing.”

My point was demonstrated as she rock stepped, pulling me into an unexpected pivot turn, where I promptly tripped over my own feet. She paused to sway from side to side again, allowing us to get back in sync. 

“I recall,” she said, “since I had to physically drag you onto the dancefloor—during the dance you invited me to, I might add. And here I thought I was stubborn...”

Years earlier, when we had both been fourteen, Merula had been my platonic date to our first dance, the Celestial Ball. We had still been rivals back then, bickering everytime we shared a room, so that was precisely the reason I had asked her. Asking Penny had been out of the question, and the idea of asking any of my friends had seemed too weird, so I had decided that if I asked Merula instead, then neither she nor I would have anything to lose if she rejected me. In an ironic twist of fate, however, she had accepted, and for the first time in our relationship, we spent a fun, argument-free night together. We’d had our ups and downs since then, but to me, that was when I had begun to truly view her as a friend. 

“That feels so long ago,” she continued. “Now I know better than to let you step on my toes.”

“You say that, but…” I stamped my foot down in front of me, aiming as best as I could with my eyes closed, but it collided with nothing more than the firm padding of the mat, and then I was stumbling backwards as my own weight shifted without my consent. As quickly as Merula had shoved me back, she pulled me forward again with such force that I was afraid I would fall onto her chest. But she held me steady, never once shifting her fingers from their places on my forearms. 

I could imagine her shaking her head as she clicked her tongue. “Not gonna happen,” she said. “ I’m the one in control.”

“How does it feel to order me around?” I asked as she steered me into another pivot turn—more gracefully this time.

“It feels wonderful, thank you for asking,” she purred.

“You know, I hate to admit it, but you might actually beat me in a duel.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. What was that?”

“You heard me.”

“I did,” she said, sounding pleased, “and there’s no ‘might’ about it—I know I will. That’s why I’m giving you a chance to catch up first. It won’t be any fun if it’s not a challenge.”

I rolled my eyes before I remembered that she couldn’t see them, so I settled for a smirk instead. “Whatever you say,” I teased. 

Thunder crashed overhead, causing us both to jump, and suddenly she yanked my arms, this time ensuring that I did fall—past her. Her hands released me as she side-stepped, and alarmed at the sudden lack of support, I opened my eyes to see the walls tilt sideways as I tumbled to the mat. In the few seconds it took to push myself into a sitting position, my smirk had turned into a scowl, but she wasn’t paying enough attention to me to see it, her gaze instead directed at the dark sky beyond the wall of windows. 

“What was that for?” I complained. 

“Lightning,” she said. 

“What?”

“Lightning. Lightning just flashed outside,” she repeated to my confusion, and when I didn’t respond, she whirled to face me and waved her hands emphatically, shouting, “ Lightning, Flores! That was the first strike! Come on, get up get up get up!” And then she bolted from the room, leaving me and her cloak on the ground behind her. 

I cursed as the realization hit me, and then I was on my feet sprinting in the same direction. I reached the parlor right as she was returning to it with a vial of a blood red potion in her outstretched hands. “Okay, okay, what do we do?” she said quickly.

“We need a large, open space,” I said. “We have no idea how you’ll react to the change or what kind of animal you’ll be. Think angry lion or stampeding erumpent. Could cause a lot of damage to the house.”

“Noted,” she said, her voice steady despite the loss of blood from her face. “Follow me. We’ll go out the back gate.”

Not wanting to risk dropping the vial, we awkwardly power-walked through the garden to a large black metal gate set in the far wall, which Merula had to physically unlock in order to open. Tendrils of lightning shot across the sky as we stepped through the gate, followed by the crash of thunder two seconds later. There was no rain yet, but the heaviness of the air said there would be soon. 

In the stormy twilight, the surrounding landscape looked dull and smudged, there being barely enough light for me to make out its features, but I was able to tell that we were in the middle of nowhere. Low grassy hills, dotted with the occasional copse of trees, stretched from each visible side of the manor until they collided with a thick forest about a kilometer in the distance. A winding path led from the garden gate to a small lake about halfway between the wall and the forest, but other than that there was nothing here, not another building or human structure to be seen. 

“Any neighbors?” I asked as we put some distance between us and the house. 

She shook her head. “There’s a Muggle village to the west and a road that passes by the front of the house, but they’re both on the other side of the trees. We’re good.”

“Brilliant.”

We stopped before we reached the lake, making sure to stay clear of any of the copses of trees, and I counted out five paces as I walked backwards, away from Merula. Standing beneath the storm clouds in the middle of the open field, she looked unusually small as the strong wind tore at her clothes and hair. Without her cloak covering her thin body, it was hard not to imagine a powerful gust blowing her away. 

“Any last tips?” she asked with a laugh, as if it could cover up her voice’s spike in pitch. 

“Well, you are essentially drinking bottled lightning,” I said calmly, putting my hands on my hips. “Are you prepared for that?”

“Fiery pain and intense double heartbeat,” she said brusquely. “Got it. I read the book.”

“Once you drink the potion, you have to be one hundred percent committed. Any hesitation during your first change, and that will be where things will go wrong. This is your absolute last chance to back out.”

Her lip curled, and she planted her feet firmly in the grass, like she expected me to drag her back to the house. “I’m not a coward,” she spat. “We’re doing this.”

“Fine. The second you see your Animagus form in your mind, shift. See it, imagine becoming it. No hesitation.”

“ I know, Flores.”

“You asked,” I said.

She sighed, calming down a fraction. “I know I did,” she relented and looked at the vial in her hands. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the determined frown on her face, and before the following thunder had faded, she popped the cork and said, “Here goes nothing,” and downed the red liquid in one swallow. 

One heartbeat...two, and then she doubled over with a cry of pain, the vial slipping from her fingers as she clawed at her chest. The glass landed softly in the grass and rolled to a stop against her boot, but she blindly kicked it away. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and her breath came in short gasps, almost sounding like she was suffocating, and I had to dig my nails into my side to remind myself not to go closer. Just in case, I unbuttoned the sheath on my hip, although I didn’t draw my wand, and widened my stance, ready for the worst. 

“Merula, change!” I shouted, hoping she could hear me despite feeling like her skin was on fire. “You have to change now. ”

“Shut...up,” she panted through gritted teeth, and before I could open my mouth to yell at her again, she was gone...as in completely vanished. At least, for a second, that’s what it looked like. One moment Merula was standing there, hunched over in excruciating pain, and the next moment the air where she had been was empty. 

Struck by a wave of panic, I sprinted over to the spot where she had disappeared and then had to immediately stumble to avoid stepping on an unusual lump in the grass. Three bolts of lightning lit up the sky, one after the other, and they hung in the air long enough for me to see that this particular lump was not a lump at all, but a bird. A little bird with sooty brown feathers, a yellow beak, and a streak of orange on its rounded head. 

Thunder drowned out my howl of laughter while the tiny blackbird that was Merula hopped around my feet, ruffling her feathers and chittering furiously. Without pausing for breath, I shrunk down to my cat form in order to understand her, and although animals didn’t use words in the human sense of the definition, what she was saying was very clear. 

No, no, no! she exclaimed. There is no way I’m this small! This is a joke! All the animals in the world, and I get one you could kill with a book.

I sank down onto my belly and crossed my front paws, feeling an amused purr rising in my chest. This is adorable, I said. 

Shut up! You’re the one to talk, fur ball! You… Whatever jab she had prepared vanished as she stopped hopping, and her feathers gradually smoothed out. Wait, you’re talking?

In a way. Communication comes instinctively, so you might want to be careful what you think about.

Seemingly stunned, she tilted her head (at an angle that would have snapped a human neck) to look at the rest of her body. Now that I was at her level, I could see that her plumage was not a solid brown, but rather contained darker mottling, especially on her breast. To someone not looking closely, she would have appeared to be a typical common blackbird—minus the identifying orange streak on her head. 

This is weird. I have wings. She unfolded them for emphasis. 

Isn’t this what you wanted? I asked. To be able to go unnoticed? Because this honestly seems like the best form for it.

Most Animagi reflected some part of their human form in their animal form. For McGonagall, it was her spectacles; for me, it was my blue eyes; and for Merula, it appeared to be her hair dye. If she was a larger animal, then a feature that distinct would have been a cause for concern, but as a little bird, it was less likely to become a problem. 

That’s true, she admitted. I don’t know. I didn’t expect to feel this...exposed. She looked up at me. You could literally eat me right now. 

You know, I’ve never tried to catch a bird, I said thoughtfully. 

Not funny!

I think it is. Who’s the birdbrain now?

Shut up, Flores!

Another bolt of lightning struck, and I instinctively flattened myself against the ground as an explosion of thunder followed less than a second later, deafening my more sensitive ears. Merula began to hop around again, this time clumsily flapping her wings, and I watched her go around in a circle for a minute before I asked, Uh, what are you doing?

I’m trying to figure out how to fly. It’s not as easy as it looks.

It would be if you stopped thinking about it. It’s instinct. Watch. Pulling my paws beneath me, I bent my legs and wiggled my haunches to line up my aim with my target. 

Wait! Don’t you dare—eek! Her protest turned into a shriek of alarm as I pounced, and before my paws hit the ground, she burst into the air in a whirl of brown feathers, chirping indignantly the whole way. Pleased with myself, I sat back on my haunches to watch her flutter around unsteadily, struggling to stay aloft amidst the random gusts of wind. 

See? I exclaimed happily. I told you!

You’re dead, cat! she chittered, and then she dove for my head. 

With a distressed yowl, I dashed away from her as she made repeated attempts to grab at my fur with her small talons. As if someone had flipped a switch, rain began to pelt down, quickly turning the field into a massive stretch of slick grass and mud, and I struggled to keep my footing as I fled from my attacker, who was surprisingly unaffected by the thick drops that struck both of us. She grabbed my scruff and snapped at my ears with her beak until I bucked her off and swatted at her in return. Then, going against my instincts, I ran into the gusting wind, and to my gleeful satisfaction, the little bird stalled in place as soon as she turned to follow me. I smugly sat down upwind of her, watching as she rapidly beat her wings to avoid getting blasted out of the sky. 

Oh, don’t think you can escape me! she declared with a melodious warble that I interpreted not as fury, but as laughter. 

Come and get me then! I taunted and bounded back in her direction. 

She dove for me again, and I hopped up onto my hind legs to swat at her, my claws safely sheathed. She deftly darted around my flailing paws and gave another snap at my ears, forcing me to fall gracelessly onto my back in the mud, where I felt cold water begin to soak through my fur. 

Missed! she called. 

Not if you try that again! I retorted, twisting to my feet with a mock growl. 

Not one to back down from a challenge, she dove for me once more, and I leapt upward to swipe at her from above. My forepaw collided with her as I slammed it down, knocking her clean out of the air, and she shifted to her human form as she tumbled to the ground and rolled to a stop on her back in the rain-soaked grass. Far from angry or hurt, she laughed loudly with her eyes closed and her face tilted towards the thundering sky.  

Still playful, I pounced on her stomach, and she shoved me into the mud with a shout of, “Gah, get off me!” I shifted back as I collapsed to the ground next to her, and side-by-side, we laughed into the rain pelting down on us, not caring as it ran into our eyes and soaked through our clothes. At this moment, we were invincible, and we were free.

“This is amazing!” she crowed, throwing her arms out—and smacking me across my chest with one of them. “It’s unreal! It’s… We did it!” She continued laughing. 

I shoved her arm off me with exaggerated force, and she responded by elbowing me in the ribs, which I promptly returned. “‘We,’ is that right?” I said slyly. 

She snorted. “I did it; you helped a bit. You get credit where you deserve it.”

“I’m touched.”

Any retort she had was interrupted when a strong gust sprayed rainwater directly in my face, causing me to choke, and Merula cackled as I bolted upright with watering eyes and a burning nose. 

Lightning branched out over our heads, like that of an elaborately growing tree, and Merula sat up beside me to watch it spread across the sky. Then, cupping her muddy hands around her mouth, she howled at the thunder that rolled in its wake, raising a single song-like note into the world that was crashing down around us. Not needing to question what she was doing, I howled at the storm above us as well, joining her in daring the lightning to strike us, in daring the sky to fall. Because, tonight, our little act of rebellion had succeeded. 

Maybe it would be for nothing. Maybe tomorrow we would be arrested or killed. But tonight, chilled to the bone and caked with mud, we laughed and howled with all the invincibility of children, pretending that every victory would be as easy and beautiful as this one.

Chapter Text

June 1996

When the third week of June rolled around, I received an owl from Jacob, as promised, informing me that I should be prepared to leave by Tuesday morning. Although he had insisted that we would only be gone for a few days, I went ahead and packed for a week since my trust in him had been damaged by the fact that he refused to tell me where we were going. So, with silent thanks to Tonks, I tested the limits of my new backpack by cramming it with various sets of water- and fire-resistant robes, Fire-Protection Potions, bottles of Essence of Dittany, my copy of Fantastic Beasts, and other basic necessities. I was glad the Extension Charm disguised not only the true weight of the bag, but also hid exactly how much was in it, because Jacob would certainly laugh at me if he knew how much I had packed.

That was a ridiculous thought of course. He could guess how much I had packed without looking because he knew me too well. But he could laugh all he wanted. There was no shame in being prepared for anything.

Jacob met me outside the Cauldron late Tuesday morning, dressed in his usual adventuring garb, with the addition of a full rucksack on his back. He hadn’t been kidding about the camping part of this...whatever this was. “Ready to go?” he asked cheerfully. 

“That depends on where we’re going,” I said.

“So you’re ready,” he laughed. “You can keep asking all you want, I’m not going to tell you anything.”

“How are we getting there then?”

He held up an arm. “We’re doing Side-Along.”

I grimaced as I recalled my last experience with Side-Along Apparition. The memory alone was enough to make me feel nauseous. “Do we have to?” I asked, suppressing a whine.

“It’ll be worth it, I promise,” he said. He playfully nudged me with his elbow, and I accepted his arm reluctantly, taking a steadying breath as I secured my grip. I was less concerned about Jacob seeing me throw up than I was about feeling miserable again, although I supposed I would have to explain why I had suddenly developed a newfound motion sickness—which I certainly didn’t want to do. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. 

He counted down from three, and then we turned, squeezing our bodies into the black. The air pressed in from all directions, burning and suffocating me to the point that I feared I would combust, so I tightened my fingers on Jacob’s arm and focused on the solidness of his presence until the world adopted the same tangible state. Seconds later, the air decompressed, and we popped back into existence, where I immediately stumbled on uneven ground and tripped away from Jacob. I doubled over with my hands on my knees, gasping for breath that didn’t want to come.

“All right there, Pip?” he asked and rubbed my back with the heel of his hand.

“I prefer...being in control,” I panted. The difference between Apparition and Side-Along was essentially the difference between jumping into a pool of water and being dragged in; the latter would always be terrifying. 

“I can see that. Are you able to walk? We have a bit of a hike ahead of us.”

I flashed him a shaky thumbs up. “Lead the way.”

While he eyed me uncertainly, he didn’t question it. Not out loud at least. “The path should be around here somewhere. Point me! ” His wand spun in his palm to face north, and noting this, he turned to face east. “This way.”

That “way” happened to be through the underbrush of a small wood. The trees were small and spaced out, but the density of the bushes and other foliage suggested that not many people came through here. A couple meters to the east, however, revealed a narrow dirt path that was too well-kept to have been made by animals, although there were hoofprints that suggested sheep or deer made frequent use of it. 

“Muggles or wizards?” I asked as we walked down the trail, following the direction of the tracks. 

“Muggles. They’ve been told to steer clear of the area for a few days due to ongoing ‘scientific research.’” He made air quotes. “That’s something you should be familiar with.”

“Is that right?” I asked curiously. There were only a few reasons Muggles needed to be kept out of an area. “Am I allowed to guess now?”

“Nope. You’ll see soon enough.”

He wasn’t kidding about that either. After less than five minutes of walking, the trees opened up into a broad stretch of heather moorland that extended all the way to the boggy shores of a large blue-watered loch. Wildflowers of pink, yellow, and red painted the flat landscape, which was eventually broken by the rounded, rocky mountains that sat across the water, much smaller than the ones surrounding Hogsmeade. The air smelled rich and sulfury, and I could hear the cries of many different birds hidden in the grass. 

“Are we in the Hebrides?” I asked, carefully gauging Jacob’s reaction.

He didn’t bother to hide his smirk. “Maybe.”

“Quit stalling. You know my favorite dragon lives here.”

He shook his head. “Just enjoy the walk. We’re going to set up camp at the base of that mountain there.” He pointed beyond the far eastern shore of the loch. 

“You’re making me suffer.”

“I know.”

As annoying as it was that he was refusing to admit the obvious, I had to agree that it was a nice walk. We made our way along the south shore, moving in the direction of the mountains, and little wading birds fled from our path as we approached the water. In terms of people, the area was quiet. We followed the occasional man-made path through the grass, which was sometimes lined with abandoned farm equipment, but there was not a Muggle or house in sight. The same could not be said for the unusually abundant wildlife. The grating call of a corncrake always seemed to be present in the distance, and at one point I thought I spotted an otter close to shore. When I tried to get closer to confirm, however, my boots sank into the watery bog, and Jacob had to pull me out. We ended up having to make a detour farther south until we found slightly firmer footing in the machair, but neither of us minded the length it added to our trip. The colorfully blooming orchids in the grass were enough to make it worth it. 

Perhaps three-quarters of the way to the mountain, I discovered the source of the hoofprints I had seen in the woodland. Or, at least, I discovered what had been the source. Surrounded by scattered tufts of dirty wool was a sheep skeleton that had been picked clean of all flesh and innards. When I bent down to inspect it, I noticed small chips and scrapes on the bones that made me wonder if an eagle had gotten it, but I wasn’t enough of an expert in common creatures to know for sure. It was obvious, though, that whatever had caused its death hadn’t left much behind. 

Since there was nothing overly concerning about a single dead sheep, we were quick to dismiss it and move on. But then I spotted more bones sticking up from the grass a short distance away, which proved to be the remains of not one, but two more of the animals. Even further on, there was another skeleton, picked clean, same as the others. The closer we got to the mountain, the more dead animals we saw, and the lack of a visible explanation for it intrigued me.

“Look at that,” Jacob said suddenly, pointing towards the shore of the loch. I followed his gesture to see, sure enough, the rustling brown feathers of a golden eagle as it tore into something on the ground with its curved beak. 

“Hey!” I yelled. “Shoo! Shoo! Get out of here!” I clapped my hands together and stomped towards it, trying to make as much noise as I could on the soft soil beneath my boots. The bird glared at me intensely and spread its wings in agitation, but when I shouted at it again, it took off in the opposite direction, leaving behind the carcass it had been feeding on. 

“Aw, let the bird eat,” Jacob said. “The thing’s already dead.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” I said as I crouched to examine the eagle’s abandoned meal. Unlike the others, this sheep was only half eaten. Its head was still intact (albeit eyeless), its skin remained on its ribs, and its entrails were partially hanging from its open belly. It had been dead a few hours though. The blood on the ground was dry, and the smell was more than a little rancid. 

Jacob took two steps in my direction and then immediately backpedaled with his glove pressed against his nose. “Well, that’s lovely,” he said, coughing. 

I wrinkled my nose and leaned closer, doing my best not to touch it without gloves. The stench would never come off my skin if I did, no matter how many times I scrubbed my hands. “You see that?” I asked, pointing at the torn flesh on the underside. “Teeth marks.”

“Huh? What size?”

“Dog-sized. Maybe.”

“Did a dog do this?”

“I don’t think so.” With the very tips of my fingers, I picked up a loose clump of wool so he could see the faint black powder on it. What I had mistaken to be dirt on the other skeletons appeared to something more like soot. “The body is charred. Very lightly, but it’s there.”

He frowned in confusion. Or maybe he was trying not to gag; I couldn’t tell. “That’s strange,” he said slowly. 

“You weren’t expecting this?” I asked in surprise. I had been certain he would have known the creature that had done this. 

“No, dead livestock aren’t supposed to be part of your gift, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said wryly, keeping his hand over his nose. “Can we keep moving? I want to set up camp before dark— especially if things out here are getting eaten.”

“You’re concerned,” I noted.

“Nope, not concerned. Just...we should just keep moving.”

For once, he didn’t appear to be pulling my leg, so I backed away from the sheep, wiped my fingers in the grass, and followed him without protest. I still wasn’t worried (not yet anyway), but it was better to stay silent until I figured out what was going on. If it was what I suspected, then Jacob had brought me on quite the adventure—whether he had intended to do so or not.

As the day fell into early evening, we finally reached the base of the mountain, which had adopted a dusky yellow tint in the rays of the western sun, and to my amazement, a figure stood there waiting for us—a figure with distinct red hair that was visible even from the shore of the loch. He waved his arms (and a broom) over his head as soon as he spotted us and excitedly beckoned us over to him. 

“Charlie!” I exclaimed and then sprinted the remaining distance.

Throwing his broom and bag on the ground, Charlie Weasley picked me up and spun me around as if I weighed no more than a puffskein. “Surprise!” he laughed and set me down to pull me into a hug. “Good to see you, Lily!”

I embraced him back, although it felt like I was hugging a wall. Charlie was solid. Once a scrawny Seeker, years of working with dragons had made him as stocky as Barnaby, even if he was shorter than most of his brothers. With the calluses on his hands and the burn scars on his arms, he almost looked tough—if he had been anyone other than Charlie Weasley, that is. 

“What’s it been now?” I asked. “Half a year?”

“Eight months,” he said with a grin. He had a broad, naturally goofy smile, one that caused his abundant freckles to crinkle. It was a trait I had noticed in many of his family members, especially the twins. “It’s been quiet without your visits.”

“That’s a fib,” I scoffed, but without malice. Dragons were hardly quiet to begin with. 

“Not completely. Recruitment’s been smaller than I had hoped. Hi there, Jacob. Glad you could make it.” The latter half of this statement was accompanied by a friendly wave as Jacob appeared at my shoulder. 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Jacob said. 

“And what is ‘it’ supposed to be?” I asked. “Charlie, please save me. He won’t tell me anything.”

Charlie turned to Jacob with a laugh. “You’ve kept her out of the loop this long? That’s brilliant.”

“Told you I would,” Jacob said. “You can do the honors, if you want. She’s already guessed half of it by now.”

I most likely had. I had also lost most of my patience with this game. They were finding way too much enjoyment in their torture of me. “I swear, if you make me beg—” I began to warn, but Charlie cut me off with a wave of his hand as he signalled to relax. 

“I’m not going to make you beg,” he said, maintaining his broad grin. “Not when we’re talking about our favorite dragon.”

I punched Jacob’s shoulder, half in excitement and half because he deserved it. “See? I knew it!”

He didn’t flinch. He probably hadn’t even felt it. “Yes, you did,” he chuckled.

“You remember that Hebridean Black that showed up before your last visit?” Charlie asked. “She had gotten hurt and disoriented in a storm. Ended up flying all the way to the Romanian reserve in confusion.”

“Couldn’t forget,” I said. “She gave me a nice scar.” I touched my fingers to my right forearm where, beneath my sleeve, a faded burn scar marked the skin just above my elbow. 

Hebridean Blacks were not docile dragons, even on a good day, but this one had been downright malicious. She had tried to bite and burn every creature that had come within thirty meters of her, and as if her nasty temper hadn’t been enough, she had made frequent escape attempts while she had still been healing. I had gotten the scar while trying to help Charlie stun her during a particular bolt for freedom. Long story short, we had learned the hard way how many Stunning Spells was too few when it came to dealing with a disturbingly determined dragon. 

“Well, she’s recovered now,” Charlie continued, “which has only made things more difficult for my crew. We decided that it would be better to bring her back home before one of us loses a limb. The MacFusty clan has agreed to take responsibility as usual, so once we get her here, she’ll be out of our hands. There’s just the matter of transportation.”

“How are you transporting her?” I asked. 

“That’s the thing,” he said, and to my surprise, he rubbed the back of his neck with a nervous chuckle. “We’re not transporting her so much as she’s transporting herself.”

“What?” I gasped. “Have you lost your mind?”

The dragon was flying herself here? That broke every rule a handler was supposed to follow—rules that had been drilled into both Charlie and me since we had been taking classes with Kettleburn. Not only was a ten-meter-long, fire-breathing, flying beast unpredictable and dangerous, but it also came with the huge risk of being seen by Muggles, especially if it was flying across the continent. Normal transportation of dragons was a complicated process that involved Sleeping Draughts, harnesses, Disillusionment Charms, and a dozen wands at the ready. Letting a dragon transport herself was unthinkable. 

“I’ll admit it’s not a great plan,” he said. “But it’s the best one we have, given the circumstances. We think she’s a nesting mother. It would explain her behavior and her desperation to get back here. The problem is, no one has any idea where her eggs are, not even MacFusty. The only one that seems to know is her.”

I caught on to his train of thought. “So you’re using her to lead you to the eggs.”

“Exactly. I have a couple mates flying with her, doing their best to keep her out of sight. The rest of us have been working with the local Dragonologists to search the islands for her nest. Her path has been a bit unpredictable, but we think she might land here next.”

“I think you’re right about that,” I said. 

He looked at me in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

Jacob understood instantly. “Pip found some dead sheep,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

“A lot of dead sheep,” I said. “Slight, slight charring on the remains. Looks like your eggs have been hatched for about six months.”

Charlie paled, and then he swore. “Well, that makes things more difficult.”

“At least we know we’re in the right place,” Jacob said. 

“That we are.” Charlie knelt down to rummage through his canvas bag. It was bulky and misshapen, and as he unzipped it, odd musty and tangy scents wove around us, suggestive of wet fur and bloody meat. It didn’t make for a pleasant sensory experience, but after the rotten sheep guts, it wasn’t bad either. 

“Change of plan?” Jacob asked. 

Charlie shook his head. “No. Well, not for you two. I’ll need to bring a lot more Sleeping Draught when I come back. And venison.”

“What’s our job in this?” I asked, fully onboard with whatever scheme they had come up with—no matter how crazy it was turning out to be. For years, this had been my career, and I still loved it. Even if I had walked away. 

Wiping his hands on his trousers, Charlie stood up and slung the bag over his shoulder. “Your job should be fairly straightforward. The dragons can’t stay here, not with all the Muggles in the area. So, while you guys are setting up camp tonight, I’m going to finish the preparations to move them to someplace safer. Should take about another day. In that time, I need people to keep an eye on our lovely lady and make sure she doesn’t eat anyone.”

“Seems pretty typical,” I joked. 

“Pretty much. The dragon will arrive tomorrow. Once she does, you’ll be tasked with observing her and the hatchlings, recording what you see, and keeping them away from the livestock. Then Thursday I’ll return, and we’ll knock them out with some Sleeping Draught and take them to their new home. Sound like fun?”

I grinned. “Always does.”

Jacob laughed. “Told you you would love it.”

“Fine, fine,” I said wryly. “You know me so well.”

“I set up a feeding station of sorts between the mountains,” Charlie continued. “Hopefully it will encourage them to stay near the loch. I’ll need you to check it every couple of hours and refill it as necessary. If you’ll follow me…”

He led us around the southern base of the mountain, back through the machair that was glowing orange with the setting sun, until we entered a shaded glen—if it could be called that. The gaps between this cluster of mountains took more of the shape of narrow creases rather than clearly defined valleys, and it made for a steep, uneven hike as we climbed along the one Charlie had selected. After half a day of walking with a full backpack, the journey up this increasing slope dragged up pangs of hunger and exhaustion I hadn’t noticed before now, and the idea of setting up the tent was becoming more appealing with each passing minute. 

As we moved along the glen, the sun cast odd shadows on this side of the mountain, which were made distinct by the day’s proximity to dusk. Many of these shadows filled dips and pockets in the rocky ground, while others suggested the presence of holes and objects where there were none. The illusion was disconcerting. It would make it too easy for a certain small reptilian creature to conceal itself from us as we walked by.

“There,” Charlie said, pointing. “Huh. Will you look at that. I only set it up an hour ago.”

In front of us was a large flat stone, remarkably similar to a table in size and shape. Its importance was marked by a frayed red ribbon, which was tied to the top of a stick poking out of the ground next to it. Without the presence of the makeshift marker and without Charlie’s direction, I would have glanced over this so-called feeding station without a second thought because, at a glance, there appeared to be nothing there. It was only when we moved closer that I could see the dried splatters of a pinkish liquid on the surface of the stone. 

“I guess the hatchlings found it,” I said. “Unless it was an eagle.”

“Whatever it was, it was sneaky,” Charlie said, sounding impressed. “I’ve been all over these hills. Haven’t seen a thing.” Which, if it was dragons, wouldn’t have been surprising. Hatchlings, being unable to breathe fire or fly, were more vulnerable to predation than adult dragons, and as a result, knew how to remain hidden when necessary. 

“Let’s hope they’ve had their fill for now,” Jacob said. 

“For your sake,” Charlie chuckled. Opening his bag, he pulled out the bloody haunch of a deer and plopped it down on the stone with an unpleasant splat. He held up the bag for emphasis before swinging it back onto his shoulder. “I’ll leave this with you when I leave. There’s an enchantment on it that should conceal the smell. Keep you from drawing too much attention.”

Jacob eyed him with a mix of amusement and wariness. “You’re using a lot of ‘shoulds’ there.”

Charlie winked. “If I was certain, it wouldn’t be any fun.”

“True enough.”

Feeding station restocked, we made our way back to the base of the mountain and managed to return to the spot where we had met up with Charlie as the sun dipped below the horizon, pulling the sky into a pale blue twilight. If we hurried, we could set up the tent and get a fire going before it fell the rest of the way into night. 

“Sure you won’t stay for dinner?” Jacob asked as Charlie handed over the canvas bag. He added in a singsong voice, “We have marshmallows.”

My head snapped up from where I had been sifting through the contents of my own bag. “We do?”

“Of course. I told you we were going camping, didn’t I?”

“As tempting as that is,” Charlie said with a laugh, “I really need to get everything ready for Thursday. But if you want to save some for me…”

“Absolutely not,” Jacob said pleasantly, and they firmly clasped hands in farewell. 

I gave Charlie another hug from the side. “Thank you so much for this.”

“Anything for my favorite Magizoologist,” he said. “You two have fun.”

“We will.”

Broom once again in hand, Charlie gave us a wave as he turned and vanished with a harsh crack, which echoed off the mountainside. Several birds burst into flight over the loch, squawking indignantly at the noise. As soon as he disappeared, Jacob turned to look at me with an expression of such bright-eyed excitement that it would have befit a child. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to be fearful of what he had in store. 

“Wait till you see this,” he said and summoned the collapsed tent from his rucksack. With another wave of his wand, the fabric leapt out of his hands and began to unfold itself while the stakes autonomously plunged into the dirt, pulling the entire structure upright. From the outside, the tent didn’t look like it could hold more than four people. I had been a witch long enough, however, to know that appearances were rarely ever honest. 

Jacob pulled back one of the flaps from the entrance and gestured towards the interior with a flourish. “After you.”

Eyeing him suspiciously, I ducked through the entrance, only to have to pause to orient myself. It felt more like stepping into a cottage than into a tent, and judging by the wooden furniture that surrounded me, I had evidently entered the main living area. Upholstered seats and a teak coffee table sat next to a small heating stove, and a chest-high bookshelf, filled with atlases and creature identification guides, crouched nearby. On the far side of the room, opposite of the entrance, emerald green curtains had been tied back to reveal the cabinets and stoves of a kitchen, as well as a dining table large enough to seat ten people. More curtains hung closed, blocking my view of the rest of the tent, but I was too distracted by the patterns on the walls to investigate. Deep green vines snaked through the canvas, not unlike the wallpaper vines of the Snyde Manor, and artwork of birds, bowtruckles, and other creatures were scattered among them. 

As I traced my fingers along the fabric wings of an augurey, an odd ripple shot through the tent, and everything changed. The green vines transformed into cresting waves filled with kelpies and merpeople, and the curtains and upholstery turned a pale blue to match. I snatched my hand back, and another ripple followed, wiping away all the imagery and leaving the walls and furnishings a blank, dull beige. I touched the canvas again. Nothing happened. 

I glanced over my shoulder at Jacob and then glared at him as he attempted to hide his wand behind his back. With a snicker, he tapped the wand against the tent side, and the vines and green curtains returned. “What do you think?” he asked. “I know your old tent couldn’t do that. You could barely stand up in that thing.”

That was an unfair exaggeration. My old tent had provided more than adequate shelter for me and the other Magizoologists on my team. It had certainly been smaller than this and didn’t have magically changing decor, but it had functioned. All this...well, it was beautiful, I would give him that. 

“I don’t want to know how much this cost,” I said. “Where do you even get a tent like this?” Was Badeea selling camping equipment now?

He winked. “That’s a secret. I had to do something to make up for the rest of your missed birthdays. This should cover the remaining years, right?”

My bag slipped off my shoulder as I whirled to face him directly, and the strap caught painfully in the crook of my elbow. I let it hang there as I stared at him incredulously. “You didn’t.”

He spread his arms in a broad sweep. “Happy birthday, Pip.”

“Jacob,” I said seriously. “This is too much.”

“I have a good reason for it, I promise. You have to see your bunk first. Over here.”

“ Jacob, ” I protested, but he ignored me, disappearing behind the closed curtains. A flare of anger shot from my stomach to my chest, closely followed by guilt. This gift was unfair. Unfair and unnecessary. He knew I wasn’t a Magizoologist anymore; I had given up my job to join the Order. The tent would never see the light of day after this trip, not when I was tied to my commitments. 

Commitments that involved a frustrating lack of adventure, unfortunately. 

Suppressing the urge to grumble, I followed him behind the curtains, and...was unexpectedly underwhelmed by what they hid. There was a bed. That was it, just a bed. It was a double bed, yes, with a nice quilt to match the verdant design of the rest of the tent, but it was hardly exciting enough to be what he wanted to show me. 

The curtains swished shut as I stepped next to him, and the near darkness outside seemed to creep farther into this small section of the tent, turning greens into grays and grays into blacks. Jacob was moving beside me, but he looked more like a faded blur than anything. “Watch this,” his voice said, and before I could point out that that was becoming difficult, lights burst over our heads. Trails of blue, green, and purple intertwined in a shimmering dance across the ceiling, casting colorful patterns on the walls and floor and everything in between. The flare in my chest—the childish anger and guilt—promptly extinguished, blanketed by the presence of the aurora over the bed. 

“Jacob, this is a tent, ” I said in astonishment. Actually, astonishment was an understatement. I had no other words. 

“Right?” he laughed. “If this doesn’t inspire you to keep the adventure going, I don’t know what will...whenever that adventure may be. I know, I know,” he added when I continued to gape at him. “It seems like a lot, but hear me out. You’re like me—you have to keep chasing your dragons, and nothing and no one should ever put a stop to that. But that doesn’t mean you can only ever have fun by yourself. So, the next time you have a special lady friend, you have to take her camping. If she likes it, that’s how you’ll know she’s a keeper. This tent will only help your chances, trust me.”

Several seconds passed before his words fully sank in, and when they did, I wanted to bury my face in my hands. “Oh, my God, Jacob. ”

“You’ll thank me later.”

“You’re insane,” I said, and then, against my own will, I laughed. I wanted to be mad at him—for things beneath the surface, things that yet remained unsaid—but I couldn’t. He was trying so hard to make me happy that, for once, I could have forgiven him. I didn’t entirely, but I could have. 

A sliver of green light drifted across my wrist, and I turned my palm up to watch it slip through my fingers. If I narrowed my eyes, I could imagine myself drifting through the northern night sky. “I don’t know how to accept this.”

“Don’t worry about it. You don’t have a choice.”

“I, uh...thank you.” And I meant it. 

The colors drifted over his face, illuminating his ever-present grin, and I suddenly had to duck as he swung an arm over my shoulders, aiming for a headlock. I let my legs fall out from beneath me, allowing me to slip out of his grasp, and then I leapt back into a dueling stance, my wand raised. Unsurprisingly, his wand was already pointed at my chest. 

“When did you get so light on your feet?” he asked, sounding mildly impressed.

“Are you asking for a duel?” I taunted, ignoring the question. Although, I don’t know why I did. The answer was simple enough—training with Merula. But I didn’t want to say that. Not to him. Not yet. 

He lazily twirled his wand around his fingers, his head tilted to the side in mock contemplation. “Hmm, as much as I would love to use you for target practice...what do you think about dinner instead?”

I lowered my wand with a snort. “After you,” I said, gesturing at the curtains. 

“That’s fair.”

Despite having access to a kitchen, Jacob insisted on getting a fire going. How he conjured the wood for it, I had no idea, but it wasn’t long before warm flames were crackling a safe distance away from the tent. There, with only their soft orange glow for light, we spent the evening seated on the damp grass, exchanging random stories in between bites of ham sandwiches. I threw a piece of bread at him while he recounted the time he accidentally trapped Bill in a sarcophagus with a mummy, and he responded by smacking me in the face with an entire bag of marshmallows. Halfway through my tale of tracking illegally imported occamies outside of Darwin, he pulled an unopened bottle of Irish cream from his bag, and we got into an argument about drinking on the job, during which he refuted my claim that I didn’t drink with embarrassing evidence. After the name-calling calmed down to a child-friendly level, we contentedly roasted liqueur-soaked marshmallows, occasionally throwing in a good-natured jab or joke for good measure. 

Too far past midnight, we turned in for the night, with Jacob claiming one of the guest bunks and leaving me to take the double bed. Even though we desperately needed enough sleep to prepare for the job ahead, I lay there long after the last embers of the fire had died, too wound up to close my eyes. Instead, I pointed my wand at the ceiling of the tent, and once the green and purple lights were shimmering overhead, I watched them until their gentle dancing guided me into the dreamless black. 

* * * *

The dragon’s arrival was impossible to miss...mostly because she almost crushed the new tent. Early that morning, Jacob and I had hiked back to Charlie’s makeshift feeding station to find, to no surprise, that the slab of venison had vanished from the top of the stone. After restocking it with another chunk of meat, we lingered on the mountainside, half hidden by rocks, as we waited for the mother dragon to seek out her nest. Judging from the scorch marks that now decorated the blood-soaked stone, the hatchlings had to be nearby, and if they were nearby, it wouldn’t be long before their mum was too. 

By noon, however, there was no sign of a dragon of any kind—no shed scales, no Muggles screaming in terror, not even an odd puff of smoke. So, we decided to take a short break from staring at an empty sky and return to the tent for lunch. The sky truly was empty, as in uncharacteristically cloudless, so the massive black shadow that appeared at the base of the mountain should have been more than enough warning for what was about to happen. Also to no surprise, sleep deprivation led to inattentiveness. 

Fighting back yet another yawn, I had been trying to recall if I had packed any Wide-Eye Potion when Jacob slammed into me, knocking me off balance. “Hey!” I shouted as I stumbled, losing my foothold in the grass, but the word barely left my mouth before he roughly grabbed my waist and dragged me to the side of the tent. A light heat, not unlike the warmth of the campfire, crackled against my skin, followed by a cooling sensation that indicated we had stepped within the protection of the wards we had set up the night before. To anyone outside our invisible bubble, we, along with our tent, did not exist—and for good reason. 

Seconds later, the ground shuddered as a mass of darkness thundered to the earth not five meters from where we stood. Leathery wings pulled everything around them into shadow, and the tent shook violently as they thrust downward, belatedly slowing the creature’s descent. Rough black scales, each the size of my hand, covered her body like knight’s armor, and sword-length spines cut through the air as she arched her back and angled her long neck toward the loch. Shrill whistles of alarm bounced between birds in the grass, and a brown-furred animal dove to safety in the water. The Hebridean Black paid them no mind. Sinking her claws into the muddy shore, she plunged her snout into the loch and took several deep, noisy gulps. 

One hand still on my waist, Jacob had pushed me half behind him and had his wand raised in his other hand. As soon as the spike of adrenaline stopped burning in my veins and I remembered how to breathe, I regained enough of my senses to give him a sharp elbow to the ribs. He released me with a suppressed grunt. 

Childish satisfaction soothed my annoyance. A warning would have been preferable to a rugby tackle. I didn’t need a bodyguard. 

A light afternoon breeze brushed against our backs, drawn like the dragon to the coolness of the loch, where it pushed ripples across the water’s surface. The dragon’s muscular, scaled frame rippled, and her head snapped upward faster than I could blink, while water streamed off her chin in rivulets. With nostrils flaring, she whirled around, and another icy burning spike shot out from my chest through my limbs as she stared directly at us with brilliant violet eyes. 

She could smell us. Dear Merlin, she could smell us. There was no other explanation for why she now stalked forward, tearing up the dirt with every step. She paused just before the magical barrier, and her broad chest rose and fell with each great breath as she sniffed the air in front of her, her spiked tail lashing agitatedly. I clenched my jaw as waves of warm sulfur washed over my face. Jacob stood rigid and silent beside me, his knuckles white around his wand handle. 

I had forgotten how big this dragon was; there were train cars smaller than her. While Jacob and I could subdue her if we had to, we would not be able to do so without adding plenty of other burn scars to our collection—or without sending half the island up in flames. 

Jacob slowly adjusted his wand arm. I grabbed his elbow in warning, although he most likely wouldn’t have fired a spell this close to a dragon’s snout. He didn’t want to get roasted alive any more than I did. 

I really shouldn’t have left the Fire-Protection Potions in the tent. 

Heartbeats passed, too many and too quickly to count. The dragon stretched her neck, leaning closer, closer. She was an arm’s length from the barrier...now a centimeter. There were gray spots on her chin and yellow in her teeth. I didn’t dare shift my feet away from her, lest I made a sound. 

A cry, halfway between a squeal and a squawk, echoed from the mountainside, and Jacob and I flinched. The dragon froze, her violet eyes swiveling in the direction of the noise. Then, with a series of excited chirps, she burst into motion and bounded across the machair—toward the two dark blurs that were charging toward her. 

She skidded to a halt, allowing them to collide with her, and the hatchlings clambered over each other in a race to greet their mother. About the size of Irish wolfhounds, the pair of young Hebridean Blacks climbed up her back and nipped playfully at her tail, while she curved her graceful neck to nuzzle them affectionately. One shook its head and sneezed, tumbling off her shoulder as a small jet of flame shot into the sky, and the hatchling extended its unsteady wings to glide unharmed to the ground below. With a sound suspiciously like a chortle, the mother dragon swept her tail behind her and herded the hatchlings in the direction of the mountain, where they disappeared into the shadowy glen moments later. 

Jacob looked at me with wide eyes as they marched off. I, on the other hand, was grinning so broadly my cheeks hurt. As soon as the fire-breathing beasts appeared to be safely out of sight and hearing, I pumped my fist in the air with a thrilled laugh. Based on the way Jacob shoved me away from him, I looked like a maniac. 

“This is what you used to do everyday?” he said breathlessly. 

“Says the man that works with mummies.”

“Mummies are predictable. That...was not.”

“Since when did you like predictable? You always tell me that predictable is boring.”

“I do say that, don’t I?” He sheathed his wand with a chuckle, although I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me or himself. “I’ll never mock Magizoologists again, I promise that.”

“Good,” I said cheerfully and then gestured toward the mountain. “We should probably make sure they don’t eat anybody.”

He sighed. “I never should have given you that necklace.” But he grabbed our gear and followed me without hesitation. 

Now that the dragons had revealed themselves, it was time to get to work. We tracked them through the glen, which was thankfully made simple by the tire-sized footprints the mother left behind, and located them not far above the (once again empty) feeding station. Making sure to stay downwind this time, Jacob and I situated ourselves behind a rocky outcrop and cast Cave inimicum for good measure. Once we were as comfortable as we could be on the hard ground, we got out our notebooks and our quills, and we watched. 

After jotting down what I remembered from the mother dragon’s landing, as well as what I could see of their health, I began to make notes of the behavior that followed. I would turn these over to Charlie and MacFusty at the end of the trip, so that they would have a better idea of how to accommodate the creatures in their new habitat. The mother dragon, no doubt exhausted from her transcontinental flight, had curled up in a large, grassy dip in the ground, where she seemed content to sleep the rest of the day away. The hatchlings—one male and one female—alternated between play fighting and napping beside her, at one point playing tug of war with the venison steak. Their scales were smoother and shinier than their mother’s, a sure sign that they would grow up healthy and strong. It was unfortunate that this growth would be partially at the expense of some poor Muggles’ sheep. 

Hours passed by as minutes, and I wouldn’t have realized that time had passed at all if not for the yellow tint the sinking sun had cast over the world. I glanced at Jacob to comment on this, but I was distracted by the sight of him frowning at his notebook in concentration. He moved his quill from the wrist, making careful, steady lines across the page.

“What are you doing?” I murmured. The protective charm was supposed to keep sound from leaving its interior, but it didn’t hurt to keep my voice low. 

His eyes flicked to me for a half second, before immediately returning to the notebook. “Look at them again,” he said distractedly. “I’m not done yet.”

“Can I see?”

“No. Later.”

I rolled my eyes, but knowing better than to argue, I resumed watching the dragons. 

As the sun hit the horizon, we split up into shifts, with me taking the first one. It took some convincing to get him to leave me alone with the dragons, but eventually Jacob returned to the tent to eat dinner and rest. Since we had to make sure no one went on a midnight hunting spree, at least one person needed to be able to keep their eyes open, which, after a long day, was proving to be difficult for both of us. 

I returned to the tent myself a few hours later, exhausted but unbelievably happy. I had grumbled plenty throughout this trip—even before it had started—but I couldn’t deny that Jacob had gone above and beyond to make this possible for me. I loved him for it...even if a part of me hurt to remember how much I missed this. 

Since night had fallen a while ago, I fully expected to have to wake him for his shift once I reached the tent. When I ducked through the entrance, however, he was sitting at the table, already wide awake and lacing up his boots. I collapsed into a chair across from him with an exaggerated sigh. 

“Everything quiet?” he asked.

“Yeah. She’s still sleeping.”

“That’s good.” He looked up from his boots and smirked at me. “Your face is going to get stuck that way if you keep grinning.”

I covered my mouth with my hand. “Shut up,” I said, and he laughed. “But seriously, thank you. I’ve had fun.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to thank me. I owe you a lot more than this.”

On that somber note, we fell into an uncomfortable silence. Here we were again—on the edge of a topic that neither of us wanted to discuss. There was a fine line, and while we had repeatedly stood on it, we had avoided crossing it for years. 

I ran my fingers across the tabletop. The teak surface was smooth, perhaps even freshly varnished. 

“Hey, question for you,” Jacob said abruptly. “What ever happened to that girl you were dating...was she Portuguese? The one I met when I visited you in Darwin.”

“Brazilian. We write sometimes. It just...it didn’t work out. We were going different directions in life, I suppose.” More like we’d had different ideas about being “out” in public. We had gotten along well, but when I had continued to refuse to hold her hand around other people after months of dating, frustrations had inevitably arisen. I felt guilty about it even now. 

“That’s a shame. I liked her.”

A familiar prickle of annoyance crawled across my chest. “Do you have a point?” I asked, biting back a reflexive snap. 

“No, not really.” He shrugged nonchalantly, but I knew him too well to be fooled. He picked his nails when he was anxious.

“Do we have to do this now?” I sighed, realizing what he wanted. 

“We have to sometime.”

Of course we did. “Go on then.”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Depends what you want to talk about first. We could start with why you’ve been avoiding going home?”

I tried not to scowl. I don’t think I succeeded. “Like you haven’t been doing the same thing.”

His fingers halted, almost seeming to flinch back, and he nodded slowly. “Okay, we’ll leave that one alone. You know, I talked with your flatmate last month. I told you that.”

“You did.”

“Right, well, she said some things that concerned me...about what you’ve been doing since you’ve been back. You want to tell me about that?” His words sounded rehearsed, which wouldn’t have bothered me so much if they also didn’t sound like he was trying to tiptoe around the sleeping dragon. 

“I haven’t been doing anything,” I said, keeping my voice level. “Not even any jobs for the Order. Dumbledore wanted me in Hogsmeade, so I stay in Hogsmeade, simple as that.” Frustratingly simple. 

“Penny says you’ve been spending time with Merula Snyde. She thinks the two of you are up to something dangerous.”

“Well, Penny would be wrong. Merula’s an Auror. She’s been offering me some extra training, that’s it.” I would have to talk to Penny about gossiping to my brother. Well-intentioned or not, she had gone behind my back, and I didn’t appreciate it. 

Jacob studied me with a level gaze. “Is that the whole truth?”

“No,” I said flatly. That was between me and Merula. 

“I don’t like you taking unnecessary risks, Pip, especially with her. You know how I feel about her.”

I gritted my teeth before responding. “Yes, you’ve made your feelings very clear. Merula’s my friend, for one. For another, you have some nerve talking about unnecessary risks, Curse-Breaker, considering half the things you’ve done.”

He scoffed, “That’s debatable.”

“Which part?”

“Both. The girl tried to kill you, made your life hell for years, and you still call her your friend? You trust her with your life? I don’t understand it.”

“You don’t have to. It’s not up for debate.”

“Pip—”

“Don’t ‘Pip’ me,” I snapped. It was demeaning in a good moment. Right now was not a good moment. 

He paused, removed his hands from the table, and took a deep breath. “ Anna. If this is because of some crush, you shouldn’t…” He trailed off, his words withering under the intensity of my glare. 

“You have greatly misjudged the situation,” I said darkly. 

“Then tell me about it. Help me understand.”

“No. It’s not my place.”

“I’m not your enemy here. I just want to make sure you’re being safe. Apparently you’ve been having these visions, and I...I don’t even know what that’s about.” Penny! I was going to kill her. “What the hell is that about?” he continued, his voice rising. “That’s not normal!”

That did it. I didn’t care what his intentions were. I didn’t care if he thought he knew what was best for me. The fact that he could just sit there, completely oblivious to the irony of the hypocritical nonsense that was coming out of his mouth—I would have been tempted to punch him if there wasn’t a table between us. 

“You have no right!” I yelled, slamming my fist down on the table. He jerked away. “You have absolutely no right to play that card! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’ve been gone, Jacob. Even since you’ve been out of that portrait, you’ve been gone. But, for some reason, every time you come back, you think you can step right back into the role of the protective older brother, as if you know everything that’s been happening in my life. You have no idea!”

His face twisted, tinged red with heat. Any sense of cool he had before was now melting away. “I would if you actually talked to me! But you never do, no matter how many times I ask. And you’re the one that left me in Egypt, in case you’ve forgotten! I didn’t go anywhere.”

That was the truth, but while it stung, it only made me want to keep yelling at him. “ I’m not the one that stopped writing!”

“I didn’t stop! I’ve been busy!”

“Well, so have I!”

“Busy messing with the Dark Arts and hearing voices in your head, apparently.”

“You’re way off beam. You know nothing.”

“That’s not my fault!”

“It has always been your fault!”

A ringing silence followed my words. They weren’t true, but it was too late to take them back. At the moment, I wouldn’t have taken them back even if I could; I was too furious. Blood roared in my ears, and I clutched the edge of the table as if I could break the entire thing in half. I wanted to break something, but there was nothing in my anger-narrowed vision that I could reach. 

Jacob, on the other hand, took another impossibly steady breath and leaned forward, bracing his elbows against the tabletop as he closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “This got out of hand,” he said quietly. “We can still talk this out.”

His calmness infuriated me further. A surge of anger rushed into my throat, threatening to choke me. I clenched my teeth as it rose and rose, and then...it died. In a crash, the heat that was boiling my blood and blurring my vision washed away, leaving me hollow and drained. I finally registered the throbbing ache in my hand, the one I had slammed against the table, and I carefully cradled it in my lap. Only a little bit of heat remained, and it was the kind that constricted my throat and prickled behind my eyes. 

“You should get to your watch,” I said, my voice hoarse. Then, pushing back from the table, I stood up and walked away. 

“Pip.” Jacob’s chair squealed harshly against the floor, and his heavy footsteps followed close behind me. “Pip, don’t walk away from this.”

I darted into my room and yanked the curtains closed behind me. The shadow of his feet appeared beneath them. I kicked off my shoes and climbed into bed in my dirty clothes, rolling onto my side so that I wouldn’t have to see him. 

“Don’t go to bed angry,” he begged. I ignored him. “Anna. Anna, please.”

I didn’t respond. As the seconds stretched on, his footsteps finally moved away. When they were gone, I pressed my uninjured hand to my mouth, not ready to release everything I had kept suppressed in his presence. My body trembled from the effort, and my throat constricted to where it hurt to swallow. My lips involuntarily parted to gasp for air, and as they did, a sob escaped. And when one escaped, more followed. I pressed my face against the pillow, as if I could trap the tears before they fell. 

I prided myself on being a person that rarely ever cried. When I did, it was never in the presence of others and never for long. But, around Jacob, everything was different. I felt like a seven-year-old again...and just as emotional as one. 

I dug my fingers into the quilt, trying to resummon the anger to drive away the misery, but all I did was make my chest hurt, along with everything else. I sucked in a choked breath and tried to relax enough to fall asleep instead. That was no good either. The throbbing in my hand had worsened, and I felt shaky and sick from hunger, having not eaten since that morning. With a frustrated cry, I weakly slammed my good fist against the mattress, just like a child. 

Grounded by my own ridiculousness, I sat up and breathed deeply until my hands stopped shaking. “ Episkey, ” I murmured, my wand in my non-dominant hand. I sighed in relief as the pain faded from the no longer injured one. With that, I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, pulled my boots on, and went out into the main room of the tent. 

Jacob was gone, fortunately. I picked up my canteen from where I had left it on the table and drank deeply, hoping to banish a headache before it finished forming. As I set the canteen back down, a worn red notebook, bookmarked with a frayed ribbon, caught my eye. On impulse, I picked it up and flipped to the marked page. On it was a series of astonishingly lifelike ink drawings: the mother dragon as she rested, her legs folded neatly before her; the hatchlings as they wrestled, their flightless wings raised in mock challenge; and me as I watched them. 

Jacob had put far more detail into my image than he had into the dragons. He had captured how my fringe fell across my face when I was too distracted to brush it out of the way. Somehow he had even added the distinct freckle that sits beneath my left eye. My eyes were shining with wonder, and I was leaning forward, as if physically pulled to the dragons. One of my hands was outstretched, pointing, and the other was wrapped around my bronze pendant. I hadn’t even known I had grabbed it. 

I closed the notebook, torn between awe and wanting to cry again. I allowed neither feeling to last long. Instead, I refilled the canteen and set out into the night. 

I couldn’t see Jacob until I stepped within the boundaries of the protective charm; he had likely watched most of my hike through the glen from his perch at the outcrop. He didn’t look at me when I sat down next to him. He didn’t look at the dragons either, not that we could see them well. In the darkness, they looked more like large masses of rock, albeit rock that was snoring softly. I rested my chin on my knees and watched them anyway. 

“I hate fighting with you,” he said, his voice oddly thick, as if he had a cold. 

“Yeah,” I said, for lack of a better response. 

In the absence of light from any nearby buildings, millions of stars blanketed the sky overhead, like snowflakes on black glass. A chill ran over my skin, although the outcrop shielded us from any wind. We were so small beneath those stars. So vulnerable. 

My mind flashed to standing in the snow with Merula, the snowflakes swirling around us as she raised her arms to the sky. I quickly shoved away the image. I didn’t need to be thinking of her right now. 

“Things will never go back to the way they were, will they?” I said quietly. It was a stupid question, one with an answer that had been clear for years. 

His shoulders rose and fell. “No.”

I looked away as he pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. “I didn’t mean it,” I said. “It’s not…” It’s not all your fault. That wouldn’t sound as good out loud as it did in my head. Nor would he believe me. 

“We both know what happened.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Me too.”

My throat tightened again. With a shuddering breath, I hugged my legs to brace against the wave of emotion. With a loud sniff, Jacob reached into his bag and pulled out a stale croissant, leftover from what we had used to make the sandwiches. He passed it to me, and I accepted it without a word, handing him the canteen in return. He unscrewed the cap and drank, while I nibbled on the dry pastry. There we sat, between the dragons and the stars, side by side in silence. 

I wasn’t ready to forgive him. Not yet. Not when I wasn’t ready to forgive myself. 

* * * *

“Only two?” Charlie said, his eyebrows raised. “Small clutch.”

“They’ve had to survive on their own for months,” I responded. “It’s a wonder they survived at all.”

“That’s true. Have they given you any trouble?” His eyes flicked over Jacob and me. The reason for his question was obvious. If I looked anything like Jacob, and I knew I did, I stood pale and haggard, with dark circles under my eyes. It wasn’t a pleasant look, and it felt even worse. 

“No,” Jacob said, all smooth and unperturbed. “We did forget what sleep is though. Funny how that happens.”

Charlie chuckled, buying into the deception. “Well, there will be plenty of time to have a lie-in tomorrow. Today will be the most difficult part. Or the most fun, depending on your point of view.” He swung a bag over his shoulder. The unmistakable sound of clinking glass accompanied the motion. 

I laughed obligingly. The idea of dealing with a rowdy dragon on less than four hours of sleep was less appealing than it had been yesterday. 

Jacob and I hadn’t spoken much since the night before, with the exception of the occasional half-hearted joke or meaningless comment. We had attempted a conversation early that morning, but we had abandoned it as the awkward pauses had grown exponentially in length. When Charlie had arrived close to midday, the corncrakes were the only ones talking, and very loudly at that. 

“There they are,” Charlie huffed. “Took them long enough.”

He waved at the northern shore of the loch where a four-by-four, towing a caravan behind it, had rolled to a stop on a barely visible dirt road. Four people climbed out of the vehicle and walked the rest of the way toward us. Two more hopped straight through the walls of the caravan as if they didn’t exist (they didn’t) and followed. It was time to catch some dragons. 

The hatchlings were easy enough to capture. They had been taking meat from the feeding station for days without issue, so there was no reason for them to suspect why this time would be any different. A minute after we had ducked out of sight behind our usual outcrop, the young dragons tore into Sleeping Draught-soaked meat with gusto. Another minute later, and they were slumped against the stone, breathing peacefully. 

The mother was a different story, not that anyone was surprised. We had left out an entire deer carcass to tempt her with the hope that she would be too ravenous after her flight to smell the potion tainting it. She took one careful test bite, paused to sniff the air, saw her hatchlings sink to the ground, and proceeded to throw a fit. 

With a roar of fury, she tossed her head and stomped around the glen in a mad search for the unseen threat. Her spiked tail whipped over the sleeping hatchlings, missing them by a wand-length. A hushed groan of dismay ran through Charlie’s group of Dragonologists. A raging dragon was a dangerous force of chaos, about as likely to hurt herself or her hatchlings as anyone else, so with barely a breath to steel ourselves, we raised our wands and ran into the line of fire—quite literally. Blue-tinged flames blasted us as soon as we stepped out of the protective charm, but they quickly met half a dozen Shield and Flame-Freezing Charms. The black dragon shook her head again, sweeping the flames in an attempt to scorch at least one of the nine pests before her, and several orange tendrils slipped through the spells to wrap around my arms and torso like a strange shimmering coat. I felt no heat, though, only the ice of the Fire-Protection Potion crawling through my veins. 

The dragon let out an odd growl that was terribly close to a whine. As much as she raged and wrinkled her snout and bared her teeth, her violet eyes were wild and bright with fear. It took seven Stunning Spells to bring her down—fewer than I had expected. She must have consumed enough Sleeping Draught for it to have had some effect. While the seven of us watched her sink to the ground, wands ready to fire again, the remaining two Dragonologists scrambled to extinguish any smouldering grass before the smoke caught the attention of nearby Muggles. 

Once the dragon lay still, eyes closed and breathing deep, Charlie’s mates cheered in triumph and then proceeded to muzzle her snout and bind her legs. She looked pitiful as she lay there, a great beast bound in cords on the lightly scorched ground, but it would be far worse for us if she woke up while we were transporting her. 

Grinning broadly, Charlie tossed a blanket in my direction. I clumsily caught it in one hand. Working from muscle memory, I wrapped it around the female hatchling, not tight enough to hurt but snug enough to prevent her from moving or trying to bite. Once she was secure, I hauled her half over my shoulder with a grunt. She was far heavier than a dog. 

Charlie repeated the same process with the male, and without warning, he shoved the little dragon into Jacob’s arms and walked away to help his team levitate the mother to the four-by-four. I snickered as Jacob looked at me in alarm, every bit of his expression screaming, What do I do? I offered nothing more than a nonchalant wave of my hand. Grimacing, he cradled the hatchling in his arms, like how a person might cradle a distant relative’s baby at a family reunion—that is, about as stiffly and awkwardly as possible. 

My eyes watered from fighting back laughter. At the sight of my amusement, he rolled his eyes, but that didn’t stop him from smiling too. 

The caravan attached to the back of the vehicle was, in reality, a large trailer with an illusion around it designed to keep Muggles from seeing inside. It would be hard to explain why we had a mythical fire-breathing creature bound behind the vehicle, and while there was an Obliviator on the team, she didn’t want to be faced with that much paperwork. 

With all dragons onboard, we drove to the coast, where a ship was waiting to take them to a new, safely isolated habitat, away from Muggle livestock. I rode in the trailer with Jacob, Charlie, and a broad-shouldered, white-bearded man that introduced himself as Aindrea MacFusty. I shook his left hand; his right was missing half its fingers. 

Moving the dragons onto the ship was uneventful (the Obliviator only had to modify the memories of two people), but it was time-consuming and tedious. The deep blue waves were glowing orange, not unlike the dragon’s fire, by the time we fully secured them below deck, and I was out of breath when we finished. While the crew prepared to leave the dock, Charlie walked Jacob and me back to shore. 

“Remind me to buy you a drink next time I’m here,” he said. “I owe you one. Maybe more than one.”

“Any idea when that might be?” I laughed. 

“With luck, next summer. If Bill ever works up the courage to go through with it.”

“What do you mean?”

He smiled secretively and pulled something out of his pocket. “You’ll find out soon. When you do, give him this for me.” He pressed a Galleon into my palm. 

I studied the gold coin. It looked and felt perfectly normal, so that meant… “You lost a bet.”

“I don’t regret it,” he said happily. One of his crew called to him from the deck, and he waved back in acknowledgement. “That’s my cue to leave. Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone.” And with one final exchange of farewells, he climbed onboard, and the ship hurried away towards the horizon. 

Once again, it was twilight when Jacob and I returned to the tent, and once again, we had fallen into silence. Thoroughly exhausted, we decided to stay one more night rather than put effort into packing up and Disapparating. Neither of us felt like going inside the tent, as if doing so would cause our argument to resume, so we relit the campfire and sat beneath the night that was sinking into the loch. The fire was weak and dull compared to before, or maybe the Fire-Protection Potion hadn’t entirely left my system. 

Jacob startled me by throwing another bag of marshmallows at my head. I caught it before it hit my face this time. “Don’t let me eat these by myself,” he said. “I don’t need the sugar.”

I called him a rude word under my breath, but I meant it affectionately. “Have you been to Honeydukes since you’ve been home?” I asked. 

“Not yet.”

“Really? I’ll have to send a box of their sweets over to Gringotts.”

Something in his face changed, something I couldn’t read. He almost seemed to brace himself, like a duelist might do before a fight. 

“What?” I asked. 

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you this,” he said slowly. He started picking at his nails, and my stomach sank. “I quit my job at Gringotts.”

“What? When?”

“Last month. An hour after I saw you, actually.”

I recalled the meeting he had mentioned. “But why? ”

“Dumbledore and I had made a plan that would help the Order prepare for the war. He’s gone now, so I’m putting it into motion before it’s too late.” He looked me in the eyes, something he had avoided doing all day—two sets of blue eyes, mine and his, tinted orange with firelight. He took a breath. “Next week, I will start a new job at a shop in Knockturn Alley in order to gather information for the Order. I will be undercover and will use a new identity. This means that it will not be safe for me to contact friends or family. Tonight is that last night I will be able to see you for a while.”

Despite his anxious tic, he sounded so calm and detached that I almost didn’t register his words. My brain struggled to process what he had said. He had quit his job. He had made a plan with Dumbledore. He… 

Tonight is the last night I will be able to see you. 

He was leaving again. 

“I don’t believe this,” I said, so quietly that he had to lean forward to hear me. There was a long pause while something clicked inside me...clicked and then snapped. The fury returned, swelling to lift up my voice as I repeated myself, “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe this! All your talk last night about taking unnecessary risks, and all along, you were planning to do this!” I stood up and threw the bag of marshmallows back at him. He easily caught it, then let it fall to his feet with a soft thump. 

His stoic expression indicated he had fully expected this reaction. “This is necessary,” he said. “We don’t even know if we’re going to win this fight.”

I began pacing, back and forth before the flames. “This is why you wanted to talk about everything, isn’t it? You want closure before you go out there and get yourself killed!”

“No. I won’t let that happen.”

“I’m sure Cedric Diggory thought the same thing—right before Voldemort murdered him.”

We both flinched back from the fire between us. I was possibly more shocked than him. I had never said the Dark Lord’s name before. 

“You’re overreacting,” he said, as if his face wasn’t pale. 

I jabbed a finger at him. “No! You do not get to accuse me of messing with the Dark Arts and then turn around and start pretending to be a Dark Wizard. You have a skewed concept of what counts as an acceptable risk.”

“And I just said this is necessary.”

“And why does it have to be necessary for you and not me? I can help, you know. We could work together, or I could take another job for the Order. You don’t have to do anything alone. You shouldn’t.”

He shook his head before I even finished speaking, pity visible in his eyes. I despised being pitied, and he knew that. “I know you’ve been frustrated, but if you would just be patient—”

“I’m tired of people telling me to be patient!” I roared. “I can’t just sit here while I lose you again!”

If I had cast a spell, it would have been a fatal one. Instead, I might as well have punched him in the throat. He gaped at me, but while his mouth moved, no sound came out. I didn’t know if he was even breathing. 

I sank to the ground, suddenly too exhausted to stand, and put my face in my hands. It was always the same. The same argument, the same problem, the same broken relationship. I wanted to scream at the stars, but if I opened my mouth, I would probably cry instead. 

“Flores.”

I froze. Ice crystalized in my veins, as if I had drunk another dose of Fire-Protection Potion. That was not Jacob’s voice that had spoken. 

I raised my head to look at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at a bird in the grass—a translucent silvery bird that was illuminating the air around it, and it was looking directly at me. 

The Patronus opened her beak and spoke in Merula’s voice. She sounded like she was rapidly reading a list but was not happy about it. “You picked a fine time to go on holiday,” she snapped. “I don’t know where you are, but you need to get your arse back to base. There’s been an attack on the Ministry. The object—it’s been destroyed, along with half the Department of Mysteries. There was a fight, some kids were involved, Order members are in the hospital, Sirius Black...Black is dead.”

I dug my fingers into the dirt, reeling. Jacob had pulled his wand halfway out of its sheath as if he thought that, by bringing the news, the bird was responsible for everything. 

“It’s not good,” Merula continued, her voice becoming quieter, more uncertain. She paused, and I leaned towards her Patronus, not wanting to breathe, not wanting my heart to beat, not wanting to make any sound that would drown out her next words. “Lily,” she whispered. “Voldemort...he was there. The Dark Lord has returned.”

Jacob’s wand rolled out of his fingers, landing next to the marshmallows on the ground. We glanced at it, drawn by the motion, but not really seeing anything. Merula’s words echoed in my head, holding no more meaning than the crackling of the fire. 

“I think…” the little bird said, “I think the Second War has just begun.” And then the silver light faded, disappearing into the darkness.

Chapter Text

July 1996

“This is a mess.” 

Bill Weasley dropped a newspaper on the table where several more already covered its surface. Most were issues of the Daily Prophet, although some Muggle papers were scattered throughout the haphazard piles, and all had dates from the past few weeks. Bold letters screamed out headlines like, “MINISTER FOR MAGIC RESIGNS,” “MYSTERIOUS STORM HITS SOMERSET,” “MUGGLES KILLED IN BROCKDALE ATTACK,” and, “MURDER IN THE MINISTRY.”

Bill looked like he wanted to say something else, but rather than attempt to put his feelings into words, he leaned back in his chair and gestured vaguely at the papers. The images of destruction beneath their headlines said more than enough for him. 

“This is the beginning,” Talbott said. “It’s been less than a month, and we can barely mitigate the damage they’ve caused. We’ll run out of Obliviators at this rate.” The young Auror was leaning stiffly against the doorframe, his arms crossed before him. McGonagall had repeatedly offered him a chair, but he remained content to stand at the edge of the room, from which he could survey everyone else with his sharp eyes. 

...Not that there would be a threat in McGonagall’s cottage. From what I could see, the building barely had more than two rooms—a bedroom and a main living area—so it was unlikely there were any Death Eaters hidden among the five of us that were gathered by the fireplace. 

On the loveseat next to me, Penny anxiously twisted her braid between her fingers. “Is this how it started last time?” she asked, looking to McGonagall. 

The older witch adjusted the blanket on her lap, taking her time in answering. Her eyes remained fixed to the chessboard between us, as though planning her next move, but they were too unfocused to possibly see anything before her. I didn’t dare ask what memories she was sifting through; I didn’t want to imagine what they contained. “Not quite,” she said finally, “but the situation does feel very familiar.”

It was impossible to deny that the Second Wizarding War had now begun, and the fact that it had begun with so much devastation was terrifying. After the fiasco at the Department of Mysteries had announced You-Know-Who’s return to the world, his devotees had been quick to follow with several horrifying displays of power. Within two weeks, Death Eaters had destroyed the Brockdale Bridge, giants had wrecked Somerset, and breeding dementors had literally chilled the climate of Britain. And that’s not to mention the murders and kidnappings that were occuring. Muggles were dying in mysterious accidents, Garrick Ollivander and Florean Fortescue had vanished unexpectedly from their shops in Diagon Alley, and You-Know-Who himself had murdered Head of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones, and Order member Emmeline Vance. 

Unsurprisingly, no one was happy with the Minister for Magic following this trainwreck, so Fudge had been forced to step down from his position. Head of the Aurors, Rufus Scrimgeour, was now in his place. According to Talbott, this was a step in a different direction, but not necessarily a better one. 

“Bishop to A5,” McGonagall said suddenly. “You’re in check, Lily.”

I grimaced. She had been multitasking after all. 

I braced my arms against my thighs to better study the board where, as usual, she had my king cornered. The monochrome squares refused to come into focus. Every move so far had been half-hearted, although she had practically commanded me to play. She probably had just wanted to stop me from pacing a rut through the kitchen floor.

Officially, this little gathering—McGonagall, Bill, Talbott, Penny, and me—was supposed to be an Order meeting, but there was very little that we could share that wasn’t already obvious. The truth was, the Order was strained and scattered, especially following the loss of its main base. With the death of Sirius Black, every person that had ever visited Grimmauld Place had become Secret Keeper, meaning it had to have been abandoned. Meetings were now held at whichever member’s home was closest, which, in the case of those at Hogsmeade, was McGonagall’s cottage. 

I had never even known that she had a house in the village; she had always seemed like such a permanent fixture at Hogwarts. Apparently, she hadn’t lived in it for years, not since the death of a husband she never spoke of. After taking four Stunning Spells to the chest, however, she had temporarily been using the place to recuperate over the summer, and she had been gracious enough to offer the building to the Order when it needed it. 

So far, the cottage interior was all faded tartan upholstery and frayed rugs on a scuffed wooden floor. Bookshelves were built into the walls, becoming part of the building itself, and the few spots of free space were occupied by framed photographs. There were images of two young men that looked strikingly like McGonagall, tall and sprightly with black hair and green eyes. They were occasionally accompanied by children, or even a younger, less severe-looking McGonagall. One photo in particular featured a white-haired man, seated at the same table where Bill now sat, with a fluffy black cat resting contentedly in his lap. 

This house was filled with memories, I thought, as I glanced out the window over the kitchen sink. There may have been a garden outside that window at some point, but in that moment weeds strangled each other where any flowers would have grown. Considering how McGonagall stayed focused on the chessboard rather than the photos on the walls, I suspected that could be a metaphor for her feelings about the house. 

“Knight to B6,” I said, turning my attention back to the board. I couldn’t take out her bishop, but I could at least shield my king until I had a better move. It was a painful sacrifice though. 

“I’m assuming Professor Dumbledore has put protections in place at Hogwarts,” Talbott said more than asked. 

McGonagall exhaled through her nose, making a sound halfway between amusement and annoyance. “You need not mention it. I couldn’t tell you half the wards he’s added to the castle, and I can assure you he plans to add more once he returns from his trip. Come September, the students will be safer at Hogwarts than any other place in the country. Unfortunately, convincing the parents of that has been another matter entirely.”

Talbott shook his head. “There’s only so much any of us can do. I hate to say it, but if the parents don’t want to let their kids return to Hogwarts, then there’s nothing you can do to stop them. It’s not your fault people refuse to listen to reason.”

“If this past year has been any indication…” Bill muttered. 

“But the children,” Penny protested, “they shouldn’t get caught in the middle of all this.”

“Like I said,” Talbott repeated, “there is only so much we can do.”

“He’s right,” McGonagall said, “as much as I hate to admit it. With luck...or with a miracle, Albus’s return will give us the advantage we need. Even if that advantage is no more than a cautious optimism.”

“Right,” Bill said. “We can’t lose hope now—”

“Otherwise we’ve already lost,” I finished for him. They were Dumbledore’s words, or some version of them at least. 

Dumbledore had been busy since his sudden reappearance at the Ministry. After returning to his position as Headmaster and repairing the damage Umbridge had done, he had been quick to debrief the Order and then disappear again on an unknown mission. Fortunately, his absence would be temporary this time, but it also meant that I was unable to discuss my concerns with him.

Not that they mattered anymore. My impatience was petty in comparison to more serious issues. Even my nightmares were smaller in this new light. At this moment, there was no need to bother our leader with my personal problems. 

Talbott checked his watch. “I need to return to the Ministry.”

Penny glanced at the clock on the mantle and stood up with a sigh. “And I need to finish my deliveries.”

“One last thing,” Talbott said, looking specifically at Penny and me. “In September, the Ministry is going to be sending Aurors to Hogsmeade to keep an eye on the school throughout the year. I don’t have all the names yet, but Tonks is among them.”

“Oh!” Penny exclaimed happily. “It’s always nice to see a friendly face.”

I agreed, but not without a wave of guilt. Aurors shouldn’t have been necessary, not when I was supposed to be keeping an eye on the school. It was my one job for the Order, and somehow I had messed it up. I had been gone for three days— three days after months of never leaving my post—and yet I had missed the call for help. I had missed the attack against McGonagall, I had missed the battle at the Ministry, and I had missed my chance to protect my friends. If I had been there, maybe Sirius wouldn’t have been killed. Maybe Tonks wouldn’t have been injured.  

Tonks. Dear Merlin. I had visited her in the hospital soon after the battle. She had been confined to a bed, too dazed to sit up, too bruised to move, and too awake to forget. 

“It’s my fault,” she had sobbed. Over and over again, “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I could have stopped her. I should have stopped her and I didn’t and she killed him. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, it’s my fault...it’s all my fault...”

I had tried to reassure her. Over and over again, “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped it by yourself. I should have been there. It’s not your fault.” But nothing I said made any difference. She had remained hysterical, weakly repeating her apology until the Healers had sedated her with Sleeping Draught. 

With a single exception, I had never seen Tonks cry. She was a mischievous mess of color that crashed through life with a smile on her face. The bruised, mousy girl that had lain sobbing in that hospital bed—that was not Nymphadora Tonks. 

Worst of all, Bellatrix Lestrange—her aunt, the woman that had put her in that bed, the one who had killed her cousin—had been the sole Death Eater to escape arrest that night. My vision of the green light and Tonks’s broken body hitting the ground had not come true, but as I had watched her fall limp against the sterile white pillows, I had realized how close she was—how close any of us were to having that light be the last thing we ever saw.  

“Be careful out there. I’d rather not lose any more of my students so soon.” McGonagall’s words took their time in dragging me back to the present, and when they finally registered, they cut deep. This war was not political in any sense. It was personal. 

“Believe me, Professor,” Talbott said, “we’d rather not die either.” And he certainly wasn’t wrong about that. 

Farewells were exchanged, and Penny and Talbott left to return to work. While Bill cleaned up the newspapers on the table, I lingered on the loveseat, hesitant to stand up. “I suppose we should finish our game another time?” I asked more than said. 

“There is no need,” McGonagall said dismissively. “Queen to F6. I believe that's a checkmate.” 

I watched in mild disbelief as my king threw down his sword in surrender. Her remaining pieces raised their weapons in triumph. “One day,” I sighed. 

She gave me a stern look. “Not if you keep making needless sacrifices. Did you honestly expect me to be distracted by your knight when your king was vulnerable? A loss like that benefits no one but your opponent. Remember that.”

“I’ll do better next time,” I said.

“I expect no less.”

I quietly thanked her, and once I had promised to visit again before the summer was over, I made my way outside. The cottage was on the very outskirts of the village where the buildings were separated from each other by fields, farms, and low stone walls. There was a walk ahead of me if I wanted to make it to the Cauldron in time to prepare dinner. 

Of course, I could have Apparated there in half a second if I truly wanted to, but my heart was beating a little too fast for that to be appealing. 

“Bill,” I said, turning to face him as the door opened behind me. 

“Anna,” he greeted cheerfully. 

“Do you have somewhere to be? ‘Cause I could use a Curse-Breaker’s opinion on some Locking Charms.”

He gave me his trademark Weasley grin. “For you? I have all the time in the world. Lead the way.”

We began walking at a steady pace in the direction of High Street. As the road stretched on, he didn’t question why I was avoiding Apparition and instead strode along contentedly at my side. Bill had never been one to ask too many questions; it was one of the many things I liked about him. My experience growing up with him had been “help first, scold later if necessary,” so naturally he had been one of the first people I would go to to get out of (and into) trouble. It’s because of this that I knew he wasn’t as laid back as his appearance suggested. His long ponytail, fang earring, and dragonhide boots were cool, certainly, but they would never make me forget about how much he worried about others, especially his family. 

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Galleon, which I flicked his direction. “Catch.”

He did, clumsily snatching the coin out of the air before it fell, and turned it over in his palm. “What’s this for?”

“Don’t know. Charlie told me to give it to you.”

He frowned at the coin. Then, as his eyes brightened with realization, he threw back his head and laughed. “That git,” he said affectionately. “That’s one way to send his congratulations, I’ll give him that.”

“Should I be congratulating you for something?” I asked. 

“Well, you don’t have to, but it would be appreciated. I, um,” he rubbed the back of his neck with an unexpectedly nervous chuckle, “I’ve been trying to find the right time to tell you.”

My heart, which had only been beating a little too fast, now kicked up to a gallop at the familiar words. My reaction must have been visible because he immediately brought his hands back to his sides. 

“Now don’t be shocked,” he joked. “Are you sure you can take this? Do you need to sit down?”

I glared at him, and he playfully jostled my shoulder until I turned it into a smile. “Out with it already!” I laughed, pushing him back. 

“Okay, okay!” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “As it turns out, I’m getting married.”

I tripped over my own feet, nearly stumbling into him. “What?”

He smirked. “I know. I can barely believe it either.”

“Who? When? Have I met her?”

“Remember that girl I introduced you to at work? Fleur Delacour?”

As if I could forget. The platinum-haired woman had possessed an otherworldly beauty and grace that had left me speechless upon first sight—to Bill’s amusement. Conveniently, he had failed to warn me about her heritage until after I had regained enough sense to stop staring, and he had been entirely too excited to learn that Veela magic worked on lesbians. “Right, the Beauxbatons graduate,” I said, struggling not to linger on her stunning appearance. “You...no...you’re not telling me… her? ”

“Hey!” he exclaimed, half in protest, half in laughter. “She’s tougher than she looks. She was a Triwizard champion.”

“Well, at least she’s no Emily Tyler,” I teased. His taste in women had improved a great deal over the years, but it was still hard to imagine someone as down-to-earth as Bill Weasley with someone as radiant as Fleur Delacour. 

With a snort, he pushed me until I was a full arm’s length away from him. “You know, I was just about to personally invite you to the wedding next summer, but now…”

“Best behavior, I promise,” I said, placing my hand over my heart. “I won’t tell her any embarrassing stories until after the honeymoon.”

“Thank you.”

His nervous smile lingered however, so I ducked under his outstretched arm and pressed against his side to wrap an arm around his waist. Rather than push me away again, he draped his arm around my shoulders. “Congratulations,” I said sincerely. “I’m really happy for you.”

“I’m glad,” he said, but added with a sigh, “Wish I could say the same for Mum though. She thinks we’re rushing things.”

“Want me to talk to her?”

“No, she’ll get over it. She’s just being stubborn as usual.”

I pretended to gasp. “Your mum? Stubborn? No!”

“It runs in the family, unfortunately,” he chuckled. Then, holding up the Galleon, he said cheerfully, “At least someone knows how to admit defeat.” I shot him a questioning look, and he explained, “Charlie thought he was being funny. He bet me a Galleon that, out of all our siblings, I would be the last one to get married, even though I’m the oldest. Joke’s on him.”

I frowned in confusion. “I assumed he would be last.”

“No, he doesn’t want to get married at all, so it works out. Or it would have worked out.” He pocketed the gold coin with a grin. 

As we continued down the road, the conversation turned idle but never dull, so the short journey passed by quickly. We reached the Cauldron well before evening, which gave Bill plenty of time to inspect the Locking Charms I had added to each of the doors. He moved from the front door, to the side door, to the storage room, to the flat itself, where he ran through a list of spells as he attempted to open them. To my relief, nothing from Alohomora to the most complex charm could unlock them. The keys that both Penny and I possessed were the sole exception, as was the intention. 

Bill rapped his knuckles against the door to the flat and nodded thoughtfully. “Wood like this won’t stop a good Blasting Curse, but your charms should definitely slow an attacker down. Nice work. What else do you got?”

I relayed to him the other spells that I had added or reinforced. There was an Intruder Charm on the ground floor of the building and an Anti-Apparition Charm on the first. I planned to expand the Anti-Apparition Charm to the ground floor as well when I had the time, and he agreed that might be safest. 

“Make sure you have an escape plan in place too,” he said. “It never hurts to keep a bag packed for emergencies.”

I informed him that I was the last person he needed to remind about preparedness. I hadn’t fully unpacked my backpack since my trip with Jacob, and it was possible there were more supplies in it now than there had been then. But, since that trip, there also was one thing that had been missing. One thing that I had lost. 

“Can I ask you a question?” I said quietly. 

In a heartbeat, Bill had shifted his full attention onto me. I expected him to respond with a joke or some ribbing, but he didn’t. He simply smiled gently and herded me into the flat with all the calmness and composure of someone who had been waiting for this to happen. 

Too anxious to sit down but tired of standing, I ended up half perched on the arm of the sofa. Bill dragged over a chair from the table so he could sit in front of me, and it was from there that he looked at me patiently. 

“Did you know?” I asked. It was technically half a question, but the way his soft smile remained unchanging indicated that he understood. 

“We discussed it,” he said. “He didn’t tell me all the details, for liability reasons, but I knew what he was planning to do. I had to know. If we had both switched jobs at the same time, it would have been suspicious.”

“Are you going to quit your job too?” The words came out more bitter than I had intended them to. 

He slowly shook his head. “No. I’ll run the occasional errand, but I want to stay close to my family, just in case.”

That made him the only one. I had hoped that, with Dumbledore’s return, Jacob wouldn’t have had to go through with his mission, but I had been wrong. Dumbledore had encouraged him to continue the plan, and he had left anyway, without so much as a goodbye. 

“Jacob’s not doing anything different,” Bill said. “You know he’s protecting you, in his own way.”

Yes, Jacob always had a funny way of “protecting” me. Usually, it involved never seeing him at all, and I failed to understand how this time was any different. “He promised he wouldn’t leave again,” I said, not even attempting to hide the bitterness anymore.

“And he shouldn’t have done that. But, in his defense, none of us expected the world to go to war.”

That was true, but the calm way he had said it was infuriating. People we cared about were going to die, and he was able to sit there and smile. I bit my lip to keep from snapping at him, although I narrowed my eyes. Unperturbed, he stood up and stepped so close to me that I lost my nerve and glared at the ceiling instead. His hands gripped my shoulders, holding me in place while he bent down to my level, but I refused to meet his gaze. 

“Anna,” he softly singsonged. “Look at me.”

I closed my eyes. “Don’t say it.”

“Don’t say what?”

“Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. I won’t hear it, not from you too.”

There was a long pause, confirming what he had been about to say. I didn’t want any more meaningless reassurances. What I wanted wasn’t here, and he couldn’t fix that. I knew, because he had been trying for years. 

He pulled my chin down with his thumb, forcing me to look at him, and when I opened my eyes, he raised his eyebrows dramatically. “So stubborn. Are you sure your last name isn’t Weasley?”

I wrinkled my nose in a failed effort to hide a smile, and he released me with a laugh. 

“Now what was it you said an hour ago?” he said brightly. “We can’t lose hope now… Come on, help me out here.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Just say it. It’s not hard.”

“I’m not saying it.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Say it.”

“No! Bill!”

“Say it!”

“Fine! Otherwise we’ve already lost,” I grumbled. As cliché as it was, it wasn’t wrong. 

“Good girl.” He moved to tousle my hair, but when I grabbed his hand to stop him, he responded by trapping my hand between both of his. “Hey, I understand,” he said sincerely. “You’re not the only one that’s waiting for something to happen. It’s not fun.”

I took a deep breath—one long inhale, one long exhale—and murmured a thank you. 

“Of course.” He gently squeezed my hand once before releasing it. “Anything for family.”

* * * *

The asphodel in the greenhouse died, despite my best efforts. I had moved the plants to new pots, changed the soil, reduced my watering, pruned the sick leaves, checked the nutrient and pH levels—done absolutely everything Dad had suggested and more, but the leaves had turned brown and the white flowers had wilted and fallen. If the issue had been a disease, I had failed to catch it in time. I only managed to save one pot out of the entire row, which wasn’t nearly enough to meet the Cauldron’s demand for Wiggenweld Potion.

“Plants do that sometimes,” Mrs. Byrne had remarked during one visit. “My mother used to say they were protecting her, absorbing the curses cast in her direction.”

“Someone must really hate me then,” I joked. Asphodel was related to the daylily, my favorite flower. If the plants had truly been absorbing curses for me, then that attack would have been extremely personal. 

“I wouldn’t worry about it, dear. I’ll buy you some new ones tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to do that!” I exclaimed. 

She waved a hand dismissively. “Didn’t I tell you I was forever in your debt? You’ve done a lot for me and Ronan. Both you and Penny. We owe you more than you know.”

“Mrs. Byrne…”

“Eh, don’t bother trying to stop me. You know you can’t.” 

She was right, as past experience had made clear. I could force money into Mr. Byrne’s hand later, but even then he would still report to her. 

I turned up my palms in surrender. “Thank you.”

“Please don’t mention it, my dear. This is supposed to be my way of thanking you. ”

As baffled as I was by her impulsive generosity, sure enough, a wizard arrived the next morning with a delivery of fresh asphodel. He refused to accept any money either, saying that he had already been paid, so I had no choice but to move the new plants into the greenhouse. I spent the time repotting them in a state of bemusement, unable to figure out what I had done to earn this. I had only delivered some potions; that was my job. 

After a while though, I relaxed into my daily chores of watering and pruning, and my thoughts quieted with the methodical work. The greenhouse might not have been the most pleasant place to be in the summer, but there was always something extraordinarily calming about being around the verdant leaves and colorful petals. I preferred creatures more, of course, but it was easy to see why Dad found plants so appealing. Robin too. 

As I was collecting the last shavings of wiggenweld bark that Penny had requested, a soft knock sounded against the doorframe and called my attention to the head of gray hair that had appeared near the entrance. Mrs. Byrne had come to inspect her new flowers, no doubt. 

When I untangled myself from the tree branches to greet her, however, my fingers went limp, and I practically flung the basket of bark onto the table in an attempt to avoid dropping it. The woman before me was younger than Mrs. Byrne by a decade or two, although the white in her hair and the lines on her face wouldn’t have suggested it. She was also closer to me in height—exactly my height, actually—with familiar light eyes that were accented by her simple smoky-blue robes. 

“Mum,” I said, startled. 

Rosaline Flores smiled warmly. Her eyes always crinkled when she smiled. “How are you, Lilianna?” she asked.

“I, uh, I’m fine.” I clumsily tried to pull off my dirty gloves, but the fabric clung to my sweaty palms, refusing to budge. “I’m fine. Been keeping busy.”

“I know,” she said, and I suppressed a grimace. Jacob had warned me, and I hadn’t listened. Now here she was.

She extended a hand, holding it out until I offered my own, and with one quick tug each, she removed my gloves for me. I mumbled my thanks and tossed them into a box on the ground. Then, as she raised her arms and took a step forward, I instinctively took a step back.

“I...I’m covered in soil,” I protested.

“I don’t care,” she said, and she hugged me anyway. I briefly stiffened before I caved and wrapped my arms tightly around her, pressing the side of my head against her shoulder like a child. Like always, she waited for me to be the one to let go. I was embarrassed to say that I held on for a few heartbeats longer than I would admit. 

“What are you doing here?” I murmured once I had pulled away. She didn’t let me move too far though, for she tucked my hair behind my ear before answering.

“I haven’t seen you in a while. I wanted to visit.”  

“Do you need anything?”

“No, just to see you. And to talk about your birthday next week.” Oh, right. That. “Would you like us to make a special dinner?”

“That would be nice,” I said politely. 

I had completely forgotten about my birthday...again. In all honesty, I had stopped caring about it after my seventeenth. The day usually felt like it was supposed to be more special than it was, and “twenty-three” wasn’t exactly an exciting number to begin with. But having an excuse to spend time with my family wouldn’t be the most horrible thing in the world. 

As long as I didn’t leave for more than a day this time. 

“Are there any gifts you want?” she asked. 

I shrugged. “Not that I can think of. You usually know me well enough.”

She sighed. “You say that every year. I want you to name at least one thing you want this year. Just one.”

“All right, um…” I ran a hand through my hair. What was I supposed to say? It wasn’t like I needed anything. With my wand, my pets, and a few sets of clothes, I was content. I would never be allowed into anywhere posh, but that had never been my goal. “Oh!” I realized. “I could use a new dress. I don’t have anything to wear to Bill’s wedding next August.”

She considered this for a moment, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “I could make you a dress,” she said slowly. “But you have to promise to find an excuse to wear it before your next birthday. And you need to come with me to pick out the fabric.”

“Deal,” I said. Although, when I would wear a dress outside of a wedding, I had no idea.

“Perfect. We could go this weekend, have lunch while we’re out. Make it a girls’ day.” 

“I would like that.”

“I’ll make a note then.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a notepad, on which she jotted something down. When she went to put it back, however, she made a small “Ah!” sound and pulled out a folded piece of paper, which she handed to me. “Jacob said he forgot to give this to you.”

My stomach lurched as I accepted the paper and then sank as I realized what it was. Carefully, I unfolded the worn page, but I didn’t need to look at it to know what was on it. He had neatened up the lines and added additional shading since I had last seen it, but it was clearly the drawing he had made of me and the dragons. Instinctively, I reached for my pendant, but my fingers only hooked on the fabric of my robes. My throat tightened. 

“The two of you had a fight,” Mum said sympathetically. 

“What did he tell you?” I asked, trying not to sound too grumpy. 

“Anna, you haven’t taken that necklace off since your seventh birthday. He didn’t need to tell me anything.”

Unable to keep looking at it, I refolded the drawing and shoved it into the pouch on my potion belt. “He should have given me this in person.”

“He didn’t have the time,” she said. And then, although her lips remained parted, there was a delay before any more sound left them. 

Outside, the fluted call of a male blackbird warbled in the distance, oddly late in the season, and there was a muffled clang as one of the Darrows tossed their rubbish in the bin. I studied the wilted leaves on the ground. 

When she spoke again, her voice was surprisingly faint: “You think I didn’t try to stop him too?”

The words hung in the air like a breath that had been held for too long. I registered the shake to them, their unevenness, but I didn’t want to raise my gaze to know if her face matched how those words sounded. 

She coughed twice, raising her hand to cover her mouth. “Let’s just focus on your birthday,” she said once she had lowered it again. “At least for now.”

“Okay,” I said quietly. And, like that, the moment was over, although I could still feel the bile in the base of my throat. “Mum?”

“Yes, darling?”

“I love you.”

With a smile, she pulled me close to kiss the side of my head. “I love you too.”

As much as I meant the words, it occurred to me with a wave of nausea that Jacob had been right about one thing. More accurately, I had known he was right all along; I just hadn’t wanted to admit it. 

Because, even though I was here, he wasn’t the only one that had left. 

Chapter Text

Mum insisted on traveling all the way to Diagon Alley to get the fabric for my dress. She was good friends with Madam Malkin; they went to each other for patterns or supplies from time to time (or to complain about Twilfitt and Tatting’s), so she wanted me to see all the available options. Her plan was to start the morning by exploring the shops for any other gifts I might like, then go to Madam Malkin’s for her expertise, and finally end our trip at the Rosa Lee Teabag for lunch. While shopping trips normally exhausted me, this one sounded like it had the potential to be fun, so I agreed. Unfortunately, in making this plan, we had both forgotten to consider one thing. 

As we stepped out the door of the Leaky Cauldron onto the cobblestone street of Diagon Alley, it occurred to me that I hadn’t been here since my meeting with Badeea back in March. On that day, the street had been packed with people rushing to finish their errands, their colorful robes stirring up the scent of fresh flowers and roasted chestnuts as they swept by vendors whose calls rang over the heads of the bustling crowd. Spellbooks, potions, jewelry, and other crafts had glittered in the windows of well-lit shops, and doors had been propped open welcomingly, waiting to draw customers in. Regardless of how I felt about the excessive noise and activity, I couldn’t deny that there was a special magic to the place that never disappeared, no matter how many times I came here.

Today, however, was the first time in my entire life that that magic was gone. Its absence wasn’t obvious at first, but it slowly became apparent in the way the buildings were a little too dark and the street a little too quiet. When people rushed by, they did so in tight groups with their heads ducked and eyes lowered. No one was lingering to widowshop, not that they easily could. Ministry posters obscured displays. In the place of advertisements were detailed warnings about what to do in the presence of a Dark Mark—be it in the sky or on a person’s skin. 

Vendor stalls still lined the streets, perhaps in greater numbers than before, but they were no longer selling food or flowers. Figures in dull cloaks called out in urgent, raspy voices, and flashed glimpses of gilded amulets (“For protection!”), cracked Sneakoscopes, and cloudy potions. One man claimed to be selling authentic invisibility cloaks at a low price (“Shoddy work,” Mum had muttered. “Charm won’t last a month; fabric will tear in a week.”). I also could have sworn that I saw the ginger hair and unkempt clothes of Mundungus Fletcher, holding a box of spoons of all things, but he mysteriously vanished before I could get a closer look. 

A skeletal old witch reached out to brush against my mum’s robes with disturbingly long fingernails. “Pretty,” she hissed, her voice so snakelike that she could have been speaking Parseltongue, “but those rags won’t keep you safe. Not from the Dark.” A clawed hand held up an ugly yet faintly shimmering set of brown robes. “The only thing that will save you from the Killing Curse, available for a few Galleons. A fair price, yes?”

Mum pressed into my side as she moved out of the witch’s reach. “No, thank you,” she said politely.

“A shame,” the witch sighed, her eyes fixed on me. “You let Death claim such a pretty young face.” And then she bared her yellow teeth in a horrible impression of a grin. 

Without another word, Mum linked her arm with mine and dragged me off down the street, away from the thick of the vendors. I struggled to keep pace with her despite my longer legs, and I had to fight not to trip over the cobbles...or my own feet. It was only when I pulled on her arm that she slowed down to a more manageable stroll, but she didn’t let go of me. 

“I hope you know those never work,” she whispered close to my ear. 

“Of course,” I said. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“I know. It’s my job to worry.”

“I’m fine, Mum.”

She didn’t respond, nor did she release me. Nor did I try to pull away. 

I nearly suggested that we go someplace else for birthday shopping, but I bit my tongue. Every wizarding shop and alley in Britain doubtlessly had the same dark and hushed air about it. Even Hogsmeade wasn’t much better. We could have gone to the Muggle side of London, of course, but neither of us were dressed for it. So, we continued on down the street, poked our heads in shops that were open, and failed to pretend that we weren’t anxious. 

I did stop in Eeylops Owl Emporium to pick up some tonic for Aeris, who had been acting lethargic as of late (never mind that I could have gone to the store in Glasgow). I also picked out a cat bed and toys for Pip in the Magical Menagerie, which Mum purchased on my behalf. My thank you to her was less enthusiastic than it should have been, but she didn’t appear to hear me as we walked outside. The sight of Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor, locked tight and boarded up across the street, was a little distracting. 

The familiar organized mess that was Madam Malkin’s brought a welcome change from the world outside. The shop always reminded me of Mum’s studio at home—colorful swaths of fabric laid out over tables, tape measures and scissors scattered across the room seemingly in their own abandon, and lost threads that clung to the bottom of shoes as often as they did to the floor. Madam Malkin herself, a squat, bespectacled witch with graying hair, greeted us with her usual friendliness and instantly launched into an exchange of updates from the past month with my mum.

“I tell you, Rosa,” she said happily, “those Weasley twins are the only ones that have kept me in business this summer. They must have sent in a dozen orders for magenta robes and another dozen for dragonhide suits—all for that new shop of theirs. I don’t know where they got the money for it, but it is certainly welcome.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Mum exclaimed. “I had forgotten they’re here now. Do you want to say hello to your friends, Lily?”

I shook my head. “Not today,” I said. While I loved Fred and George, they came with a special brand of chaos that I lacked the energy to handle at that moment. 

“We probably won’t have the time anyway,” Mum said. “She needs fabric for a dress.”

“Did you have something in mind?” Madam Malkin asked me. With a flick of her wand, a tape measure unwrapped itself from the collar of her mauve robes and snaked around my waist. I held my arms up awkwardly. 

“Er…” Like I had a clue. Being a tailor wasn’t exactly genetic. “Nothing too...frilly,” was all I could think to say. 

With another flick of her wand, the pages of a nearby book fluttered until they fell open to reveal a simple dress pattern, which Madam Malkin held up for me to see. “Like this?” she asked. 

“Um…”

“No, something more like this.” Pulling a large binder out of her bag, Mum sorted through a disorganized collection of loose parchment and fabric samples until she located a similar pattern. 

“I see.” Madam Malkin snapped her fingers, and the tape measure stopped squeezing my ribs and returned to her shoulders. She waved a hand at the many rolls of fabric that lined the walls and tables. “Well, take a look and see what you find.”

I didn’t know where to start. There was every shade and combination of every color of the rainbow—and then some—within these walls, ranging from the brightest reds to the dullest grays. Some rolls were plain, others were plaid, and others were dotted with polka dots or stars. The material varied as well, although I couldn’t put a name to anything beyond “soft” or “lacy” or “luminescent.” And as much as there was in this whirlwind of a room, I couldn’t see anything that said it belonged to me. 

What was I thinking, asking for a dress? I wasn’t even a dress-wearing kind of person. 

Tiredly, I ran my fingers over a dark material that was shiny and scaled, not unlike the hide of a Hebridean Black. Faux dragonhide. It was too waxy to be the real thing. Real dragon scales, while rougher and full of imperfections, were far more beautiful. Just as anything found in nature tended to be. 

“What are you thinking?” Mum asked, taking note of the hand I had suspended before the fabric. 

I tilted my head as though doing so would tilt the images in my mind. Eyes like opals and violets...scales like snow and iron...wings like shadows… “Dragons,” I said finally. 

Mum smirked. Of course this came as no surprise to her. What came as a surprise to me, however, was when she silently slid a sketch out of her binder—a sketch that she had colored using multiple inks. 

Madam Malkin adjusted her glasses to squint at the parchment. “I don’t have a pattern like this here,” she said, “but I know a supplier that might.”

“It’s perfect,” I said. 

Mum laughed. “I knew it would be.”

Madam Malkin nodded thoughtfully. “Then I’ll send him an owl right away.”

After she had placed the order, and after Madam Malkin and my mum had chatted for another ten minutes or an hour (I couldn’t tell which), we bid farewell to the tailor and decided that it was the perfect time to head to the tea shop for a light lunch. The Rosa Lee Teabag was my mum’s favorite place to go in Diagon Alley, if only because of their shared name, and I vaguely recalled enjoying pastries there when I was younger...which is why it was extremely disappointing for us to find its windows boarded up and its doors closed and locked, the same as numerous other shops on the street. 

“Now what do we do?” I asked, dismayed. 

“Let’s go back to the Leaky Cauldron,” she sighed. “The food there is salty, but not terrible.”

I didn’t need to use Legilimency to know the rest of her thoughts. This outing wasn’t going like either of us had planned. But, considering how much the world was changing, I doubted anything in the near future would. 

Fortunately, on the walk back, we managed to steer clear of the vendors, and when we pretended not to hear their calls, they were quick to move on to the next group of passersby. It would have seemed that we could have escaped the alley without incident. 

As the Leaky Cauldron came into sight, however, I noticed that we were walking farther in the shadows of the buildings than before, closer to where the street split into two branches. One branch was the wide cobbles of Diagon Alley. The other, which wound deep into the shadows, was narrow, cracked, and twisted. A broken, faded sign whispered the latter street’s name. 

“Mum,” I hissed into her ear. “We’re too close to Knockturn Alley.”

“Are we?” she said distractedly. It was less a question than it was an imitation of one. She knew exactly where we were, just as she knew exactly who lay down that alleyway. 

And, for a moment, just one moment, the shadows drew me towards them too. Somewhere within them, around an uneven corner, perhaps behind the dirty window of a dimly lit shop, stood Jacob. So close to me stood Jacob, and yet he was somewhere I couldn’t see. 

This situation was too familiar, and because it was too familiar, I once again linked my arm with Mum’s and gently steered her away. She didn’t fight me, although her eyes stayed locked on the alleyway. 

Against my better judgment, I glanced over my shoulder one last time before stepping into the Leaky Cauldron, hoping to get a glimpse of the person I knew wouldn’t be there. Except, there was someone there, entering the alley, and my heart jolted at the sight of the cloaked figure. They weren’t Jacob; that much was clear, but there was something about their greasy black hair that was also too familiar. 

I squeezed Mum’s arm once before releasing it. “Wait inside,” I told her. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Her eyes widened. “Where are you going?”

“One minute. Wait inside,” I repeated, and then, not wanting to lose sight of the figure, I jogged after her. No footsteps followed me, but there was no sound of a door opening either. “Ismelda!” I called, skidding to a halt several steps into Knockturn Alley—far enough to see around the first corner, but not far enough to get lost in the shadows. “Ismelda, wait!”

The witch’s black cloak billowed angrily around her as she whirled to face me. By the time my hand reached the sheath on my hip, her wand was already pointed at my throat. A hawthorn wand, well-suited to the many curses I had seen it cast over the years. Slowly, I raised my empty hands alongside my head.

“There’s no need for that,” I said, my voice half an octave too high. 

Her eyes flicked up and down my body, threatening to burn into my skin, and the more she saw, the more her sneer deepened. “Flores,” she spat without lowering her wand. “What do you want?”

“I, uh…” What were you supposed to say to someone you hadn’t seen in nearly six years? Don’t kill me? “To say hello?” I said stupidly. 

Ismelda Murk snorted in ridicule. Her face was ghostly pale, a sharp contrast to the grays and blacks of the shadows, but there was no fear behind her contorted expression. Only deep-seated, smouldering contempt. “Are you mental?” she demanded. 

Probably. I had chased her into Knockturn Alley. No one went there to do casual shopping. “I can’t say hello?” I asked. 

“You have no obligation to. We’re not friends. In fact, I’d rather you not speak to me at all.”

“Have I done something?”

She lowered her wand with another snort. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

I lowered my hands. “Then what—”

My remaining words were choked off, quite literally, as the tip of her wand pressed against my windpipe. She had charged towards me faster than I could blink, and when I tried to step back, she grabbed the front of my robes and yanked me forward again. “You think you’re so special, don’t you,” she hissed in my face. Every spot on her pale skin, every speck in her teeth was visible, even in the low light. “You always have. Well, here’s some news for you—we’re not friends. We’ve never been friends, so I won’t hesitate to curse you where you stand.”

I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe with that piece of hawthorn jammed against my throat. But I could see the exact moment her dull green eyes widened. It was the same moment she felt my wand press against her lower back. 

The pressure on my throat lightened. “I wonder,” I whispered hoarsely, “what would happen if sea urchin spines grew on your kidneys.”

A hush seemed to fall over the entire alley, although I couldn’t recall any noise that would have left an absence. The loudest thing I could hear was my own heart beating in my ears, and for a moment I feared that Ismelda could hear it too. But then the hand on my robes vanished, and I stumbled as I tried not to fall backwards. She had stepped away from me. And she was laughing—or cackling, to be more specific, with her arms spread wide and her spine bent at a disturbing angle. 

“I knew there was a reason I didn’t hate you,” she gleefully told the sky. “At least not completely.”

I suppressed a cough. “I thought you were supposed to be in Italy. What are you doing here? Barnaby said you’ve been out of contact for months.”

“Oh, so Barnaby still confides in you, does he? Still sends letters like a dutiful little puppy? Ha! The poor boy. Always hopelessly in love with the queer.”

In the wake of her words, I didn’t remember moving. I only recalled an icy hot wave of fury and fear, and then her robes were balled up in my hand, while my wand pressed between her ribs. “Don’t say that!” I growled. “Not so loud!”

Smudged shapes moved in the shadows beyond her shoulders, where eyes watched silently from beneath faded hoods. Ismelda, in her ragged black cloak, was dressed to blend in. I was not. I was too clean, too kempt, too...different. Different was not good in a place where people vanished from their stores in the middle of the night. 

“Then don’t ask me what I’m doing,” she said calmly. “It can be dangerous to walk these streets alone.” An infuriatingly broad grin amplified the threat. 

I took a breath before the growl could continue rising in my throat and released her. She didn’t bother to straighten her crooked robes, nor did she pull away from the wand against her side. “Are you asking for a duel, Murk?” I asked.

“Ooh, that sounds like fun,” she purred. “But unfortunately I’m busy today, and blood can be so tricky to vanish sometimes. Besides, you wouldn’t want to keep your dear old mummy waiting, would you?”

On foolish impulse, I took the bait. While a wave of panic crested in the base of my throat, I looked behind me to see nothing more than the dirty brick wall that marked the first corner within Knockturn Alley. When I looked back at Ismelda, she was already stalking away.

“Don’t approach me again!” she called over her shoulder, before disappearing behind a windowless apothecary. Her cackle trailed after her. 

I lingered for another series of breaths, counting out beats until my hands stopped shaking enough for me to resheathe my wand. In that time, more eyes seemed to appear from the shadows, so as quickly as I could without drawing more attention to myself, I turned tail and retreated from the dark alley. Mum waited outside the Leaky Cauldron, bags still in hand, in the very spot I had left her. 

“I told you to wait inside,” I said once I reached her. 

She pursed her lips. “You told me we were too close to Knockturn Alley.”

“I got distracted. Let’s order food.” I swiftly herded her into the inn before she could respond. I wasn’t hungry, not after that encounter, but we needed to get out of the open. 

“Was that a friend of yours?” she asked as I shut the door behind us. 

No, I thought. “Just someone from school,” I answered instead. 

Her frown said she wasn’t convinced, and honestly, neither was I. Ismelda had returned to Britain for a reason. No sane person simply popped into a nation in the midst of war for a friendly visit. Not that Ismelda was sane (or friendly), but she wasn’t stupid either. She was here to do something, and knowing her, that something involved a well-placed and probably violent curse. 

The worst part of all though? I had no idea which side of the war those curses were being cast towards. 

* * * *

As soon as I got home from my trip in the evening, I dumped my bags at the foot of my desk and wrote a letter to Merula, informing her of my encounter with Ismelda. I skipped over most of what she said and elected to summarize our conversation. The “queer” comment, for example, was hardly important enough to include, and it was information Merula didn’t need to know. 

Early the next morning, I was awoken by a tapping at my window, and I pulled aside my curtains to find not one, but two sets of eyes asking to be let in—the familiar black irises of Aeris, and the vivid orange of a large eagle-owl. They beelined for the owl perch when I opened the window, but not before the eagle-owl dropped a parcel into my hands. I tossed them some owl treats, checked that their water was full, and then took the parcel over to my desk. Inside was a letter and a small velvet pouch. I opened the letter first. 

Lily,

Before you ask, your old man is fine (besides the fact that he looks like he couldn’t carry a twig). I sent Ida with him for company. He shouldn’t eat him. Most likely. Just do me a favor and send your reply with my bird before yours drops out of the sky. 

I glanced over at the owls on the perch. Ida, with his sleek striped feathers, dwarfed my ancient barn owl by a lot, but the two seemed happy to snuggle against each other, their eyes half-closed in tired contentment. 

I see you love finding trouble more than you like listening to me. Cause I could have sworn that I told you to stop worrying about Ismelda. I said I would handle it, so let me handle it. I AM handling it. So stop asking questions and don’t get in the way. 

M. 

I wrinkled my nose at the letter, tempted to tear it in half. If she truly wanted a reply, then I had a strongly worded one in mind. Stop asking questions… Who did she think she was talking to?

P.S. I hear you need a new necklace. You’ll find that this one goes better with your ring. 

I read the postscript twice. Then I read it a third time, after which I snatched the pouch off my desk and turned it upside down over my hand. A thin, silver chain slithered into my palm, followed by a heavier pendant. There, a cat perched within the arch of a crescent moon, its metallic eyes glittering playfully, as if it had a secret it refused to tell. A note tumbled onto my desk as well, where it displayed two simple words:

Happy Birthday 

I looked back at the letter. Merula had called me “Lily.” I looked at the pendant. Merula had given me a birthday present. I looked at the postscript. Merula had known I needed a new necklace. 

Still in the oversized shirt and track bottoms I had slept in, I left my room and entered the main part of the flat. 

“Good morning, Lily,” Penny said cheerfully from her chair at the table. A plate of toast and a mug of tea sat before her. 

“Morning, Pen. Question.”

“Hm?” she hummed into her mug. 

“How did Merula know I stopped wearing Jacob’s necklace?” I let the silver pendant drop from my palm to dangle from its chain. 

She tilted her head curiously to watch the cat swing back and forth. Then, she extended a hand, into which I placed both the necklace and the letter. She studied them carefully. 

“I don’t know,” she said finally, turning the pendant over in her fingers. “But it’s a very thoughtful gift.”

“Do you have a guess?” I asked. 

“I really don’t know.” She handed the items back to me. “Talbott would have noticed when he was here, but I doubt he would tell her. I was talking with Tonks about it, but I think she has too many of her own—”

“You told Tonks?” I said sharply. 

Penny immediately found more interest in her breakfast, and she took a long sip of tea before answering. “Yes,” she said slowly. 

“And what did you tell Tonks?”

She winced. “Please, let’s not do this first thing—”

“What did you tell Tonks?”

“I didn’t tell her anything.” She ran her fingers along the burnt edge of her toast, crumbling it agitatedly. Black powder scattered across the plate. “We were talking about how you’d had a fight with Jacob—which we could both see—and...well, there’s nothing really to say. I only know as much as you’ve told me. Which isn’t a lot, honestly.”

I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. 

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” she snapped. 

“You were gossiping behind my back. Again.”

“I wasn’t…! What do you mean again? ”

“What exactly do you think Jacob and I argued about?” I demanded. “Sounds like you had a nice long conversation with him, by the way.”

Crunch! Her fingers snapped off a piece of crust, which flew off the plate onto the table, carrying a wave of crumbs with it. Her eyes had gone wide with pleading innocence. False innocence. “He’s your brother!” she exclaimed. 

“Exactly! He’s my brother, not yours, so I would prefer it if he didn’t hear about my life through someone else!”

She spread her palms. “How is he supposed to do that if you don’t talk to anyone? He was worried about you. Tonks and I, we’re worried about you too, but will you tell us anything if we ask? No! Because, for some stupid reason, you treat every problem like you have to deal with it alone.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you’re always fine.”

I flicked a hand at her, as if I could dismiss the scoff before it reached my ears. “This isn’t important right now,” I grumbled. “I’m just tired of you gossiping about me to everyone else.”

She made a noise of exasperation. “I talk to your friends, Lily. Your friends. Not everyone else. I thought you knew me better than that.”

The hurt in her voice, while faint, chipped the angry wall before me, and with that one small chip, I realized how ridiculous I was being. Suddenly, my energy went crashing down with the wall, and I sank into a chair in defeat. “You’re right,” I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

With a sympathetic smile, she wiped her fingers on a serviette and then reached across the table to take my hands in hers. Her slender hands were always so soft. “Are you okay?” she asked. 

“I think so. Just...stressed.”

She pushed the plate of toast over to me. “Then eat something before you bite my head off again.”

“Sorry, Pen.”

She patted my hand. “You’re forgiven,” she said, and then she stood up to cut two more slices of bread. 

I stared at the uneaten (yet slightly beat up) toast, but I didn’t touch it, not yet. The silver pendant was still clutched in my fist, and when I uncurled my fingers to gaze at it, the cat gazed calmly back. 

“Do you want help putting it on?” Penny’s voice asked from over my shoulder. I jumped. 

“Uh, sure. Thanks.”

I turned sideways in my chair so that she could better get behind me and passed her the necklace. Her fingers gently brushed my hair out of the way, before lightly tracing the skin from my collar to my nape as she brought the clasp together behind my neck. Peppermint was mixed with the scent of lavender on her hands, the leftover essence of a Calming Draught that, in the moment, was far more electric than calming. 

“Well, how’s it look?” I asked once her touch had, disappointingly, vanished. 

She circled back into my view. “Beautiful,” she declared, her sapphire eyes sparkling. 

Beautiful. Even the word was electric. If I were to touch anything else, I might get a shock. 

Oblivious as usual, Penny returned to the kitchen. I rubbed my eyes, although I knew my vision wasn’t the problem. There was a lot wrong with me that had nothing to do with confused senses. Or hunger. 

I finally forced myself to pick up a piece of toast, but I paused mid-bite when Penny added, “Merula did a good job.”

The words slammed me back to the earth, even though I had never left my chair. Merula. Right. The necklace was a gift from Merula. 

“Yeah, she did,” I murmured. Out of habit, I wrapped my fingers around the cool metal of the pendant, finding familiarity in something that hadn’t been there before. 

Chapter Text

September 1996

August brought with it the threats of werewolves and potential terrorism to Hogsmeade. The universe had apparently gotten tired of my complaints about sitting still and had decided to solve my problem in the worst way possible. 

No one died, fortunately. The “terrorists” turned out to be a well-meaning, if chaotic, team of American wizards that had been surprisingly eager to seek recruitment into the Order once the werewolf issue had been dealt with. As much as I enjoyed making new friends, the quiet that followed their visit almost came as a welcome relief. 

Almost. A restless air accompanied September’s arrival, worsened by reports of more witches and wizards found dead in their homes—if they were found at all. Now that the students had returned to Hogwarts, I was less afraid of if something would happen than I was of when something would happen. 

Whatever catastrophe that would be, though, it wouldn’t happen any time soon. Not with the Aurors in Hogsmeade and Dumbledore’s new protections on the castle. So, life continued on, as normal as it could. 

“I don’t understand how you keep managing this.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“I would hope not. But you’re starting to defy the laws of nature.”

Conall was yet again hunched on a brewing room stool, his face pale and brow furrowed as he clutched an arm that was, yet again, broken. This time, however, a fractured bone was the least of his worries. Not only was his arm twisted at an impossible angle, but his elbow had somehow turned to face backwards . I had seen a lot over the years, having worked with both curses and creatures, but even I had to admit that this was nauseating.  

“You said you fell off a ladder?” I asked in disbelief. 

He sucked in a pained breath through his teeth. “Well, I tried to fix it myself first…”

“Ah.” People really needed to stop trying to cast healing charms without proper training—because then I had to see stuff like this. 

“Can you fix it?”

“Maybe.” I grabbed a jar of puffskein hair off the table, feeling the weight of the cool glass in my hand. It would do nicely. 

“Will it hurt?”

“Probably,” I said, and then, before he could ask another question, I flung the jar straight at the wall, where it shattered against the stone in a burst of glittering shards and golden hair. 

Conall jolted halfway off the stool. “The hell—!”

“ Episkey! ”

His surprised shout morphed into something akin to a tortured howl, and with a sickening snap, his arm twisted into a normal, not-backwards position. Still clutching the limb, he glared at me through watery eyes—the same reaction the last victim of a botched healing spell had given me. I silently repaired the jar of hair and returned it to its spot on the table, not bothering to hide my smirk. I would have to thank Sam later for the idea. 

“You’re off your head,” he groaned. 

“Possibly,” I said happily. “How does it feel now?”

Tenderly, he tested the arm, but while his movement was uninhibited, he winced as he did so. “Sore,” he said. 

“That’s unsurprising.” I summoned a pale orange vial from the storeroom, which I passed to him. “This should help with the pain, as well as any remaining swelling. It should be better in a few days. And the next time this happens, come to me first, otherwise I will guarantee you a trip to St. Mungo’s. Understand?”

He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am. How much do I owe you this time?”

“Two Sickles for the potion.”

“And how much for a Healer’s advice?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a Healer.” His wry smile informed me that that was not at all what he had been asking, so I leaned against the table and tried again. “Okay...what do you want to hear?”

He flexed his arm again, and his lips twitched as he failed to suppress a grin. “I need to know,” he joked, “do you think I’ll be well enough to go on my date tonight?”

I had walked into that one, and the impact of it left me speechless for quite a few seconds. When my words finally dislodged from my throat, I stumbled over them as heat rose to my cheeks. “That...that depends on what you’re planning to do.” I coughed into my arm to cover up my discomfort, not that he was fooled. “You and Penny have something special in mind?”

He laughed, enjoying my reaction. “Dinner, to start at least. Dad’s staying with a friend in Glasgow, so I have the house to myself for the entire weekend. I wanted to put up some decorations, make it nice, but you can see how well that went.”

“Well then, in that case, stay away from ladders for the rest of the day and you should be fine,” I said wryly, and he laughed again. 

I walked him to the main counter, and while he fished in his bag for the money, I absentmindedly drummed my fingers on my thigh, distracted by a thought that had been nagging me since he had walked in. Longer, even. “Can I ask you a question?”

He paused, his thumb hooked in the mouth of a drawstring pouch. “Hm?”

“What did I do to offend your father? He hates me.”

“He doesn’t—” Conall began, but he broke off when I raised my eyebrows at him. He sighed, twisting the pouch string around his fingers. “Look, it’s not worth worrying about. He’s being stubborn, is all. He’ll get these ideas in his head that he’ll latch onto, no matter how ridiculous they are, and it doesn’t matter what—”

“But what idea does he have about me?” I pressed. 

His lips formed a fine line, like that was all he had to do to keep the answer contained. I wasn’t about to let the topic drop though, not after months of anxious rumination, and he knew it. “Look,” he said lightly, despite continuing to nervously fidget with the pouch string, “I told him it was ridiculous. I mean, you? Lilianna Flores? There’s no way.”

“Conall, please.”

“Okay, okay, but I warned you. It really is nonsense. For some reason, he thinks...well, he thinks you’re a lesbian.” He said “lesbian” really fast, as if he didn’t want the word to linger in his mouth, and then he rolled his eyes to demonstrate just how ridiculous he thought it was. “Apparently, he has a mate in Darwin that saw you with some lass there a while back. Drew the wrong conclusions.”

I was silent, stunned. Mr. Darrow thought...his mate had seen... what? 

No. No, that couldn’t be right. All of this ill will, it couldn’t be because of that. I had to have done something. I had to. It couldn’t be because of me. 

It couldn’t be because of something I couldn’t change. 

Conall misunderstood my reaction, because he said quickly, “Like I said, nonsense. I keep telling him that’s a horrible rumor to spread around, especially without any proof, but he won’t listen. Honestly, he just needs to spend more time around you. If he got to know you at all, he would be able to see that you aren’t—”

“I am.”

“—anything like...wha?” He cocked his head, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. 

“Conall, I am a lesbian.”

The clock on the wall ticked steadily by as his head remained tilted to the side, the blank look in his eyes reminiscent of a crup puppy struggling to understand his trainer’s command. “What?” he said slowly, his brow furrowing further. “Why?”

I spread my palms, baffled. “Hell if I know!”

“But wouldn’t that mean…wouldn’t it...wait.” His eyes went wide. “Wait, is Penny…?”

I shook my head with a scoff. “No. Nothing’s going to get in the way of your date tonight.”

“Oh. Good.” The relief in his sigh was evident. 

I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. I didn’t know what I would scream if I did. Probably some unintelligible, crazed sound. All I did know was that there was a writhing, burning thing in my chest, and it wanted to get out before it exploded into flames. What had I been thinking?

I hadn’t. That much was clear. 

“Two Sickles,” I said tersely, desperate for this situation to end.

“What? Oh, of course.” He pulled open the pouch and poured a collection of copper and silver coins into his palm. Unfortunately, as he sorted through them, he kept talking. “I never would have guessed. I mean, I can’t exactly say I agree with it.”

“I didn’t ask you if you did.”

“Er, no offense. It’s just a bit hard to understand.”

I braced my hands against the countertop as a sharper kind of burning pierced beneath the other one, closer to my stomach. This emotion was far easier to identify. “And just what are you struggling to understand?” I said, the irritation dragging my voice lower. 

He drew back, affronted, as if he couldn’t possibly comprehend why I was insulted. 

I decided not to give him the chance to answer. “You know what, let’s just forget this conversation ever happened.”

“If you say so.” He let a handful of silver coins clatter onto the counter—far more than two. 

“I said—”

“Keep the change.” And, with a mumble of thanks, he shoved the pouch back in his bag and swiftly left the shop, while the bell jingled a little too pleasantly at his exit. 

The second the door swished closed, I sank into the chair behind the counter. The hot, writhing feeling in my chest had permeated my lungs, sucking out my oxygen until I could barely breathe. Doubling over, I clamped my hands over my mouth and gave a muffled yell—not loud enough to catch Penny’s attention, but strong enough to spit out the sickly mix of frustration and horror that was brewing inside me. 

I hadn’t been thinking. I had been caught so far off guard by his revelation about Mr. Darrow that I had let impulse take over. When had that ever ended well for me? Never!

Not that it mattered. Not that anything had ever mattered. Years of being careful, years of keeping who I was to only myself and my closest friends...or so I had thought. 

I had thought, I’ll let other people know about me when I’m ready. I’ll come out when I’m comfortable with myself first. That was the promise I had made to myself. 

But apparently it had been for nothing. Apparently, I didn’t even have control over that part of my own truth—others had found it anyway. And I had just confirmed it. 

I slid my hands up my face to cover my eyes. The writhing, burning feeling was still present, still threatening to combust. Now it was just a matter of when I would be burnt at the stake. 

And yet, as I blew out a long breath onto my knees, it carried the untethered weight of relief. 

* * * *

The Intruder Charm went off as I was making dinner. It was a low, quiet gong, more like waves running over my skin than any audible sound. My heart jolted as it rolled up the stairs into the flat, and I snapped my fingers, turning the stove off before the goosebumps finished rising on my arms. Someone was trying to get through the side door—someone that didn’t belong to the building. 

Hand resting on my wand sheath, I crept down the stairs, straining my ears for any little sound—a footstep, the swish of robes, a muttered curse—anything that would indicate someone had forced their way in. But no one came flying at me when my foot hit the bottom step. There was no explosion, no burst of light...only a soft knocking on the door to the alley. 

A Death Eater most likely wouldn’t knock. 

I cracked the door a fraction. At a glimpse of who stood outside, my hand fell away from my wand, and I pulled it the rest of the way open.  

“You keep this door locked now?” 

“Tonks,” I said, startled. “I, uh, no…well, yes. Just being cautious.”

“Good.”

Not quite sure what to say, I stepped back in silent invitation. She entered without a word, which was not something I would have expected from a witch that never stopped talking. 

I wasn’t surprised to see Tonks. Talbott had said she would be arriving this month. No, what I was surprised to see was how much she had changed. If she hadn’t had her usual heart-shaped face and dark-brown eyes, I wouldn’t have recognized her. The spikey, bubblegum pink hair—gone, replaced by dull brown strands that fell limply to her shoulders. Her cheerful, boisterous demeanor was also gone. Instead, she was quiet and withdrawn, keeping her eyes on the ground more than on me. She was thin and pale to the point of looking ill, and I would have dared to say she was shorter as well. 

Penny and Tulip had told me she was different, that she was having trouble with her powers, but I hadn’t realized exactly how bad it had gotten. I should have checked up on her. Why hadn’t I checked up on her?

“Is there something I can do?” I asked casually, as I locked the door behind her. 

She hugged her arms around her waist. I had seen Merula make that gesture before, when there was something she was afraid to say. It was uncharacteristic of either of them. “I don’t...I don’t know,” she said. “Can we talk? I’d like to talk.”

“Of course.” I nodded to the stairs, and she followed me up to the flat. “Pen’s not here though. She has a date tonight, so I don’t think she’ll—”

“That’s fine,” Tonks interrupted. “I don’t want to talk to her. Not right now. Later.”

“Okay… Can I ask why?”

“Because I already know what she’s going to say. You...are a bit different.”

“Oh.” I didn’t like what that implied. 

Rather than plop down on the sofa or perch on the counter as usual, she hovered awkwardly in the middle of the room, waiting for me to close the door. I did, and when she made no move to initiate the conversation, I returned to the cooling pan on the stove. Picking up the dirty wooden spoon I had dropped on the counter, I prodded at the browned meat in the pan with a frown. Er, it wouldn’t kill me, right? It had to be cooked through. 

“Do you want dinner?” I asked. “I made beef Stroganoff. Sort of.”

She shrugged, so I went ahead and got a plate out for her anyway. Only after I had finished setting the table and sat down myself did she take a seat across from me. But, while she halfheartedly nudged the food with her fork, she didn’t attempt to take a bite. 

Far from insulted, I took a bite of my own portion and grimaced. Too salty. I had used too much bouillon. 

“If you want to talk,” I said, waving my fork at her, “I’ll listen.”

“I know. It’s just a bit difficult to talk about, especially with you.”

“But you want to talk with me?”

“I need a new perspective.”

“Oh. Er, take your time.”

I went to take another mouthful, thought better of it, and then resorted to mirroring Tonks as I pushed my food around my plate. Beneath the table, the furry little creature that was Pip wrapped herself around my ankles, crying starvation for the whole village to hear. I attempted to nudge her away with my foot; she responded by nipping at my toes instead. 

Clang! Tonks’s fork clattered to her plate, sending Pip bolting from the room in a tawny blur. My head snapped up to see her clutching the edge of the table with white knuckles, her face tight, as if in pain. “It’s Remus,” she said breathlessly. “I...oh, Lily, I love him. I know I do.”

The way she spoke, her voice breaking on the words, her eyes shiny with either a fever or tears, made me think we had very different understandings of love. 

“And that’s bad?”

“No! Well, yes. But no.” She sighed in frustration. “He’s just being so stupid!”

“Okay,” I soothed. “Okay, walk me through what’s going on.”

She took a shaky breath and released the table from her death grip, although she began to wring her serviette between her hands. “We’ve been growing close over this past year. Very close. And I know he feels the same way about me as I do about him because he doesn’t try to hide it. I’ve never tried to hide it either, but when I actually told him how I felt, he panicked! He said it was a nice fantasy but that it was too dangerous for us to let it be more than that—that it was too dangerous for me, that I would get hurt, and all that other nonsense. And...and—”

I raised a hand. “Tonks, wait, slow down a moment.”

She didn’t slow down. It was doubtful she even heard me. Her eyes were fixed beyond the wall, at something I couldn’t see. “—and maybe I could have dealt with that if he had stuck around, or if he had started avoiding me like a normal person. But no! He has taken it so far beyond avoiding me—he went and jumped at the first insane mission the Order would give him to get away! After having the nerve to say that I would get hurt, the bastard has gone undercover with You-Know-Who’s werewolves. Too dangerous? For me? He’s going to get himself killed!”

“Tonks, please—”

“I’ve tried talking to him, Molly’s tried talking to him, even Dumbledore, and nothing! He won’t listen! He just vanished off the face of the earth. I don’t know where he’s gone, or how to find him, or even how to make sure he’s alive—”

“Nymphadora!” I exclaimed. She recoiled, as if I had struck her. I winced, immediately feeling guilty. “Please, I want to help, but for that, I need you to slow down, okay?”

To my horror, the tears that had been pooling in the corners of her eyes welled up and began to slowly roll down her cheeks. “I just don’t know what to do,” she said, her voice smaller than it had ever been before. 

“Hey.” I darted around the table and slid into the chair next to her. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s all right. What can I do? Do you want me to track him down for you? I could do that.” I’d had some experience with finding missing people. 

She shook her head miserably. “No, I don’t want to get him in trouble. If they find out he’s not who he says he is, I...I don’t want to imagine.”

I nodded in agreement. Pulling her hands to me, I began to work the crumpled serviette out of her grip, which once free, I held up in offering. She took it back without strangling it this time, and while I ran my thumb over the knuckles of her other hand, she used the cloth to wipe the damp streaks off her face. 

“I want to know what you’re thinking,” she sniffled. 

What I was thinking? There was a lot that I was thinking and a whole lot more that I didn’t know how to process. I had known the person in front of me for over a decade, and yet I didn’t recognize her at all. She was hurting and broken and sad and colorless . She was everything Tonks was not—all because of love, of all things, an idea she had laughed at for years. I couldn’t think of a single solution to her problem, except…

“I don’t know if you’ll like it,” I said, still running my thumb over her knuckles. 

She clutched the serviette to her chest, like a child with a blanket. “It can’t be much worse than this.”

I hesitated, holding the words between my teeth as I searched for the ones that would cut the least. “Well,” I began cautiously, “it honestly sounds like you’ve done the best you can. If he’s run someplace you can’t follow, then I doubt there’s anything you could have done. He’s made his choice, so maybe you should just...let him go?”

There was a pin-drop beat. Then she yanked her hand out of my grasp with a single, low growl of, “No.”

I held my hands up placatingly. “I know you said you love him. I can see that. But you’re in so much pain right now; it’s...I don’t think it’s healthy. If he’s not coming back, what good is suffering going to do you? What’s the point?”

“No,” she repeated, her lip curling. “You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?” 

She didn’t respond. 

“What don’t I understand?” I repeated with more force. I gestured at her sickly thin body. “That you look half dead? That you can’t change anymore? ‘Cause I’ve heard all about that.”

“Molly understands,” she said bitterly. 

“Then why not talk to Molly?”

She threw her hands up in exasperation. “I have! All summer! She can’t do anything.”

“And what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know! Certainly not this!” She slammed the serviette down on the table, rattling the dishes as she shoved herself to her feet. “You know what? This was a mistake.”

“Wait!” I jumped up, my arms raised to block her path to the door. “What does Tulip have to say about this?”

She glared at me, her fingers twitching near the wand at her hip. 

“She agrees with me, doesn’t she,” I realized. 

Bam! The heel of her palm struck my chest, both knocking me back and knocking the wind out of my lungs. She stormed past me while I coughed, although she only made it halfway across the room before she spun on her heel and spat, “You don’t know anything Tulip had to say. You don’t even know half the things there are to know about her.”

“I know she told me to protect you,” I said scathingly. “How wonderful it is that you’ve decided to make my job so easy. A real blessing!”

“Protect me? I don’t need protection! Especially not from you.”

“Certainly not. I won’t need to protect you if you’re dead!”

“Oh, quit being dramatic.”

“Dramatic? Me? What should I write on your tombstone? ‘Here lies Nymphadora Tonks: died of heartbreak.’” 

“You’re an utter twat, Lilianna!” she roared and launched one of the sofa pillows at my head. I caught it and furiously tossed it back, only for it to miss and tumble pathetically to the floor. 

“I know,” I grumbled. 

“I don’t know why I expected any help from you. I should have just gone to Penny again.”

“What, you think I’ve never been in love?”

“I’m not like you. This is different.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, but the realization hit me before the question finished leaving my mouth. I stalked over to her. “What the hell does that mean?”

She drew herself up, not appearing nearly so small now as her body swelled with fury. Her dull hair shimmered, ever so briefly, with a flash of red. “Because I know he loves me back!”

I stopped mid-stride, feeling as though I had walked face first into a wall. A sharp wall, made of rocks with jagged edges that cut deep. The burning reawoke in my chest, cauterizing a wound that wasn’t physically there. 

He loves me back. 

Her face contorted, and she tore at her hair with a cry that collapsed into a sob. Unhindered, the tears streamed down her face to her chin. I raised my hand, but whether it was to comfort her or hex her, I couldn’t decide—not before she spun around and bolted for the door. 

At the top of the stairs, her hand on the door handle, she turned to face me with one last miserable, pained glare. “Did you ever think,” she said, her voice shaking, “that maybe I can’t bear to lose him too?” And then she slammed the door, causing the entire flat to shudder. 

The room continued to shudder in the ringing silence that followed, even after the walls had stopped moving. I picked the pillow up off the floor and hugged it to my chest, bracing against the burning, writhing feeling that threatened to crawl up my throat. 

You won’t keep me from him! In my vision, in that broken corridor, that had been the last thing Tonks had shouted before the flash of green light. Before her body had hit the ground. 

“You arsehole!” I yelled and lobbed the pillow at the door. It bounced harmlessly off the wood frame with a soft thump, not that anyone was around to hear it...or me. “Goddammit!”

I shouldn’t have pushed back, I shouldn’t have snapped, but I meant what I said, even if I shouldn’t have said it. She didn’t want to lose him? How about the fact that I didn’t want to lose my friend!

Except, maybe I just had. 

Spitting curses under my breath, I returned to the table, took one look at my mediocre dinner, and dumped it back into the pan. I paused my muttering long enough to fire off a series of cleaning and levitation charms, and then stalked to my room while the food and dishes put themselves away. If Pip hadn’t already been traumatized enough, I would have slammed my door too. 

I sank to the floor and leaned my head back against the bed frame. Staring up at the starry blue ceiling, I counted out deep breaths. In, out, one. In, out, two…

“Mrrr?” Pip trilled, and then, in the less than two seconds I had been on the floor, there was a tawny cat in my lap. With an obnoxiously loud purr, she placed her front paws on my chest and butted the top of her head against my chin. 

I stroked her fur with an involuntary laugh. “I love you too.”

Aeris, not one to be left out, launched himself off his perch, and I was forced to raise my arm to provide a place for him to land, lest he crash straight into me. “Hey there, old man. How—ow, ow, ow, oww...okay.” I sucked in air through my teeth as he clumsily clawed his way up my arm, but then relaxed as his warm weight settled onto my shoulder, right next to my ear. 

Across my legs, Pip curled up into an awkward position that only a cat could enjoy. I scratched behind her ears, feeling the tension drain away little by little, like magic. 

“Whatever kind of love she’s feeling, I don’t want it,” I told my pets. “I’ll stick to loving you guys. Loving you is simple. You’ll never break my heart.”

“Mrrr?” Pip asked, wiggling on her back. 

I reached up to scratch Aeris as well, and he tilted his head happily into my touch. When my hand came away, however, so too did a few ragged feathers, which floated gently to the ground. 

I sighed in quiet defeat. “Well, I suppose not yet anyway.”

Chapter Text

The flat was, unsurprisingly, empty when I awoke the next morning. This was far from the first time Penny had spent the night elsewhere, and it wouldn’t be the last. She had stopped bringing Conall over here after I had walked in on them once, which I supposed had been a blessing (if a mortifying one). Seeing Conall had become uncomfortable on a good day—all he ever wanted to talk about was Penny—but after yesterday I would have been quite happy to never see him again. 

The memory, mixed with the one of Tonks from last night, left a sour taste in my mouth as I shuffled into the kitchen. It was too early to open shop, but after aimlessly glancing in the cabinets, I had no desire to force down breakfast either. Nothing seemed appealing, and I gave up my half-hearted search for anything that was when Pip’s yelling threatened to wake the rest of the block. 

She quieted down once she was able to shove her face in her food bowl, although she was still a notoriously noisy eater. As I was refilling her water, I made a mental note to feed Aeris later, when I would go to give him his tonic. He hadn’t gone out hunting the night before, electing instead to keep me company, and he had been asleep when I had woken up. 

I had just set the water bowl down when the door groaned open to announce Penny’s return, still in the white and gold dress she had left in. A few strands of hair had pulled loose from her long French braid to curl gently against her exposed collar, a small imperfection that somehow only accented her stunning appearance. Too stunning. 

I suddenly found a lot more interest in the cat food Pip had sent scattering across the floor. It was far easier to look at than the wide smile on her face. Or her exposed collar. 

“I take it the date went well?” I asked, using my foot to nudge the food back towards the bowl. I would sweep it up when Pip decided she was done making a mess. 

“Oh, it was wonderful,” Penny sighed happily. “You should have seen what he did to the place. The flowers, the candles, everything...he’s such a romantic.”

I pressed my lips together. What would she say if she knew that he had come into the shop yesterday? “I can imagine.”

There was a solid thunk as she kicked off her heels by the door. “How was your night?”

“Quiet,” I lied. She didn’t need to hear about what a horrible friend I was either. 

“That’s good.”

I rested my elbows on the counter. What was the earliest I could make my escape without seeming suspicious? She would think it odd if I left the room without asking for more details, but I had no other words to offer her. None that would be good for me to say aloud, anyway. 

The faint padding of bare feet on carpet made its way across the room, and then Penny was leaning on the opposite side of the counter, her head tilted to the side as she studied me. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked. “You look a little ill.”

That was one way to put it. “I’m fine.” Which was also a lie. “I just didn’t get much sleep last night. No, no visions!” I added quickly when her eyes went wide. “Pip decided to run around the room again, is all.” Which was lie number three. 

As if on cue, Pip’s head shot up with ears alert and eyes wild, and she bolted back to my room, flipping her water bowl with her hind feet in the process. I watched the water spread across the floor in helpless exhaustion. “My point exactly,” I said and vanished the mess. 

Penny laughed sympathetically. “You know it’s because she loves you.”

“I know. I’d turn her into a rug otherwise.” I shouted this last part in the direction of my room. 

Penny laid her hand on my arm. “Aw, you don’t mean that.”

Caught off guard, I flinched at her touch, and she pulled her hand away with a quizzical look. “What about Conall?” I blurted before she could question it. 

She raised her eyebrows. “Do I want to turn Conall into a rug?”

“No!” My cheeks heated. “I mean, do you…you know…love him?”

“Oh.” She folded her hands on the counter, her fingers tightly interlocked to hold down whatever invisible force was trapped beneath her palms. Her mouth opened, but there was a delay between the movement of her lips and the formation of audible words. “I...I don’t know.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, I like him. We have fun whenever we’re together. And we’ve been dating a while now. Well, I suppose this is dating. I’ve never actually called myself his girlfriend.” She shifted her weight to her elbows and rested her chin thoughtfully on her interlocked fingers. I straightened until there was more distance between me and the floral perfume on her neck. “I guess I don’t know how I feel about him yet. I don’t really think about him in that way, if you know what I mean.”

“So, like most of my old girlfriends?” I offered. 

“Maybe? I wouldn’t—” She broke off, realizing the poor start to that sentence, and tried again. “Maybe. What do you think?”

There was that question again. “You don’t want to know what I think,” I said. After last night, this was obviously the safest response, since my last answer had resulted in things getting thrown across the room. But apparently that had been the wrong thing to say as well. 

Penny frowned. “What is that supposed to mean? I thought you liked Conall? The two of you spent an hour talking about sustainable tree harvesting last week.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No, I want to know.”

There was a meow at my feet, and I looked down to see Pip butting her head against my ankle. I gently nudged her away. “Why does it matter what I think?” I asked, refocusing on Penny. 

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It might be nice if you were supportive.”

Pip’s meowing grew louder, and the more I tried to push her away, the more she clung to my leg like a magnet. “Of what?” I asked. “You don’t even know what you want.”

Penny drew her shoulders back, insulted. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s what you just said. Pip, leave me alone!” I gave the cat a harder push with my leg, but she spun around and pounced on my foot. 

Abruptly, Penny sighed and laid her hands back on the counter. “I thought we were over this.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I grumbled, even though I certainly did. 

“Do you want me to say it?”

“Please.”

“Fine.” She raised her chin to look me in the eyes. “I will always be supportive of you, but I won’t stand any jealousy.”

Pip pounced on my foot again. I barely felt it. I was too distracted by the heat rising from my stomach all the way up to my face. “I am not jealous of Conall!”

“Why don’t you like him then? Because if I can’t have a relationship—”

“I’m not jealous! And I’m not going to get in the way of your relationship! If you two want to ‘have fun’ together”—I made air quotes—“then go ahead. I don’t care!”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I just want to make sure you’re being nice to him.”

I laughed incredulously at that, causing her to startle. “Nice?” I exclaimed. “Ha! I’ll be as nice to him as he is to me.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look, forget I—gah!” Anything I was going to say was lost in a shout of pain as a row of needle-sharp points sank into my skin. Pip had bitten my ankle, hard enough that droplets of blood were beginning to well up where her teeth had been. “You’re dead, cat!” I roared and chased after her as she fled into my room. 

“No!” Penny cried, hurrying after me. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to hurt her, but I sure as hell—AERIS!”

Penny slammed into my back, I had stopped so abruptly. The deafening shriek of horror that had come from my mouth was unrecognizable. I had never made a sound like that before, but there was no way it could have come from anyone else. Because no one else could have been feeling the shards of ice shooting out from my heart at the sight of my beloved owl facedown on the bedroom floor. 

When I had left the room earlier, Aeris had been asleep on his perch. Now he was on his belly with his face pressed against the rug and his wings spread at awkward angles. Pip crouched beside him, her tail twitching agitatedly. I fell to my knees at his side and carefully turned him over in my hands. His eyes were closed, and to my further horror, were practically sealed shut with crusty discharge that hadn’t been present the night before. I pressed my ear to the side of his keel bone and then gasped in relief. There was still a heartbeat. 

Penny crouched down as well, her eyes wide. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked. 

“I-I don’t know,” I stuttered. “I don’t know what to do. This isn’t normal.”

She stared at the ragged lump of feathers in my hands. Then, she stood up and grabbed the denim jacket that was hanging on the back of my desk chair. “I’m going to find Professor Kettleburn,” she said, as she slipped the jacket on over her dress. “He can do something. He always does.” With that, she sprinted from the room, taking a pair of my work boots with her as she left. 

I cradled Aeris in my arms. He remained too still, too unmoving. There was no twitch of his wings, no flicker of his eyelids, nothing to indicate he was alive besides the beating of his heart. I might as well have been holding a bundle of twigs, he was so light and fragile. 

Pip’s tail continued to twitch agitatedly, and her ears flattened when I looked at her, a low growl rising in her chest. She had been trying to tell me all along. 

“Good kitty,” I murmured. “Such a good kitty. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She relaxed back onto her haunches, and I winced as she began to lick the blood off my ankle with her sandpaper tongue. “Oh, that’s not sanitary.”

“Mrr?”

“I can clean it myself. Thank you though.”

Penny returned a short while later, her arrival announced by the clomping of my too big boots, followed by the uneven gait of the literally wooden-legged Silvanus Kettleburn. The old professor’s tweed jacket and woolen scarf were pulled crooked across his body, implying he had rushed out the door at a moment’s notice—or perhaps he had always been like that. It was hard to tell with a man that replaced half his limbs every other month. 

“Right,” he said, adjusting the cloth over his missing eye. “Who’s the patient?”

I held up my poor owl. “Aeris.”

“A name befitting of a god! Hello there, Aeris. Let’s take a look at you.” He offered me his good hand. “If you wouldn’t mind standing up, my dear. This knee isn’t the most flexible.”

Shifting Aeris to the crook of my arm, I let him pull me to my feet. There, I continued to hold up the owl while Kettleburn looked him over—checking his crusty eyes, his ragged feathers, his uneven heartbeat, and everything else I didn’t know to look for. Penny hovered anxiously in the doorway, keeping out of the way. 

“He hasn’t been well for a few months now,” I said, “but he’s never been this bad before. The fellow at Eeylops gave me this tonic to give him everyday. I thought it had been working.” I passed the bottle on the nightstand over to Kettleburn. 

He squinted at the label on it. “And you’ve been giving him this everyday? Never missed a dose?”

“No, sir.”

“Hm.” He returned the bottle with a frown. “How old is he?”

“Eight years, I think? I’ve had him for more than six.”

“He’s a lucky bird then. Most ordinary barn owls don’t make it past a year. The average lifespan is four, I believe.”

“So, you’re saying—” I began, my voice rising in pitch. 

“I’m not saying anything yet,” he said quickly. “I’ve known plenty to live beyond twenty. We’ll have to see.”

I pulled Aeris close to my chest. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Respiratory infection, if I had to guess. He’s probably been battling it a while.” He began to fish around in the satchel resting on his hip, and after beckoning Penny over with the wooden grabber that was his left hand, he gave her a small bottle, not unlike the one I had set down on the nightstand. “Try giving him a dose of this every six hours. It’s a stronger formula, should be more effective. And this…” He pulled out a vial and dropper, which he also handed to Penny. “Eye drops. Every eight hours. If all else fails…” He held up a sheet of parchment. 

Holding the medicine against her body, Penny freed a hand to accept the parchment, and as her eyes scanned over it, her mouth tightened. 

“It’s humane,” Kettleburn said. “Painless. And it only affects the creature that ingests it, not anything else along the food chain.”

Penny nodded, and while she set the bottles down on my desk, she kept the parchment clutched tightly in her hands. 

“I don’t want it to come to that,” I said weakly. 

Two sets of eyes (or a set and a half) focused on me, filled with pity that I couldn’t bear to lift my gaze to see. “I sincerely hope not,” Kettleburn said kindly. “But it’s important to prepare yourself for every outcome, no matter what it may be. Which is why, Lily, I’m going to tell you something, and I’m only going to tell you because I care.”

I nodded slowly, although I desperately didn’t want to know what that something was. 

Carefully, he placed a finger on Aeris’s eyelid and moved it up to reveal an unnatural cloudiness within the normally solid black eye. “As unfortunate as it is, if he does survive, he may not recover his sight. That would be quite the hindrance to an aerial hunter.”

“I’ll feed him then,” I said defensively. 

Unperturbed, he let the eye drift closed. “Just something to consider.” He buckled the strap on his satchel and, finally, straightened his jacket and scarf. “I’ll check in again this evening, but of course, you can always come find me if you need me before then.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Penny said. 

With a surprised laugh, Kettleburn shook his head. “I haven’t been a professor for years. It’s Silvanus to you two.” He shifted his one remaining eye back to me “I would at least like to think I could call a fellow Magizoologist my equal?”

Minus the missing limbs, this man had been everything I had aspired to be once upon a time. I had always dreamed of traveling the world, going on the wildest adventures with the most exotic creatures, just like he had in his youth. To call me his equal should have been the highest compliment. But with where I was now, a mediocre potioneer with a dying owl in my arms, it felt empty. 

“Thank you,” I quietly echoed, not having anything better to say. 

He gave me a sympathetic look. “Hang in there, Lily. You have our support.” And, with that, he made his exit, with Penny seeing him to the door. 

Once he had gone, Penny reentered the room, still in her dress and my oversized boots and jacket. More strands of hair had torn free from her braid to tangle together against her shoulders and neck. It was a messy, bizarre look, one that had likely drawn glances as she had sprinted halfway across town, and yet she had done so without a second thought. All because of Aeris.

I began to shake. The trembling started in my chest with my breathing, then spread through my arms to my fingers, and finally moved down my legs to my knees. I sank down onto my mattress, trying and failing to return my lungs to autopilot. Alarm flashed through Penny’s features, and she rushed over to me, stumbling over the clunky boots as she did so. 

“I don’t want to go through this,” I whimpered. “I’m not ready.”

“Hey, hey, sh-sh-shhh.” She cupped my face in her hands. “Nothing’s happened yet. Okay? He could still be fine.”

I closed my eyes. “You don’t know that.”

“You haven’t even given him the medicine yet. Why don’t I do that? Yeah, here, let me do that.” 

While I held Aeris in my lap, she helped me to apply the eye drops and to ensure that he properly ingested the new tonic. After she finally left to change into her work clothes, she came back minutes later with a box lined with rags, which we carefully nestled him in. He looked so small amidst the swaths of fabric, like he would drown in them if I shifted my gaze away for more than a second. 

“I’m going to open shop,” Penny said hesitantly. “You don’t have to work today if you don’t want to.”

“Thanks, Pen.”

She squeezed my shoulder. “Hang in there, love. You too, Aeris,” she said, and then she made her way downstairs. 

For the next ten minutes, I alternated between pacing a rut through my bedroom floor and staring into the box while I waited for any sign of movement, any sign that the medicine was working. I failed to endure more than those ten minutes—not without risk of going insane—before I grabbed the box and made my way downstairs as well. Penny gave me an odd look as I passed the brewing room, but she made no comment. 

I spent the rest of the work day perched cross-legged on the main counter, the box on the chair next to me, never out of my line of sight. While I helped customers when they came in, occasionally letting them distract me with their ramblings, I didn’t engage in small talk, nor did I leave my perch. Penny often hurried into the room when she heard the bell anyway and shifted my responsibilities onto her own shoulders, regardless of how many she already possessed. I appreciated her for it, but I wanted her to stop. I didn’t deserve it, not after all the yelling earlier. Not after all the lies. 

Around noon, she forced me to take a break and eat a sandwich. I almost managed to resist, but when I failed to recall the last time I had eaten, her horrified expression killed my stubborn argument in its tracks. The resulting guilt certainly didn’t help my appetite however. 

A few hours later, after I had given Aeris his second dose of tonic, he opened his eyes, to my overwhelming relief. They were still crusty and irritated and no wider than coin slots, but they were open. Another hour later, and he was on his feet, albeit a little wobbly. By closing time, he was perched precariously on the edge of the box, slowly cleaning one ragged feather at a time. Kettleburn’s medicine was working, which is what I excitedly informed him when he checked in that evening as promised. 

“That’s good to hear!” he exclaimed. “If he had gotten any worse, I don’t think there would have been any chance of him recovering.”

“I just wish I had noticed something was wrong sooner,” I said.

“I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself, my dear. Like I said, he’s a lucky bird to have lived the life he has. He might not be out of the woods yet, but this is a promising start.”

“I hope so.”

This hope lasted all the way through dinner, around which I gave Aeris his third dose. He was still awake and moving around, even hitching a ride on my shoulder while I cleaned the table, but he showed disappointedly little improvement beyond this. Despite the drops, his eyes continued to produce discharge, and he didn’t seem capable of opening them wider than slits. 

Afraid of missing his next dose, I stayed up with him all night, quietly reading aloud the many letters he had delivered over the years. With Pip curled against my side and pages upon pages of parchment spread out on my bed, I recounted tales of Charlie’s quest for the Ukranian Ironbelly, Andre’s legendary saves as the Keeper for the Pride of Portree, and Barnaby’s ever ongoing puffskein saga. Halfway through Liz’s letter on her lethifold scare, his eyes closed completely. I wanted to close my eyes too, but I kept reading until my voice was all but gone. I had to stay awake. I couldn’t let him down. 

By two a.m., when I gave him his fourth dose, he had laid down on his stomach again, like how an owlet might sleep. By five a.m., his eyes had begun to ooze a thick pus that refused to go away no matter how I treated it. By eight a.m., when I gave him his fifth dose, his heartbeat had slowed so much that I could barely hear it, even with my ear pressed tightly against his chest. 

There was a soft knock on the door around this time, and Penny entered, fully dressed for work for the day, potion belt on her hips and all. I was still in my clothes from yesterday. 

“I haven’t seen you this morning,” she said gently. “How’s he doing?”

Once again cradling the motionless owl in my lap, I bit my lip hard, unable to get the words out, and simply shook my head. 

“Oh, Lily,” she gasped and sat down on the bed next to me. 

“I-I thought he was getting better. He was supposed to be getting better.”

“What can I do? Do you want me to find Kettleburn again?”

I shook my head a second time. “He doesn’t have anything else. He said so.” I waved my hand aimlessly. “This was it.”

“Oh, Lily.” 

She moved to place a hand on my shoulder, but I shrunk away. I didn’t want her to touch me right now, not when everything was all so wrong . It was too painful. Too confusing. 

Her hand hung suspended for a few moments, her fingers outstretched, and then she folded it neatly in her lap with the other one. “Would you like me to do it?” she murmured. “You don’t have to—”

“No,” I said, more forcefully than intended. “It has to be me.” I took a shuddering breath. “Can I just...have some time? With him?”

“Of course.” Standing up, she unhooked a small vial of clear liquid from her belt and set it, along with a needleless syringe, down on the nightstand, very purposely within my line of sight. It could have been mistaken for water if not for the vivid red X she had marked on the glass: the symbol we used for poison. 

I struggled to swallow. 

“I’ll be close if you need me,” she said. She reached out for my shoulder again almost instinctively, but she caught herself mid-movement, and lacking a better direction for her hand, patted her leg instead. She walked out without another sound. 

When the door clicked shut, the resulting silence hit like a knife to the gut, a knife that then began to twist. I curled my body forward with a gasp as painful waves rocked my insides, threatening to rise up and drown me. This wasn’t fair. I wasn’t ready. 

With trembling fingers, I adjusted the old blanket I had wrapped around him, shifting the folds until they neatly framed his heart-shaped face. Even with his closed, crusty eyes, he had such a beautiful face.

“Pip,” I said hoarsely. “Don’t you want to say goodbye?”

Pip didn’t move. She didn’t even look in my direction. Instead, she stayed curled up in her cat bed with her back to me, which is where she had been ever since Aeris had begun to get worse last night. 

“Pip, please,” I begged, but I didn’t even know what I was asking. I pressed my hand to my eyes, as if that was all it would take to stop the tears before they fell. 

Another soft knock sounded on the door, one that dragged me reluctantly from my misery. “Not now, Penny,” I said into my hand. “I want to be alone.” The door creaked open anyway, and I felt a fierce spike of annoyance. “I said not now—” I began to snap, but I broke off when I removed my hand from my eyes. 

Stepping into the room, Merula gently closed the door behind her. “Hey,” she greeted quietly, and dropped a worn rucksack on the floor at her feet. Tucking her hands into the pockets of a black denim jacket, she tilted her head and gave me an uncharacteristically uncertain smile. She was dressed far more casually than how she normally appeared for work, which is exactly where she should have been at that moment. 

I quickly wiped my eyes. “What are you doing here?”

In a single, swift motion, her eyes flicked over me, taking in my disastrous state, before settling on the poor owl in my lap. “That doesn’t matter right now,” she said. 

“Please…” My voice cracked, and I had to pause to swallow. “Don’t do that, just this once.”

Her face was hard to read in the dim light of the bedroom—I hadn’t had the motivation to open the curtains—but to my surprise, she nodded in agreement. The mattress depressed as she sat down next to me, pulling my weight in her direction. “It really wasn’t important,” she said slowly. “I thought you might like to do something fun. Maybe practice your wandless magic. But now’s obviously not a good time.”

“Penny told you?”

“Yeah. She seemed to think you didn’t want to talk to her.”

“That’s not it.” I glanced down at Aeris, and my breath shook as another painful wave rose in my chest. “I just...I don’t want anyone to see…” I didn’t know how to complete the thought. 

“I get it.” Reaching across me, she shifted the blanket away from Aeris’s head to stroke his ragged feathers. He didn’t respond. “You know, I was actually kind of fond of this little guy. Ida liked him too, and Ida doesn’t like anybody.”

I stroked his head as well, and my voice wavered again as I said, “He was a good owl. He’s been with me through so much.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She retracted her hand and placed it on the mattress behind me, bringing our shoulders within a centimeter of each other. “I think he deserves a long rest then, don’t you?”

Biting my lip to suppress a sob, I nodded miserably and reached for the vial on my nightstand. She grabbed it for me and held it up while I filled the syringe with its colorless contents, but I hesitated before bringing it to Aeris’s beak. “Pip,” I called, giving the cat one last chance, but she ignored me and remained tightly curled up in her bed. My throat tightened as I looked back down at my sick friend. It wouldn’t be fair to let him suffer any longer.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and placing the tip of the syringe in his beak, I depressed the plunger. Five seconds passed...ten seconds...twenty...thirty… I pressed my ear to the side of his keel bone, and as expected, there was no heartbeat. Aeris was gone. 

I cradled him in my arms, no longer able to fight the tears running down my cheeks, and rocked back and forth as each gasping breath aggravated the ache in my chest. Sobs, lined with barbs, burst free, and I had to press a hand to my mouth to muffle them. Aeris was gone. My beloved owl was gone, and he wouldn’t be coming back. 

The mattress shook as Merula shifted. “You and your pets,” she sighed. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked angrily, but my throat was so tight that I almost choked on the words. The tears pooled at my chin, thick and heavy, and I swiped at them with my wrist before they could drip on my robes.

She shook her head and said, “It’s not a bad thing.” Then, she reached up, and ever so briefly, stroked her fingers over my hair. I stilled, strangely grounded by her touch. She did it again, letting her fingers linger for longer this time, and I closed my eyes as the ache in my chest dulled its edges. She repeated the motion once more and paused to knot her fingers in the hair over the back of my neck. “You really are like a cat,” she said with an audible smirk. 

I leaned into her hand, bumping my shoulder against her as she continued to stroke my hair. There was nothing I could do but let the tears run quietly, let the pain burn through me. I had known this would hurt. I had been expecting it for months, and it still took my breath away. I wanted to curl up into a ball and fade from the world, but with Merula’s hand on my head and her side against mine, I was at least a little more okay with staying awake. 

“I want...want to bury him,” I said, my breath jerking involuntarily. “But I...I don’t know where.”

“I’m sure we can find a place.”

“You’ll come?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not letting you go out like this alone.” She dropped her arm around my shoulders and shook me playfully. “You’re a mess. Who else is going to protect you?”

I was too miserable to do more than sniffle. 

With another sigh, she muttered something under her breath, and then there was the chaotic shush of many papers falling to the floor, followed by a quiet, “Aw, damn.” I opened my eyes to see the haphazard stack of letters I had been reading the night before now scattered in between my desk and bed. Maintaining a straight face, Merula pressed a clean handkerchief into my hand, one of my own, that had been sitting on my desk less than ten seconds ago.

I dried my face without comment. She silently waved the parchment back into semi-neat piles. 

“I’m so tired,” I murmured. 

“I’ll say. Do you even know what sleep is?”

“That’s not...that’s not what I meant.” I clutched the handkerchief to my chest, like Tonks had done the other evening. “Sometimes I wish I could just...just stop feeling.” 

It was such a pathetic thing to say, and I wanted to take the words back as soon as they were free, but Merula nodded in understanding. “You know, I tried that once,” she said matter-of-factly. “It didn’t go well.”

“Yeah? What happened?”

“Mmm, I vaguely recall locking some girl in a cupboard with the Devil’s Snare.” She touched her thumb to her lips in mock contemplation. “I wonder what ever happened to her?”

Against my own will, I laughed softly, even though the joke had carried more weight than it should. “I’ll let you know if I find her,” I said.

There was a long pause as Merula took this in. Then: “Aaaand we’re gonna stop the self-pity right there.” Letting her arm fall away from my shoulders, she carefully removed Aeris from my lap and returned his small form to the box. “Go splash some water on your face, and then we’re taking a walk, all right?”

The idea of curling up into a ball on my bed was becoming more appealing with each passing second, but with much reluctance, I pushed myself to my feet and shuffled into the bathroom. When I flicked on the light, however, the mess of a witch that greeted me in the mirror was more than enough to scare me awake. My eyes were puffy and red and lined with dark purple bags. My cheeks were blotchy and irritated from repeatedly wiping away tears, and my hair looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in days. Horrified, I turned on the faucet and practically dunked my face in the sink, letting the cool water stabilize me, if only a little. 

In the mirror, Merula’s reflection leaned against the doorway as I was drying off. I held the towel to my face longer than necessary, not liking how her eyes lingered on my rough appearance. 

“Do you have any makeup?” she asked. 

Reaching into the back of a cabinet, I held up a small collection of lipstick and eyeshadow, half of which were still unopened. 

She rolled her eyes. “You’re truly hopeless,” she said and vanished from the room, to return a few minutes later with a small floral-patterned bag in one hand and a glass of water in the other. She handed me the glass of water first. 

I felt like a child as I drank, doing what she’s told only out of fear of a scolding, but the action was calming at least. It eased some of the ache in my throat and chest in a way that made it easier to breathe. 

Merula sat down on the closed lid of the toilet with one leg folded underneath her—an oddly uncomfortable choice of position—but she was unbothered as she sorted through the bag, muttering something about Penny’s makeup preferences. “Sit,” she ordered me, after I had been staring at her for a little too long. 

I sat on the edge of the bath. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Don’t I?” It wasn’t a question. She placed her thumb on my chin, forcing me to hold my head still. “I was under the impression this is something friends do. And you’re the one that keeps insisting we’re friends.”

“We are.”

“Good. Then don’t complain.”

With that, she grabbed a stick of concealer and got to work. I fixed my gaze on a point on the far wall as she traced beneath my eyes, doing her best to disguise the dark circles and blotchiness that remained. For someone that cast such vicious spells (and cast even more vicious words), the touch of her fingers on my cheeks was surprisingly delicate, and they trailed softly over my skin with every movement of her hand. Everything else seemed to go still while she worked, like time itself had taken a breath, and for one brief moment, I would have been okay if it never moved again. 

She flicked my nose, and my eyes snapped open (When had I closed them?) in time to see her lips curl into a full, mischievous smile. “All done,” she announced. “No one will notice a difference. Which is almost a shame. You were refreshingly ugly.”

“Not in the mood, Merula.”

“It was a compliment.”

I snorted in disbelief. 

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, sorry. But you could at least admire my work.”

Obliging, I stood up to see a very different person in the mirror from the one that had been there ten minutes ago. She had been right; it could have been any other day at the Cauldron—if not for the vaguely distressed expression on my face. I forced my reflection to unclench her jaw. 

“Thank you,” I said quietly. 

“Yeah, well… Let’s just go for that walk.”

Having pulled myself together as much as I possibly could, I began the process of putting on my coat and boots. My limbs felt lead-lined though, and each movement took more effort than it should have. Merula trailed patiently behind me, notably wincing every time she put weight on one leg. 

Once Aeris’s box was secure in my arms, I left my room for the first time in over twelve hours. Even though it was well past the Cauldron’s opening time, Penny was sitting at the dining table with her head in her hands, and she jumped to her feet as soon as my door opened. Her eyes fixed on the box. “Oh, Lily, I’m so, so sorry,” she said mournfully. 

My lungs constricted painfully, and I was forced to look away as I addressed her. “I’m going to find a place to bury him.”

“Do you want me to come with?”

I didn’t, but I didn’t know how to tell her that. I didn’t even know why. All I knew was that her presence was causing the ache to return to my chest, and it hurt so much that I had to bite my tongue to keep the tears from returning as well. “That’s okay,” I said unsteadily. “You should open shop.”

Something in her breathing changed. “Are you sure?”

I swallowed hard, unable to answer. Merula appeared at my shoulder, close but not touching. “I think we just need to get some air,” she said. “Find someplace less busy.”

Penny hesitated. When she did speak, her voice wavered unexpectedly. “I’m sorry. Lily, I’m so sorry. Before all this happened, I know I got defensive...and I don’t think everything I said was entirely fair—”

“Forget about it,” I said flatly. 

“But—”

I raised my head to meet her gaze. “You got defensive, I got defensive, it was stupid. Let’s forget about it.”

She looked like she wanted to argue, but after her eyes slid to Merula, she nodded slowly. Her lower lip trembled though. 

Merula’s hand pressed against my back, and I stumbled forward as she pushed me toward the door. From behind me, her soft voice said, “I won’t let anything happen.”

And Penny’s faint one responded, “I know.”

Outside, I made Merula wait while I stopped in the greenhouse to grab a shovel. She silently took it from my hands when I returned, lest I were to drop both it and the box on my feet. 

“I don’t want to use magic,” I told her, to which she shrugged. 

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Finally ready, we began our walk without incident. It was a perfect day for it—clear and sunny, with a briskness in the air that preceded the approaching autumn. It should have been enjoyable, but the little bit of chill sank into my skin with an unnatural pervasiveness, and I wanted to withdraw further into myself until I no longer felt it. Winter would likely come early this year. 

An uncomfortable number of villagers were out and about, enjoying the last hint of summer weather, but fortunately few paid me any mind. Those that did simply waved or called out a greeting, to which I only nodded in return. Mrs. Byrne, at one point, did attempt to approach, but Merula swiftly stepped between us, forcing her to stop with an expression of bewildered concern.  

We almost made it out of the village uninterrupted—that is, until the white-haired head of Kettleburn turned in our direction. Merula pressed in front of my shoulder, half shielding me, but he wasn’t deterred as he hobbled the rest of the way over. 

“Why, isn’t it Merula Snyde!” he exclaimed. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since you were tossing around puffskeins in my class.”

She winced. “Hello, Professor. You look...er, well.”

“Oh, I’m not a… Ah, never mind.” He turned to me. “Lily, I was just on my way to check up on you and your feathered friend.”

I had to bite my cheek before I could respond. “He got worse,” I said, holding up the box for him to peer inside. 

“Oh, dear. My condolences.” He placed his hand over his heart. “I had wondered if that might be the case, if he had been struggling for so long. Not at any fault of your own!” he added quickly when my face fell. “It is simply the consequence of living a long, exciting life. We’ll all reach that point eventually, some of us sooner than others. What’s important in that time is that we are well-loved, as I know he was.”

He was trying very hard to help, that much was clear, but his words had the opposite of their intended effect. I didn’t know what to say, mostly because I was fighting not to ruin Merula’s makeup. 

“We’d rather not lose the daylight,” Merula interjected, despite the fact that it was barely past nine in the morning. 

Kettleburn accepted the poor excuse without question. “Yes, yes. I’ll let you get to it.” He gave me one last sympathetic look, which I hated, before turning to go. “If you ever want to talk…” he added, and then moved off down the street. 

Merula watched him go through narrowed eyes. “Come on,” she muttered, tugging on my arm. I let her direct me where she wanted to go without protest. 

Reaching the outskirts of the village was like taking a breath of fresh air. With no more eyes around to see me, some of the tension in my body drained away, tension I hadn’t known I had been holding in. Even Merula relaxed as her eyes lifted to the fiery orange and gold leaves whispering on the tree branches. Other leaves, dead and brown, crunched beneath our boots, having fallen far earlier than they should have. 

Whether by intention or not, we found ourselves in the forest clearing where Tonks and Merula had had their duel. I had come here often during the Hogsmeade trips of my Hogwarts days. It was a place of snowball fights and picnics, of jumping in leaf piles and reading under the trees—of memories of simpler times. Rowan had loved it here, and that was half the reason I had avoided it for an entire year after her death. 

It was a fitting place to bury another memory. 

Merula watched while I drove the shovel into the ground again and again, clumsily flinging dirt into a messy pile. Again and again, plunge, lift, fling, repeat. The blade struck the earth with a satisfying shush each time, and after a while, I failed to notice anything but. Plunge, lift, fling, repeat. 

When there was barely a dent in the ground, my palms began to sweat, and I had to adjust my grip on the handle every few seconds to prevent it from slipping. Less than a quarter meter down, my arms began to shake with every lift, and each scoop became smaller than the last. By the time I hit half a meter, each breath was scraping painfully against my throat, and my head was swimming. I was ready to cry again, but only out of frustration. 

Merula grabbed the shovel out of my hands when I was flinging more dirt on myself than on the pile. “Stop, stop, stop,” she ordered. “For the love of Merlin, sit down before you pass out.”

I didn’t have much of a choice, not when she was threatening me with a metal shovel, so I clambered out of my pitiful hole and let her take over. Wheezing, I sank to the cold ground with my head in my hands, waiting for the world to stop tilting from side to side. 

“No magic,” she grumbled, swinging the shovel aggressively. “No magic. What nonsense. You’re trying to punish yourself. Here you are digging a hole, you haven’t slept, and fifty Galleons says you haven’t eaten either.”

“How would you know that?” I said into my hands. 

The striking of the shovel blade slowed down. I didn’t need to look at her to see her shrug. “Because it’s what I would do,” she said simply. 

“You don’t have to help.”

“Shut up.” The digging didn’t stop. Plunge, lift, fling, repeat. 

I continued to sit there with my head in my hands, listening to that repetitive shush of the blade. It was strangely soothing...almost something I could fall asleep to. How comfortable would the grass be if I just lay back—

“What do you think?” Merula asked, causing me to snap to attention. She was leaning against the shovel, a little out of breath. “Is this deep enough?”

I stumbled to my feet to take a look. The hole was greater than knee-deep, although not by much, and about the width of the box. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if an animal might dig him up.”

“Would that really be a bad thing?”

I glared at her. She had the sense to lower her gaze, albeit not without muttering something about the circle of life. As much as I hated the thought, though, I didn’t want to ask her to keep digging, nor did I really want to instead. Dear Merlin, my arms were shaking. 

With a sigh, I drew my wand and gestured for her to move away from the hole. “ Defodio! ” I declared as soon as she was clear. We shielded our faces as dirt rained down on our heads, and by the time we had lowered our hands, the hole had more than doubled in depth. 

“Now that’s how you dig a hole!” Merula exclaimed in relief. “What changed?”

“I’m tired, I’m dizzy, and I want to lie down.”

“That’s fair,” she said, which I supposed was better than an I-told-you-so. 

Kneeling on the edge, I tenderly removed Aeris from the box and smoothed his ragged feathers before laying him in the hole. His small body was already almost as cold as the earth, and he looked strangely awkward and undignified in the rough grave. Is that what everyone looked like in the end?

“Is this the part where you say something?” Merula asked. 

I shook my head. “I hate funerals,” I said and waved my wand. With a soft hiss, the pile of dirt fell back into place, and just like that, Aeris was gone. 

“Bye, friend,” she said with a small wave. I raised my eyebrows at her. “What? I’ve never been to a funeral before. We didn’t get to go to Rowan’s, and I don’t have any family that… Hey. Hey, don’t do that,” she abruptly scolded when I pressed my hand to my face again, fighting back an unexpected wave of tears. “You dab. Don’t wipe. Dab. Where’s your handkerchief?”

I pulled the partially used cloth out of my pocket and did as she said, dabbing at my eyes instead of wiping. It felt ridiculous, but she kneeled in front of me with a crooked grin. “See?” she said. “What would you do without me?” 

I laughed into the cloth, although I wasn’t exactly finding anything funny in that moment. She rolled off her knees into a sitting position at my side. I shifted as well, and suddenly our shoulders were touching. Neither of us made to move away. 

“Hey.” Her fingers shot past my chest and hooked around the silver cat pendant. “You’re wearing my necklace.”

“Yeah,” I sniffled, dropping the handkerchief into my lap. “How did you—”

“Tonks.”

“Tonks?” The same woman that had broken her nose? “You and Tonks...talked about me?”

She snorted. “Don’t act so surprised. It’s not like we hate each other.”

“You could have fooled me,” I said. They had practically tried to kill each other last December. 

She rubbed her thumb over the pendant, taking her time in answering. “We had a misunderstanding,” she said slowly, once she had let the pendant fall back against my chest. “She got overprotective. We talked it over. It’s fixed now. Simple as that.”

“Is this about Tulip?”

“That’s off topic. We’re not talking about Tulip right now. If you really want to talk misunderstandings though, we could talk about what’s going on between you and Penny?” 

“Nothing’s going on,” I said too insistently. 

She snorted again. “Right. Because that explains why she isn’t here with us.”

I stared at the ground. What would happen if I admitted the whole truth—about who I was and the kind of relationships I had? I had admitted it to Conall on a whim. Mr. Darrow had already known; my friends had always known. Merula was a friend now too. 

But what if she reacted the same way as Conall? What if she pulled away? I liked being here, shoulder-to-shoulder, close enough to feel her warmth. I couldn’t risk losing that, not when it was the only thing keeping me from completely falling apart. 

Which is why I chose to twist the truth, exactly as I always did. “You know how our neighbor next door hates me?” I asked. 

“Mr. ‘I don’t want to trip over your frozen bodies’ or whatever? Yeah, sure.”

“Well, Penny’s dating his son.”

“Oh. Oh , ouch.”

“Yeah. And the other day, her boyfriend said some offensive things to me, but Penny thinks the whole reason I’m upset is because I’m jealous.”

“Then she’s being a bitch.”

I drew away from her shoulder with a gasp. “Merula!”

She gave me a level look. “I’m serious. If you want me to knock some sense into any of them—”

“It’s not Penny’s fault. She doesn’t have the full story.”

“Of course she doesn’t.” Merula rolled her eyes. “‘Cause you’re not going to tell her, are you? Don’t want to mess up her relationship?” Her tone was sardonic. 

“That’s not—” I began, but she arched a single eyebrow in disbelief. I tried again. “What difference does it make? She’ll think I’m jealous no matter what. At least this way she’s happier.”

Merula dragged her hands across her face with a drawn out groan. “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

“It is not!”

“I can just picture you now. ‘I’m fine.’ That’s what you always say. Someone could set your robes on fire, and you’d still say, ‘I’m fine.’”

“I am fine.”

“You deserve better,” she said seriously. “You deserve better than half the things you put up with. And I know this because you’ve had to spend years putting up with me. ”

I didn’t have a good argument for this, mostly because I was too stunned to respond. Merula was the last person I would have expected to say anything along those lines, least of all to admit to her torment of me, and I had no idea how to process it. 

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not about to cry again, are you?”

“Maybe,” I said shakily. 

That appeared to startle her into silence. Rather than scold me again, she reached over, hesitantly crossing the gap between us, and began to rub my back. I closed my eyes, grounded by the long, slow strokes of the heel of her hand, which fell in time with the whispering of the leaves in the trees. 

“You know,” she said with an audible smile. “I really will knock some sense into them. Any of them. I’m not afraid to fight an old man.”

“Please don’t.”

She chuckled and continued to draw her hand across my back. The motion was almost too relaxing. With the way it gently rocked my body and with the soft sounds of the forest around us, it was impossible to ignore how thoroughly exhausted I was. The ground kept pulling me down, inviting me to curl up in the grass, and it was getting harder to keep my heavy limbs from doing just that. So, it was by a total loss of willpower that I leaned over and rested my head on Merula’s shoulder. 

She stiffened, her hand going still on my back. When she shifted though, it was not to pull away; it was only to move into a more comfortable position, one that would better support my weight against her. I could feel every breath that expanded her lungs—shallow at first, measured—and then they became deeper, calmer, before morphing into a low, quiet hum. 

Humming. She was humming. It was a faint, absentminded kind of humming, like when there’s a song stuck in your head and you don’t know the words, yet it was still soft and rhythmic, like a lullaby. I was mesmerized by it—too mesmerized to even consider falling asleep anymore. I ran my fingers through the cool grass, anchoring myself just so I could stay awake enough to listen to the softness of her voice. 

Far too soon, the song trailed off into the dying summer air, ending with something like an awkward question mark. There was one full rest. Another. Then, she said, “I can’t feel my arm.”

I reluctantly sat up, drawing away from her. “Sorry.”

“Don’t—” she began with an intensity that took herself by surprise. After pausing to clear her throat, she said more calmly, “I don’t know why you think you have to apologize for anything.”

There were some things I had to apologize for, I thought, especially within the last two days, but I didn’t know how to admit to that. “Maybe we should go back,” I mumbled. 

“If that’s what you want.”

“You don’t have anywhere to be?”

“I have the day off, so I’m here until you get tired of me.”

I laughed softly. “You’ll be here a while then.”

“You say that now, but…” She playfully jostled me with her shoulder. I pushed back, laughing louder, and her laugh joined in. 

When the air returned to silence, however, I felt an unexpected burst of anxiety. I ran my fingers through the grass again, snapping off a few strands, but the action didn’t anchor me as well as it had before. “Are you…” I paused for a breath and dug my fingers into the earth. “Are you planning on leaving? Like Jacob?”

Her eyes slid in my direction, and her head tilted to the side as she fully comprehended what I was asking. She was too smart to miss the implication, but she took her time, choosing her words carefully. “Not yet,” she sighed finally. “Maybe eventually, but…well, they know I’ve played double agent before. This whole ‘making connections’ thing hasn’t been as easy as I would’ve liked.” She ran a hand through her hair and then, abruptly, smirked. “Why? You gonna miss me?”

“You wish,” I said reflexively, but I had to force my hand back to the ground before it could grab my necklace. 

She gave a mock gasp, her lips curling into a delighted grin. “There she is! Still ready for a fight! And here I thought I’d lost you.”

I lightly smacked her arm with a snort. “Belt up.”

She cackled gleefully. As much as I tried to deny her the satisfaction, I couldn’t suppress the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth, which only made her own grin widen. What was so funny though, I couldn’t have said, but it was enough to keep me from wanting to cry again. 

“Thank you,” I murmured. 

She arched an eyebrow in surprise. “What for?”

“For just...being here, now. Or not just now.” I absentmindedly twisted the grass blades in my fingers. “You know, it feels like you’ve been here for every major part of my life, good and bad. Not always willingly, I suppose. It’s funny how things have worked out.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly. She lifted her head to gaze at something just over the brilliant orange and gold of the treetops. Something out of my line of sight. “Funny.”

Chapter Text

October 1996

Rowan was standing in the courtyard at Hogwarts. At first I thought it was a trick of the moonlight, a reflection off of the fountain, or even an odd shadow from the gray towers overhead, but the more I stared at her, the more her form refused to fade. There she was—her dark hair cascading over her shoulders, her browline glasses perched crookedly on her nose, and even her ugly knit scarf hanging loosely from her neck. There she was beneath the branches of the old pear tree, looking as young and alive as the day I lost her. 

I was across the courtyard from her, by the doors to the castle, and yet I couldn’t move my legs to close the distance between us. She was closer than I ever thought she would be again, and yet I was afraid that if I approached, I would discover that it was a trick of the moonlight after all. 

She hadn’t noticed me; her head was raised toward the night sky, her thoughtful eyes on the stars. She sighed, as if whatever she saw disappointed her, and to my dismay, she lowered her gaze and began to walk away. 

In a burst of panic, I opened my mouth to shout her name, but no sound came out, which only increased my panic further. And yet, she heard me anyway, for she stopped to turn in my direction, although she showed no surprise at my presence. Instead, she gave me a small smile, calm...and maybe a little sad. 

I wanted to say her name, to move closer, to hug her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t anything. The fountain remained between us, its starlit waters glinting off of her glasses. 

Her lips moved, but the only sounds audible were the splashing of the waters and the gentle creaking of the pear tree in the wind. 

What? I tried to ask.

She repeated herself, and this time her voice drifted over—faint, like she was very far away, but it was her voice all the same. “Wake,” she said, soft yet insistent. “You need to wake up.” And then she resumed walking toward the edge of the courtyard—toward the shadows that waited. 

Rowan, wait, I wanted to beg. She couldn’t leave, not yet. Not before I heard more of her voice. 

But, with one last sad smile, she simply shook her head and kept walking. 

Rowan, please don’t go.  

She took one step into the shadows. 

Don’t leave me behind again. 

She was already gone. The shadows had claimed her, moments before they began to claim everything else—the stars, the tree, the fountain, me. I closed my eyes—the only movement I was capable of—as they washed over me, freezing the air in my lungs and pressing down on my skin until I was certain I had been turned to stone. 

When I opened my eyes again, however, the pressure vanished and the stars returned, albeit blurrier than before. I was also laying down, not on cold stone, but on the soft mattress of my bed. The blurry stars above were only the enchanted ones on my ceiling, quite difficult to see without my glasses or contacts. 

Gasping, I pressed my hands to my face, waiting for the shaking and the nausea to subside. There were tears there, beneath my fingers. Of course it had been nothing more than a dream. 

I propped myself up on my elbows to swallow back the bile in my throat. Correction: make that another vision, if the symptoms were of any indication. What purpose this one served, though, I had no clue. Rowan was already dead. Not like there was anything I could do about that. 

But I was awake now at least, so that was one thing that had been fulfilled...whatever that was supposed to accomplish. Maybe Tulip and Merula had been right—someone really was trying to mess with my head. 

If only Dumbledore would actually stay at the school long enough for me to talk to him about it. He was always either busy or away whenever I tried, and I was starting to feel abnormally hostile toward the headmaster. It was like he didn’t even want to talk to me. 

...Which was a childish thought. He had enough of his own problems to worry about without me adding to them. I would be fine. I had let my Occlumency slip for one night, is all. It wouldn’t happen again. 

Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I pushed myself into a sitting position and grabbed my glasses off the nightstand. As the world came into focus, it became easier to breathe, and the rest of the nausea subsided. See? I thought to myself. I was fine. 

Hearing my movement, Pip began to meow insistently and rub against the bed frame, getting her fur all over the edge of my quilt. “Yeah, yeah,” I said groggily. “I’m coming.” I swung my legs off the bed and then froze, momentarily startled by the empty space in front of the window. 

Oh. That’s right. I had moved the owl perch to my wardrobe. Now, a vase of white flowers—Mrs. Byrne’s condolences—sat on a box in its place, failing to fill the room in the same way it had. Sometimes I forgot anything was different, and then I would look over at that window…

Blowing out a breath at my fringe, I pushed myself to my feet and began to get ready for the day. Business as usual. 

Penny was nowhere to be seen when I entered the main room, but there was a note waiting for me on the table, graced by her neat, flowing script:

Good morning! When you get a chance, could I get your help in the greenhouse? Almost out of wiggenweld bark. 

Thanks!

Pen

I glanced out the kitchen window. Both the neighboring roof and the road below were covered in white powder, and small flurries rushed by with every gust of wind. It was only October, and not only was there already snow, it was already sticking. I let out a groan as I began the hunt for my coat and gloves. Winter had indeed arrived early this year, and unfortunately it had trampled autumn before it had even begun. 

At least the greenhouse would be warm, I thought as I shuffled out the door, burying my hands in my pockets to protect them from the overenthusiastic chill. Those plants didn’t know how nice they had it. 

I picked my way across the yard, taking care not to slip on the frosted grass, when suddenly, from behind me, multiple voices cried out in unison, “Get her!” followed by a verbal incantation that sent a wave of terror through my chest. 

I failed to turn around before the first snowball struck me on the back of my head, and then I failed to pull my hands from my pockets before the next one smacked me in the face, bursting into a cloud of freezing powder that fell into my eyes and stung my skin. Unable to draw my wand under the onslaught, I could only raise my arms to shield my face as I was pelted by snowball after snowball, and stumble backwards in blind retreat. “Stop-stop-stop-stop!” I gasped. “I surrender! I surrender! I—ah!”

My boots landed on a patch of partially frozen mud and flew out from under me, and I went crashing to the snow-covered ground. The attack halted. “Yes! Victory!” the voices crowed. 

“Boys!” I yelled, furious, from my horizontal position. 

Mason’s and Robin’s faces grinned down at me, and then each boy had a hold of one of my arms. “Ready?” Mason said. “On three. One...two...three!” They pulled me to my feet, to almost immediately knock me down again as they tackled me from either side in a hug. 

“Hi.”—“Hi, Lily,” they said with exaggerated sweetness. 

“Cute,” I said dryly, but I draped my arms around their shoulders, which were much higher than I remembered them being. “What have I said about attacking an opponent when their back is turned?”

Like a pair of crup puppies, their eyes widened with false innocence. “We missed you,” Robin offered.

I folded, dropping my own act with a smile. “I missed you too. When did you get so tall ?”

They both straightened their shoulders and raised their chins, proudly showing off every centimeter of height they had gained over the summer. Mason was now as tall as me, not to mention that his shoulders were already broader, and it wouldn’t be long before he surpassed me entirely. And Robin—Robin had grown exponentially. Before, the top of his head hadn’t even reached my chin; now his eyes were level with it. His cheeks were also fuller, which was a sure sign that he wasn’t as scrawny as he had used to be. 

Interestingly, Mason was the one that had lost weight, which seemed odd for him. But maybe it was just a side effect of his growth spurt. 

“Sam not with you?” I asked, not having glimpsed the raven-haired Beater anywhere between the waves of snowballs. 

Mason shook his head. “She has detention.”

“What? What did she do now?”

Unexpectedly, Mason hesitated. Robin didn’t. “You should have seen it,” he said happily. “A Slytherin seventh-year called Mason, er...well, he called him the M-word, and Sam—she launched him clear across the courtyard. Sent him straight to the Hospital Wing.”

“Oh. Good for her.”

“You’re not serious,” Mason said incredulously. 

“See, I told you she would agree!” Robin insisted. He addressed me again. “Flitwick wasn’t even that mad. He complimented her form—right before he gave her the detention.”

“She used Everte Statum, probably,” I said in amusement. “She’s always been good at that one.” My ribs still smarted at the thought. 

“She didn’t need to do that!” Mason protested. 

“Maybe her methods were...a bit extreme,” I said. “But she was right not to tolerate his behavior. You shouldn’t have to put up with that.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “Honest. Normally they leave me alone if I just ignore them.”

Robin rolled his eyes. From that gesture, I suspected that “normally” didn’t mean the same as “always.”

“That still doesn’t make it okay,” I said seriously. “You have the same right to your wand as any pure-blood. The tolerance of anyone that says otherwise is half the reason we’re going to war.” Mason’s eyes widened, and I amended quickly, “That’s not on you though. It’s mostly the pure-bloods that need to step up. And the half-bloods, if they’re in a position to.” Sam had clearly decided she was in a position to. I didn’t exactly condone her actions, but if she had to take out her anger on someone… 

“I don’t want the attention,” Mason mumbled. “It just makes some people angrier.”

“Then I’ll fight them too,” Robin declared. “I’m a pure-blood. I’ll step up.”

I raised my hand, signaling him to slow down. “Maybe don’t go charging after Sam quite so fast.” I looked at Mason. “If you get in trouble, contact me first. Or your professors, if you’re able. I want you guys to be safe.”

Mason nodded, not quite meeting my gaze. Robin looked mildly disappointed. 

“I admire the enthusiasm though,” I chuckled. “Are you sure you don’t want to be an Auror, Robin?”

He shook his head, although his eyes lit up. “Nope. I’d rather be a Healer.”

I raised my eyebrows. “A Healer? Whatever happened to being a Herbologist?”

“Herbology’s more of a hobby. I like the idea of helping people more. You know, as opposed to hurting them.” He grinned. “Aunt Eritha says it’s the best way I could have decided to rebel against Mum.”

“That is what I call stepping up. I know a few Healers. My mum was one too. Let me know if you ever want me to introduce you to them.”

“Awesome!”

I turned back to Mason, who was only half paying attention. His hands were tucked in his pockets, and his eyes were distant, locked on to whatever was going on inside his head. “Are you doing okay, Mason?” I asked. 

He grimaced, an expression he rarely ever made. “Yeah. It’s just been...an interesting summer.”

“What—” I began, but the question was cut off by a high-pitched, pained shriek. A shriek that had come from within the greenhouse. A burst of chill shot over my skin. 

Penny. 

“Don’t move,” I ordered the boys and, without waiting to see if they had obeyed, dashed into the building. A list of every fanged, venomous, and deadly plant ran through my head, and I mentally sorted through every healing spell and antidote at my disposal. What if she had been bitten by a venomous tentacula? That’s how McGonagall’s husband had died. There was no cure for that. 

I swallowed back my panic as I skidded to a stop at the potioneer’s side, next to the wiggentrees. She was on her feet, fortunately, but she was clutching her hand to her chest with an agonized expression. “I’m all right,” she said shakily, before I could ask. “He scared me more than anything.”

“He?” It took a moment to zoom out of my adrenaline-induced tunnel vision, but when I did, I managed to follow her gaze to the branches of the nearest wiggentree, where a tiny green creature was waving its twig-like limbs threateningly. “Oh.”

“I went to shave some bark and didn’t see him,” Penny explained. She didn’t need to say more. Bowtruckles were usually passive creatures, but they could turn nasty when the trees they guarded were threatened. 

I extended a hand to her. “Let me see.”

Hesitantly, she offered me her injured hand. I had to pry her fingers open to expose her palm, revealing a deep, bloody gash along its length. She was lucky it hadn’t taken a finger off. I still could have fixed it, but that didn’t mean it would have been pleasant. 

“Woah!” Mason’s voice exclaimed, and my head whipped up as both he and Robin stepped through the door. 

“Boys,” I scolded. “I said don’t move.”

They shrugged apologetically. 

I sighed. Of course, I wouldn’t have listened either. “Come here then,” I said. They had followed, so they might as well have been given a learning experience. “Do you mind?” I asked Penny. 

“Not at all,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Just make it quick. It stings...just a little bit.”

I angled her palm for them to see. “This is why you don’t mess with a bowtruckle’s tree.” Unhooking a vial from my belt, I put a few drops of its contents on the gash. Penny winced in anticipation but soon relaxed when her skin began to knit itself back together. I cleaned the blood off the now unblemished palm. “Essence of Dittany works wonders. Which is why it is also used in…?”

“Wiggenweld Potion,” Robin chirped. “It can also be combined with powdered silver to seal werewolf bites.”

“Five points to Slytherin,” I said jokingly. Turning to the angry twig creature, I pulled a cat treat out of my pocket and placed it on my palm to tempt him. Penny grabbed my shoulders less than a second later when I stumbled out of reach of the bowtruckle’s sharp limb, which had missed my hand by a hair. “Well, I’m sorry,” I exclaimed, “but Penny needs to collect bark without you stabbing her.”

“I don’t mind the little guy,” she said, “but it would have been nice if he had chosen any tree besides the one I use for healing potions. It’s dreadfully counterproductive.”

I looked at the young Magizoologist. “Mason, do you know what fairy eggs look like?”

He grinned. “Of course.”

“Could you go get some from the storeroom for me? Just a few. Not even a handful.”

He took off and returned with what I had asked for in record time. I accepted the minuscule eggs and held my hand out to the bowtruckle again. At the sight of its favorite food, the creature lowered its arms. “Come on,” I said, “I’ll trade you the eggs for the tree.”

Warily, he stepped out onto my outstretched palm, and I had to suppress the urge to clench my fingers as his pointed limbs tickled my skin. Then, he delicately picked up one egg, nibbled at it, and immediately relaxed as he began to gorge himself of the rest. Once he was finished, he continued to sit on my hand with no clear desire to leave, now quite happy and docile. 

Mason held up a few more eggs, and I touched my fingers to his, letting the bowtruckle climb into his hands. He received it with a massive grin. “Would you let him stay here if we built a habitat for him?” he asked excitedly. 

“That sounds like a great project,” I agreed, glancing at Penny. 

“As long as he stays off my wiggentrees,” she said. 

“Brilliant!” he exclaimed. “Because I already have a few ideas in mind. I just need to grab my books first, and then… Oh, wait.” His smile faltered as he turned to Robin. “Do you even want to help?”

Robin looked taken aback. “You have to ask?”

“I… No, I suppose not,” Mason chuckled. “We’ll be back later then.”

“Have fun,” I said, but the boys were already halfway out the door, taking their new friend with them. As soon as they were out of earshot, Penny and I exchanged a glance and broke out in giggles. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked, once I was calm enough to speak. 

She nodded. “I’m fine. Just hold that basket for me, will you?” she said, as she picked up a large, curved knife off of the nearby table. “I need two hands.” 

“I don’t think the bowtruckle would agree,” I joked. 

She stuck her tongue out at me. Laughing, I grabbed the basket from the table and held it out, catching the shavings while she scraped the knife against the tree trunk. The wiggentree’s natural regenerative properties meant that taking a small amount of bark wouldn’t kill it, but I supposed there had been no way to tell the bowtruckle that. 

“You know,” Penny said, as we moved to the next tree in the row, “you should be a professor.”

I readjusted my grip on the basket. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” I teased. 

“No,” she chuckled. “I just know this doesn’t make you as happy as it makes me.”

A piece of bark glanced off the rim of the basket. Too slow to catch it, I watched as it tumbled out of my grasp and landed on my foot instead. There she went again, being more perceptive of my own self than I was. “I’ve thought about it,” I said, flicking my fingers at the rogue piece of bark. It levitated up to the basket, to my pleasant surprise. “But I’ve never been as passionate about the idea as Rowan.”

“Don’t compare yourself to her. No one is as passionate as Rowan.”

“You are.”

“ Few people are as passionate as Rowan.” She paused to brush her hair out of her eyes. “Look, just because other people know—or knew—what they want to do in life doesn’t mean you have to. We may have graduated, but it’s okay to keep exploring.”

“You really want to get rid of me.”

“No! That’s not—” She met my eyes and broke off with a sigh. “Lilianna.”

“Fine,” I relented. “I’ll keep thinking about it.”

In all honesty, I wasn’t opposed to the idea of being a professor; I was far more opposed to the idea of considering the future. I wanted to make sure there actually was a future first before I put my hopes in it. 

With the basket full of bark and the knife safely cleaned and stored, we started toward the exit, steering well clear of the venomous tentacula along the way. “I’m not trying to get rid of you, really,” Penny said lightly, “but I swear I was much more capable before you came along.”

Grinning, I stopped her outside the door with a gesture to her hand. “Let me see again.”

She held up her palm for me to inspect, and I ran my thumb along where the gash had been. Now there was neither scab nor scar. It was perfect. Flawless, even. However, when I glanced up at her face, she was frowning at me. 

“What is it?” I asked. 

“Please don’t look at me like that,” she said. 

“Like what?”

Rather than answer, she lifted her gaze over my shoulder and called out pleasantly, “Good morning, Mr. Darrow!”

My stomach dropped, and I dropped her hand along with it. Mr. Darrow was standing on the steps to his back door, a deep scowl on his face...as usual. “I’m sure it’s a good morning for some people,” he growled, and then disappeared back into his shop, slamming the door behind him. 

Penny’s eyes went round with shock. Mr. Darrow had never spoken to her like that before. To me, all the time, certainly. But never to her. 

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. 

She didn’t say a word as she walked back into the Cauldron, nor did she speak when we first stepped inside. It was only once I had followed her into the isolation of the brewing room that she said, “Sometimes you have no idea how badly I want to feel something back. Really.”

I cringed. My skin prickled uncomfortably, like I had been hit with a Stinging Jinx. “We don’t need to go over this again.”

She didn’t disagree, although she didn’t agree either. She simply dumped the contents of the basket on a table and began to sort through the bark in preparation for grinding it. 

I crossed my arms. “You know I would never do anything you don’t want. I would never force…” I trailed off, not liking the taste of the words. 

Her eyes widened. “Of course you wouldn’t. I’m not afraid of that.”

“Then if I make you uncomfortable—”

“I never said that!”

I fixed her with an unconvinced stare. 

She sighed. “But I have said the wrong thing, haven’t I.” It wasn’t a question. 

“I really will leave,” I said matter-of-factly, as if this was an average problem in need of fixing. “It’s not fair to you if—”

“Stop that!” she snapped, startlingly out of character. “Stop suggesting I want you to leave. How many times do I have to say I want you here before you’ll believe it?” Grabbing a pestle, she began to aggressively pulverize the bark while muttering, “Not fair to me...honestly, how daft…”

“Okay, then,” I said slowly, and turned to leave. 

“Wait!” She dropped the pestle with a harsh clack. “Where are you going?”

I raised my eyebrows. “It’s my shift. Unless you want to switch with me?”

She grimaced. “Right. No, I’m paying you.”

I retreated to the front of the shop and unlocked the door, almost hoping a customer would be waiting there in need of assistance, but of course there wasn’t. Neither bell nor charm triggered, and they refused to for the next few hours. Stretching out across the countertop, I shifted into my cat form to escape the uncomfortable heat prickling at my skin. 

The last thing I needed was for things to be awkward with Penny, but I just had to keep messing it up, didn’t I? First with Tonks, and now this. My stupid heart couldn’t only be content with repeatedly breaking itself in two; it had to be hellbent on slowly destroying every other relationship I had in the process. 

And Mr. Darrow...he had always thought poorly of me, but he’d never had a reason to dislike Penny. She didn’t deserve to have him think badly of her too. 

I closed my eyes and curled up even more tightly on the countertop. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Penny entered the room close to the end of my shift. Or at least her footsteps did, along with the faint clinking of glass. I partially opened one eye to see her staring down at me, carrying both a crate of vials and a crooked, concerned frown. 

“How do you feel about taking a walk for me?” she asked. 

I shifted back, twisting into a sitting position on the counter. “Where to?”

“The Three Broomsticks. This is for Rosmerta.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said tiredly, and slid down to take the crate in my arms. It seemed heavier than normal, like it wanted to pull me downward, and I had to brace it against my body to get a good grip. “I’ll be back later, then.”

“Lily.”

I turned around halfway to the door. “Hm?”

Lips parted uncertainly, she laid her hands on the counter, once again appearing like she was trying to trap some invisible force there. The pause stretched thin, and she didn’t quite look at me as she said, “Just...just be safe.”

“Mm,” was all I could offer in assent, and I left the shop before she could figure out what she actually wanted to say. 

The Three Broomsticks was crowded when I reached it, packed not only with giddy Hogwarts students, but also with locals seeking the warmth of the fireplaces (and Fire Whiskey) to escape the cold outside. I had to dodge a pack of chittering third-years as they burst out the door, and I barely managed to slip inside before it closed behind me. Almost every table was full (some people were even standing), and the bar staff wove through the throng with trays weighted down with butterbeer and precarious stacks of empty glasses. 

Not daring to push my way through with the heavy crate, I lingered by the door until I caught Rosmerta’s eye. The innkeeper shouted something at a rather overwhelmed barmaid, wiped her hands on her apron, and made her way over to me. “First Hogsmeade trip of the year,” she muttered, low enough that only I could hear. “I keep telling myself it’s going to be worth it.”

“Hopefully this will help,” I said. 

“You’re a lifesaver, Lily. I hope I’ve told you that before.”

I forced a smile. “Where do you want it?”

“I’ll take it. See if you can find an empty table, and I’ll bring you a drink.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said as I safely shifted the crate to her arms. She pulled its weight against her body with a surprised grunt. “Not when there’s already so many—”

She gasped and lurched forward, nearly knocking into me, and the crate, filled with a dozen breakable glass vials, slipped from her grip to plummet towards the hardwood floor. On reflex, I threw my hands out and mentally recited the first incantation that popped into my head: Arresto Momentum! The crate halted, hovering a full hand length off the ground. 

“Are you all right?” I asked, alarmed. 

Rosmerta shakily touched her hand to her head, her eyes closed in a pained grimace. “I’m fine,” she said breathlessly. “Just a headache. It’s nothing.” She opened her eyes, took one look at the hovering crate and my outstretched hands, and immediately frowned in bewilderment. “How did you do that?”

“Huh?”

She wasn't the only one that was baffled. Several of the nearest patrons were staring with various expressions of shock and concern, and they were staring at me. Oh. It was no wonder why. I hadn’t drawn my wand. 

I flicked my fingers and quickly levitated the crate back into my arms, not enjoying the sudden attention. “I’ve been practicing,” I said without further elaboration. 

It looked like my training sessions with Merula had been paying off. Wandless casting had never come as easy to me as other forms of magic, but Merula wanted me to strengthen all my skills, especially the ones I wasn’t good at—with pleasant results. She was a good teacher when she wasn’t insulting me. 

“Are you sure you don’t need to lie down?” I asked. 

“I’ve survived worse,” Rosmerta said, despite the lack of color in her face. She continued to frown at me, as if she was struggling to see me clearly. “You should be careful who you show that kind of power to,” she added, her tone oddly flat. “You wouldn’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention.”

I eyed her warily. “Er, right.”

Drawing her wand this time, she levitated the crate out of my hands and directed it to float across the room. Before I could offer any assistance, both she and the crate had disappeared into the crowd. 

I rocked on the balls of my feet, uncertain what to do. The noise and the heat of the bodies around me were suffocating, already wearing me down in the less than five minutes I had been inside. I had no desire to be here any longer than necessary, but who else was going to check on Rosmerta?

Maybe I would stay a few more minutes. At least until I was sure she wasn’t going to collapse or something. If I could find her again, that was. 

I craned my neck, struggling to catch a glimpse of her dirty-blond hair, when a friendly shout of, “Lily!” pulled my gaze to the side of the room. Robin and Mason sat at a corner table by the fireplace, a pile of books in front of them, and they waved to catch my attention. Mrs. Byrne was seated beside them. Waving back, I began to make my way over. 

Two steps across the room, a figure cut in front of me. “Excuse me,” I said politely, preparing to sidestep around them, but they raised an arm, blocking me from moving further. I froze. I hadn’t recognized Mr. Darrow, mostly because he was smiling—something he never did in my presence—and the impact was unsettling. 

“It’s time we had a talk,” he said pleasantly. Too pleasantly. Not to mention a sharp contrast from earlier. 

“I thought you didn’t want to talk,” I said. 

“I came to a realization.” He laid his hand on my arm. His grip didn’t hurt, but it was tight enough that the threat was there. “You’ll find it will benefit both of us.”

I glanced back at the table. Mason and Robin were watching curiously. Mrs. Byrne, startlingly, had her hand braced flat against the tabletop, like she was about to launch to her feet. Summoning what I hoped was a nonchalant smile, I waved at them to stay put. 

“Lead the way,” I muttered to Mr. Darrow. 

“Good lass.”

He removed his hand from my arm, confident that I would follow, and led me to the back of the pub, to a table tucked beneath the staircase. It sat away from the fireplace (and away from most of the patrons), so the air felt significantly chillier as I took a seat, even through the layers of my coat. Then again, maybe the distance from the flames wasn’t the only source of the cold. 

I folded my hands in my lap, forcing myself not to fidget under Mr. Darrow’s steely gaze, and waited for him to speak. He was still smiling, but in the way a sphinx might smile after being given a wrong answer to its riddle. 

“Those boys look up to you,” he said. 

“I suppose so,” I said warily. 

“No, there is no ‘supposing.’ They do. They’ve spent the last thirty minutes talking about their little bowtruckle project to anyone that’ll listen. Not often you see children studying of their own free will.”

“They’re good kids.”

“I agree,” he said, “which is why you and I have something of a shared interest.” I straightened in surprise, and he chuckled. “Despite what you may believe, I’m not an enemy. I only want what’s best for our kind. I know you understand.”

There was an odd undertone there, one that caused the hair to stand up on the back of my neck. “Our kind?” I echoed. 

“Wizards. Witches.” He waved a hand vaguely at the rest of the pub. “I’m inclined to deal with threats to the next generation as I see them. But I realize my recent behavior has been ineffective, and that’s no good. So, we’re trying a different approach today.”

Ah, there it was. “And what do you think is a threat to our kind?” I asked calmly, as if I didn’t already know the answer. Beneath the table, I dug my fingernails into my leg. 

“Now, we’re not going to get into politics here. This isn’t about politics, but this is about protecting the next generation. And, for that, I’m going to ask you something.” He leaned forward, giving me a clear view of the liver spots on his wrinkled skin. “Do you honestly believe you are a good influence on those boys?”

“I...I mean…” My voice faltered, embarrassingly. “You just said I have them studying of their own free will.”

He shook his head. “They’ll always have you to thank for some skills, perhaps. But how long until you make them completely like you? What kind of effect would that have on their lives? Do you see the problem now?”

“Mr. Darrow, I understand what you’re implying, but if you think spending time with them will make them like...like me , that’s not how it works.”

“So I’ve heard. That’s not all I’m talking about, which goes to show just how narrow your focus is. Think about the attention you draw to yourself—the Mad Witch, is that right? Cursed and harassed because of your name, regardless of everything else. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt—maybe your intentions are simply misguided, but it is inevitable that this attention will be shifted onto those children. Neither of us want that.”

I continued to sit perfectly straight, frozen in my chair as my heart pounded in my throat, bringing a wave of nausea with it. He was so calm, so relaxed, sitting there with the smile of someone absolutely convinced that they were right. But he wasn’t right, was he?

Reading the disbelief on my face, Mr. Darrow added smoothly, “You know what it’s like to live in the shadow of someone else’s actions. You’ve never escaped it, so I doubt you would want to force it onto others. After all, that would be an incredibly cruel thing to do.”

Against my will, my thoughts flashed all the way back to my first day at Hogwarts, during the Sorting Ceremony. McGonagall’s voice had rung out clearly across the Great Hall, calling out the names of every student to be placed into a house that would define their identity for the rest of their lives. With her shout of “Flores, Lilianna!” a hush had fallen over the entire hall. Heads had turned, bodies had leaned across tables, and lips had moved behind raised hands. I had heard some of the whispers, things like, “Stay away from her. She’ll get you expelled,” and, “Do you think she’s mad too?” before the roaring in my ears had become loud enough to drown them out. 

Those whispers had never gone away, but the harassment had. Now I was harassed for other things, which wasn’t necessarily better. 

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “That’s not my fault.”

“I know it’s not. And I know I can’t stop your particular inclinations , as unnatural as they are. I can, however, help you break ties with them.”

“What?” I gasped. 

“It would be for the best. They won’t be under your shadow if you don’t associate with them. Your issues will remain your own.”

No, that couldn’t be right. That couldn’t be the only solution. He was just being bigoted as always. He didn’t know how much I had been doing for those kids. Mason, who was passionate yet lonely; Robin, who was gaining confidence in himself despite his upbringing; and Sam, who was learning to let go of her anger as she worked through her trauma—in less than a year, I had helped them come so far. I was helping them, wasn’t I?

“You’re wrong,” I said. “You don’t know what they’re going through. I can’t just push them away like that.”

He laughed. “Lass, you overestimate your importance.” He turned over his hands, as one might do to reveal a hand of cards. “You’re a witch from a blood traitor family in the middle of a war on purity. Not only that, you’ve cursed yourself to never continue your bloodline. That’s a dangerous stance to take in these times, as much for everyone around you as yourself.”

He was wrong. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. 

But he wasn’t. I wasn’t a safe person to be around. A blood traitor, an Animagus, an Order member—people had been killed for far less. There were Talbott’s parents—a writer and a Healer—who had been executed for speaking out. There were Sam and her sister, who had been tortured because their father had married a Muggle-born. And then there was Rowan, hit by a Killing Curse in a fight that had never been hers. People died around witches like me. 

“They’ll be far better off without you,” Mr. Darrow concluded. “I promise.”

“I...I can’t…” I stuttered, but I didn’t even know what to say. 

He sighed. “I was hoping you would be smart enough not to resist. I wanted to be civilized about this, but if you won’t cooperate…” He looked off to the side. 

I followed his gaze to the nearest tables, and my breath lodged painfully in my throat, refusing to enter my lungs. Half a dozen patrons were staring back—mostly wizards, a few witches, most older, some young, and all glowering at me. One or two nodded in acknowledgement at Mr. Darrow. 

Still hidden beneath the table, my hands began to shake. This “talk” wasn’t the result of some spontaneous realization he’d had. He had planned this. 

“Are you threatening me?” I whispered shrilly. 

He shook his head, clicking his tongue. “I told you, I deal with threats as I see them. If you won’t leave those children alone, I know the rest of the village would be astounded to hear of your predatory behavior. They may tolerate you now, but I doubt they would tolerate that.”

“ Predatory? ” 

“Do we have an understanding?”

An understanding? I glanced at Mr. Darrow’s reinforcements. One of the younger wizards, not much older than me, patted the wand at his hip when I met his gaze. This wasn’t an understanding. This wasn’t a choice. This was blackmail!

I could fight them. Maybe. I was more powerful than any of them individually, and I had plenty of my own reinforcements to call upon. But what would that accomplish? What if they ganged up on me in the street, or attacked me while my back was turned? I would have to spend the rest of my life constantly looking over my shoulder—more so than I already did. I would never be able to go outside, especially if they turned the rest of the village against me. 

Even worse, what if they said something...did something to the kids, all because I had decided to associate with them? Robin, Mason, Sam—they didn’t deserve to get caught up in this. It wasn’t their fight. 

“What would I even say?” I breathed, my voice wavering. 

He grinned. He knew he had won. “You’re a smart girl. You’ll figure something out.” He paused and then added, “Of course, I could always do it for you.”

“No!” I said sharply. 

“I thought as much.”

My fingernails were pressing so hard into my leg that I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had ripped right through the protective enchantment on my robes. The pain was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes, and yet, if this was another nightmare, it didn’t snap me out of it. 

“One final question,” he said seriously. “And I want you to answer honestly. Are you attempting to corrupt my son’s girlfriend?”

“No! I swear, I wouldn’t.” 

“Make sure it stays that way. Normally I wouldn’t approve of someone of her lineage, but she’s a respectable girl, if a bit too nice for her own good. She makes him happy, and I won’t have anyone ruining that.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” I said quietly. 

“Good.” He leaned back in his chair, finally satisfied. “She doesn’t need to know about this either. Wouldn’t want her worrying about something that doesn’t involve her now, would we?”

“N-no, sir.”

This was wrong. This was all so wrong. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I had never wanted that. It wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t my fault. Was it?

“Is everything all right over here?”

I jumped, not having noticed Rosmerta’s approach until she was right next to me. She was frowning again, but this time it was directed at Mr. Darrow. 

“Most certainly,” Mr. Darrow said pleasantly. “Young Ms. Flores here just has some business to take care of, isn’t that right?”

I struggled to swallow. “That’s right.”

Rosmerta’s eyes flicked to me in surprise. 

“Best get to it then,” Mr. Darrow said. 

I nodded, and without looking at him or any of the subtle onlookers, I attempted to bolt from the table. Rosmerta caught my arm before I could pass her, preventing my escape. “Lily,” she said, her voice low and serious, “what did—”

“Hey!” a wizard shouted from one of the nearby tables. “I’ve been waiting on my drink for twenty minutes! How long does it take to fill a glass?” His companions smirked, including the wizard that had patted his wand. 

Rosmerta turned to glare at them, and I took the opportunity to pull free from her grip. “I’m okay,” I said. “You worry about them.” And then I slipped into the crowd before she could stop me.

Taking a shaky breath, I willed my hands to hang relaxed at my sides, and I forced another smile as I returned to the boys. Maybe it was my imagination, but I felt eyes following my progress, even after I rounded the base of the stairs. I didn’t look to check though. Everything was okay. I had to make it seem like everything was okay. No drawing attention. No making a scene. No doing anything that would drag others into this. 

Mason and Robin both had their faces buried in books when I reached them, intently focused on their mission despite the chaos of the pub. Crumpled parchment was scattered across the table before them, as well as two half-empty glasses of butterbeer. The bowtruckle was perched on Mason’s shoulder, looking quite pleased to have made new friends. 

Robin held up his book, a guide to wand wood trees (Rowan had owned a similar copy), for Mason to see. “Which of these do you think we should use?” he asked. “Do bowtruckles have a favorite? Besides wiggentrees, I mean.”

“I think you should be asking what we can actually find,” Mason said. “I don’t know where we’re going to get half this stuff.” He turned a page in his creature guide. “Woodlice. How does anyone find woodlice?”

“Lily!” Robin greeted happily as soon as he lowered the book. 

“Long time no see,” I said lightly, and then added to the witch beside them, “Hi, Mrs. Byrne.”

She gave me a warm smile, although it didn’t crinkle her eyes like it normally did. “Afternoon, Lilianna. Logan doing well?”

I tried not to wince. “Quite,” I said, and because I knew that wasn’t what she’d truly been asking, I quickly turned back to the boys. “How’s the little guy? Have you come up with a name for him yet?”

“Well, because he’s so fierce, I was thinking of ‘Sam,’” Mason joked. 

Robin rolled his eyes. “And I said I’m not going to get thrown across the courtyard.”

“So, the answer is, no, not yet,” Mason said. “Could you help us get the habitat started? I know what to build, but we’re having an issue with...well, actually building it.”

“Right,” I said slowly. “About that...I may have been overenthusiastic. Something’s come up. I think I’m going to be too busy to help. I’m sorry.”

Their faces fell. Mrs. Byrne raised her eyebrows. There was a muffled roaring in my ears, one that was from more than the noise of the pub. 

“But!” I added quickly. “I know someone who can. Silvanus Kettleburn lives here in the village. He used to be the Care of Magical Creatures professor. Here, I’ll give you his address.” Grabbing one of the scrap pieces of parchment, on which was one of many rejected habitat designs, I wrote out directions to his cottage. 

“Wait, the Professor Kettleburn?” Mason asked. 

“Yes,” I said, handing him the parchment, “so please be careful not to lose an eye or a limb. He only has half of his.”

Robin’s eyes went wide. 

“Does this mean we won’t be able to build it in the greenhouse anymore?” Mason said dejectedly. 

My stomach twisted, and I had to swallow to keep my voice steady. “That’s probably for the best. You should ask Hagrid if there’s someplace on the grounds you can keep it. That way you won’t have to wait for a Hogsmeade trip to work on it.”

“But we can still visit you, right?” Robin asked. 

“We’ll see. I really will be busy.” Each word cut against my throat. “You should be focusing on your studies anyway. Especially you, Mason, with your N.E.W.T. classes.”

They stared at me, a mixture of disbelief and hurt on their faces. Swallowing back another nauseating wave of guilt, I tucked my hands in my pockets to hide how much they were trembling. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t strong enough. 

“I need to go,” I said, hoping they couldn’t hear how my voice cracked, and I spun on my heel to walk swiftly towards the door. 

The young wizard, the one that had threatened me, stepped in front of the exit with a leer. He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t want to hear it. I was suffocating between the tightly packed bodies, the noise, and the sickening mix of emotions that was burning beneath my ribs. Disgust, guilt, fear, anger—it all roiled inside me, rising like a wave. I slammed my hand into the wizard’s chest, fully intending to shove him out of the way, but with the motion, the wave broke. Electricity sparked from my fingers, and he leapt back with a yelp. 

“The hell!” he spat. 

Oh, Merlin’s arse. I sprinted out the door, not daring to meet the stares that followed. My boots slid on the slick ground outside, and I skidded to a stop before I could slip again. I clutched my hand to my chest, shivering, but not because of the snowflakes catching in my hair. 

I had to calm down, I had to calm down, I had to calm down. Only children let their magic get out of control like that. I was a witch; I knew better. I had control. I had—

“Lilianna.” I whirled around to see Mrs. Byrne looking at me in concern, her arms wrapped around herself to brace against the cold. She had left her coat inside. “What was that?”

“That was an accident,” I said weakly. 

She shook her head. “No. I mean with those boys. I’ve been listening to them talk about you since they walked in. What you just said to them, that’s not like you.”

“I...I don’t know what you’re talking about. I need to deal with something. It’ll be fine.”

“What did Logan say to you?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“What’s going on out here?” Rosmerta had followed us out, and she had her arms crossed as well, although she looked far more severe than cold. 

A group of students burst out of the inn, and we all leapt out of the way before we could become trampled by the stampeding herd. I used the distraction to begin to inch away. “Nothing,” I replied, forcing an impression of cheerfulness into my voice. “It’s fine! I’m fine.”

Throwing a friendly wave over my shoulder, I hurried off down the street, but not before I caught the witches exchanging a bewildered glance. 

I had just lied. Not only had I lied to Mason and Robin, I had just lied to the two people in this village that I respected the most. If there was a hell, I was going to it. 

I wanted to run back to them, to apologize, to say, Please help me. I’m terrified . But my feet kept moving in the opposite direction, carrying me away in blind retreat. It was safer to keep moving—for everyone. At this moment, I didn’t know who I was likely to hurt...or who was likely to hurt me. 

I pressed a hand to my mouth, suppressing a choked sound that was dangerously close to a sob. 

What had I done?

Chapter Text

Hogsmeade trips were cancelled for the rest of the year. A girl, a seventh-year Gryffindor by the name of Katie Bell, had been cursed and nearly killed by a necklace she had acquired from someone in the village, and it had only been by pure luck (and quick action from Hagrid and Professor Snape) that she hadn’t died instantly. She hadn’t even been the target—or a willing accomplice. The Imperius Curse was difficult to detect in most cases, but certainly not all. A student that couldn’t remember why she had been trying to kill the headmaster of Hogwarts, for example, was a dead giveaway. 

As far as anyone could gather, she had acquired the necklace in the ladies’ room at the Three Broomsticks, quite possibly at the same time I had been there, but no one had any clue who had given it to her. When I questioned Rosmerta about it, she could only tell me what she had told Tonks and the other Aurors earlier: she hadn’t seen a thing. There had been far too many people in the inn for her to remember any particular one. Having personally witnessed the chaos, I couldn’t blame her. 

The attacker could have been anyone—a local, a visitor, or even (although unlikely) another student. A hundred people had probably passed through the inn that Saturday. The question was, which of them wanted to kill Dumbledore?

Many, many people. That did nothing to narrow it down. 

And the worst part of all? I was relieved. Not for the girl, certainly, and not for Dumbledore, but I was relieved I wouldn’t have to face the trio anymore. They would be safer in the castle, and perhaps better off overall. No one could deny that. No awkward explanations, no lying required. 

Eyes followed me wherever I went. Or at least they seemed to. I kept getting an ill feeling, one that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, and it intensified whenever I walked through the village. Usually, when I looked around, there was nothing—just a few passersby with their cloaks bundled around them, hurrying to escape the cold. Few people lingered outside these days; the chill—both from the weather and from the boarded up windows of many shops—was unwelcoming. 

But sometimes when I looked, other people looked back. These were the witches and wizards from the inn. Sometimes they glared and sometimes they grinned, but they never spoke to me, only stared, occasionally whispering to each other. 

The young wizard was the only one that ever dared approach. He was cockier than the rest, and far brasher. My heart had jolted when he had walked into the Scarlett Cauldron during one shift. I had pretended like I had never seen him before and attempted to help him like any other customer, but he had brushed off my assistance and just stood there, leering. He had finally left when Penny’s friendly attempts to chat with him caught him off guard, and he had made a hasty exit, leaving her baffled and me unsettled, not that I let her see that. 

Needless to say, deliveries were no longer fun. I had started leaving my wand sheath unfastened whenever I went outside, and I stopped putting my hands in my pockets, no matter how cold I was. It didn’t matter that I had complied with Mr. Darrow, it seemed. They realized they had power over me now, and some of them were itching to take advantage of it, which was almost what happened one evening. 

Twilight had descended by the time I stepped out of the Hogshead Inn, having just finished dropping off another questionable batch of potions for Aberforth, and it cloaked the world in a pale, smudged indigo. All the buildings looked dull and fuzzy, almost like they did in my Animagus form, and the shadows that spilled out from corners twitched against the edges of the dim streetlights. For once, Apparition was appealing. No way I was walking alone in this. 

I took a steadying breath, coaxing my jaw to unclench. A little bit of dizziness never hurt anyone. 

The door slammed open behind me, and a group of wizards stumbled out, laughing and falling against each other. I silently stepped to the side, moving out of their way and out of their line of sight. They called out a mix of rude words and slurred farewells to each other, and then began to diverge in (notably nonlinear) directions. All except one. He lingered, watching until they were gone, before he turned around and sauntered over to me. 

I had seen enough of him this past week to recognize his mess of sandy hair, even in the low light. His stubble was always short and patchy, suggestive of repeated failures to grow a beard. I didn’t even know his name, other than that it started with a “K.” Was it Kyle? Kendall?

Actually, I didn’t care. I angled away from him as he reached me, and I attempted to slip past. He side-stepped, blocking me with his trademark leer. I glared up at him—he was much taller than I was, and unfortunately, broader too. I would have Disapparated on the spot, but I had no desire to accidentally bring him with me. 

“I will shock you again,” I threatened, my fingers firmly around the handle of my wand, although I didn’t pull it from its sheath. Not yet.  

He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Feisty thing, aren’t you?” he laughed. There was enough alcohol on his breath to cause the air to combust. “That fire could be put to good use. You ever been with a man before?”

My lip curled with horror and disgust. “Never been appealing,” I said, but his leer didn’t fade. “It’s not appealing,” I added firmly. 

“Oh, I could change your mind,” he purred, and then he grabbed me someplace I had never allowed any man to grab me. 

My reaction was purely instinctual. Or, at least, that was the only explanation I could think of for why, instead of drawing my wand, I clocked him clean across the jaw, snapping his head to the side. I heard my hand crack before I felt it, and, too late, Jacob’s voice drifted to the front of my mind, warning me not to punch if I could help it. Break their nose with the flat of your hand. You’ll hurt yourself otherwise. 

Oops. 

I didn’t feel any pain, though, only satisfaction as he furiously spat blood into the snow. While it was doubtful I had damaged his jaw—or that he was sober enough to feel it, I had certainly made him bite his tongue. 

But the satisfaction was short-lived. He raised his head with a burning in his eyes and a red mark on his face, and then he lunged for me. I raised my hands again, this time with a spell in mind, but he caught my wrists and twisted them painfully behind my back, spinning me around in the process. His body pressed against me, and his breath ran down my neck with every shallow exhale. “You’ll pay for that,” he growled in my ear. 

My heart was slamming against my ribs, as if threatening to break them. My mind was clear though, and it cycled through every spell in my limited arsenal. What hand gesture could I make with my wrists like this? Another lightning spell, intentional or not, would shock me too. Flipendo ...maybe. That only required a short flick. It would either knock him off me or knock us both down—a fifty-fifty shot. 

I gave a test pull of my wrists, sending a spike of pain through one and causing him to growl in my ear again. It would have to do. Twisting my now aching hand, I mentally counted down. Five...four...three...two…

Thwack! I jumped as something burst over my head, scattering clumps of powdered snow across my hair and shoulders. 

“Oi, bastard!” came a shout from across the street. Wand raised before her, Tonks stalked forward with a terrifyingly livid expression. “Get your hands off her!” She launched another snowball, and I ducked just in time for it to smack him in the face. 

The wizard leapt back, spluttering, but still holding onto me with one hand. “Keep walking,” he spat. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Stepping into the lantern light, Tonks held up her Auror badge so that the gold of the Ministry seal glinted dangerously. There was a sharp intake of breath behind me, and then I was free. I darted away from him, and when I looked back, he had both hands raised beside his head. 

“There’s no need for that,” he laughed uncomfortably. “This is all just a big misunderstanding, I assure ya. We were just having a little fun.”

Tonks didn’t lower her wand. She may have been mousy in appearance, but the rigidness in her shoulders and the cold fury on her face marked her as someone not to be trifled with. Her eyes flicked to me briefly. “You know him?” she asked. 

“Never met him in my life,” I said with partial honesty. It was true enough; I didn’t know him. 

“Touch her again, and I’ll send you straight to Azkaban,” she warned. “You hear me?”

He nodded frantically. 

“Then get out of here. Now. Go on!”

He took off, stumbling away into the sinking darkness, but not before he threw one last glare in my direction. Tonks glared after him, and she watched until he had disappeared around the far corner before she finally sheathed her wand and approached me. 

I sighed, not realizing I had been holding my breath until I let it out. “Thank you,” I said. 

“He hurt you?” she asked, her expression still stony. 

“No.” I inspected my aching hand. My knuckles were already bruised. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if I had broken something. “I think I hurt myself more,” I joked. 

She shook her head in disbelief. “Sometimes I think you like living up to that nickname of yours. Punching a man, honestly…”

“It wasn’t like I wanted that to happen,” I exclaimed, insulted. “You know me better than that.”

She jerked her chin in the direction of the inn, and I followed her gaze to see a shadow duck away from the window. Ah. No doubt the town would have something to talk about in the morning. The Mad Witch had struck again. Quite literally, like an uncivilized Muggle.

“He do that before?” she asked. 

“No. First time. To me, at least.” I cringed as the full implications sunk in. If he reported back to the others, Mr. Darrow would not be happy. “This is probably going to come back to bite me,” I accidentally murmured aloud.

She raised an eyebrow. “Not if he doesn’t want to ‘have a little fun’ with the dementors, it won’t. I wasn’t bluffing about Azkaban. Scrimgeour doesn’t need much of an excuse to make an arrest these days. I could put him in chains before you could say ‘Death Eater.’”

“Really?” That was kind of disturbing. And also kind of sweet. 

“Mm-hm. You should have at least broken his nose. Then I could have offered to fix it.”

“Like you did for Merula?”

The corners of her lips twitched upward. “Exactly.”

I laughed, looking back at my bruised knuckles. “I thought about it,” I said. I wished I had instead. My hand was beginning to throb. 

I drew my wand in my left hand, but it shook, refusing to aim at my right. It wasn’t only my non-dominant hand either—both my hands were shaking, and rather violently too. How long had that been going on?

“Hold still,” Tonks ordered. 

“I can’t,” I said helplessly. My heart was beating so fast. Then sharp pain shot through my injured hand as she grabbed my wrist without warning. “Ow-ow-ow-ow,” I whimpered, my eyes watering involuntarily. 

“It wouldn't hurt if you’d held still.” She pointed her wand at my hand. 

My eyes widened. “Wait, what’re you—”

“ Episkey! ”

I flinched as there was another horrid crack, but the additional burst of pain I was waiting for never arrived. In fact, the throbbing ache was already gone, like nothing had even happened. I tentatively flexed my fingers. Not a twinge to be felt. 

“Better?” Tonks asked flatly. 

“Good as new,” I said, mildly stunned. “Er, thanks.”

She dropped my hand with a grunt of acknowledgment. 

“Since when have you been able to cast that spell?” I asked. 

She fixed me with a pointed look. “Since I keep having to put my friends back together. Merlin forbid you keep out of trouble in the first place.”

“Oh, look who’s talking,” I scoffed. “Does Madam Pomfrey have a bed reserved for you in the Hospital Wing now that you’re back in town?”

She snorted, and for a moment—just one moment—she seemed like the old Tonks again, ready to quip back with a witty insult or a rude word until we either wanted to kill each other or were laughing too hard to breathe. But, instead, all she said was, “Go home, Lily,” and the moment had ended before it had even begun.

“Right,” I said quietly. 

“And tell Penny no more deliveries this late. It’s not safe, even for you.” This last statement was cast over her shoulder—she was already walking away. 

“Tonks, wait!” I called. There was more desperation in my voice than I had intended, but I couldn’t let her get away. Not so soon. This was the first time we had spoken since our argument; I had to say something. 

She turned around, waiting patiently, but as she stared at me, the words refused to come. What was I supposed to say? I needed to apologize; I knew that, but the childish part of me told me that any apology I made would be insincere. I was still mad at what she had said, and I still believed what I had said, even if it had been wrong to say it. But she was my friend, and if she walked away again...what if I lost her? Really lost her?

A gust of wind swept across the street, stirring up a wave of snowflakes between us, and I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering involuntarily. She shook her head. “Go home, Lily,” she repeated firmly, and then she was walking off down the street. Within a breath, she was gone, her small form swept away with the wind and the snow. 

I balled up the fabric of my coat in my hands, suddenly feeling small as well in the emptiness of the too-dark street. To home it was then. 

Home. What an interesting idea that was.

* * * *

“You’re back.” Penny looked up from the letter in her hands, a pile of mail before her on the kitchen counter. “How was Aberforth?”

I hung my coat on a hook by the door, eager to thaw my numb fingers by the fire. “Same as usual. Always has something to complain about.” I tossed her a pouch, which she clumsily caught in one hand. “And always pays extra.”

She grinned when the coins inside the pouch clinked. “That’s why I always send you over there,” she laughed. “He has a soft spot for you.”

“Penny Haywood,” I mock-chided, and she laughed again. 

I sank down onto the rug in front of the fireplace, letting the heat of the flames drive the last of the chill away from my skin. My hands were still too unsteady. My heartbeat—still a little too fast. I took a deep breath and held it, waiting until it burned before I let it go. 

Penny’s footsteps, muffled on the rug, appeared next to me, and then a warm mug was being pressed into my hands, the faint aroma of peppermint and honey drifting up from inside. I murmured my thanks as she sat down cross-legged at my side, and she hummed her acknowledgement, bringing her own mug to her lips. 

We sat like that in silence for a while, listening to nothing other than the popping of the logs in the fireplace. Eyes half-closed, I rotated my mug in my hands, spreading the warmth evenly across my palms. For once, I didn’t want to think, especially not about anything that had just happened. I just wanted to be. Not be anything—just be , sitting here in front of the fire and enjoying my peppermint tea. 

Then Penny murmured, “Another letter from Sam arrived today,” and my heart started to skitter again. 

“Another?” I echoed. 

All three kids had sent me letters since the school had gone into lockdown, but Mason and Robin had given up after I had repeated the same things I had told them in the Three Broomsticks. Sam, on the other hand, had been persistent. Maybe it was because she hadn’t been there to hear it from me in person, or maybe it was because she was the stubborn Beater that was Sam, but no matter how many times I told her to stay focused, she kept asking why . Her questions had become so frequent and so numerous lately that I had stopped responding in the hope she would give up eventually. 

Obviously no luck so far. This was Sam we were talking about. 

Penny took a sip of her tea. “Mm-hm.”

“Where is it?” I asked. 

“It’s not for you. She sent it to me.”

I set my mug down before I could drop it. “What?”

“That’s right. She was asking about you though.”

“And what did she say?”

Penny cradled her mug gently between her slender fingers, keeping her eyes on the fire. “I haven’t responded yet,” she said calmly, “in case you were wondering. Wouldn’t want you to think I was gossiping behind your back.”

I winced. “Pen.”

She nodded, although at what, I couldn’t tell. “She seems to think,” she began slowly, “that you’ve gotten yourself in trouble. And that you’ve decided to push them away because of it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, as if Sam hadn’t said exactly the same thing in all her letters to me. “Why would she think that?”

“Good question. What did you tell Mason and Robin?”

“Nothing outrageous. I only told them to focus on their studies.”

Penny looked at me sharply. “You what?”

I spread my palms. “It’s what they should be doing.”

“Since when have you cared about that?” she asked. I opened my mouth to answer, but she cut me off with a frustrated wave of her hand. “No, don’t give me some excuse. I’m not blind, Lily, and I don’t need Sam to tell me something’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on,” I said, but I couldn’t look at her as I said it. I didn’t like how the firelight glinted off her eyes.

“Want me to make a list? You’ve been jumping at shadows, you’ve started skipping meals again, and”—she grabbed my shoulder, forcing me to turn my torso in her direction—“you barely look at me anymore. Does this have something to do with me? Is it something I did?”

I shrugged off her hand. “No. It’s not...it wouldn’t be your fault.”

“Did something happen with Merula then? You won’t tell me what the two of you have been involved in, but—”

“No!” I exclaimed. “This has nothing to do with Merula.”

Penny set her mug down with a soft thunk. “I don’t believe this,” she breathed. 

“I’m telling the truth!”

“No, I know—because that’s the first honest thing you’ve said tonight.” She laughed in disbelief, her voice rising. “Merula was right. You really are a terrible liar.”

“Penny,” I begged. 

“No, shut up. I told you...I told you last December to come to me—to come to your friends if something bad ever happened again. That was almost a year ago. Bad things have been happening, and not once—not once—have you said anything. You either won’t talk about it, you snap at me, or you outright lie. I’m getting real tired of this, Lilianna.”

I closed my eyes tightly. The burning in my chest had returned, and not the kind that came with holding my breath. 

“Does nothing I say matter to you?” she demanded. 

My eyes snapped back open. There was more than firelight glinting around her irises now, and it caused something to crumble inside me. “Of course it does,” I said quietly. 

She swallowed, and when she spoke, her voice was unexpectedly soft again. “Then talk to me. If you can’t tell me what’s going on, at least tell me what I can do to help. I’m your friend. I want to be your friend, but I can’t make it better if you won’t let me.”

She moved her hand back near my shoulder, but I recoiled before she could touch me. If I could, I wouldn’t have known where to begin. How was I supposed to tell her that, yes, actually, being in her presence was physically painful? How was I supposed to explain that everything was slipping out of my control, and I didn’t know how to fix it without hurting others in the process? She didn’t even know what had happened between me and Tonks; neither of us had told her. How could we? Two of her best friends were barely speaking to each other...it would destroy her. 

Mr. Darrow had told me not to tell her anything. She would be furious at him if she found out, certainly, but then how would he retaliate? He clearly had influence in this town. Penny had a nice place here—a nice shop, a nice reputation, a nice relationship. I wasn’t going to let her sacrifice that for me, so I wasn’t even going to give her the chance to. I would have to figure this out on my own. 

Whatever happened, if only one of us would be able to maintain their position here, then she would be the best witch for the job. 

“Are you going to say something?” she asked, a desperate edge to her words. The fire was rapidly fading from her face, and her hope along with it. 

I took a shaky breath, and then, slowly, I shook my head. She stared at me, but as I had nothing else to offer her, I stared back at the flames. 

“I give up,” she muttered, shoving herself to her feet. “I’m done with this. Suffer on your own then!” she shouted and slammed her bedroom door behind her. 

I flinched, knocking my hand into my mug. It tipped over, and I could only watch as tea spread out across the rug, darkening the cheery yellow stripes. That seemed about right. 

Putting my face in my hands, I swore softly. Another log popped in the fireplace, spitting the sentiment right back. 

* * * *

Filch didn’t want to let me into the castle, but I refused to stop badgering him until he did. When it came down to a battle of wills, I was just a bit more stubborn than he was, and when I threatened to camp outside the gates until he let me see Dumbledore, he finally relented, knowing full well we would both be stuck in the cold until December if he didn’t. I was rewarded, though, with an “accidental” whack from his Probity Probe while he searched me, which was fair enough. 

He also insisted on escorting me all the way to the headmaster’s office, and admittedly, I didn’t respond to that as well as I could have. After over a week of too little sleep and too much stress, I was running low on patience, and I had no desire to climb half the staircases with the grouchy caretaker hobbling at my side. So, we argued for the entire length of the ground floor, startling several students on their way to class and drawing more than a few glances. 

I paused on the first step of the Grand Staircase before he could follow me. “I’m perfectly capable of finding the office by myself,” I said for the hundredth time. 

“I don’t trust you,” he growled, also for the hundredth time. 

“You’ve known me for years!”

“Doesn’t help your case. If it were up to me, you’d still be in the dungeons with the house elves.”

“I graduated!”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“What is going on here?” a stern voice demanded, and I froze as McGonagall appeared behind me. 

“I need to see Dumbledore,” I said, at the same time Filch said, “She’s here to cause trouble.” I glared at him in response. 

“You’re an hour too late,” McGonagall said. “Professor Dumbledore left. He’ll be gone for at least a week.”

“What?” I exclaimed. I looked at Filch. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

He smirked. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”

“You hit me for no reason!”

“Enough,” McGonagall ordered. “Lily, in my office. Argus, thank you, that’ll be all.”

Scowling, Filch stalked off, while I silently followed McGonagall around the corner to her office, trying not to sulk. In the quiet of the small room, she closed the door behind us and gestured for me to take a seat. When I didn’t, she moved behind her desk with a sigh and remained standing, although her features emanated tired wariness. 

“What happened?” she asked tersely. 

“I need to see Dumbledore.”

“So you said. What happened?”

I fidgeted, bursting with too much energy to hold still, and it felt like everything else wanted to spill out with it. “I can’t do this anymore,” I blurted. “I’m no good here, not for the Order. I can’t use any of my skills here. I...I’m downright useless honestly. I could accomplish a lot more elsewhere, with a different job.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Albus wants you here,” she said calmly.

“And I don’t understand why!” I braced my hands against her desk before I could start pacing. “I’ve done nothing to protect the school, not from one incident this past year. And Tonks and Bill are the ones that get called over to do extra security work, never mind that I’m right here! You don’t need me, so what’s the point? I would do so much better undercover, or on stakeouts, or...or something!”

She sighed again and gave me a tired look. “I don’t know any more than you. But if Albus thinks you should be here, I’m inclined to trust his judgement. If you would be patient—”

“Stop telling me to be patient!” I snapped. She shot me a withering glare, and I shrank back, horrified. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That wasn’t...I shouldn’t have...I’m sorry.”

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, taking a deep breath. When she opened them again, she fixed me with a shrewd stare. “What are you running from?” she asked seriously. 

“I’m not...I’m not running from anything.”

She scoffed. “Remus said the same thing. Your brother too.”

I went perfectly still. “And yet you let them go undercover?” I said slowly.

“I did no such thing. Albus assigned their missions.”

I swallowed hard, feeling a deeper kind of fury rising. Dumbledore had known. He had known the kind of state they were in, and he had still let them go. 

“You’re not a coward,” McGonagall said. “I have always known that. So, if something has scared you, then you can trust that I will take it seriously.”

“Nothing’s scared me,” I protested. 

“Says the one digging her claws into my desk.”

I looked at my hands in alarm. My fingers were white-knuckled and clenched, threatening to scratch the wood as my nails dug into it. I yanked my hands back and tucked them against my ribs before they could do any damage. “Cat jokes?” I asked weakly, at a lack of anything better to say. 

Her lips twitched. “It was either that or yell at you, and you were already doing enough yelling for the both of us.”

“Sorry.”

“Are we calmer now?”

“A little.”

“Good. Now, sit down. ”

I dropped into the chair before the command had finished echoing off the walls. As soon as she was sure I was firmly in my seat, she sat down as well with an expression of relief.

“Tell me what the issue is,” she said, not unkindly. 

I hesitated. “I really think it would be better if I spoke with Professor Dumbledore.”

She drew her shoulders back, affronted. “I may not have the same level of skill as him, but I assure you I can still provide plenty of assistance.”

“With all due respect, Professor, this is one situation where I would be more comfortable speaking with him.”

Several long beats passed by while she processed this, her fingers intertwined on the desk, but the moment it clicked was clear when she laid her hands down flat. “Ah. Something happened between you and Penny then,” she stated rather than asked. 

I grimaced. “It’s...it’s more than that.”

“Are you being threatened?”

I struggled to phrase my answer, which proved to be an answer in and of itself.

“Never mind,” she said. “Are you in any immediate danger?”

“No.”

“Well, I suppose that’s one upside,” she said wryly. “What can I do?”

I waved a hand aimlessly. “I honestly don’t know.” Partially to myself, I added, “It’s mostly my fault, anyway.” 

She looked at me expectantly, but when I didn’t elaborate, she said, “I’ll tell Albus to contact you as soon as he returns. You’ll have your conversation with him.”

I straightened. “Really?”

She nodded. 

I slumped forward again, letting out a breath in relief. “Thank you.”

“ But, ” she said sternly, “if anything changes before then, you come directly to me, understand?” I nodded my assent, but I must not have looked very happy about it because she asked, “What is the issue now?”

“Some protector that would make me,” I muttered. “Can’t even protect myself.”

“Lilianna,” she said, exasperated. “Protector, yes. Not savior. You’re not supposed to do everything by yourself. You are part of an order . That kind of commitment requires some cooperation with others.”

I looked at her warily, not quite believing it.

“Don’t sacrifice your knight when your king is vulnerable,” she continued. “I still expect you to remember that. Our side can’t afford needless sacrifices.”

“And if others would be sacrificed instead?” I asked quietly. “Who has the power to make that kind of decision?”

She stiffened, unexpectedly startled. “I…” She faltered, at a rare loss for words. “I wouldn’t be the person to ask about that.”

I braced my arms against my thighs, feeling panic well up again. 

She shifted in her chair, and I heard the rustle of her robes as she leaned closer to me. “Breathe, girl. Focus on what’s right in front of you.”

I nodded slowly.

“I need verbal confirmation.”

“That I’ll breathe, or that I won’t sacrifice myself?” I asked. 

She narrowed her eyes. “Take a guess.”

“Okay, I’ll breathe.”

“ Flores, ” she scolded, and I laughed softly.

“I’ll let you get back to work,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. 

She stayed seated, and she put her fingers to her temples as I walked toward the door. “Take care of yourself,” she ordered. “At least until you hear from Albus.”

“I’ll try.”

“Now, why don’t I believe you,” she said dryly. I pretended not to hear her as I closed the door behind me. 

I did feel better, at least by a little, but I wouldn’t relax until I got some answers from Dumbledore. This was the closest I had come in months, which was a start, but it still fell short of an actual conversation. For a man that was supposed to be my leader, he had been surprisingly absent for a long time. 

I took a deep breath as I passed the Great Hall, skirting around the students flowing to and from breakfast. I could fulfill one promise to McGonagall at least. One foot in front of the other. 

“Lily!” a familiar voice called. My stomach sank. I had been hoping to slip away unnoticed. 

I had barely begun to turn in the direction of the call when I was tackled from the side in a hug. But, as quickly as Sam had crashed into me, she leapt back, and then I was left stumbling. I caught myself on a suit of armor before I could fall over. It creaked at me angrily, likely unhappy with the fingerprints on its fresh polish. 

“Sorry!” she exclaimed. “I got excited.”

I put my hand on my heart, feeling it pounding beneath my fingers. “Sam,” I said, startled. I didn’t have a better greeting. This hadn’t been part of the plan, which was another instance of short-sightedness on my part. 

In contrast to the boys, Sam had changed very little since I had seen her months ago. She was maybe a little taller—which would make her taller than me—and maybe a little more well-defined in curves and muscle, but she was still the wide-shouldered, raven-haired Ravenclaw I knew. Only, instead of sporting her usual scowl, she was actually smiling. 

“Did you really think you could stop writing and get away with it?” She jabbed me with a finger, although it was more playful than aggressive. “Uh-uh, not when you wrote to us all summer. You owe me some answers.”

“Sam,” I repeated, struggling for words. “Now’s not really a good time.”

Her smile faded, to be replaced with concern. “What’s been going on? And don’t pretend like it’s nothing. The boys said you were acting weird. They can be prats sometimes, sure, but I know they wouldn’t do something stupid enough to upset you.”

I shifted uncomfortably, feeling cornered between her towering form and the wall. “No, it’s not them,” I said, my voice low. “Look, it’s complicated. I can’t—”

“What is it then? I can help. I know I can.”

I shook my head. “No. Sam, no.” That would defeat the whole purpose of what I was trying to accomplish. 

“Why not?” she insisted. There was her favorite question again: why? As a Ravenclaw, I should have been proud, if I hadn’t been wishing I could Disapparate from inside the school grounds. 

“You just can’t, all right?”

She rolled her eyes. “That is such a grown-up thing to say. That’s not an answer.”

I wanted to groan in frustration. “I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

She crossed her arms. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can,” I said softly, smiling slightly despite myself. 

“Then why can’t I help?” she demanded, her voice beginning to rise. 

I shushed her, my eyes flicking to the rest of the corridor. Most students cast curious glances as they passed. Some slowed their pace, not so subtly attempting to listen in. I wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t often an adult (if I could be called that) other than a teacher stopped by the school, or got into an argument with another student no less. But it still sent a wave of anxiety over my skin. 

She followed my gaze, and now her scowl made an appearance. “You’re worried about them?” she scoffed. “Since when have you cared what other people think about you?”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” I murmured. I was drawing as much attention to her as I was to myself—the whole issue I had been trying to avoid in the first place. 

“Well, I don’t care either! What are they gonna do? I carry a bat in my free time.” 

“Sam,” I finally groaned. Her voice was only getting louder. 

“That is my name.”

I bit my tongue once, hard. “I told you,” I said quietly, “it’s complicated. I need to work some things out by myself.”

She frowned as she struggled to work out what that meant. “Does…” she began uncertainly, “does that mean you’re not in danger?”

That was debatable. “I’ll be fine,” is what I said instead. 

I had expected her to look relieved. She didn’t. In fact, she looked even more furious, her scowl twisting deeper. “If you’re not going to tell me what’s going on, fine,” she spat. “But at least tell me this has nothing to do with us. Tell me this has nothing to do with me.”

I frowned as well, confused what she was asking. 

“You said this isn’t because of anything the boys did, right? You meant that?”

“Of course.”

“Then this isn’t about me either, right?” 

I was slow to answer because, for a moment, I misunderstood. After all, this was about her—and the boys, at least partially. They were half the reason Mr. Darrow had approached me in the first place, and they were half the reason I had caved to his threats. I wanted to protect them, and because of this, I couldn’t say this had nothing to do with her. 

“Tell me this isn’t about me!” she repeated furiously, her voice ringing out across the corridor.

With a start, I realized what she truly meant, and I came to that realization too late. I had already been silent too long. 

She gasped, going strangely still, and her fierce expression broke. Tears welled up, bitter and angry and hurt . 

She didn’t think I was protecting her. She thought I wanted nothing to do with her.

“No, no, no, Sam!” I gasped, reaching out to her. “That’s not it! That’s not it!” She backed away, and before I could take a step toward her, she whirled around and sprinted down the corridor. “Sam. Sam!” I called, to no avail. She had already disappeared into the flood of black robes around us. 

I helplessly ran a hand through my hair. Shite . 

Some of the whispers in the flood grew louder. 

“Do you know who that is?”

“Wait, wait, I do! Isn’t that…?”

“It is!”

“Isn’t she supposed to be mad?”

“If she knows Samantha Leigh? She must be.”

My eyes landed on a group of older Ravenclaws—old enough that they could have been at Hogwarts when I was their prefect—and when they realized I had noticed them, they immediately ducked their heads and kept walking. 

Oh, things just had to keep getting worse, didn’t they?

Digging my nails into my palm, I walked swiftly toward the doors. I had messed up. I had most definitely messed up, and now I needed to fix it. 

If only I knew where to begin. 

Chapter Text

November 1996

I dove to the ground as the world exploded around me. Dirt and grass rained down on my head as I smoothly rolled back to my feet. There was nothing but a charred, smoking crater where I had been standing, a fate I would have shared if I hadn’t moved in time. 

“Are you trying to kill me?” I roared, launching a curse in return. 

Merula danced out of the way, laughing delightedly as my spell scorched a black mark across the tree behind her. “Are you going to let me?” she taunted. 

She launched another Blasting Curse, but I reflected it back at her, forcing her to move again—directly into the line of my next spell. She stumbled, trying to change direction as the red bolt pelted toward her, too fast to dodge. But then she vanished in a whirl of feathers, and the spell sparked harmlessly against the grass. 

I spun on my heel as the little bird darted around me, and I struggled to track her as she bounced from air current to air current, far too small and erratic to hit. There was a soft thud as her feet struck the ground, just behind me, and I shot a spell at the source before I had even finished turning around. 

“Too slow!” she laughed, no more than a blur of movement in my peripheral vision, and then the ball of brown feathers was darting around me again. 

She had gotten extremely good at switching smoothly between forms, which was wonderful...normally. Right now, it was just plain infuriating. 

She landed behind me again, and I missed again. And again. And again. Then her boot hit my backside, and I stumbled forward while she cackled. 

“Cheater!” I shouted as she darted out of the way of my retaliatory Freezing Charm. That had been contact!

“I never said we were playing by the rules!”

I took a breath, forcing myself to relax enough to listen for her movement. Wings fluttered directly overhead. No, to the right. Now behind me, slightly to the left. Ha! She was trying to move into my blindspot. 

I didn’t wait for her boots to thud to the ground; I moved first. Like I was brandishing a whip, I snapped my wrist alongside my left shoulder, and she leapt back as the spell arced toward her, catching her across the face. Another flutter of feathers, and she reappeared a safe distance across the field. There was a fresh cut on her forehead, which she touched with a wince. “Good one,” she said in mild surprise. 

I widened my stance, bracing my hands against my knees while I struggled to catch my breath. Ten minutes. We had been dueling for ten minutes, and that was the first hit I had managed to land. Merula, on the other hand, had already left me with a number of bruises and a handful of minor burns. When she had said she wanted to duel outside, I hadn’t realized that involved trying to blow each other up. 

It was good we were in the field behind the manor instead of the ballroom. Even Reparo couldn’t repair some of the damage she was attempting to do to me. 

My point was proven when I immediately had to throw myself to the ground to avoid the jet of flames over my head. 

“Are you even trying?” she called. 

I rolled to my feet again. “Will you knock it off?” I shouted. I launched a barrage of spells in her direction— Stupefy, Expelliarmus, Flipendo, Confringo, Bombarda, Depulso, Everte Statum , and whatever else popped into my head—but she lazily danced out of the way of each one.

“Come on, kitty cat. You can do better than that!”

“ Expulso! ” I yelled, throwing the rest of my pride away with the first verbal spell. In a burst of blue light, the air exploded around her, slamming her to the ground. 

But as quickly as she went down, she hopped up again with a shout of, “ Expelliarmus! Incarcerous! Flipendo Maxima! ” and before I registered what was happening, my wand had ripped itself from my hand. Startled by its sudden absence, I could do nothing as ropes wrapped themselves around my torso, pinning my arms to my body, and then I was flying backwards, launched into the air by an invisible force that had slammed into my chest. 

I crashed to the ground a good ten meters away and skidded to a stop at the base of a small hill—gravity being the only thing to prevent me from flying any farther. Too stunned to feel any pain, I gasped for breath, but all that came out of my mouth was a horrid choking noise. My chest heaved fruitlessly, finding no air to drag into my lungs. Pressure squeezed my throat, and when I moved my head, one of the bands of rope scraped against my skin. With my hands trapped at my sides, I wiggled my shoulders in an attempt to slip it off my neck, but the rope only tightened, because of course that’s what the spell did. Wandless, near immobile, and running out of oxygen, I thrashed about in a panic, clawing at the grass, at my robes, at anything my hands could touch that might prevent me from suffocating. 

Footsteps pounded across the field. “God, Lily! Finite Incantatem! ” 

The ropes vanished. Air flooded into my lungs, too fast, and burned against my throat. I gasped and coughed, clutching at the raw skin on my neck. Placing a hand on my back, Merula pushed me up into a sitting position while I tried not to choke on each ragged breath. Spots, like wand sparks, floated across my vision, and I had to close my eyes before they could make me dizzy. 

“Can you speak?” she asked, gently moving her fingers over my ribs. 

“What...the...hell,” I coughed, my voice hoarse. 

She snorted. “In my defense, I didn’t expect it to actually hit you. You were supposed to dodge it.”

I lay back down with a groan. “I don’t believe you.”

With the shock fading, the pain was beginning to make an appearance, and it hurt . Every muscle shook when I moved, and every cut stung. My ribs and tailbone ached especially, and my skin was sore and irritated where the ropes had strangled me. Not to mention how it felt to breathe . 

“Anything broken?” she asked. 

“My hubris.”

“You never had that.”

“Wow.”

“I don’t suppose you feel up to wandless practice anymore,” she said wryly. 

“No, thanks,” I mumbled. “I’m just gonna lie here a moment” 

Clouds began to drift away from the sun, and I shielded my eyes from the sudden brightness with the back of my hand. It was a pleasant day for November. Gloucestershire had missed the early snow that was being dumped on the Highlands, so it was nice to be outside without a dozen extra layers beneath my robes. I had almost forgotten what sunlight felt like, even if it was still accompanied by a wintery chill. 

It was also nice to be away from the village, if only briefly. With the thick forests and low hills around the field and manor, there were no prying eyes here. No whispers either, besides that of the breeze. It was just me and Merula. Quiet and peaceful...when we weren’t causing explosions. 

“I know you don’t like to lose,” she joked, “but that was just dramatic.”

I rolled my eyes, forgetting she couldn’t see them. “How does it feel?” I asked begrudgingly. “To say you officially beat me in a duel.”

“Mm, nope, doesn’t count.”

I uncovered my eyes to squint at her. “What do you mean it doesn’t count? You beat me. I would be dead right now if it had been real.”

She shook her head. “Yeah, sure, if it had been real. But it wasn’t. I said dueling you would only be fun if it was a challenge. You barely put any effort in. Doesn’t count.”

“Barely put any effort—!” I bolted upright, but my outraged cry dissolved into a gasp when my ribs protested. 

“Oh, come on, Flores.” She ticked off her fingers. “You got hit by three long-range verbal spells, none of which were above a jinx. You were moving slowly, casting recklessly. And you let me goad you. When I told you to shut that brain off sometimes, I didn't mean literally.” She crossed her arms. “If you want me to believe that’s the best you can do, then that’s just sad.”

“Why can’t you just take the win?” I grumbled. 

“I’ll take the win when I duel Lily Flores. Not whoever you are.”

Annoyed, I sank back to the ground and closed my eyes again, trying not to focus on any one ache. Merlin, had she really had to have hit me that hard? I was dying for a Wiggenweld Potion, but I had left my belt at the Cauldron. 

She shifted closer to me. “What’s up?”

Everyone hates me because I let an old man scare me. “I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” I sighed instead. I was having trouble thinking clearly, as she had unfortunately pointed out. 

“That’s fine with me,” she said, and I heard her shift again. Then, I froze as her fingers lightly traced across my forehead, brushing my hair out of my face. She paused, as if waiting for a reaction, but when I did nothing, she continued, taking each stroke in a different direction. Her fingers trailed over my brow, along the edge of my hair, behind my ears, and across my scalp. It was an odd gesture from someone that had never been touchy-feely, but I couldn’t complain. It felt so good with the way her fingernails gently massaged my skin as they moved. Between that and the sun on my face, I could lie here forever, sinking into the field until the grass grew over me too. 

“How much will it take for you to start purring?” she asked with an audible smirk. 

I swung blindly, and to my satisfaction, my hand connected with her shoulder. 

“Ow,” she laughed. “Where was that energy during our duel?”

“‘Rula,” I complained. 

“Fine. Don’t bully Lily today, is that it?” she said, and before I could answer, she poked me sharply between the ribs. I flinched away with a whine. “You’ve lost weight,” she noted. 

“Thank you?”

“It wasn’t a compliment. No wonder you’re so slow, honestly. You’re going to start losing muscle if you don’t eat properly, you know.”

I blew out a tired breath. “I know.”

“I keep telling you not to be an idiot, Flores. Don’t be an idiot.”

“ I know. ”

“Prove it then.”

I didn’t respond. What did she expect me to do? Magically conjure some food to prove I could still take care of myself? That would be literally asking the impossible. 

Her boots dragged across the ground as she stood up, and then her footsteps were moving away. I cracked open an eyelid to see her walking, not toward the manor, but back across the field, toward the tree I had accidentally scarred. She bent down, as if to pick something up, but abruptly leapt back with a yelp less than a second later. 

“Your wand shocked me!” she exclaimed furiously. 

I laughed—and then coughed painfully. “Only a small shock?” I called in hoarse amusement. 

“It’s not funny!”

I thought it was. My laurel wand hated to be disarmed without my consent. If it had wanted to, it could have done a lot worse to her. 

Stretching out an arm through the grass, I silently declared, Accio wand! Nothing happened. “ Accio wand! ” I repeated aloud. Now it wobbled pitifully toward me, occasionally dipping down to tumble on the ground. By the time it slid into my hand (and tingled threatenly against my fingers), my face was burning. 

Merula returned to my side, and I covered my eyes so I couldn’t see her smirk. “Don’t say anything,” I muttered. 

“Now why would I do that?” she said smugly.  

Ignoring her, I secured my wand back in its sheath. I owed it an apology. And some polish. 

Her shadow leaned over me. “Come on,” she said, wrapping her fingers around my arms. “Up we go.”

I groaned and lay limp. “No.”

“Yes.” She began pulling, and I sucked in a breath through my teeth as my body screamed at me in protest. “Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she chided, and yanked me the rest of the way to my feet. I stumbled into her, and she caught my shoulder with a laugh. “Better?”

“Definitely not.” Breathing had just become ten times harder. 

“You will be in a moment. We’ll get you some Wiggenweld Potion, and then I wanna do something fun.”

I looked at her warily. “Fun?”

“Yes, fun. You do know what fun is, don’t you?”

Of course I did, but since snapping at her sarcasm wouldn’t prove it, I bit my tongue. I was far more concerned with what she thought fun was instead. Today had already involved more than enough fire and explosions. 

“Oh, lighten up.” She playfully shook my shoulder. “Let’s go for a flight.”

“I can’t fly,” I pointed out. Not without a broom, at least. 

“You can run with me. Or climb trees, or whatever it is that cats do, I don’t care. I want to get out of here, away from this house.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Nope.” She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, practically bursting with excitement. “We’ve been training for months, but when’s the last time we actually got out and did something? I want to go exploring . There are a couple of old castles to the west of here. We could be there and back before sundown.”

“I...I don’t know,” I said. It should have sounded nice, and maybe it did, but everything hurt. For once, curling up in the sun again sounded a lot better than running through an old ruin. 

“Don’t answer now! Take the potion first before you say no.” With a grin, she stepped close to me. Startlingly close. “I’ll even say please,” she whispered mischievously, and laid her hand on the inside of my arm. 

My mind abruptly flashed to my last girlfriend. In intimate moments—lying in bed, cuddling together on the couch, watching the stars—she had traced her fingers right there, along the inside of my arm, and she had always done that right before she had kissed me. 

I jolted, as if electrocuted by her touch, and Merula withdrew in surprise. She raised her hands, still grinning, still playful, but a little more uncertain. “All right,” she said lightly. “Don’t touch Lily now, apparently. You’re weird, Flores.”

I hooked my fingers on the collar of my robes, terrified by how fast my heart was beating. My brain warned, Wrong, wrong, wrong , over and over again, and I couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t want to figure out why. 

“You can be really mean sometimes, you know,” I blurted. The words came out all on their own, launched by the ringing of the alarms in my head. 

I had said worse things—we both had, but she stiffened, drawing her shoulders back. “Right,” she said coolly, her expression suddenly hard, “we’re obviously done for the day.” And before I could respond, she turned around and strode toward the manor. 

“Merula!” I called, but she didn’t look back. Instead, she flicked a hand over her shoulder, a clear message of, Buzz off . 

I didn’t chase after her. With how foggy my head was and with how much my body ached, anything I could think to say was more likely to make the situation worse than better. You would think that, at least once in these past few months, I would have learned to keep my mouth shut, but nooo, that’s not how the story went, was it?

I bit my tongue, about ready to scream in frustration. So much for not being an idiot.

* * * *

As I Apparated to the yard behind the Cauldron, I hit the landing too hard, stumbled, and then fell to my knees in the snow. What a sight I must have made as I hobbled to the door—a little burned, very bruised, and covered in a mess of dirt, grass, and slush. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to be around to see it, so of course Penny was standing at the bottom of the stairs when I entered. And of course she wasn’t alone. 

She had her hands on Conall’s chest, having pushed his back against the wall, and she was standing on her tip-toes as she brought her face close to his, nose tip to nose tip. They were laughing softly, murmuring words I couldn’t (and didn’t want to) catch. Her eyes flicked to me briefly as I closed the door, but then she did a double-take, bringing her feet down flat on the floor. 

“What happened?” she exclaimed. 

“Lost a duel with Merula,” I muttered. “Don’t want to talk about it.” Without looking at her, I limped into the storeroom to grab a vial of Wiggenweld Potion, and then pushed past them as I began to drag myself up the stairs.

I could feel her eyes follow me. “Did you get a—?” she started to ask.

I held up the vial so that the vivid green liquid was clearly visible from over my shoulder, but I didn’t stop walking.

“The potion will work better if you eat something!” she called after me. 

I waved noncommittally and pushed through the door to the flat, but not before I heard Conall whisper, “Is she okay?”

I was better after I took the potion. Not great, just better. The aching in my ribs and the soreness in my throat went away, and most of my cuts and bruises faded. The deeper injuries would take longer to heal though, and it didn’t change the fact that I was absolutely exhausted. 

Tired of being nagged about it, I ate a little pasta to please Penny (leaving the plate in the sink where she could see it), showered, and went straight to bed. The sun hadn’t completely set yet, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was tired of feeling miserable. 

There was a light knock on my bedroom door not long after I had buried myself in blankets. “Lily?” Penny’s voice asked, muffled through the wood. “Are you okay?”

I rolled over, turning my back to the door. When it creaked open, I held still, pretending to be asleep. Penny stood there silently as she deliberated whether or not to call my bluff. After what felt like an eternity, the door closed again, and her footsteps moved away. 

I would feel better after I slept. I would feel better after I slept. I would feel better after I slept. 

That’s what I had hoped, but while I did sleep, I can guarantee I did not feel better afterwards. 

I had never taken the “falling” part of “falling asleep” literally before, but there was no other way to describe what happened. As I lost consciousness, something in the depths of my mind snapped, and the darkness behind my eyes folded in on itself. Black nothingness pressed in on me, shoving me down. It was as if I was bound in ropes again; only, I had no sense of being, no ribs to crush, no neck to choke. I was collapsing, falling, suffocating.

A roaring rose to meet me, growing louder and louder, and then I was slammed back into existence—back into a world of sound and light and color, and it was deafening. Shouts and screams echoed in the distance, followed by explosions that shook the ground I lay on. Somehow, I was sprawled out face first on a cracked stone floor, surrounded by the broken remnants of the walls and ceiling, with a few scattered pieces of statues thrown about. I shakily pushed myself to my knees, coughing from the dust that lined my throat and coated my skin. Smoke and dust hung thick in the air, frequently illuminated by distant bursts of light. 

I was yet again in the broken corridor from my first vision, the very last place I ever wanted to be. Panicked, I looked to the smoke at the end of the corridor, but Merula wasn’t there. No one was. Besides me and the poor statues, the place was empty. Whatever battle was going on, the worst of the fight was elsewhere. 

This wasn’t good. Everything was too vivid for a dream. Too real. I had to get out of here. 

Instinctively, I put my hand on my wand sheath, and my stomach plummeted. The sheath was empty. My wand was gone. 

Fixing an image of laurel and marble in my mind, I raised my hand and tried to shout, Accio wand! But while my lips moved, no sound came out, exactly like all the times before. 

No, no, no, no. I was trapped in my own head. How was I supposed to get out of my head?

I climbed unsteadily to my feet. Maybe if I left the corridor, went beyond the smoke, the nightmare would end. 

I stumbled forward, trying not to trip over the rubble, when something firm caught my foot and sent me sprawling again. Startled, I started to push myself off the thing I had fallen on, but I froze when my hand connected with it. It was too soft to be stone, but it was also too cold to be what it felt like. Slowly, I looked down at my hands. If I had the ability to, I would have screamed. 

A body. I had fallen on a body. It was a girl, about the same age as Sam, and her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Her throat was torn, as if ripped out by an animal. Blood had spilled out, soaking into her robes, pooling around her head, and...and covering my hands. My hands were covered in scarlet. Viscous, sticky scarlet. 

I scrambled backward, scraping my elbows against the rubble in my mad dash away from the body, and I didn’t stop until my back hit the wall. I slumped against it, my chest heaving. But when I glanced to the side, I would have screamed again. There was another body propped up against the wall next to me, an older man. His head was lolled forward so that his chin rested on his chest, and his hood had been pulled up to shield half his face. But I didn’t need to see his face to see the long gash across his neck—or the blood that had poured out into his lap. 

There was blood everywhere—on the walls, on the floor, on me. The entire corridor was filled with it, and it was still filling with it, slowly turning the stone scarlet. I wanted to cover my eyes, but I couldn’t, not without also getting it on my face. 

A voice rumbled, so distant that it was barely audible, and yet it shook the walls with its power: Blood awoke...and flesh. Soon, when blood runs...be prepared to wake... 

The roaring rose again, drowning out the remaining words.

“Lily!” Another voice, much louder and much closer, cut through the roaring and the screams and the rumbling. With it, the corridor began to fold, pushing me back into darkness. Back into suffocating nothingness. This time, though, I was able to scream.

“Lily! Lily, shhh. It’s all right! It’s okay! Oh, please wake up, love.”

Penny’s presence finally registered, as did the mattress of my bed, but they did nothing to calm me down. I could still smell the smoke in the air, still feel the dust on my skin. And the blood—it was all over me. It was dampening my back, running down my face, and soaking my hands. It pooled in each crevasse on my palms, and it worked its way under my nails, all warm and sticky. 

Hands, too cold, grabbed my arms, and I was certain I had been grabbed by another corpse. It was pinning me down, trying to strangle me. My blankets were trying to strangle me too. Thick and heavy, they tied down my limbs, trapping me in the blood. 

“It’s me! It’s just me!” Penny exclaimed. “Lily, hey, hey, hey!” She ripped the blankets off me. Suddenly free, I bolted upright, but she caught my shoulders before I could launch out of bed. “It’s all right, love. Come back to me.”

“There’s blood,” I whimpered. “Blood everywhere. It...it’s on my hands. It’s…”

“There’s no blood. Hey, sh-sh-shhh. There’s no blood on your hands. Look. Lumos! ” Grabbing my wrist, she held her illuminated wand over my palms. They shook violently, but while my skin was ghostly in the low light, there was no sign of the sticky scarlet I felt. “There’s nothing on your hands. See? It’s all in your head. It’s just in your head.”

“You don’t...you don’t know that.” It had been another vision. What if that was all destined to come true? My God, what if it was true?

I clamped my trembling hands over my mouth as bile rose into my throat. I was hot and cold at the same time. And I couldn’t breathe. I was choking again. I—

“You’re okay,” Penny said softly. She lifted my hair off my neck. “Deep breaths.”

I couldn’t answer, not when I didn’t dare open my mouth. But I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t . 

“Listen. You can hear my voice, right? You can hear this?”

Shakily, I nodded. Her voice was so soft and gentle, and yet it cut across the roaring, driving it a little farther away. Not far enough though. 

“Good. What’s something else you can hear?”

I shook my head. 

“Just one thing,” she insisted. “You can do it.”

“No,” I protested weakly. We were not doing this. 

“We have to do something , and I’m not going to fight you over a Calming Draught. Come on, you’ve done this with me hundreds of times. What’s another thing you can hear?”

“I...I hear…” My breath was coming in gasps. I squeezed my eyes shut and wrapped my arms around myself. “I hear my heart pounding. And...and there’s a roaring…”

“No,” she gently chastised. “Find something outside of your body.”

“I…” I pressed my forehead to my knees, trying to listen beyond the rapid beating of my heart in my ears. “I hear...nothing.” I took a deeper breath, focusing on the stillness of the room. “It’s quiet,” I murmured. 

“Good. Now what’s something you can touch?”

We continued like that for a while, going through the senses, until I was firmly grounded back in reality. My heart rate slowed down, as did my breathing, and the shivers became more intermittent. I still felt shaky and sick though, like I was recovering from a bad case of the flu.

At the very least, I had regained awareness of my surroundings—my real surroundings—enough so to remember that I had never left my bed. Penny kneeled beside me on the mattress, her long hair tangled around her shoulders and a pale blue nightgown pulled crooked across her body. She was a light sleeper, but I didn’t want to think what kind of noise I had made to send her running to my room. 

She tucked my hair behind my ear. “You’re okay,” she soothed. “You’re safe.”

I nodded tiredly, now far more embarrassed than terrified. 

“Do you want me to send for someone? Merula, maybe? Or your mum?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not staying alone tonight.” She absentmindedly played with my hair, twisting the short tips around her fingers. “You can either put up with me, or I can go get someone. Up to you.”

“No. No, you’re fine,” I said. “I...I don’t want to worry anyone else.”

Her fingers stilled. She sighed in exasperation. “That should be the last thing on your mind right now. You need to worry about yourself.” She paused, her breath catching. “Seriously, this...this isn’t good. It hasn’t been good for a while.”

Without my glasses, I couldn’t make out her expression in the darkness, but her tone was enough to make my chest tighten painfully. “Please,” I said faintly, “don’t leave me. I need…” I took a shuddering breath. “I need help.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, her voice unusually thick. Then she ordered, “Budge up,” and I had to scramble to make room for her as she climbed under the blankets. 

I pulled the blankets back over me as well, not exactly cold, but finding comfort in their weight. The mattress bounced as Penny nestled into a comfortable position, far enough away that we weren’t touching, but close enough that I could feel the heat from her body. This wasn’t the first time we had shared a bed. We had done so for the entire week Ava and her team had stayed over, and there was enough trust between us that it had never been too awkward. But this time felt different from the rest, because, this time, we both knew something was wrong. The space between us held something fragile, and I was afraid that, if I moved, I would break it beyond repair. 

“I’ll send an owl to Dumbledore in the morning,” she said, her face tilted toward the stars on the ceiling. “Then we’ll head to the castle as soon as you’re ready.”

“He won’t respond,” I objected. It had been much longer than a week since I had spoken with McGonagall. Dumbledore should have returned by now, but he hadn’t contacted me as she had said he would. I was being ignored—again. 

“We won’t wait for him to,” Penny said. “The owl is a warning; we’re going no matter what. You’ve been putting up with this for way too long.”

I looked to the ceiling as well. The stars were blurrier than usual, and not simply because I had nothing to aid my vision. “I thought you had given up on me,” I said. 

“No, I’ve given up on asking you to tell the truth. I haven’t given up on you. I would never.” The mattress shook as she rolled onto her side. “But I let you think that, didn’t I?”

I shrugged. An ache had returned to my throat. Only, right now, there was no rope to cause it. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

“Me too,” I said thickly. 

The silence stretched, long enough that I might have believed that she had fallen asleep. But I doubted it. Her breathing wasn’t the right kind of even. Mine wasn’t either. Scarlet flashed behind my eyes every time I closed them, and my breath shuddered whenever it did. So, I kept my eyes open, not daring to fall asleep. Not wanting to fall again. And, because I didn’t sleep, Penny didn’t either. 

“Can I ask...” she said after a while (it could have been two minutes or two hours; I couldn’t tell), “and you don’t have to tell me, but could I ask what you saw?”

I ran my fingers over the blankets, keeping myself grounded as I answered. Maybe I just wanted to get the images out of my head, but without hesitation, I told her everything I had seen—the corridor, the bodies, the blood. I even told her about my vision of Rowan. She listened as quietly as she could, keeping the gasps to a minimum, and she did so without interrupting. When I finished, she was silent for a long moment, carefully processing the new information.

Then, she asked warily, “Do you think this could be about the Cursed Vaults?”

I sighed. I had been hoping she wouldn’t come to the same conclusion. “I thought about it,” I said. “It makes the most sense, doesn’t it? That corridor is obviously part of Hogwarts.” That meant that, if the visions were true, Hogwarts would become a battleground sometime in the future. The school would be a battleground. 

“The Vaults would connect with your Legilimency. But a battle…that could be related to You-Know-Who.”

Well, that was just horrifying. “I don’t know which would be worse,” I muttered. 

“You really can’t catch a break, can you?” she said with some humor. 

“Really. I had thought I was done with this whole Chosen One nonsense. Why can’t it be someone else’s turn now?” When I had signed up for this war, I had signed up to fight alongside my friends, not to be some kind of harbinger. 

“I think Harry Potter has you covered,” she pointed out. 

“True. The poor kid.”

“Yeah.” There was another beat of silence, save for the shifting of the blankets as she rolled onto her other side. “Well,” she yawned, “let’s hope Dumbledore has some answers. He usually has something good to say.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. Let’s hope so. 

* * * *

The next morning, we didn’t have to fight Filch to let us into the castle; he opened the gates as soon as we reached them. “The headmaster is expecting you,” he grumbled, and then we were left to climb the staircases on our own, unsupervised.

Well, that was a good sign, if a bit unfair. 

Penny stuck close to my side the whole way up, occasionally putting her hand on my back or my waist, as if she was afraid I was going to collapse before we made it to the office. Honestly, I considered it. I was miserably sore from my duel with Merula, and climbing three flights of stairs did nothing to help the burning in my legs. 

Dumbledore was waiting for us at his desk when we entered, Fawkes perched next to him as usual. The Pensieve had been pulled out of its cabinet, strangely enough, and its waters shimmered faintly in the corner. 

“Ah, you made it,” the headmaster said pleasantly. “I was just about to—” He broke off as Penny and I stepped closer, her hand once again on my waist. Behind his half-moon spectacles, his eyes tightened, and he stood up to get a better look at me. “Ah,” he repeated with greater seriousness. “Ms. Haywood, please forgive me if I have underestimated the urgency of your letter.”

I opened my mouth.

“Don’t you dare say you’re fine,” Penny warned. 

I closed it again. 

Dumbledore gestured at the chairs before his desk, the same ones Merula and I had sat in nearly a year ago. “Please, have a seat.”

Penny finally let go of me as we each took a chair. He sat back down as well, albeit with noticeable stiffness. I had been anticipating this meeting for so long (I had practically stormed the castle to get it), but now that I had it, I was having trouble meeting his gaze. I felt like I was twelve years old again, called up to the headmaster’s office for yet another scolding. As far as I knew, I hadn’t done anything wrong, but the intensity in his blue eyes was unnerving. 

“Lilianna,” he said seriously, and I nearly flinched. “I was just about to send you an owl, although I will understand if you find that difficult to believe. I regret that my attention has been on other matters, but I would have hoped that if the situation had grown serious…” 

He paused, seeming to change his mind mid-sentence, and started anew. “You mentioned visions previously. We didn’t get much of a chance to talk then, which I sincerely apologize for. I realize I may have misunderstood the extent of their impact on you. If you don’t mind, could you explain exactly what you have been seeing?”

As I had done with Penny last night, I told him everything I had experienced, including my early visions from December and April. I described every detail I could remember, from the way the smoke had hung in the air to the way the moonlight had reflected off of Rowan’s glasses. More accurately, I described every detail except one—who had tortured me in my first vision. That I kept hidden, and if Dumbledore suspected me of being untruthful, he didn’t show it. 

He pressed his fingertips together as he listened, his weathered face impassive. When I finished, however, his response was baffling. “How fascinating,” he exclaimed. “I had wondered if something like this might happen.”

“You did?” Penny and I both said, shocked. 

“I did not know for certain. Consider it an educated guess.”

“But why?” I asked. 

He smiled. “Simply because you are a remarkable witch. Your abilities have the tendency to attract attention—for better or for worse. Either way, it is inevitable that such attention will lead to eventful outcomes. After all, that has always been the case in the past.”

Mr. Darrow had said almost the same thing, as had Rosmerta, although neither had possessed the same level of enthrallment.

  Why me? I groaned internally. “Do you know what’s causing the visions?” I asked. 

“I can only make another guess,” he said. “I do not know what is behind them or why, but if it is any consolation, I do not believe they are trying to hurt you. Not intentionally at least. But that is something that comes with its own complications.”

Penny sat up straight. “What do you mean?”

On his perch, Fawkes ruffled his long feathers, which burned of gold and scarlet. Scarlet, transitioning into crimson. My heart fluttered involuntarily, but the phoenix gazed steadily at me with his soulful black eyes. 

Dumbledore glanced at him once before continuing. “Based on your descriptions, Lily, I can say with near certainty that the entity behind this is not human. There is an old magic at work here. Extraordinarily old, which is why this is most fascinating.”

“Old,” I repeated. “Like Cursed Vaults old?”

He gave me an intelligent look. “How astute! Tell me, that voice—was it telling you to wake up, or was it telling you to wake something else up?”

A chill ran down my spine. “I...I don’t know.” 

Oh no. Oh nooo. Because if this was about the Vaults, then that meant...

“Don’t tell me the Vaults want to be woken up again?” Penny exclaimed in horror.

Images flashed through my mind: students encased in ice, teachers turned to stone, screams from the corridors as people came face to face with their worst fears. I had spent years battling those curses, dragging my friends with me into danger every other day. We had all sacrificed so much to put the Vaults back to sleep, but we had done it. It was over. It was supposed to be over. 

The Cursed Vaults brought insanity. Blood and battles, though, that was a new one. 

“I don’t understand why they would show those images,” I said, “if this even is them. Do they want a battle to happen? And then there was Rowan. She’s...she’s still dead, isn’t she?” The fact I was starting to doubt that was unsettling. 

Dumbledore gave me a sympathetic smile. “Yes, your friend is still resting peacefully at her home in Aldershot. That is one thing I can promise, as unfortunate as that is. As for everything else...like I said, I can only make guesses. I have long since suspected that Hogwarts will be the final seat of this war, and it sounds as if I am right.”

“Final?” Penny breathed. 

“What can we do?” I asked. 

“What you can do, Lily,” he said, “is protect yourself. It doesn’t matter what this entity is or what it wants—how did you say Merula put it? About anything that tries to get in your head? I’d recommend you follow her advice. Your mind—and your body—cannot handle repeated exposure to such a powerful presence, not so directly. You’ll be more likely to fall into a permanent sleep than accomplish anything of value.”

I gripped the edge of my chair, white-knuckled against a wave of panic. “So, that’s it?” I said, my pitch rising. “I just keep up with Occlumency for the rest of my life? Never knowing why, or how to stop it, or...or…”

He calmly raised a hand, and I fell silent. “Not indefinitely,” he said. “At the moment, I’ll admit that there is nothing that can be done. We are dealing with something that is unusually abstract. It will not be easily fixed with a simple wave of a wand. But you will not have to live with this forever. I have the strong suspicion it will become relevant when the time is right. Until then, though, you must protect yourself.”

“I’ve been trying,” I said desperately. “But sometimes it slips, and then this happens…”

Penny reached over and placed her hand on mine. She ran her thumb over my knuckles, gently massaging them until I released my grip on the chair. 

“Calm, Lily,” Dumbledore said seriously. “I know this is a lot to ask with the current state of things, but if your Occlumency is to be effective, you must keep yourself calm, at least before bed. In the meantime, I’ll do my own research, see if we can’t find some more answers. Okay?”

I nodded reluctantly. This wasn’t the solution I had wanted. Nothing had changed. I still had to keep practicing Occlumency, still had to risk being tormented by visions, and still knew next to nothing about what was going on. 

Fawkes gave a soft, song-like trill, and I stilled as a warmth suddenly spread through my chest. Not a burning—a warmth, like sunshine or peppermint tea. 

“I also understand there are other matters we need to discuss,” Dumbledore said. “Penny, would you mind if Lily and I had a talk? Professor Sprout is currently in Greenhouse Three if you wish to say hello to her. I’m sure she would enjoy a visit from one of her favorite pupils.”

“Of course,” Penny said, standing up. As she moved past my chair, she paused to squeeze my shoulder. “I’ll wait for you at the entrance, all right?”

I briefly squeezed her hand back. “Right.”

Her footsteps padded softly away, and then, across the room, the door clicked shut, leaving behind the faint whistling of the headmaster’s gadgets and the gentle snoring of the portraits on the walls.

Dumbledore folded his hands on his desk. “Minerva mentioned you were quite distressed. She couldn’t recall the last time you had raised your voice at her—or if you have ever done so before.”

I cringed. “I owe her another apology,” I said quietly. It was a miracle she hadn’t turned me into a toad on the spot. 

“I get the feeling she was not the target of your frustration. Well? Whenever you’re ready.” He swept a hand, clearly offering up a new target. 

I took a breath. Well, when he put it like that, there was no way I was going to lash out at him. Not when I had been awake since two a.m., anyway. “I just...I don’t understand what my purpose is. I’m not accomplishing anything in the village; I’ve done nothing to protect the school. My skills would be more useful elsewhere.”

He nodded, and then he said, to my shock, “You are right.”

“Pardon?” I stuttered.

“You are right. Some of your skills would be more useful elsewhere. But not all of them.” He laid his hands back on the desk. “I’m afraid I engaged in a small deception when I assigned you to Hogsmeade, which is something else I must apologize for. Your job is not to protect Hogwarts, as I led you to believe. It is to protect the village.”

“I...what?” 

“And, I must say, you have done a delightful job so far. Stopping a werewolf attack without a single casualty and finding me three new recruits?” He smiled broadly, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles. “Most impressive.”

No. No, that didn’t line up. Something didn’t fit. “But Tonks’s job—”

“Is to protect the school,” he finished for me. “Tonks may patrol the village for Scrimgeour, but she patrols Hogwarts for me.”

“Why would you have to lie about that?” I exclaimed. 

“Because your job doesn’t only involve protecting Hogsmeade from harm. You are a marvelous duelist, but I have always considered your most important skills to be of a more social nature.”

“I’m not a social person.” Not like Penny. Her I could understand, but me ?

“That’s exactly it. You demonstrate empathy almost unconsciously. And, do not take this the wrong way, but you are incredibly eager to please. While that is a trait that has had its downsides, it has made you good at convincing people to like you. You’ve had your critics, certainly, but I recall that you also amassed quite a following while you were a student, and I can guarantee that you had most of the faculty wrapped around your finger as well.”

“I...I was just trying to get what I wanted.” Jacob had been my priority for years; I’d had a hard time seeing past that. I loved my friends, naturally, but I had also recruited them because I had needed them—a selfishness I felt guilty about to this day. 

“Maybe, but it’s the way you went about it. Penny—” He gestured toward the closed door where she had vanished. “Despite my most vocal protests, she followed you into acromantula lairs and dragon fire, and just this morning,”—he held up a piece of parchment—“wrote a rather sternly worded letter on your behalf. To encourage that kind of trust, inspire that kind of loyalty—that is a remarkable ability, and one that will encourage cooperation when trust becomes scarce.”

“So,” I said slowly, “you want me to earn the trust of the village?”

“As you have the natural tendency to do, which is why I didn’t want to mention it. In these times, when we are already so divided, trust is crucial. You would have a difficult time protecting people that don’t want to be protected.”

So Talbott had said. 

“I’m a little confused though. Hogsmeade?” Hogsmeade was special, of course. It was the only all-wizarding village in Britain, in addition to being in close proximity to the school, but— “A single village can’t win a war.”

“Can it not?” he asked, as if genuinely curious. I didn’t have an answer for him. What did he know that I didn’t?

Many, many things. There had never been a doubt about that. 

“But me?” I repeated in disbelief. “You want me—the Mad Witch, a gay witch, to earn the trust of the whole village?”

He chuckled. “And the Hero of Hogwarts, don’t forget. I do not see those titles nearly as negatively as you do.”

“I don’t think the rest of Hogsmeade would agree,” I mumbled. 

“Yes, Minerva mentioned your predicament. You may find that you are paying too much attention to a vocal few. Unless you have reason to believe otherwise?”

“I guess I wouldn’t know,” I sighed. Not when I didn’t tell anyone anything. 

He gave me another intelligent look. “What exactly are you afraid of, Lily?” he asked, not unkindly. 

“I...I really don’t know.” It was terrifying to be threatened, certainly, but I could also get help in an instant if I asked for it. “I’ve been afraid of pulling others down with me, but every time I’ve tried to push them away, it just makes things worse. But I can’t...I don’t know what…”

“You appear to be forgetting an interesting quality of trust: it goes both ways. But it is also a gamble, and we are both familiar with the kind of outcomes it can bring.”

That was one way of putting it.

“I understand your hesitation,” he continued, “and for that reason, I may not be the best person to ask for advice. The gamble I made...well, I’ve said before that regret has been a constant companion. Many would argue that the day of my greatest historical achievement was the day I sent him away to be imprisoned for life. Hardly what you would call an ideal love story.”

I braced my forearms against my thighs. No, it wasn’t. But it was the only story I had ever found on the bookshelves: two men or two women fall in love, and then at least one of them—or, more likely, both meet a depressing and horrible fate. 

“But,” he added, “you are a young witch. There is plenty of time for you to find a different outcome. In fact, it is my desire for you to have a different outcome—one not quite so tragic.”

I raised my head. He was staring at me tranquilly, but I still couldn’t meet the unusual intensity of his eyes. So, I lowered my gaze to his hands, and then immediately stiffened in alarm. “Your hand,” I exclaimed. I had been too overwhelmed to notice it before, but his right hand—it was blackened, almost skeletal in appearance. 

“Ah,” he said calmly, holding it out to study it. “I had been wondering when you were going to comment on it.”

“That...that’s a curse!” A bad one. I had seen mummies in better condition than the dead flesh between his wrist and fingertips. 

“That it is, my dear Curse-Breaker. And, before you ask, Professor Snape has been most helpful in slowing its progression. Not to mention my own quick thinking, if I may be so bold.” He chuckled. “Perhaps I should have come to you for a lesson in handling Dark Artifacts. I appear to have forgotten.”

Dark Artifacts. Like the necklace that had hospitalized that poor girl—that would have killed that poor girl. I had worked with Bill and Jacob long enough to know the full extent of their most gruesome effects. Curses rarely did harm to the objects they lingered in, but when they lingered in people, the result was usually much, much worse. 

“Slowing. Slowing its progression, but not…” I trailed off, unable to bring myself to say it. 

He smiled serenely. “No.”

No. For a moment, frozen in my chair, I forgot how to breathe again. No. No, no, no, no. Dumbledore, he had always been my headmaster. He was permanent. He couldn’t just...there was no way. 

“There is no need to look so woebegone, Lily,” he said lightly. “I am not going to turn to dust the second you walk out that door. Although, at my age, I understand why you might think I would.”

I wrapped my arms around my waist, not fully processing it. “I just never thought...so soon.”

“It is not the tragedy you make it out to be. You’re still young. For me, after one hundred and fifteen years, I am more inclined to greet Death as an old friend.”

“And pass on the cloak?” I said wryly. 

“So to speak,” he laughed. “I do love that fairytale. There is usually a grain of truth in most stories, no matter how small.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” I muttered. Stories alone didn’t try to get inside your head and cover your hands in blood. Or well-written ones didn’t, at least. 

He pulled his sleeve over his hand. “I’m afraid I must ask you to keep this quiet. There are certain people that would not benefit from this information, and there are others that would benefit too much.”

I nodded, closing my eyes. “How long?”

“Longer than you are dreading,” he said, which wasn’t an answer at all. “So, let us return to the matter at hand—or not at hand, ha!”

Translation: topic thread closed. No longer up for discussion. 

“Is there any assistance I can offer?” he asked kindly.

I reopened my eyes and struggled to turn my thoughts back to myself. How were any of my problems supposed to seem significant after this? “I think I need time to, well, think,” I said. 

“Always good in moderation, but also possible to overdo.” 

He glanced to the side, and I followed his gaze to a dirty, frayed lump of fabric that was looking down on us from the shelves. The Sorting Hat. It had been a long time since I had seen it, and even longer since I had worn it myself. The excitement I had felt when it had shouted out my house name— Ravenclaw! —I didn’t think I could ever recapture it. The whispers had truly faded away then, drowned out by cheers. Rowan had wrapped her arm around my waist, ecstatic for me before she had even been Sorted herself. The memory was tainted from certain angles now, but it was also one of my fondest ones.

“The reason I didn’t tell you the truth about your assignment,” Dumbledore said. “I wanted you to be yourself. Thirteen years ago, a young girl convinced half the people she met to fall in love with her, and then used persistence to win over nearly all the rest. Never all the rest—that’s simply not possible—but nearly all. Now, times have changed, and she has changed, but I am proud of the young witch she has become, because not once in those thirteen years did she waver in her commitment to who she was and what she believed.”

I pressed my fingers to my lips, because if I didn’t, they would likely start trembling. The choices I had made recently suddenly looked a lot more horrible.

“If that is all it took to charm me,” he concluded, “then I’m certain that is all you need to charm those that matter. You have never wavered before, so why start now?”

“Because of what’s at stake,” I quietly admitted. I sounded like a coward. 

He gazed at me levelly. “All the more reason not to. Life is too short to live in fear of love—platonic, romantic, or otherwise.”

I leaned over, putting my head back in my hands. “You’re going to make me cry,” I laughed shakily. 

“Also good in moderation,” he chuckled. “And nothing to be ashamed of. I cried yesterday—albeit out of laughter—when Minerva couldn’t untangle her claws from the rug in her office. Please do not tell her I told you that.”

An image came to mind of a tabby cat, her fur puffed up, furiously shaking her paws as she tried to convince the rug to let her go, and I snickered involuntarily. There was more than one reason I kept my nails short. Er, as another cat Animagus, that is. 

Running a hand through my hair, I sat up again, feeling my heart rate slow for perhaps the first time that day. “Thank you,” I murmured. 

“There is no need to thank me. I told you very little you didn’t already know, but I find it helps to have a friendly reminder every once in a while.”

That was an oversimplification. I was reeling from half the things he had said. The visions, the Cursed Vaults, his hand, love—not one of them would be easy to deal with, and all of them were various levels of terrifying. But my head was clearer, fortunately. 

With our conservation wrapped up, we moved into the polite process of exchanging farewells, and I stood up in preparation to leave. Two steps toward the door, however, I paused and looked back, stalled by a thought that kept nagging. “Professor, you haven’t told me the whole truth, have you?” I asked rhetorically. 

He raised his eyebrows. Fawkes gave another warm, song-like trill. It almost sounded like laughter. Dumbledore looked between us, his eyes sparkling in amusement. 

“You and I have certain traits in common, Lily,” he said. “Some beneficial, others less so. In this case, I am sincerely hoping it is the former.”

I nodded, knowing that was all the explanation I was going to get. “Don’t turn to dust, sir.”

He laughed. “Not yet. Nor am I planning to, for that matter. This, my dear, is one more promise I can make.”

Chapter Text

I felt like a ghost as I left Dumbledore’s office—or at least what I assumed a ghost felt like. I drifted down the corridor, barely noticing the walls around me, and while my feet surely made sound on the stone tiles beneath them, I didn’t hear it. There was too much to think about and too little to do, if anything at all. 

No, I knew what I had to do, and I would have to do it soon after I left the castle, which is why it was so much easier to drift and not think about it. 

The floor rumbled beneath me, and I had to catch myself on a railing before I could tumble into the sudden drop that had opened up in front of me. The staircase I had been about to step on continued to drift away, coming to a stop at a different landing—on a different corridor. 

I huffed. The joys of Hogwarts. Maybe I wouldn’t leave this castle after all. 

Mentally conjuring a pre-planned detour (always a necessity), I turned around to head back the way I had come. There would be a hidden staircase at the other end of the Gargoyle Corridor that could take me all the way down to the lower east side of the castle—a much longer route—but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about falling to the ground floor. 

When I turned around, however, it was to see that I was no longer alone. A girl was standing in the middle of the corridor, watching me. A girl with Ravenclaw robes, silver browline glasses, and a gaudy scarf. 

I froze. The nearby torchlight illuminated the coppery undertones of her hair and skin, both of which were very much solid, not pale or translucent like that of a ghost. Not like they should have been. 

“Rowan,” I breathed. I hadn’t fallen asleep, right? Hadn’t collapsed into another vision?

She grinned as I said her name, and rather than respond, she spun around and darted down the corridor. 

“Rowan!” I exclaimed, and sprinted after her. She glanced back, her mouth open in silent laughter, and picked up speed, her long black hair flying behind her. She turned sharply, bolting down another passage, past tapestries and suits of armor, and then flew down another, past statues and faded paintings. She blew around corners without changing pace, while I skidded in her wake, trying not to crash into the wall. I charged after her blindly, up staircases and down corridors, keeping my eyes locked onto her and nothing else. But while her stride never changed, I could never catch up to her, no matter how fast I ran or how much my lungs burned. And while my boots thudded on the stone, her shoes never made a sound. 

“Rowan, please!” I begged. She was dead. She was dead; I knew that. But she also couldn’t just appear out of thin air and not tell me what the hell was going on.  

She looked back with another silent laugh and turned yet another corner, and I kept chase—only to stumble to a stop halfway down the corridor. This new passage, which stretched for a good fifty meters, was empty, devoid of all life (and otherwise). There were a few worn benches, a few cracked statues, and a wide staircase, but no sign of Rowan. No sign of my best friend. 

I caught myself on the wall, gasping for breath. My legs were shaking almost too much to stand, but I couldn’t sit down. If I sat down, I wouldn’t get up again, and then I would never find her. 

Had she gone up the stairs? I glanced at the opposite wall and then did a double-take. Solid stone brick covered the entire length of the corridor. No staircase in sight. 

Goosebumps rose on my arms. No. No, I knew where I was now. I was on the fifth-floor, on the east side. That meant that, behind the wall, there was a staircase. I just couldn’t see it. 

My back hit the wall as I shrunk away from the Concealment Charm. I shouldn’t have been here, not so close to the Vault. The source of my nightmares (or one of many sources) was behind that wall—and I wasn’t just referring to the visions. 

“Lily?”

I jumped, whipping around to face the source of the voice. Mason crept cautiously toward me, like how one might approach a frightened creature—indirectly, with his gaze lowered, and his posture relaxed. “Are you all right?” he asked. 

“Did you see a girl run past you?” I asked breathlessly, not caring how crazed I sounded. “Ravenclaw. About seventeen. With glasses and a scarf—”

Wide-eyed, he shook his head. “I...I’m sorry. No one passed me. At least, I didn’t see anything.”

I looked back at the wall, which was still solid. No, of course he hadn’t seen anything. Rowan was dead, her body buried in Aldershot, like Dumbledore had said. Whatever I had been chasing, that hadn’t been a ghost, and it hadn’t been my friend. 

“Lily,” Mason repeated uncertainly. “What’s going on?”

I shook my head, more at myself than at him. “You need to avoid this corridor,” I said sharply. “As much as you can. It’s not safe.”

“What?”

I waved a hand, already turning away. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Wait!” He latched onto my arm, holding me in place. “Can we talk? I...I won’t tell the others you were here. They don’t have to know. I just...can we talk? Please?”

There was such an extreme look of desperation on his face that I stalled, my heart fluttering anxiously. He had never made an expression like that before—his green eyes shining, his freckled face tight and pained. I couldn’t have pulled his hands off my arm if I had tried, not because his grip was too strong, but because I was afraid what would happen if I forced him to let go. 

“Of course,” I said. “Just not here.”

He nodded, relieved. Grabbing my hand, he dragged me out of the corridor, and he didn’t release me until he had pulled me into an empty classroom and closed the door behind us. As I glanced around at the worn desks and the blank blackboard, I felt too big for the room. Not literally (I hadn’t grown since I was fourteen), but something about this place of learning felt too simple and too strange for everything I had experienced. 

But I had always felt that way. 

At the front of the room, Mason hopped up onto the teacher’s desk, pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged on its surface. I sat down next to him, letting my legs dangle off the side. He didn’t quite look at me. 

There was a long beat of silence—complete silence, save for our breathing and his nervous shifting. No sound came through the narrow window on the adjacent wall, nor through the thick oak door. We were, for all intents and purposes, alone, or as alone as Hogwarts would allow us to be. 

Mason leaned forward with a shaky laugh, rubbing his hands on his knees. “I didn’t expect it to be this hard,” he said with forced lightness. “I should just be able to say it.”

“Take as much time as you need,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.” Penny could wait a little longer. Knowing her, she and Professor Sprout were still talking. 

“Maybe...maybe I should just start.” He wrung his hands, looking more in the direction of my elbow than my face. “Is it wrong if two people...er, men—or not just men. Wizards? Is it wrong if two wizards, er, you know, act like how a witch and wizard might, er, act?”

“Gay?” I said in surprise. He winced like I had said a bad word. “You can say gay, Mason.”

“R-right, that. Is it wrong if two people are that?”

Oh. 

Oh. Just...oh.

“No, there’s nothing wrong with it,” I said softly. 

His breath shuddered. “Okay. Okay, I’m only asking because, end of last year, I was in the courtyard with Tommy—it was just the two of us—and he was being less of a prat than usual, and out of nowhere, he...um, he kissed me.” Pausing for another breath, he added quietly, almost as an afterthought, “Or maybe I kissed him, I don’t really know.”

My lungs quit working, just shut off for a moment, and I had to remember how to turn them back on again. He watched me hesitantly from the corners of his eyes, gauging my reaction. I did my best to keep my expression neutral, wanting him to finish his story first, but I didn’t know how well I succeeded. My hands had begun to tremble again, and I didn’t know why. 

Uninterrupted, Mason continued, his voice about as steady as my hands, “But then he pushed me, and he started yelling at me. He called me...well, I think ‘Mudblood’ was the nicest word he used. We haven’t...we haven’t spoken since then.” He tilted his head to the side, his eyes growing distant. “But it’s all just so strange, right? I’ve seen the way the other guys in my year look at girls—the way Robin looks at Sam sometimes, and I haven’t been able to do that. But when he kissed me, for the first time, it just felt right .”

The way he said the word— right —with so much conviction, so much certainty behind it, it was impossible not to feel the rightness too. Or maybe it was because I knew exactly the feeling he was talking about. It was the kind of feeling that pierced through the chest, right between the ribs, and drove directly into the heart, leaving you breathless and burning and right . 

“I tried to talk with my parents about it over the summer, but Dad—he wasn’t thrilled. And Mum…” He trailed off as he looked at me, a horrified expression on his face. “She did that! She reacted exactly like that!”

I had a hand clamped over my mouth, and my shoulders shook as I failed to fight the tears that were blurring my vision. This was the kid I had been trying to push away? “I’ve made a mistake,” I whispered. 

“What, like somehow this is your fault?” he said, his eyes shining again. 

“No.” I grabbed his shoulder more forcefully than intended. “No, Mason, you are not a mistake. Nothing about you is a mistake.”

“You’re not making it seem like that,” he said tearfully, and I quickly released him and wiped my eyes.

More gently, I took his hand between both of mine and leaned forward, keeping my tone hushed. “No, listen. You feel love —your own kind of love. Do you know how special that is?”

Biting his lip, he shook his head and said weakly, “Dad said it’s dangerous. That it would be better if I chose not to.”

“It’s not a choice. People are going to say that, but it’s not a choice.” 

I paused, uncertain where to go from here. How was I supposed to tell him that, no matter what he did, some people were going to hate him or believe there was something wrong with him? I didn’t have the strength to say, Yes, you’ll be much safer if you bury your feelings down deep, but you’ll die every second you do.  

Exactly like I was dying. Me, the girl that had chosen other people’s sense of comfort over her own well-being. 

So, instead, I said softly, “You’re not alone, okay? It’s not always easy, but you’re not alone. I...I’ve been there. Not with the whole liking guys thing. Definitely not. But I’ve been there.”

“You have?”

I forced a smile. “I have been known to kiss women on occasion. Scandalous, I know.”

He didn’t laugh at my humor. Rather, he frowned at me in bewilderment. His mouth opened and closed for a few moments before he finally managed, “How do you deal with it?”

Not well. “Trial-and-error. A lot of learning about yourself. Learning to grow comfortable with yourself. Tuning out the voices that don’t matter.” None of which I had completely succeeded at. “I told you that you have the same right to your wand as any pure-blood. Why shouldn’t it be the same with love?”

“Do you really believe that?” he asked, almost inaudible. 

“I’m going to keep repeating it until I do,” I said, which was the most honest thing I had said in a while. 

Oh, my God. I was a hypocrite—just as bad as Jacob. How many times had I done the opposite of what I had said lately? No wonder Penny wanted to kill me. 

Suppressing a wave of anxiety, I asked, “Have you told your friends yet?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t told anyone else. I wanted...I mean, you’re always saying that we should come to you if something’s wrong, so I figured if you reacted like my parents… But you didn’t, so I don’t...I don’t know. Should I?”

“That’s completely up to you. It’s terrifying, I know, and I lost people when I came out. Not many, but I did. But the friends that accepted me—I love them more than anything in the world, and I know they’ll be there for me when I need it.” Even when I didn’t want them to be, as one friend had so graciously and aggressively demonstrated this morning. “Anyone that left—it hurts, but they weren’t worth it. But it’s up to you—on your own terms and on your own time, okay?”

He nodded, lowering his gaze again. Dropping his hand, I raised my arms in offering, and then the air was forced from my lungs as he crashed into me, hugging me so hard I could barely breathe. My sore ribs protested bitterly, but I didn’t push him away. 

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” he said into my shoulder. “Why couldn’t they… That’s all I wanted to hear.”

I rubbed his back, feeling the subtle shake in each breath he took. When I had come out to my parents at fifteen, I had hugged them exactly like this, because I had been so afraid they were never going to touch me again. My fears had been misplaced, fortunately, but the relief had been crippling. So, I let him hold on, and I didn’t let go until he did.

When he finally pulled away with a small sniffle, his head low but his hands still, I playfully tousled his curly hair. “Tommy, really?” I said humorously. 

He shrugged. “He’s not half-bad.”

I rolled my eyes with exaggeration. “Ugh, you can do better.”

His freckles crinkled as he wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Do we need to talk about, erm, intimacy? Because, I mean, I definitely can’t tell you how it works, but safety’s still a big thing. The things you can get—”

His eyes went wide. “No! I literally just had my first kiss. I’m not about to...oh, God, no.” 

“Just checking! I didn’t learn everything until a few years ago. My first girlfriend had to teach me, and there’s honestly a lot—”

“Oh, God, stop. Please, just stop.” His ears had turned pink, presumably like the rest of his face, which was hidden behind his hands. 

I laughed, feeling the warmth in my own cheeks as well. “Okay, okay, I won’t make you suffer. Just be smart, all right?”

He nodded without lowering his hands. 

I laughed again, and without really thinking about it, I kissed the side of his head, like my mum often did to me. “Thank you for trusting me,” I said softly. “I know I haven’t been super dependable lately. I’m going to change that.”

He gave me an uncertain smile. “I mean, you’ve just been protecting us, right? That’s what you do.”

I hesitated, not wanting to lie again. “There’s more to it than that.” Selfishly more. Cowardly more. “But I’m going to fix it.” I had to. 

And that was the truth. 

* * * *

Penny and I didn’t talk much when we returned to the Cauldron late that morning. She was probably waiting for me to say something first, and I would, eventually. It was just...there was a lot. 

So, we didn’t talk for the rest of the day, besides when she refused to let me work or when she pushed a Calming Draught into my hand later and told me to sleep. Physically and emotionally drained, I didn’t protest to either, and with the potion making it easier to protect my mind, I passed out on the couch undisturbed. There was a blanket on me when I awoke the next morning. 

Penny was still hesitant to let me work, even after I had gotten food and rest, but she was quick to relent when I began to push back. She didn’t want another argument any more than I did. However, at first, she only gave me small tasks that required no thought or effort, such as cleaning cauldrons that didn’t need to be cleaned or reorganizing ingredients that didn’t need to be reorganized. By the afternoon, I politely told her that if she didn’t give me a more meaningful assignment, then I would go insane and stage a mutiny. She paled but conceded. 

“There’s one delivery today if you want to get outside,” she said, glancing over at a single crate against the brewing room wall. “For the Three Broomsticks.”

“Right,” I said in relief. I levitated the crate into my arms. It was far lighter than the last one I had delivered, seemingly without much inside it. 

“Careful handling that one. There’s some mild poisons in there. Rosmerta says she’s been dealing with a pest problem.”

“Oh, great, because that’s just what she needs,” I said dryly. Someone needed to give that poor woman a break. 

“She has been looking stressed lately, hasn’t she?” Penny handed me a slip of parchment. I shifted the crate under one arm to take it. “Here’s her bill, but tell her she doesn’t have to settle it this month if that would make things easier.”

“Will do.”

“And please do be careful!” she called after my retreating back, which was already halfway to the door. 

I rolled my eyes. “No, I’m going to purposely start a riot and burn the village down.”

“You never know!”

I laughed the rest of the way out the door. She quietly giggled behind me. 

Despite the persistent cold, the walk to the Three Broomsticks was easy enough, and the pub wasn’t too crowded when I entered. About half the tables were filled, claimed mostly by older patrons having an early meal, although there were a few younger ones with a drink in hand. Unfortunately, Mr. Darrow was among them, seated at a corner booth with his mates. I pretended not to see them, but I could feel their eyes follow me as I approached the bar. 

I needed to confront them. I knew that. Just...not yet. Not until I gathered my nerve. And not in such a public place. 

Rosmerta was leaning over the bar, jotting down an order for Mrs. Byrne. “I should be able to begin bottling tomorrow,” the innkeeper was saying. “How many did you say you wanted? Only one?”

“Make it two,” Mrs. Byrne said. “Ronan says I can be heavy-handed when pouring drinks, so the only solution I can see is to buy more.”

Rosmerta laughed. “Two bottles it is then. Come back tomorrow and I should have those ready for you. Oh, Lily, thank you. That’s perfect.”

I slid the crate across the counter with the parchment on top. “This is your bill for this month, but you don’t have to pay it now—”

She interrupted me with a wave of her hand. “Don’t you start. I have your money in the back. Wait here just one moment.”

Tucking the crate under her arm, she started for her office, but I caught her with a light touch on her shoulder as she rounded the bar. “About the contents,” I said, keeping my voice low. She froze. “Is there anything I can help with? Because if it’s of the creature nature…”

She shrugged off my hand. “Don’t worry about it, dear,” she said kindly. “This should take care of it in an instant.” And then she hurried off into the back. 

I watched her go uncertainly. “Is she all right?” I asked Mrs. Byrne. 

The older witch glanced at the door she had disappeared through. “I’ve been wondering that lately. Someone else concerns me more though.” She fixed her sharp gray eyes on me, and I suddenly had to fight the urge to shrink away. Before I could think of a response, however, she looked past me and said, “I think someone desires your attention.”

Dread welled up as I followed her gaze not to Mr. Darrow’s booth, but to the next table over. The scruffy young wizard was there with his mates as well, and they were all looking at me and snickering. Many empty glasses sat in front of them. 

“Here, kitty kitty,” one of them called when they realized I had noticed them. 

Oh, great. There was a joke I had missed, and I doubted it had anything to do with me being an Animagus. 

Sure enough, a second one sang, “ Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been? I’ve been to London to visit the Queen. Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you do there? ”

“We all know what she did there,” the scruffy wizard said, and they all howled with laughter. 

My stomach twisted. I clearly hadn’t clocked him hard enough—that, or I had given him brain damage, because he was toeing ever closer to a line that he wasn’t supposed to cross.

But when I made eye contact with Mr. Darrow, he smirked at me, while the rest of his booth failed to hide their sniggers. I understood. This was last month coming back around to bite me—with another threat. Our deal hadn’t been broken yet, but it would be if I acted out again. Like by punching someone, for example. 

Mrs. Byrne watched the rowdy wizards in bewilderment. “Are they making any sense to you, dear?” she asked me. “Because I do believe they’re trying to tell a joke, but I don’t think they know the punchline.”

“I have an idea,” I said slowly. “But they’re reaching.”

“Hmph. None of them were in Ravenclaw then, I take it?” she said, loud enough for them to hear. 

“Mrs. Byrne!” I quietly exclaimed, giggling involuntarily. She winked at me. 

The scruffy wizard’s face reddened, but still he called out, “You like pussy cats, don’t you, lassie?” to the reception of more laughter. 

Now my face heated too. Where the hell was Rosmerta so I could get out of here?

“What about rugs?” the second one added. “I’ve bet you’ve seen a lot of nice rugs.”

“Shag rugs,” another one choked out, and they all howled again. The neighboring tables cast frowns in their direction. 

“Ah,” Mrs. Byrne said. It was such a small, simple sound— Ah —but it launched my heart into my throat. 

Well aware of the many eyes on me, I stalked over to their table, done with the shouting across the room. “What do you think you’re doing?” I hissed. 

The scruffy wizard grinned in delight, a sure sign that I shouldn’t have reacted. “Ooh, careful there,” he chuckled. “Your Auror friend isn’t here to protect you.”

“Would you like me to send her a message?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice calm. 

His grin became dangerous. “We both know why you won’t do that.”

Mrs. Byrne, who I hadn’t realized had followed me, halted mid-step with an expression of surprise. His words had been too obvious to have been anything but a threat. But she didn’t turn to face him. She faced Mr. Darrow, who was still smirking as he watched. 

“Logan!” she exclaimed. “Why are you enabling this?”

Mr. Darrow gestured nonchalantly. “Ah, let the boys have their fun, Dana. They’re not hurting anything.”

Not hurting anything? They were taking and taking and taking, holding a secret over my head that they had no right to. And they were flaunting it carelessly—publicly—because they thought it was funny . 

Rage spiked within my ribcage, so hot that I might as well have swallowed dragon fire. Not hurting anything? For weeks, I had been pushed around, blackmailed, and nearly assaulted, and yet I had put up with it because I had thought it would keep others safe. But all I had done was step out of the way so that they could keep their world how they liked it. A world that would be handed to kids like Mason. 

What would they do to him if they learned he was gay too? Probably target him just like they had targeted me. Just like they would target the next kid, and the next, and the next, until each one of them was dying. Or until somebody stopped it. 

“You know what?” I said, my voice wavering with a burst of adrenaline. “I’m done with this.”

Mr. Darrow’s smirk faded. He narrowed his eyes in warning. 

I owed Mason more than this. I owed myself more than this. 

I had told Sam once that I was used to dealing with bullies. That was still true. It had simply taken me a long time to recognize them in this form.

I moved in between the tables, facing him directly. “I have been nothing but nice to you,” I said. “Since I moved here, I’ve been nothing but nice to you, but you’ve continued to be rude and hostile and downright manipulative. No matter what I do, nothing pleases you, so I’m done. I’m done with all of it.” Terror shook my words just as much as fury, but I stood firm, even when his companions jumped to their feet. 

Through the roaring in my ears, the pub had become oddly quiet. Conversations had become hushed, not counting those that had stopped entirely. Some of the other patrons leaned back in their chairs, trying to get a look at the action. Dinner and a show. How nice. 

“I would think very carefully about your next words,” Mr. Darrow growled. 

“Or what?” I demanded. “You’ll tell everyone I like women?”

The shock that came over their faces would have been hilarious if my heart hadn’t been pounding. A few people even recoiled in alarm. 

They wanted to be careless? Fine. They wanted to turn everyone against me? Fine. But they didn’t get to out me first. This was my truth. It belonged to me , and I would be the only one to tell it. 

Loud enough for the entire pub to hear, I shouted, “I like women! I kiss women! Sometimes I even sleep with women! Is that really so scary? Oh, how terrifying—the big bad lesbian!”

Somewhere, someone spat out their drink. Mrs. Byrne smothered a laugh with her hand, her eyes shining delightedly. 

Mr. Darrow shot her a glare as he pushed himself to his feet. Then, to me, he said, “How disappointing. I thought you cared about those children, but obviously not. What a shame they’ll—”

“No!” I shouted. “You stay away from those kids! You’re the one that shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near them, because you’re a horrible old man!”

It wasn’t my wittiest insult, but I was running on too much adrenaline to produce a better one. It had its intended effect though, for it stunned him into temporary silence. 

Movement flashed to my left, and I had my wand drawn and aimed before the scruffy wizard could think to raise his hand. He halted with a snarl. “Touch me again and I’ll hit you somewhere other than your face,” I told him. 

“You need to learn to watch your mouth,” he spat. 

“You attacked me,” I said bitterly. “I don’t even know your name, and you attacked me.”

He frowned in confusion. “You don’t even know…” he echoed, and as he trailed off, his face cycled through several emotions: first stupefaction, then realization, and then fury—pure, gut-wrenching, burning fury. “I’ll make sure you remember it!” he roared, drawing his wand. 

“Kenneth!” Mr. Darrow snapped, which I supposed answered that question. All of his mates drew their wands, as well as the rest of Kenneth’s. I was almost surrounded—and completely outnumbered. 

I took a step back, not retreating, but moving to where I could see all of them at once. Four people at the table, five people at the booth—nine opponents total. 

Mr. Darrow pulled his wand out of his pocket, the last person to do so. “Do you really want to start a fight, girl?” he warned. 

“I just want you to leave me alone,” I said. 

“You’re the one that’s making a scene. Drop that wand before someone gets hurt.”

“Yeah? And what will happen if I do?” I jerked my chin at Kenneth. “He leaves my body in a ditch somewhere?”

“I’ll do more than that,” Kenneth muttered under his breath. 

I slipped into a dueling stance: feet apart (but not significantly so) and knees slightly bent, exactly as Merula had taught me. “You don’t know who you’re messing with,” I said, forcing enough confidence into my voice to make them pause. Because only a crazy person would sound confident before a losing fight—unless they had some trick up their sleeve. I didn’t though. I only had me. 

I was Lilianna Flores. I had battled dragons and trolls and ice knights. I had saved Hogwarts from curses six times over, and I had dueled some of the worst Dark Wizards in the world before I had even graduated. And I was about to die in a pub brawl. 

I didn’t know what I had expected, but at least I was done with dying quietly. For that, I had no regrets. 

...Other than that I owed Penny an apology for not being careful. And Merula, for doing something stupid. 

Some of my opponents shifted nervously, eyeing my ready stance. Like I was looking through Omnioculars, time slowed down, and I used the borrowed seconds to formulate a plan of attack. Three of them had weak stances; I could take out two before the rest of them fired and then dodge the offensive spells. If I moved forward, they would fire at each other and likely hit some of their own. Good. 

No, not good. There were other patrons. Several had their wands half-drawn, although if it was in anticipation of self-defense or in preparation of joining the fight, it wasn’t clear. Others had ducked beneath tables. I would have to watch out for all of them. In a public space like this, I would only use Stunning and Disarming spells; not all of my opponents would be as considerate. 

Okay, new plan. Move first, cast Shield Charms in front of patrons, dodge offensive spells, stun anyone with a weak stance, then react appropriately.  

Good. I was going to lose, but it was a good plan. 

There was more shifting. Faces steeled, wands raised, breaths held. 

“Merlin’s beard, Dana!” Mr. Darrow shouted, causing me to jump. “Put that wand away, woman!”

I looked at Mrs. Byrne in alarm. She had her wand ready as well, and it was aimed directly at Mr. Darrow. “I’ll put my wand away when you do, you coward!” she exclaimed. “Nine against one! Shame on you, Logan Darrow! Shame on you!”

No, no, no! Mrs. Byrne was a wild card. I couldn’t fight all of them and protect her at the same time. How was I supposed to rewrite the plan now?

“I’ve had enough of this!” Kenneth snarled and slashed his wand. I tensed, ready to dodge, but when he lowered his hand, it was empty. Everyone stared at him in confusion. 

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” a voice boomed. Most people flinched. A few crashed into tables; they had leapt so far back. I would have believed that Rosmerta had magically amplified her voice, if not for the fact that her wand was lowered—and in the same hand that held Kenneth’s wand. 

Face red, she stormed forward until she was pressed in front of me, physically shielding me from my opponents. When I tried to step around her, she roughly grabbed my arm and held me in place behind her back. 

“Everyone is going to lower their wands right now!” she commanded. I didn’t need to see around her shoulder to know that everyone had swiftly complied. No one disobeyed Madam Rosmerta, especially not in her own establishment. It was one of the unspoken rules of the village—for anyone that didn’t have a death wish. “That includes you, Dana,” she added more quietly. 

“Certainly,” Mrs. Byrne said good-naturedly. 

Rosmerta swept her wand in front of her, pointing it at each and every one of them. “Anyone that casts another word or spell against Lily will be escorted from the building! Logan, you can leave right now and never come back. You too Kenneth. Consider yourselves banned.”

If the wizards were basilisks, they would have Petrified her on the spot with the sheer amount of outrage in their eyes. “You can’t ban me!” Mr. Darrow exclaimed, his face twisting. “I’ve been one of your best customers for years!”

“And what a pleasant time it has been,” Rosmerta snorted. 

“This is rubbish!” Kenneth growled. 

“Test me, boy, and see what happens,” she warned, tossing his wand at him. He fumbled it. “If I hear you’ve touched her again, I’m going straight to Aberforth. He’s tolerated your debts until now. He won’t after this.”

Kenneth blanched. 

She addressed the room another time. “In fact, everyone that raised their wand against this girl is no longer welcome! That’s right—all of you. Get out and good riddance!”

With a series of grumbles and glares, nine people, led by Mr. Darrow and Kenneth, stomped out of the building into the cold air outside. As soon as the door slammed shut behind them, Rosmerta whirled to face the remaining tables, yanking me with her. “As for the rest of you, let it be known that Lilianna Flores is better than most of you will ever be, and if you can’t handle that, then you better follow them.”

While some people ducked their heads, no one else moved. Whether it was because they agreed with Rosmerta or just didn’t want to get on her bad side, I couldn’t tell. Or maybe butterbeer was too great a sacrifice to make in the name of bigotry. Who knew?

“Then if you’re not going to leave, quit gawking and get back to your drinks!”

Similar to before, the intensity with which eyes focused on tabletops would have been comical, if not for the blood rushing in my ears. With Rosmerta’s hand tight on my arm, I wasn’t sure who was shaking more—her, with anger; or me, with fading adrenaline. 

It...was over? 

Was it over?

“That was almost exciting,” Mrs. Byrne joked, too loud in the newfound silence. “I haven’t had a good duel in years.” Abruptly, the lines on her face deepened in concern, and she added, “Rosmerta, I think you’re hurting her.”

Rosmerta looked at her white-knuckled grip on my arm with a start, although I barely felt it. She let go anyway. “Sorry,” she said, her low and steady voice a sharp contrast to seconds ago. She searched my face. “Are you all right, dear?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. In the absence of a fight, horror had begun to creep in. I had just tried to fight half a pub. I had just tried to fight half a pub after outing myself to the entire pub. I had just gotten half a pub banned. 

I had stood up to Mr. Darrow.

Rosmerta’s eyes softened, and she wrapped an arm around my shoulders, guiding me toward her office. Parchment flew around the small room when we entered, clearing itself from chairs that had been buried in the clutter. One chair zipped out from behind the desk, and she pushed me into it before I could think to sit down. There was an odd lump in my throat, one that suggested I was going to cry or throw up, and I was trying hard not to do either. 

Rosmerta leaned around the door frame to address someone out of sight. Then, she closed the door, sealing the two of us in quiet isolation. “Breathe for a moment,” she said. 

As soon as she said that, I registered how shallow my breaths were, how fast my chest moved for air that was almost nonexistent. “I can’t,” I gasped. 

“You can.” She pressed a glass of water into my hand, summoned from Merlin knew where in this mess of a room, and my fingers instinctively closed around the cold surface. “Drink.”

My hands were trembling so much that water sloshed out into my lap. I swore as the freezing liquid soaked through my robes to my legs. Rosmerta chuckled. “Is this funny to you?” I asked with shaky humor. 

“No,” she said, albeit with a faint smile. “I was thinking how astounding you are.” She lightly tapped my hand, and unsteadily, I took a small sip. As the cold distracted me, she continued, “That was reckless. Horrifyingly so. And I hate that this had to happen in my pub. But by Merlin was that satisfying to watch.”

In the middle of taking a larger sip, I choked on the water. She took the glass from my hand while I coughed into my sleeve. “How much did you see?” I asked hoarsely. 

“Most of it. I’ve been wanting to say some of those things for years, but I’ve never had a good excuse.”

I winced. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“Your reputation.”

“No,” she said sharply. “Don’t you dare apologize for that. I have exactly the kind of reputation I want, and it doesn’t include people like that.” She pointed at the closed door in emphasis. “I’ve known you since you were a third-year—over a decade now. That’s more than enough time to know who I’d rather be associated with, and it’s not the man that made my barmaid cry, let me tell you.”

She returned the glass to me so that I could finish the water. I drank slowly, letting it ground me until my body was finally convinced that, no, I wasn’t going to fight to the death in a pub brawl. Not right now at least. 

Pulling up another chair, Rosmerta asked, “Have they been harassing you like that for a long time?”

And so I told her. I told her what, in all these months, I had never told anyone. I talked about how Mr. Darrow had been treating me since I had met him last December, and how it had been steadily getting worse. I described his threats and Kenneth’s stalking, and how I hadn’t known what to do. And, finally, I explained how I’d had enough. Rosmerta listened impassively, curled forward with her fingers interwoven and her knuckles pressed against her lips. I was shaking again when I finished, but not out of fear. It was the kind of shake that ran through my muscles after setting down a heavy object—usually one that I had been carrying for far too long. 

“Well, to hell with them then,” Rosmerta muttered. 

“A part of me keeps wondering if any of this is my fault,” I said. “Like if I’ve done something wrong. They’ve just been so obsessed with me.”

She straightened. “You know that’s not true, so don’t even entertain the thought. None of this is your fault.” 

“Even if I’m a curse?” I said wryly. 

“You break curses, Lily. You most definitely aren’t one. Anyone with a Knut’s worth of sense knows that.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. That wasn’t a popular opinion, in more ways than one. 

Correctly guessing my thoughts, she explained, “This village is wonderful, but most of its residents have been here their entire lives. They were born here, they live here, and they’ll die here—and they’ll never know anything different. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it has made some of them very resistant to change. That’s what Logan Darrow can’t stand about you. You challenge what he’s used to, and he views that as a threat.”

I scoffed. “And what am I supposed to do about that?”

“Keep living.”

Well, that was certainly one approach, albeit far easier said than done. 

“What about Kenneth?” I asked. 

“Kenneth is a drunk that doesn’t know who he is or where he’s going in life. For some reason, he thought you were someone he could control, which goes to show how much of an idiot he is. A dangerous idiot, but an idiot.”

I must have looked distressed, because she added, “Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen to you, not on my watch. I’ll have Aberforth keep an eye on Kenneth. The boy is terrified of him. And Dana’s husband, Ronan—he was a Hit Wizard during the First War, did you know that? Between the three of us—or four, if you count Dana—that should be enough to discourage anyone from doing something stupid.”

I almost didn’t dare to believe it. The Byrnes, Madam Rosmerta, Aberforth Dumbledore—that was a significant amount of local influence. I had been so concerned with Logan Darrow’s connections in the village, I hadn’t considered that I had connections of my own. Or that those connections wouldn’t break the second I relied on them. 

I sighed in relief. “I was so afraid someone was going to get hurt.”

Her eyes widened incredulously. “I was afraid you were going to get hurt. Trying to duel so many people at once...I don’t know what you were thinking. Next time at least wait for me to return before you draw your wand.”

I cringed, chastised. “I don’t want there to be a next time,” I said, my voice coming out smaller than expected. 

“No, dear, I know you don’t,” she said, and gently placed a hand on my back. “It’s not fair. Not fair at all.”

I took another unsteady breath. This could have gone a lot worse. Maybe it wasn’t over yet, but for one brief moment, I didn’t have to think about what would happen next. But that didn’t make me feel better. Rather, in the wake of the relief, I felt weak and ill, and for some reason, Rosmerta’s hand on my back was making it worse. 

There was a knock at the door, and before Rosmerta could rise to open it, Mrs. Byrne entered, followed by a familiar face. “I brought Penny,” Mrs. Byrne said happily. “I figured the three of us could have a nice chat. Rosmerta, you’re welcome to join us, if you would like.”

“My staff can survive without me for a little while longer,” Rosmerta said. 

Penny looked at me, her eyes round with worry. “What happened?” she asked. 

I gave her a weak smile. “So, remember what I said about starting a riot…”

“What?” she gasped. 

“I suppose you didn’t know this was going on either,” Rosmerta said dryly. 

“What? What’s going on?”

“If you don’t mind, dear,” Rosmerta told me. “I know you just went through it.”

Steeling myself, I repeated the story to the others. While they listened, Rosmerta gave up her chair to Mrs. Byrne and sat behind me on the edge of her desk instead, with her hands resting on my shoulders. Penny took the remaining chair, although she didn’t seem fully aware she was sitting in it. For her benefit, I recounted what had just happened, and the shock and horror that took over her features was so powerful that I didn’t need to focus my Legilimency to feel it too. 

When I finished, however, the pale color in my flatmate’s cheeks had melted away to be replaced, startlingly, by pink-tinged anger. “This long,” she said, her voice slowly rising. “This has been going on this long, and you haven't told me anything . Why haven’t you told me anything?”

I flinched, lowering my gaze. 

“Thank you, Penelope,” Mrs. Byrne said calmly. “Your reaction is understandable, but I’m going to say a few things, and I suggest you listen carefully until I’m finished.”

Penny sank back in her chair, stunned. No one called her “Penelope,” not even her own parents. It simply wasn’t done. 

“Besides, it’s nothing personal, dear,” Mrs. Byrne continued. She turned to me with a gentle smile. “It’s habit. ‘Keep it to yourself,’ is that right? You’ve probably had many people drill that rule into you for a very long time. Maybe not consciously, but if anything, that makes it harder to break.”

I wrapped my fingers around my necklace—another habit. I needed something to hold onto, and like the water glass, the silver cat was cool against my skin. 

“You’ve been afraid, haven’t you?” she said softly. 

Hesitantly, I nodded. My throat was too tight to answer. 

She nodded as well. “Sometimes it seems easier to keep things as they are. To stay hidden. I tried that for the longest time.”

The cat slipped from my fingers. Penny’s eyes grew rounder. 

“Didn’t know that about me, did you?” Mrs. Byrne laughed. “I’ll have you know that I’ve also kissed a few women in my day, but most people wouldn’t assume that, because I married a man.”

She folded her hands neatly in her lap, suddenly appearing much older and more serene than the witch that had tried to follow me into battle moments ago. “When I was younger, I assumed things were easier for people like me. Men and women are both beautiful, so surely I could just choose the safer option, couldn’t I? But the more I hid that half of me, the more I pushed it down, the worse I felt. All the fear and heartbreak intensified, because no matter how you act, you can’t deny who you are, and you can’t choose who you fall in love with.”

My ribs ached like I had been struck by another Knockback Jinx, although nothing had touched me. Nothing physical, anyway. And I wanted it to stop. 

“I consider myself lucky,” she continued. “Not because I married a man, but because I married a man that loves every part of me. If I hadn’t found someone that accepts me like Ronan does—if I had kept pushing that part down, I don’t know if I would be here today.” She paused and then added with a grin, “Which is fortunate, because the two of us do love waiting for the pretty potioneers to pass by every delivery day.”

Rosmerta cleared her throat. 

“Too much?” Mrs. Byrne asked pleasantly. 

Alongside my head, Rosmerta put her thumb and forefinger together. 

Mrs. Byrne chuckled. “My point, my dear, is that I understand. You have every right to keep yourself safe. Absolutely keep yourself safe if the situation calls for it. But being who you are doesn’t have to be the tragedy you’ve been told it will be. You need to find your crowd, and you won’t find it in this village.” 

She paused again thoughtfully. “Unless you want your crowd to be a bunch of queer old witches that play cards and knit on the weekends. Then by all means you are welcome to join. Until then, though, you need to rely on your allies.” She glanced at Penny, who was looking unusually small in her chair. “That’s important.”

The aching in my ribs intensified. Anxiety welled up as heat pricked behind my eyes, blurring my vision. No. No, why was this happening? I wasn’t in danger. I wasn’t being attacked, verbally or otherwise. 

I tried to inhale slowly, but I could barely do so without choking, my throat was so tight. No, I couldn’t cry here. I wouldn’t. Fighting it, I closed my eyes, but the action only forced the tears out faster. I swiped at them furiously. 

“Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Byrne said sympathetically. “You haven’t had anyone tell you this before, have you?”

I shook my head, and against my will, a sob escaped. 

Her chair scraped across the floor, shifting closer to me. “Come here then. You’re in good company.”

And that’s when I broke. Before I had made the conscious decision to, I had fallen forward, crying, with my forehead pressed against her shoulder while she hugged me. The tears had nothing to do with despair, I realized. They were tears of relief—but the painful kind of relief, like after Apparition when your lungs expand and the air rushes into them too fast. The crippling relief. 

I wasn’t alone. That had always been true. But what was different now was that I actually felt how true it was. I felt it in the way that, even after I had shouted my soul to the entirety of the Three Broomsticks, Mrs. Byrne still patted my head and Rosmerta still traced circles on my back as they told me I was okay. 

The burning feeling in my chest, the one that had been with me for months, rose higher as I cried, and with each sob, a little bit of it drifted away, until there was nothing left but a quiet emptiness. With nothing left to give, I pulled back, hanging my head tiredly. Rosmerta passed me a handkerchief. “It’s been a rough week,” I said, my breath hitching as I wiped my face. 

Penny gave a single laugh. It sounded borderline hysterical. 

“Then make sure to get some rest,” Mrs. Byrne said. “You deserve it after what you did.”

“I’ll say,” Rosmerta agreed, shaking my shoulders. “The big bad lesbian over here tried to take on the world...and destroy my pub.” They both chuckled at that. My face flushed. 

Over in her chair, Penny looked mildly distressed. Her jaw was a little too firmly set, and her eyes were blinking a little too fast. When I made eye contact with her, however, her face softened, and she crossed over to me. “Let’s get you home,” she murmured, offering me her hand. Sniffling, I accepted it, and she pulled me to my feet. 

“Not walking,” I whispered. I wasn’t ready to feel the eyes on me again, not so soon after everything that had happened. 

“Go out the back,” Rosmerta said. “You can Disapparate from there.”

“Are you feeling well enough for Apparition?” Penny asked. 

I nodded. 

“Before you go,” Rosmerta added, her expression suddenly serious, “if anything like this happens again, no matter how small, you are to come directly to me.” She turned to Penny. “If she doesn’t, then you better. This can’t be allowed to continue.”

Penny’s jaw tightened again. “You have my word,” she said. 

“Thank you,” I said quietly. 

Mrs. Byrne smiled. “We’re a community. We look after each other. That’s what communities are supposed to do.” 

“And I look after my kids,” Rosmerta said. “I looked after your brother, and I promised I would look after you too. I don’t plan on ever breaking that promise.”

* * * *

Penny held my hand while we Apparated back to the Cauldron, anchoring us together as we compressed and decompressed through time and space. When we landed, she checked to make sure I was steady on my feet, squeezed my hand once, dropped it, and then didn’t touch me again for the rest of the evening. The day before, she had kept one hand on me at all times; now she seemed to be going out of her way to avoid so much as brushing against me. 

The thing was, she looked like she wanted to. She kept patting her leg, something she always did in the rare moments she didn’t know what to do with her hands, and as she turned to face me after we had entered the flat, she rocked on her feet, almost like she might tackle me. But she kept her distance.

“Penny,” I begged when this had been going on for too long. She had to have been angry at me. That could’ve been the only explanation for this, and I was beginning to feel sick with guilt. 

“Is it all right,” she said slowly, “if I take some time to think? I need to reflect on some things, and I don’t want to—” She broke off, but there was no need to complete the sentence. I don’t want to say the wrong thing was easy enough to guess. 

“Of course,” I said. 

She continued to fidget nervously. “It’s not you, okay? None of it is your fault. If anything, it’s mine, and I don’t want you to think—”

“Pen,” I interrupted. “It’s all right.”

She nodded, although she didn’t look convinced. “Here.” She held out a vial of purple liquid. “For tonight.”

I cautiously accepted it. Potion for Dreamless Sleep—much stronger than Calming Draught. “I don’t want to keep relying on potions.”

“Just for tonight. Give yourself one less thing to worry about.”

“Okay.”

“Really?”

I nodded. I had no desire to drown in blood again. Or worse. 

Her hand twitched in my direction. She caught her wrist. “You’re my best friend, you know that?” she said, almost too faint to hear. 

I stared at her in shock. In all the time we had been friends, she had never said that aloud before. Neither had I. That had always been Rowan’s title, and although Rowan had been gone for nearly seven years, I had never shifted it to anyone else. And Penny had so many other friends, I had never considered that...me. 

“I...I do,” I said, even if the realization had only hit me now. 

“Good. That’s why I’m going to make this right.”

Chapter Text

Pip was on my chest when I awoke the next morning, which was odd. While it wasn’t uncommon for her to fall asleep with me, she was rarely in the bed when I woke up. Rather, she normally paced around it, waiting for me to feed her. Not this morning though. This morning she was curled up on my chest with her head tucked under my chin, like a tiny weighted blanket. She purred sleepily when I scratched behind her ears.

Well, looked like I was never getting out of bed again. What time was it anyway?

With much reluctance, I scooted the cat off of me so I could get ready for the day. When I checked the clock, however, I nearly had a heart attack. 10:50 a.m. My shift had started hours ago. 

As swiftly as I could, I got dressed and grabbed some breakfast (brunch?), before hurrying downstairs with an apology balanced on my tongue. But Penny wasn’t in the shop. Nor was she in the brewing room, nor the storeroom, nor anywhere on the ground floor. Confused, I circled back around to the front room, and then had another burst of panic. Red was splattered across the outside of the main window, smothering the apothecary’s name. Red that was dark like blood. 

My panic dulled as smudges of blond and blue moved in between the splatters of red, and with mild anxiety, I stepped out the front door to join Penny. She was bundled in her blue coat, with a matching scarf and gloves, and she was waving her wand aggressively at the window. “ Scourgify! No. Purus! Ugh. Finite Incantatem! Oh, come on!” She stomped her foot in frustration. 

The source of that frustration was impossible to miss. The window wasn’t covered in blood, although it looked like it. It was covered in red paint, which was smeared across the glass in large, lopsided letters that spelled out a single word: DYKE . 

Wow. No need to wonder how long it would take for the rest of the village to hear about yesterday. I had been counting on word to travel through the grapevine, but this...this was a whole other level. 

“No!” Penny exclaimed in dismay as the door swung shut behind me. “I wanted to fix this before you woke up.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?” I asked. “It’s almost noon.”

“You needed the sleep. Besides, we’re closed until I figure this out. Scourgify! Finite Incantatem! Why. Won’t. You. Work.” She stomped her foot with each word. “ Finite Incantatem! Finite Incantatem! ”

“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” I caught her arm, but she attempted to wrestle it out of my grip. 

“Let go of me!” she snarled. “I’m going to fix this.”

“Repeating the same spell isn’t going to do anything. Have you been out here all morning?” Her nose and cheeks were pink from sunburn or cold—or both. 

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.” She continued to wrestle me; I didn’t let go. 

“Hey, I’m sorry,” I said. “You shouldn’t—”

“No!” With startling aggression, she tore her arm free from my grasp. “Don’t you dare apologize! I don’t want to hear anything about my reputation or what people will think or any other nonsense, because I don’t care! You know what?” She gestured at the storefront. “I want this to be my reputation! This is fine! It’s always been fine!”

I gaped at her, stupefied. And a little terrified. 

She turned back to glare at the red paint. “I talked with Conall last night,” she said darkly. “He told me what he said to you. I told him not to speak to me until he educated himself and apologized.”

“Oh, no, that’s not—”

“He knew! He knew what his father was doing, and the whole time he did nothing. He didn’t even say anything! I only found out because I confronted him—after you almost got hurt.” Her voice wavered, but when I tried to speak, she added, “If the next words out of your mouth are another apology, I will jinx you right now.” So, I closed my mouth and faced the window as well. 

Drawing my wand, I silently cast Finite Incantatem (no offense to Penny; I had to double-check), and when that didn’t work, I verbally cast a more advanced countercharm. Nothing. I moved through my repertoire, from countercharms to counterjinxes, all the way up to countercurses. No effect. The paint continued to stare at me dryly, half-covering my befuddled reflection. 

“Impressive spellwork,” I noted. 

Penny looked at me sharply. “How are you so calm? I’m furious.”

“Well, they’re not telling me anything I don’t know, are they?” I said. I was upset, certainly. Every second I looked at that paint my stomach sank lower. This apothecary was Penny’s pride and joy. She didn’t deserve to have this kind of attention drawn to it, and she definitely didn’t deserve to have it vandalized. It was sickening, but if I said that, I would get jinxed without a second thought. 

“I’m still going to Madam Rosmerta,” she grumbled. “Someone thought they could hurt you again. It’s not okay.”

“This is just petty, honestly.”

“It’s still not okay.” Abruptly, she threw her hands up in the air. “And why does it have to be red ? That’s a horrible stylistic choice. It completely blends in with the Cauldron’s name.”

I laughed, if only out of incredulity. Of course she would be upset by a vandal’s choice of color. “Hold on, let me see…” I said, and cast another spell. To my delight, the glaring red letters shifted to a more soothing Ravenclaw blue. 

“Oh,” Penny exclaimed. She repeated the spell, and they brightened to a Hufflepuff yellow. Then black. Then black and yellow. 

“My turn,” I said happily. I changed the colors to blue and bronze, with alternating stripes on each letter. “Or...oh, wait.” Grinning, I cast the spell once more, and there, stretching from one end of the window to the other, bright as could be, was “DYKE,” spelled out in bold rainbow letters. 

Penny’s eyes lit up, all fury gone with the distraction. “Ooh, how fun. We could almost keep it like that.” But then she sighed, “I’m going to have to replace the whole window, aren’t I?”

“I’ll send a message to Bill first. Maybe he can do something.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll go through my recipes again. I tried a few potions, but maybe I missed something.”

I half-heartedly attempted another counterspell, to no effect. Hopefully something would work eventually. A magical fix would take an instant, but if we had to physically replace the window, then that would take time and Galleons. Together, we could probably afford it, but it would hurt. 

I glanced down the street. It could have been my imagination, but there seemed to be more than the usual number of people walking by today. And they all stared at us as they passed. Those that were in groups whispered to each other, and many slowed their pace to look at the storefront, although they sped up again when I looked at them. No one stopped. No one heckled. They just stared. 

I turned my wand over in my hand. Maybe the rainbow was too bright. 

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” Penny said. “I told you it doesn’t matter.”

She smiled softly at me when I turned my gaze back to her, but I still felt wrong . She was putting up with far too much for my sake. The attention, the vandalism—hell, she had practically broken up with her boyfriend. This was everything I had been trying to avoid by keeping my issues to myself, and yet it had happened anyway. 

“I never wanted any of this,” I said quietly, which was the closest to an apology I could think of without actually saying an apology. 

She made a noise of exasperation. “No, you didn’t. And you didn’t do any of this. Other people did. And I would love to find out who, because I have a new jar of Bulbadox Powder and more than a few ideas about where to put it.”

I held up my hands in protest. “That’s a bit—” 

Satanic is what I had been going to say, but I was interrupted by a faint “Lily?” We both turned to see Tonks hesitantly approaching, her eyes wide and her arms wrapped around her waist—a far cry from the furious witch that had come charging to my rescue last month. “Is this something you’ve been dealing with?” she asked, her eyes locked on the window. 

“This is a new one, I’ll admit,” I said. 

“Oh, shall we add it to the list then?” Penny asked sardonically. 

Tonks startled at her tone. “How long has this been going on?”

“In what form?” I asked, because I truly didn’t know the answer. If we wanted to go all the way back to the first time someone had thought it would insult me if they called me a dyke or queer or made a joke about rugs, then we had quite a few years to cover.  

Tonks gasped and put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she said from behind her glove. “The things I said to you. I yelled at you about not understanding, and all this time you...I didn’t think about...I didn’t…”

“It’s all right,” I said quickly, moving closer to her. “I said some horrible things to you too, and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

“You two had a fight?” Penny said in surprise. 

“But you were right about some things,” Tonks said, wrapping her arms back around herself. “I haven’t...I haven’t been well lately, and I haven’t been a great friend either, and I’m really, really sorry.”

“But I didn’t have to be a twat about it,” I admitted. “I think I was projecting my own problems onto you, and it wasn’t fair.”

“Which is why I should have been paying attention before I pushed my problems onto you in the first place.”

“You couldn’t have known. Not when I never told anyone.”

“I’m supposed to notice though. It’s my job to notice.” She looked distressed. “Maybe if I hadn’t been so caught up in my own—”

“Oh, belt up,” I ordered. “You did notice, remember? You protected me, even though I was too stubborn to apologize.”

“Don’t be daft,” she snapped, sounding remarkably like Merula. “You’re my friend. I may want to kill you myself sometimes, but I’ll still protect you.”

“Then if we’re both going to be terrible friends, I should be allowed to protect you too.”

She snorted. “You never give any of us a choice. If you did, we wouldn’t have to keep saving you from yourself.”

“That…!” My protest trailed off with a sigh. “That’s fair. Penny can tell you all about that, right, Pen—Penny? What’s wrong?” 

Penny had burst into tears. “I hate it when my friends fight!” she cried. “I just want to be able to hug you guys again.”

“Why can’t you hug us?” I asked. 

“Because you won’t let me! Neither of you have let me near you lately, and I keep wondering if I’ve done something wrong, and...and…” Her words became unintelligible as they morphed into sobs, and she covered her face with her hands. 

I started laughing as I wrapped an arm around her. 

“It’s not funny!” she cried, but she clung to me. 

“Aw, it’s okay, Pen,” Tonks said, wrapping an arm around her other side. “You can hug us now, see? Group hug!” She grabbed me with her other arm, and I stumbled into her, still laughing, while we jostled Penny between us. 

“See?” I said. “We’re still friends. Even when we fight we’re still friends. Nothing’s going to change that.”

“I’ve just been feeling so helpless,” Penny said, the tears streaming down to her chin. “Both of you have been so miserable, and I haven’t known how to help.”

“Are you joking?” I exclaimed. “You’ve helped plenty.”

“You’re mental, Pen,” Tonks added. “You know we couldn’t function without you.”

“Really?” she sniffled. 

“Really,” I agreed. 

She leaned into both of us. “I love you guys.”

“Aw, love you, mate.”

“Love you too, Pen.”

I pressed my head against hers, and Tonks did the same, while we waited for her breath to stop hitching. I supposed I wasn’t the only one that had been having a rough time lately. How long had Penny been keeping herself from breaking out of fear of upsetting us? Too long, without a doubt. She handled bottling up her emotions even worse than I did. 

“Well, what a sight we make,” Tonks laughed, glancing at the rainbow paint on the window. As she turned her head, she subtly drew a finger across the corners of eyes. 

I would say so. Three women embracing in front of a very gay sign? If I had thought we were drawing stares before, we were most definitely drawing them now. Some people had even paused in bewilderment. 

Penny pulled away, wiping her eyes on the back of her glove. “Let’s—” She hiccuped. “Let’s take care of that window.”

“What can I do to help?” Tonks asked. 

“Nothing, unless you know the counterspell,” I said. “So far we’ve only managed to change the color.”

“You did this?” She grinned. “That’s brilliant. What spells have you tried?”

I described what I had done so far, and she attempted a few spells of her own, albeit with no better luck. Then, pulling off one of her gloves, she stepped close to the window and scratched at the paint with her fingernail. 

“Er, ladies? It scrapes off.”

“What?” 

Penny and I rushed forward to test it for ourselves. Sure enough, some of the paint flaked off under my nail, and as soon as it came free from the glass, it dissolved into thin air, back to wherever it had been conjured from. It came off manually . Only one in a hundred wizards would have guessed that, and maybe not even the person that had invented the spell. But not all wizards possessed the impulsive curiosity of Tonks. 

“I’ll get the cleaning supplies,” Penny said, sniffing loudly. “Ugh, and a handkerchief.” She hurried inside, to return a moment later with a bucket of foamy water, some rags and sponges, and, conveniently, several paint scrapers. 

“We are going to destroy this window,” Tonks noted, eyeing the metal edges of the scrapers. 

Penny raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?” 

“Sorry, I am most likely going to destroy this window.”

“We can fix any scratches once we get rid of the spell,” I said. “Just try not to completely shatter it.”

“You assume I have control over that.”

Giggling at her, we got to work. The whole process was tedious, but the paint came off steadily, if slowly. The sun was past its zenith by the time we had removed the top half of the letters. Fortunately, though, there was plenty of conversation to fill the hours. I couldn’t remember the last time the three of us had truly talked with the ease of friends, and now that we were doing so, I realized I had missed it so much it hurt. 

I filled Tonks in on what had likely led to the vandalism (“You tried to start a pub fight without me? No fair! I wanted to break that bloke’s nose.”), and she quietly recounted some of the tasks she had been performing for Dumbledore, as well as her failure to get in contact with Remus. We didn’t have solutions for each other’s problems, but it was such a relief to just talk and listen, taking our turns in sharing the burden. 

Despite Penny’s wise decision to keep the bucket of cleaning solution as far away from Tonks as possible, Tonks still knocked it over, and we were forced to take a break while Penny refilled it. By this point, I was sick of the never-ceasing stares from passersby. It had been hours . Didn’t people have anything more interesting to look at than a trio of sunburned witches and some rainbow paint?

Fed up, I waved my paint scraper at a couple that had stopped to watch. “What are you looking at?” I yelled across the street. “I’m a dyke! So what? Keep walking!” Alarmed, they sped away, although several more heads turned in my direction, shocked. I started laughing, suddenly giddy, while my friends grinned at me. 

“Did that feel good?” Tonks asked. 

“Absolutely,” I said, and not caring how loud I said it, I announced, “I’m a lesbian. Completely queer. Gay as a penguin.”

“Somewhere over the rainbow,” Tonks added. 

“ Bluebirds fly, ” Penny sang as she scraped off a blue section of paint. She laughed at my confused expression, and then winced as she accidentally added a new scratch to the window’s growing collection. 

It wasn’t the first scratch, nor was it the last. Once we had cleaned off the last smudge of purple, I was able to declare, “ Reparo! ” and every little nick and scrape vanished, leaving the glass smooth and spotless. 

“There we go!” Tonks said happily. “Good as new.”

“Almost,” Penny said. “I have an idea.” She waved her wand, and in the bottom corner of the window, right next to the door, appeared a little rainbow flag. She looked at me questioningly. “What do you think?”

I grinned. “It’s perfect.”

It truly was. It was perfect and terrifying and right . 

The whole village knew I was gay. Between my outburst yesterday and the window today, there would be very few people that didn’t. Anything that I feared would happen, I had no more control over, not that I ever did. But I did have control over my ability to embrace it. 

This village could use a few more rainbows anyway. 

* * * *

“Ow, ow, ow!”

“This doesn’t hurt. It’s not supposed to hurt. You said so.”

“It’s cold.”

“It’s cold ? You’re impossible.”

“Please be gentle,” Penny begged. 

“I’m trying,” I said, “but if you don’t hold still, I’m going to poke your eye out.”

She whined but held her head steady as I continued to spread the sticky green paste across her nose and cheeks. On my fingers, it felt like mint tasted—cool and tingly. With luck, it would get rid of the sunburn on our faces and necks. The recipe Penny had found contained a mix of aloe, wiggenweld bark, and Murtlap Essence, which sounded promising, even if it smelled a bit strong. 

“How does that feel?” I asked. 

“Better,” she sighed. “Let’s not forget sun cream next time.”

“Agreed. One sunny day and you’re redder than a Chinese Fireball.”

“Like you’re any different. Give me that.” She snatched the bowl from my hand and slathered a generous amount of paste on my too-warm cheeks. 

I recoiled with a gasp. “Oh, God, that’s cold!”

“Told you.” She resumed massaging it in, while I fought the urge to grimace against the icy tingle that was spreading across my face. “Whatever doesn’t soak in after five minutes we can wipe off.”

“That’s not too bad,” I said. 

“Mm,” she hummed distractedly. She traced her thumb along the edge of my cheek, and satisfied with her work, wiped her fingers on the rag she had carried up with her. 

“Here,” I offered, and with a flick of my wrist, the sticky residue vanished from our hands. She gave me an odd look. “What is it?” I asked. 

“I told you I needed time to think,” she said slowly. 

“Right…?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about everything that happened. What Mrs. Byrne said, some of the things I’ve said… Everything from this past year, actually.” She twisted the rag between her hands. “I realized I’ve been taking you for granted.”

I sat up so fast I slammed my elbow into the kitchen table. “What?”

“I told you you’re my best friend,” she said earnestly. “It’s okay if you don’t view me the same. I know it’s complicated. But you know things about me, understand things that no one else does, because,”—she gave a small laugh—“well, saying we had a unique childhood would be an understatement. But I’ve become so accustomed to having you here that I didn’t think what it might be like for you.” 

She continued to twist the rag, weaving it between her fingers, wrapping and unwrapping it around her hands. “I pretend I don’t see how you look at me, or I...I fight you when you try to pull away—anything to keep things normal between us. And maybe that’s selfish.” Her voice cracked. “So, if it’s too uncomfortable or too painful for you here, then it’s okay if you want to leave. You deserve to be with your crowd, and I can’t...I can’t give that to you.”

“No,” I breathed, leaning toward her. “No, it’s all right. I think...I think I’ve been afraid for so long that I’ve been clinging to what I’m used to—you, and that’s not fair.”

She shook her head. “You can’t help it.”

“But I should be able to move on—to branch out, and I don’t want to have to leave to do that. You’re my crowd too. Maybe not in the way Mrs. Byrne meant, but we take care of each other. You take care of me.”

She looked at me tearfully, her lower lip trembling. The sorrow in her expression was offset, though, by the green paste on her face, which gave her the appearance of a watery bog monster—albeit a very sad one. 

I smiled, feeling a weird mix of sympathy and amusement. “You’ve been my best friend too. I don’t want to go anywhere,” I insisted, and with a realization, I added humorously, “Which is good, because I actually can’t . You’re kind of stuck with me.”

She laughed weakly and swiped at the corners of her eyes. “Oh,” she noticed, too late, as the paste smeared across the back of her hand.

“We can see if yours is ready,” I said, and I vanished it from her skin. While the tip of her nose was still a bit pink, the rest of her face had paled to a light tan. “Much better,” I informed her.

“Can I please hug you?” she asked. 

Without hesitation, I lifted my arms, and she leaned forward to embrace me tightly, her fingers curling against my back. I rested my chin on her shoulder. She sniffled next to my ear. 

“Is today a bad day?” I murmured. 

“A little.”

“Do you need something for it?”

Her hair tickled my neck as she shook her head. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’ve just been feeling things a lot more lately, you know?”

“Yeah. Me too,” I agreed quietly. And I hadn’t been there to take care of her. I hadn’t, Tonks hadn’t...maybe not anyone. “Let me know if it gets worse, all right?”

“Okay,” she said, although I wasn’t sure if I believed her. As she pulled back, she laughed again, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “I’m sorry. This was supposed to be about you.”

“I’m fine,” I said. Her pursed lips revealed her doubt, but for once, I had actually meant it. I rubbed my arm awkwardly. “You know, I think maybe I should start dating again. Or at least meet some more people like me.”

Her eyes lit up, her sorrow gone in a burst of delight.  

“Not right now!” I amended quickly. “There’s a lot happening right now. But when it doesn’t feel like the world is ending, sure.”

“Why wait? It’s supposed to be fun . If the world is ending, I think you deserve to have a little fun before then.”

“It’s...it’s not that simple.”

Still, despite my anxious protest, Dumbledore’s words lingered: Life is too short to live in fear of love. Ever since he had said that, I hadn’t been able to find an argument against it, no matter how hard I tried, and it was mildly infuriating. 

“Well, what about you though?” I asked, desperate to turn the conversation away from myself. “If Conall apologizes, are you going to take him back?”

Her excitement faded, replaced by hesitation. “I don’t know,” she said. “Should I?”

“Don’t leave it up to me!” I exclaimed. 

“You’re the one he insulted.”

“I don’t think that’s entirely his fault though. He probably didn’t know any better.”

“You’re right,” she admitted, twisting the rag between her hands yet again. 

“But?”

She blew out a breath. “But I don’t know how long I want this to continue, anyway. We have fun when we’re together, some nice conversations, but that’s it. Sometimes it feels like we’re living in two different worlds.”

“Well, what does he think about your world?” When she didn’t answer, I clarified, “You know...Scarlett, your sister, your panic attacks. What does he think about all that?”

“I think I can remove your paste now,” she said abruptly, drawing her wand. 

“He doesn’t know,” I realized, and then winced as her hand jerked, whacking me on the nose with her wand tip. 

She cringed. “Sorry! Your face is better too, at least.”

I touched my cheeks. The skin was significantly smoother than before, not to mention cooler. “Penny,” I said, trying to recover from the distraction. 

“No, he doesn’t know!” she said defensively. She crossed her arms. “I’ve been afraid too, okay? I don’t want him to suddenly think I’m weaker, or broken, or too much to handle, or…” Running out of words, she settled for throwing her hands up in the air. 

“You’re not any of those things.”

“I know that! But he might not. If he doesn’t understand…” She laughed helplessly. “I think it might break my heart.”

“You don’t know he won’t understand. There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

“It's terrifying ,” she whispered, her eyes wide in emphasis. 

I thought for a moment. “Tell you what, if he breaks your heart, I’ll grab Tonks, and the two of us will go knock some sense into him. Because if he thinks any less of you, then he wasn’t worth it, all right?”

She looked conflicted, and I was about ready to rip that poor, strangled rag out of her hands when she finally said, “All right. But none of this will happen if he doesn’t apologize to you.”

“Right,” I agreed. 

“And if I tell him, you have to start dating again.”

“Penny…”

“It doesn’t have to be now, like you said. At least promise you’ll give it a try.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “I promise.”

She gasped delightedly, clapping her hands together. “Really? Yes!”

“Don’t get your hopes up though,” I mumbled. 

“Can I hug you again? I want to hug you again.”

“Sure—ack!”

She had tackled me, nearly knocking my chair over backwards, and I had to cling to her to pull myself forward again. “Sorry,” she said into my shoulder. “I just really missed you.”

I laughed, relaxing as much as I could into her crushing embrace. “I missed me too,” I said. I had missed all of this. 

I was done clinging—or at least, I would try to be—but that didn’t mean I ever had to let go. After all, I quite liked hugging my friends. 

* * * *

A few days later, Conall came into the shop during my shift. Although he glanced at Penny, who was restocking ingredients in the corner, she kept her gaze firmly on her task, so he gave me his full attention instead, positioning himself so that his back was to her. 

“I realize I said some offensive things to you,” he told me sincerely, “and I’m sorry. You didn’t match up with everything Dad had told me, and I wasn’t sure how to process it, which isn’t a good excuse, I know.” 

His words sounded rehearsed, as if he had practiced them by reading off of notecards. He most likely had. Conall’s level of dedication to all things was continuously astounding, even by Hufflepuff standards.  

“And I don’t know how to begin to apologize for everything Dad’s done,” he continued. “I tried to tell him he might be going too far, but he didn’t want to hear it, and I gave up without arguing. So, I’m sorry about that too. I’ll do better in the future, if you’re willing to forgive me.”

I braced my arms against the counter. He wasn’t the only one that had rehearsed their part ahead of time. “Thank you for apologizing,” I said. “Not many people are willing to do that. If you mean what you say, you’re definitely forgiven.”

The relief that radiated from him was powerful enough to fill the whole room. He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s...I’m glad. I like having you as my friend, Lily, and I hate that I almost messed it up.”

I blinked at him in surprise. “You do?”

“Of course. You’re one of the only people who will listen to me blather on about agroforestry or wood texture without falling asleep. That, and you're the reason my arm isn’t stuck facing backwards.”

With a small gasp, Penny knocked over a stack of recipe books. Red-faced, she levitated them back into place. 

Mouth quirked in amusement, Conall held out his hand. “Friends?” he asked. 

I shook it. “Friends,” I confirmed, mildly stunned. He had considered me a friend all this time? I had never realized. 

I had been too caught up in my own feelings to notice. 

As Conall left, he gave one last glance in Penny’s direction. She kept her eyes on the shelves, even though there were no more ingredients to put away. He nodded, seemingly to himself, and left with a friendly farewell to me. 

Once the door was shut and the bell had stopped jingling, Penny raised her eyebrows questioningly. I spread my palms with a shrug: Up to you. She frowned at this response, but didn’t ask for clearer advice—which was good, because I wasn’t going to give it to her. 

A few more days later, I discovered both of them in the shop well after hours. Conall leaned back against the counter, bringing himself down closer to Penny’s height as they spoke to each other, their voices hushed and serious. He murmured something, his expression gentle in the low light, and then they embraced, holding each other as if, from this moment on, they were never going to let go. 

I crept back up the stairs before they could see me—or before I saw any more of what I wasn’t supposed to see. As I closed the door to my room, I was smiling, but there was also a tightness in my throat, like I might cry. Curling up on my bed, I pressed my face against my pillow and waited for the bittersweet feeling to go away. It didn’t. It felt like there was hole in my chest, as if I had lost something, and it was giving me the strange desire to write to my last girlfriend. I wanted to apologize for not holding her hand when she had wanted and for not hugging her enough. 

It took a concerning amount of time to talk myself out of this impulse, and by the time I did, I was too emotionally exhausted to do more than lay there numbly. What a month this had been. I rolled over, debating turning off the lamp on my nightstand, when my eyes landed on the little pearlescent dragon that was curled up next to it. Oh. I nudged Pallas with my finger, not because I wanted to transfigure her, but because I wanted the solidness of the clay to remind me she was there, exactly as she had been for almost a full year. 

There was one more person in need of an apology, and I was going to give it to her.

* * * *

When I sent my Patronus to Merula, I took a page out of Penny’s book. That is, the message it carried was more warning in nature than request: 

I’m coming over. You have five minutes to stop me. 

Whether she used those five minutes to run or wait was up to her, and although she was petty enough to let me show up to an empty house if she thought I deserved it, I was willing to take that chance. So, when there was no reply in five minutes, I grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and fell into the Snyde Manor in a whirl of green flames. I landed smoothly, my feet finding purchase on the parlor rug through pure familiarity, and to my pleasant surprise, the room wasn’t empty. 

In the corner, Merula sat at the grand piano, her back to me as her fingers flew over the keys, drumming out a fierce staccato. Over her head, the painted blackbird watched her from the branches of his old oak tree and occasionally gave a short, sharp trill to match the music. I hesitantly crossed the room. She likely saw me; I was at least in the corner of her vision, but she didn’t look up from the music rack...which had no music on it. Whatever song she was playing, it was something purely from her own head, and it was something angry and loud—angrier and louder than I ever thought a piano could be. The speed at which her fingers struck the keys, bouncing from note to note, was enough to make me anxious. 

Or more anxious than I already was, anyway. 

Then she faltered, hitting a sour note, and the song slammed to a halt as her fingers went still. She scowled at the keys, seemingly disgusted with their failure to produce the right sound. “Are you going to say something, or are you going to keep staring like an idiot?” she demanded, still without looking up. 

Great start. Really great start. 

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” I said. 

“Well, you already did, so out with it.”

I clasped my hands behind my back to keep them from fidgeting. “I wanted to apologize for how I left things. I took out my frustration on you, and that wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.”

I expected her to snap at me, to shout, to demand a better apology, anything that would match the fierceness of her song, but she didn’t. Instead, she blew out a breath and muttered, “It’s not like I didn’t deserve it.”

“That’s not true,” I said, taken aback. “We don’t get to keep a tally of whose turn it is to lash out at the other. That’s not how this works.”

She tilted her head, gazing at me out of the corner of her eye. “And what exactly is this?”

“I...I don’t understand the question.”

“Neither do I,” she sighed. Her fingers drifted over the keys, playing a faint, melancholy melody. The minute stretched on. She didn’t say anything else. 

Taking that as a sign this short conversation was over, I began to walk toward the fireplace. I had done what I had come here to do, at least. The rest was up to her. 

The music slammed to another halt. “Where are you going?” she asked, turning to look directly at me for the first time. 

I stopped. “If you don’t want to forgive me—”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, and then winced when I raised my eyebrows at her. “Sorry. I know I could say things better sometimes; you were right about that. But I don’t...I mean, I try…” She paused, baring her teeth in frustration, and with a steadying breath, she said, “I never apologized for hurting you. That...that couldn’t have felt great, and I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to become better at this kind of thing—apologizing, I mean.” 

I grinned at her, and her face flushed. “All I’m saying is that I’ve been by your side this long,” she grumbled. “You can’t expect to get rid of me that easily. You’re forgiven.”

My grin was as much from relief as it was from amusement, but I didn’t tell her that. “Thank you,” I said softly, and I meant that in more ways than one. 

She turned her face away with a nonchalant shrug, although her ears were visibly pink. The blackbird trilled happily from his tree, and she played a few notes to match. “Are you feeling better now?” she asked. 

“Yes,” I said, surprised by my lack of hesitation. “A lot better.”

She smirked. “Good. Then you can prove it to me by staying for dinner. Because we’re never going to have a proper duel until you get your energy back, and your sorry excuse for a Food Charm isn’t going to accomplish that.”

“Wow, thanks,” I laughed. Returning to the piano, I sat down next to her on the narrow bench. She poked me in the ribs, and I batted her hand away with a snort. 

With her smirk unfading, she reached across me, and then her leg was pressed against mine as her fingers flew over the keys once more, transforming the blackbird’s notes into a full song—full, powerful, and bright—that twisted through the air like a bird on a spring breeze. Her voice rose along with it, weaving with the sweeping arpeggios, wordlessly lifting them up. And while we sat there, side-by-side, without speaking, it was not in silence.

Chapter Text

December 1996

I spent the course of the next several weeks exchanging letters with each member of the tri-house trio. While I didn’t explain everything that had been going on (that was a conversation for in person), I did apologize for pushing them away and clarified that it wasn’t any of their faults. I had been struggling to work through some things that I hadn’t wanted them to get caught up in, but the worst was over with now. Unfortunately, I couldn’t visit them without a good excuse, but if they ever needed anything, I told them, I was only a short owl flight away. 

Their responses were about as expected. Mason had already understood, Robin was just glad I was okay, and Sam would only forgive me if I helped her celebrate her seventeenth birthday in January. I agreed to that last request on the condition she received permission from Dumbledore and Flitwick. Considering Sam’s preference for direct confrontation, we still had a lot to talk about, but her letters were promising, at least. 

All three of them would be staying at Hogwarts over Christmas, with varying levels of enthusiasm. Robin had been looking forward to going home, but without any explanation, his aunt had told him to stay where he was—to his understandable dismay. Sam was in a similar frustrating position. Her sister was stuck working over the holidays, which meant that if she went home, then it would be to an empty flat. Mason was the only one that had actually chosen to stay. He had no desire to sit through any awkward family dinners, so if his friends were staying, then he was staying too. 

Regardless of whether they were happy about it, I was glad they were together. December was a rough month for Sam, being the anniversary of her parents’ deaths, and while all three kids needed support from each other, she needed it especially. 

I also wouldn’t be going anywhere for Christmas. Like last year, I didn’t expect anything bad to happen to the village or school, not with most students home for the holidays, but I wanted to be cautious, especially since Tonks and I were the only people on standby. Penny would be gone for a week while she visited her family, and most of the Hogsmeade Aurors would be home for Christmas Day. With Tonks distracted, I was alone.

Almost alone. 

On Christmas Eve, I briefly hopped through the Floo Network to wish my parents happy holidays (“briefly” being an hour long conversation, thanks to my mum), before I returned to the Cauldron to wait. Without much expectation, I had sent out invitations to my friends, and of course, most had declined, citing work or family as their reason for staying close to home. Even Tonks had declined, although whether it was because she was busy or moping, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t fault any of them. There was an odd tension in the air, one that seemed to whisper in our ears, telling us not to stray too far from the things we wanted to protect. 

One person had accepted my invitation though, and it was her that I waited for. 

Outside the kitchen window, snow flurried by like ghosts in the winter darkness, and as the afternoon crawled toward evening, I kept an anxious eye on the clock. I should have finished making dinner over an hour ago, but my inability to focus had resulted in numerous setbacks. One careless wave of my wand had caught the rolls on fire, and another had caused the brussel sprouts to deliquesce into a weird gooey mess. There was no damage done to the Cauldron, fortunately, but my sense of competence was another story. 

Penny was a saint to have decorated the place before she had left, because, right now, I could barely focus on not burning the turkey, much less on hanging a single wreath. While the flat wasn’t as grand as last year, she had ensured there was a fully ornamented tree in the main room, poinsettias and holly boughs on every shelf, and twinkle lights throughout it all. It was beautiful as always, and far more than I would have been able to accomplish on my own. 

I couldn’t even focus on the Christmas music that crackled from the wireless on the kitchen counter, which sounded more like white noise than anything coherent. Three days in an empty flat and I was already losing my sanity. I must have forgotten how to function without other people around. That had to explain why I was experiencing this much anticipation.

A whoosh emitted from the fireplace, and my pulse spiked with it. As the flames settled down, there stood Merula, dressed in a green jumper and black leggings—an abnormally tame look for her. Her black cloak was draped over her arms, concealing a boxy shape underneath. 

“You’re here!” Setting down my wand before I could cause anything else to explode into goo, I moved forward to greet her with a grin. “Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas,” she agreed, her return smile far more subdued. 

On reflex, I moved as if to hug her, as I would have done for any of my other friends, but I caught myself before I could raise my arms and jerked my foot back, half-stumbling. Right. She didn’t like hugs. That’s what she had said last year. No hugs. 

Distracted while she untangled her cloak from the packages in her arms, she didn’t notice my clumsy moment. “Here,” she said, holding out two neatly wrapped boxes—one large and flat, the other the size of my hand. “For you.”

“Oh! Thank you,” I said happily, and placed them in the pile of gifts under the tree. “I have something over here for you too. Whenever you want it.”

“Later.” Hanging her cloak on the rack by the door, she turned to smirk at the disaster that was the kitchen. “You made a mess,” she noted, to my chagrin. 

“Yeah, sorry.” I picked my wand back up. “Dinner was supposed to be ready before you arrived, but one disaster after another kept happening, and I swear I’m not normally this bad at food charms, but—” I waved my wand, and a potato shot across the room to smack against the wall. Merula guffawed while I covered my burning face with a hand. 

“Do I really make you that nervous?” she teased. 

“You’re full of yourself, Snyde,” I grumbled, which only added to her delight. I ignored her while I magically returned the rogue potato to its tray. 

She stepped in front of me and leaned in close, forcing me to look at her. “Relax,” she said smoothly. “The problem is you’re overthinking it. Again.” With the tip of her index finger, she playfully bopped me on the nose. I swatted in retaliation, but she caught my hand, sliding her fingers until they were on top of my own. “Here, relax your grip on your wand. Really, are you trying to break it? Relax.”

Relax. That was easier said than done, especially since she had me cornered in my own kitchen, but with a measured breath, I stopped strangling my wand. 

“Good,” she said, and then I had to suppress a gasp as, without letting go of my wand hand, she slipped behind me and pressed up against my back. Her free hand dropped to my waist as she held herself in place, and her arm lined up with mine as she directed the movement of my wand. “You feel that?” she asked next to my ear, while she swept my hand. “It’s controlled. Purposeful. Not quite gentle, but still done with a touch of care.”

I didn’t know what I felt, other than that it was warm. Everywhere her body was pressed against mine was very warm, and I couldn’t tell if the heat gathering beneath my blouse was from her or me. 

“You’re not relaxing,” she singsonged, her breath tickling my ear. 

“Sorry.”

“Quit apologizing.”

I bit my tongue before I could respond to that with another apology. I let my hand sway with hers, becoming familiar with the motion, and then swept my wand with intent. Spices hopped out of bowls to spread themselves evenly over the tray of potatoes, which began steaming, filling the air with the pleasant scents of rosemary and olive oil. 

“Not bad,” Merula said. Resting her chin on my shoulder, she teased, “Not surprised you’re such a wreck though. I’m very intimidating, I know.”

“Right, you’re so scary,” I said wryly, and taking advantage of the easy access, I added, “Birdie,” and returned a bop on her nose. 

She pulled away with another laugh, disappointingly taking the warmth with her. “This little bird can and will kick your arse. And has . Now”—she drew her wand—“give me something to do.”

“You’re a guest,” I protested lamely. 

“It’ll go faster if you have help. I’ll go insane if I have to sit here and watch.”

“Fine,” I said, as if I wasn’t relieved. “Can you roast the rest of the brussel sprouts? I need to redo the bread…”

So, we got to work, and the process was interesting, to say the least. Merula was skilled and efficient. I was calm enough to avoid burning anything else. And as I showed her where everything was located and explained which dishes we had left to make, our task seemed simple enough. But apparently neither of us was used to cooking with another person: something that became very clear, very quickly. 

We collided at every turn—physically and magically—and more often than not caused each other to spill what we were holding. I scattered flour across the floor when she bumped my hip, and she dropped a knife a hair's breadth from her foot when I knocked into her elbow. Ingredients smacked into each other midair, ricocheting into us instead of their intended destinations. With a chorus of, “Sorry!” “Watch it!” “Oops!” and, “Bollocks!” we somehow made more of a mess of the kitchen together than I had by myself. 

When an entire bowl of turkey stuffing turned over on my head, that’s when the chaos peaked. I whirled around to face Merula, who had both hands clamped over her mouth in a mix of horror and hilarity, and before she could react, a burnt bread roll smacked her dead-center on the forehead (an excellently aimed throw, if I did say so myself). She gasped, “You did not!” and then flung a handful of brussel sprout goo from the counter, which splattered across my cheek. 

That was all it took for food to stop flying accidentally and to start targeting us with purpose. Whatever was no longer edible, we used as a weapon. I bounced burnt rolls off of her while she shielded her face with her arms, and when I ran out, I started flicking bits of sausage from the stuffing instead. She continued to fling the goo in retaliation, and once I was thoroughly covered in the slimy green mush, she called up a spiral cloud of flour and spices, which she sent swirling toward me. 

“Not the turkey!” I screeched, throwing myself in front of it, only to slip in a patch of goo and crash to the floor. Laughing too hard to maintain concentration, she dropped the flour cloud on both of us—and half the kitchen. As the dust settled, she offered me a hand up, and I proceeded to pull her down on top of me. She tumbled off, and then we were both sprawled out on the floor, laughing until our ribs hurt too much to breathe. 

“Look at this!” she choked out, shaking the flour from her hair. “Look at this! I haven’t had a food fight like this since...since Peeves hit me in the back of the head with that bloody sandwich.”

Wheezing, I wiped tears from my eyes. “Oh, no, that was me. I threw it.”

“I knew it! You arsehole!” She punched my arm, giggling uncontrollably. 

I sat up to take in the kitchen, which looked like it had been struck by a blizzard. Almost every surface had been turned white, minus the disgusting splatters of green on the cabinets and walls. “Penny would kill me,” I said in amazement. 

“We can...we can…” She struggled to gain control of herself, her face flushed with laughter. “We can fix it. I can...oh, shit.” Her hand slipped out from under her as she attempted to sit up. “Help me up.”

Clumsily, through a combination of leaning against each other and holding onto the edge of the counter, we managed to pull ourselves to our feet on the slippery floor. By some miracle, we had avoided hitting most of the in-progress meal, and a simple wand wave or two salvaged the rest. A few more waves, and we returned the kitchen (and ourselves) to a clean, pre-disaster state, without the hazard of flying rolls, goo, or flour. 

I truly loved magic. 

Using less levitation this time, we continued cooking with significantly more grace. As she prepped the rest of the side dishes, Merula hummed along to the music, bouncing as she moved. I focused on the turkey, trying not to grin too broadly, although this became harder to do when her hip bumped against mine again. Her eyes sparkled while I bit down on another laugh. 

Around six o’clock, I tapped my wand against the wireless until a witch’s velvety voice crooned out of the speakers, in the middle of a love song:

I’m under your spell, and it’s clear to tell

That, baby, you’re under mine too

I’m yours heart and soul, as I take a stroll

In a witch and wizard’s wintry wondrous land with you

Merula wrinkled her nose. “Celestina Warbeck. Really?”

“I know,” I chuckled. “I don’t normally listen to her either. But this was Rowan’s Christmas tradition, and it kind of stuck with me.” I checked the temperature of the turkey. Satisfied, I pointed past her shoulder. “Could you pass me that carving knife?”

She did, albeit without the same spark. “You keep her close, don’t you,” she said, her expression difficult to read. 

“Yeah.” I held up my hand so she could see the silver ring. Infinite, unbroken, forever. The qualities of circles and of friendships. “It’s kind of weird when you think about it, isn’t it? She’s been gone longer than I knew her, and yet she shaped my life. Sometimes she still does.” 

I instructed the knife to carve the turkey while I hunted for a dish to put the meat on. I found a large porcelain one, its rim decorated with patterns of holly. At the sight of the red berries, something went strangely still within my chest. 

“Her birthday was two days ago,” I murmured, without really knowing why. “She would have been twenty-four.” Seven years older than she actually lived. 

A slice of turkey flopped to the floor, and, snapping out of my weird trance, I set the dish down on the counter and focused on transferring the rest of the meat over to it. Without further comment or complaint, Merula returned to getting the sides ready to serve. After a minute, she began to sing along. 

Rowan had once compared Merula’s singing to that of a siren, and I thought about that comparison every time I heard it. Whenever she sang, there was an edge, a roughness to her, that always vanished, replaced by something much freer. Starting out soft, her voice gained power as it wove with Celestina’s until it floated throughout the entire flat. It was whimsical (with the lyrics of “My Baby Gave Me a Hippogriff for Christmas,” it was hard not to be), and yet it was enchanting in an otherworldly way, one that caused goosebumps to rise on my arms. I instructed the knife to stop so that I could lean back against the counter to listen to her. Her eyes half-closed, she distractedly spooned potatoes into a glass container, lost in her own world. 

Then, her voice cracked on a high note, and she broke off with a grimace. “Nope,” she said. “Not hitting that note today.”

I grinned. “Beautiful.”

“You’ve heard me sing better than that.”

“It was still beautiful.”

She turned away with a disbelieving scoff. “Everything looks ready. Are you done over there?”

“Yep. You can go ahead and sit down. Unless you want to chance getting turkey in your hair?”

“I’m good, thanks,” she snorted, and sat down at the table. 

I levitated the steaming dishes until they were spread from one end of the table to the other—far too much food for two people. It all smelled heavenly. Nothing else was burnt or of unnatural consistency. The turkey, the vegetables, the rolls—it all looked perfect. 

I sat down across from Merula. “Thank you,” I said, “for saving me from disaster.”

“I had to. It would have been too painful to watch.”

I rolled my eyes, and she chuckled. 

“Seriously though,” she said, “I poke fun, but...well, you’re not half-bad at most things.”

“I try.”

“I know you do.”

“You do too,” I said. “You always work so hard at everything you put your mind to. It’s one of the things I admire about you, actually.”

“You…” Her surprised echo trailed off in bewilderment. “Really?”

“Yeah. You’re not half-bad either, for the record.” I grinned cheekily. 

Now she rolled her eyes. 

“Well, I’m starving,” I said, and lifted my glass, “so what do you say to toasting to a merry Christmas and enjoying our ‘not half-bad’ meal?”

She smiled faintly. “Cheers,” she said, and clinked her glass against mine. 

We dug in, and for a while the only sounds audible were the clinking of cutlery and faint chewing. The food tasted as good as it smelled: an excellent mix of savory, salty, and sweet. The meat wasn’t too dry, nor were the vegetables too soft. It was a wonderful team effort. 

As we ate, though, I felt self-conscious, which was odd. I had eaten dinner with Merula plenty of times, and I had never once thought about how I was eating. This time, however, I was hyper-aware of the speed at which I ate, the size of my bites, whether food got stuck to my face, everything. I ended up eating slowly, methodically, putting no more than a morsel on my fork at a time, and I wiped my mouth with my serviette in between every bite. 

Wait, was that too often? Did that look weird?

When I glanced up, Merula wasn’t paying attention. She was hunched in her chair, her energy from before suddenly gone. Listless, she rested her head against her hand and pushed her food around her plate, having barely touched any of it. 

Celestina Warbeck continued to sing in the background, being the only other sound to fill the silence. Having cycled through her Christmas songs, the station had switched to playing her classics instead. “You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me” was nearing its end:

This feeling’s utter bliss

Yet something seems amiss

Like a Dementor’s Kiss

You’re consuming me!

“What is it?” I asked. “Does it not taste good?” I had joked about “half-bad,” but I had thought we had done better than that.  

She lifted her head with a tense expression. “No, it’s not that. It tastes fine.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” She set down her fork. “Do you mind turning that off? I have a bit of a headache.”

“Oh. Yeah, of course.” I waved my wand at the wireless. The music clicked off, leaving an odd ringing in its absence. “Do you need something for it? This is the best place to find a potion, you know,” I added lightly, suppressing my concern. 

“No, I’m fine. Just a little tired. It will go away once I get some sleep.”

“If you say so,” I said, unconvinced. 

As if to demonstrate just how fine she was, she picked up her fork and nibbled at her potatoes, although she looked like she was one wrong swallow away from choking. Realizing I was staring, I dropped my gaze to my food, but the sudden appearance of billywigs in my stomach had consumed my appetite as well. I began to mirror her and nibbled at my potatoes, if only for the sake of doing something. 

Maybe she was just burnt out. After bouncing around the kitchen like that, she had to be. 

Yeah, that had to be it. 

When the lull had stretched on for too long, I laughed awkwardly. “This is certainly a different Christmas from last year,” I said. 

To my relief, she chuckled. “I don’t think it’s possible to replicate last year.”

“No, definitely not,” I agreed. Between the unique brand of chaos that was Tonks and Tulip, the spontaneous duel, and the start of my visions, there was nothing that could match that Christmas. And that wasn’t counting the presents or the night in the snow. 

“You know,” she said, “if we did it all again, I wouldn’t say the same things I did then.”

“You mean during Tulip’s debate?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She returned to pushing her food around her plate, her gaze downcast. “I have my opinions on Muggles. That hasn’t changed. And I never needed to be taught about Muggle-borns. Copper fixed that years ago. But everything I said about the importance of blood and tradition… After everything I’ve seen lately, all these traditions need to die.”

“Yeah?”

She sneered. “I’ve been repeating my parents’ words my entire life. But now that I’ve been around these families—they’re so broken. All of them. Every Death Eater, every blood purist—they’re clinging to something that’s already gone, and they’d rather destroy everything around them than accept it.” 

She closed her eyes. “I’m tired. I’m so, so tired of all of it. Most of us aren’t even part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and yet it’s still ‘Dress this way, act that way, marry this person, don’t talk to that one.’ Why should I follow a tradition that doesn’t care about me? That won’t let me…” She trailed off. 

“That won’t let you be who you want?” I offered. 

“Something like that.”

For some reason, I felt the strange impulse to reach across the table and grab her hand. Since that wouldn’t go over well, however, I set down my utensils and met her gaze, which was unusually shiny. “You,” I said, “are Merula. You have always been Merula. Different versions of her, maybe, but always unabashedly Merula. A brilliant force of nature that doesn’t let anyone or anything stand in her way, regardless of what other people think.”

She laughed, near hysterically. “I don’t know if I know who that is,” she said in a most un-Merula way. 

I smiled gently. “Well then, let’s see. I haven’t known this version for very long, but I can tell you what I’ve learned, if you would like.”

“Should I be worried?”

“That depends what you’re worried about.”

She raised her chin. “I’m not worried about anything.”

“Never,” I agreed archly. 

I fiddled with my serviette, taking my time in gathering my thoughts. An impatient frown slowly overtook her pale face. 

“She’s complex,” I said finally. “A little rough sometimes—sometimes too much, sometimes necessarily so. She’s hard-working and talented, always striving to improve—and it shows. I think she cares a lot more about things than she likes to let on. And,”—I leaned forward to rest my chin on my interlocked fingers—“right now, she looks a little sad.”

“I think you hit your head in that fall,” she grumbled. 

“Maybe,” I chuckled. “I’m still figuring out where I fit in all this too.” I pointed at myself. “Jack of all trades, master of none, and while better than a master of one, this version of me has no clue where she’s going. But I’m making progress.”

She sat back to eye me warily, as if she was seeing me in a new light. “You’re not going to disappear off the end of the world when this war is over?” she asked. “No more wrangling flobberworms?”

“I’ve been considering other options. I don’t know. I quite like being home, here with my friends.” I hated the cold. I hated sitting still. But nights like these, with the food and the music and the laughter...I didn’t get these when I was alone on the other side of the world. 

But add that to the list of things to consider if we survived. 

She stared at me for a long moment, words balanced on the tip of her tongue. “Well, this version of Lily baffles me, I’ll tell you that,” she said, too underwhelmingly for that to have been what she had wanted to say. 

“Oh? Do tell me more.”

“That’s a dangerous request.”

“I’m feeling daring.”

She snorted. “Like I said, she’s baffling. She cares an impossible amount about everything, always trying to carry the weight of the world alone, even though she doesn’t have the strength to hold it—which is beyond infuriating, by the way. She’s sad a lot too, but still laughs for some reason. And she will befriend absolutely everything and anything, including flesh-eating and fire-breathing monsters.” 

She paused, twirling her fork between her fingers. “And she gives second chances,” she added, her voice losing strength, “even to those that don’t deserve it.”

“Wow, you really do care,” I said, too jokingly for that to have been what I had wanted to say. 

“Shut up, Flores,” she said in a very Merula way, to my partial reassurance.  

More seriously, I asked, “What happened to prompt all this?”

She hesitated. “It wasn’t one thing exactly. More of a slowing dawning realization.”

“And your parents? Have you had any contact with them?”

The answer was obvious. Self-pity didn’t come naturally to Merula. For her, the source of that was almost always familial in nature.

But she said, “Not anything worth mentioning,” which wasn’t a no. The I don’t want to talk about it part was implied, however.

“Okay,” I said, dropping it not because I wanted to, but because she was beginning to look distressed again. “I’m right here, you know. I know you don’t need me, but I’m here anytime you want.”

“You always do have to play the hero, don’t you,” she scoffed. 

“No, not right now. Just whenever you get tired of carrying the world too.”

The fork slipped out of her fingers, clattering to the plate. She flinched. “Ugh, you’re making me nauseous,” she groaned. 

“Fine,” I sighed. “No more mushy talk. Are you done eating?” I wasn’t finished, but I wasn’t going to eat anymore if she was. 

There was still half a plate of food in front of her, but she grimaced at it, as if she truly was nauseous. She nodded. 

“Okay,” I said softly. Standing up, I levitated the plates and dishes back to the kitchen so that the food could put itself away. As I walked past her chair, on impulse, I playfully ran a hand over her hair. I expected her to swat at me, to retaliate like usual, but she didn’t. She didn’t move. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Dropping her hands into her lap, she looked at me tentatively. “I mean it. Thank you.”

I smiled uncertainly. None of this was like her. The vulnerability, the exhaustion, the doubt—this was less like the strong witch I had described, and more like someone that was one crack away from breaking. “Maybe we should have a quiet evening,” I said. “If you want to lie down—”

“Stop that,” she said with sudden intensity, straightening in her chair. “I said I’m fine. Let’s swap gifts.”

Okay, then…maybe I was wrong. “All right.” I kneeled at the base of the tree, in search of the small box I had wrapped last week. Her chair scraped against the floor as she pushed back from the table, and then she was sitting cross-legged next to me. “Hello,” I said, amused. 

She grinned puckishly. 

Cute, I thought, and felt my face heat as I did so. “Er…” Finally spotting what I was looking for, I snatched the box out of the pile and held it out to her. “Here. It’s not the most original gift, but I…er, I thought it might look nice.”

Raising an eyebrow at me, she tore off the wrapping and lifted the lid. There on a small cushion, its black wings accented with silver, was a bird in flight. She lifted the pendant out of the box and let it swing from its thin chain, back and forth, like it was trying to fly away. 

“I couldn’t find any female blackbirds, unfortunately,” I said. “But, hey, we can be matching now.”

“Friendship necklaces?” she laughed. 

“I wasn’t going to call it that, but now that you said it…” I joked. 

She lightly shoved my shoulder. “You are so soppy.”

“Don’t like it?”

“I never said that. Help me put it on.”

She dropped the necklace in my palm, and I moved behind her to do as ordered. As I brushed her hair off the back of her neck, I began to feel warm again. For several long seconds, my fingers fumbled on the clasp before I finally managed to hook it together. When I moved away, the warm feeling faded only a fraction, as if I had taken a single step away from a fire. 

“Well?” she asked, tilting her head up to display the blackbird perched on her chest. 

I grinned. “Stunning. But that’s nothing new.”

Rolling her eyes, she turned her face away, but not before her cheeks flushed pink. My smile widened, a little giddy at the rare reaction. 

She retrieved the large, flat package from under the tree and held it up delicately by its edges. “This one isn’t the most original either. The dragon is kind of hard to beat.”

“That is up there,” I agreed. 

Mimicking her level of care, I pulled back the edge of the paper to reveal a dark wooden frame. Tenderly, I slipped the rest of the paper off of what was clearly an oil painting. In a midnight purple room, a black cat slept soundly on a large red-cushioned chair. A single window was visible on the wall behind it, on the outside of which snow gusted past—just like what was happening outside the kitchen window. Whoever the painter was, they had a significant knowledge of weather charms, which could only mean one thing.

“This is…” I began. 

“Painted by Badeea Ali,” Merula confirmed. “That half-starved furball you call a Patronus is too flashy for its own good. Or my own good. If you’re gonna keep sending me messages, ‘bout time you had one of these.”

The cat rolled over in the chair so that it was sleeping upside down. It looked highly content, safe from the intensity of the snowfall outside its window. 

“Thank you,” I said, awed. “This is…this is wonderful.” And would be useful, for sure. 

She fidgeted with a scrap of wrapping paper. “She would have painted you one eventually. I’m more of a delivery person. Like with this.” She held up the smaller box. “This is from Winger.”

“Talbott?” I said in surprise, accepting it. 

“Do you know another Winger?”

“No, I just didn’t think you two got on.”

She shrugged. “Things changed. He was my partner first few years on the job, before Scrimgeour started assigning him more solo missions. Doesn’t talk much, but he’s not horrible to be around. Saved my arse a few times too.” She winced. “Er, don’t tell him I said that.”

Stunned, I removed the lid from the box. Inside, about the size of my palm, lay a web of string within a wooden hoop, from which dangled several long brown feathers and bits of amethyst. 

“Oh, lovely,” she said sardonically, “he used his own feathers.”

“A dreamcatcher?” I said in confusion. 

“His idea.” She began to methodically shred the piece of paper. “I’ve been trying to research ways to stop your nightmares. Besides Occlumency, I mean. There’s not a lot of literature on it, honestly. Most books recommend nightly potions, which I know you would hate. And I was getting frustrated and Winger was getting nosy, so, er, I kind of told him the gist. Not the whole being tortured or corridor of blood thing, but yeah.”

I ran the feathers through my fingers. “He made this?”

“Pretty sure. He muttered something about his mum and then dropped this on my desk the next day. You’ll have to ask him more, because I have no clue.”

I held the dreamcatcher over my head, letting the light refract through the dangling amethyst. “I’ll try to visit him soon,” I said. “But you’ll have to thank him for me next time you see him.”

“Will do.” She let the paper fragments fall from her fingers like pieces of confetti. “I don’t know about it. If we could have stopped the Cursed Vaults with a dreamcatcher, our time at Hogwarts would have gone a lot differently. But maybe it’ll help you sleep better.” She gestured aimlessly, a touch of helplessness in the movement. 

“Worried about me?” I said with half-humor. 

She gave me a serious look. “I don’t like this. I told you that last month.”

“You did. Repeatedly.”

“This has been going on for a full year now, and Dumbledore’s done nothing.”

“He’s looking into it.” That’s what he had said, at least. 

Based on the way she wrinkled her nose, she doubted it. “It’s not enough,” she grumbled. 

“I don’t know what you expect anyone to do,” I said tiredly. We had already had this conversation multiple times, ever since I had told her about my most recent vision. Her initial reaction to Dumbledore’s “educated guess” had been less than ideal. A glass had shattered against the wall, after having been forcefully propelled across the manor kitchen. I had forgotten what a good arm she had. 

She had obviously calmed down since then, and I knew she wasn’t angry at me. Because, if Dumbledore was right, then both of us were going to have to face something that was better off left forgotten. 

She closed her eyes. “I’ve just had enough of those damn Vaults.”

“We don’t even know if that’s what this is.”

“We just don’t need this right now. Not on top of everything else.”

“At least you’re not the one that has it in your head,” I said flatly. 

Her eyes snapped open. “I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s all right,” I said. “You kind of do too, don’t you? Everything that happened…it hasn’t gone away. Even years later.”

She took a breath. “No,” she said quietly. 

“But we still have each other,” I added. “I know I have you. And Penny. And Tonks and Talbott and Tulip and everyone else that’s still here. They’re all ready to help out at a moment’s notice.”

“Right.” She crossed her arms, scrunching up the fabric of her sleeves—her usual self-calming gesture. “You always have to turn my life upside down, don’t you,” she said with forced lightness. 

I chuckled. “Is that really such a bad thing?”

She bit her lip. “No, not always.”

“For the record,” I said, “I’m glad you’re here.” And, without thinking about it, I put my hand on her knee. She flinched, and I swiftly withdrew. “Sorry, that was weird,” I mumbled. 

“No, no, don’t…it’s not…” She began to protest, but after struggling for words for a bit, she gave up. “Er, I think I want to cast the charm now.”

“Oh?” Now? That was rather sudden—not that I minded. I stood up to glance out the window. The glass rattled as a gust of wind blasted past, flurries of snow barely visible in the darkness. “Probably better to cast it inside. The weather looks bad.”

“I…” She curled her fingers, not meeting my gaze. “I would actually prefer to cast it alone this Christmas.”

My heart sank. “Oh.”

“I won’t be long,” she said, and grabbed her cloak from the rack. She fished a pair of gloves from its pockets. 

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Er, I mean, do you have to tonight? It’s only Christmas Eve, and it’s dark out, and the snow—”

“The snow won’t kill me.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Lily.” 

The sheer exhaustion in her voice made me pause, and as she stared at me, her shoulders slumped and her eyes dull, I forgot what my argument was. 

I crossed my arms. “Take too long, and I’ll drag you inside.”

She laughed softly. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.” And then she disappeared out the door, her footsteps fading down the stairs. 

I counted every minute she was gone. For the first five minutes, I tried to stay busy. Once I had cleaned up the wrapping paper on the floor and double-checked that the food was properly put away (we hadn’t even touched the pudding), I carried my gifts to my room. There, I propped the painting up against the wall and hung the dreamcatcher on a bedpost, out of Pip’s reach, until I could find proper places to hang them later. 

Back in the main room, I spent the next five minutes pacing back and forth across the flat, my thoughts racing anxiously. Had I done something wrong? Said something to upset her? The Snow-Making Charm was Merula’s tradition, of course. She had every right to cast it by herself. It was just that...every Christmas we had spent together, she had always let me cast it with her. Did she not want to be around me anymore? Was that it?

No, she tended to be vocal about that kind of thing. She would have gone home if I was the problem, or at least would have made it very clear. This Christmas was probably just a lot, with her parents being out there somewhere. Her mum was the one that had taught her the charm, and if she had seen her mum recently…

But she would never tell me that. She wouldn’t tell me anything, even though it was obvious something had happened. She had to be so stubborn, all the bleeding time, and I didn’t know how to push without pushing her away. 

Oh my God. She was me. She was worse than me. 

For the next five minutes after that realization, I stood with my hands braced against the wall on either side of the kitchen window, trying to glimpse something in the snowy darkness. I couldn’t make out the next roof over, much less the ground. I didn’t even know which side of the building she was on. She could have been in the alley, out back, in the street...or maybe she had left the Cauldron entirely.

Another gust rattled the window. What if she had gotten turned around in the snow? No one else was out there, not in this weather. No one would be around to help her if she got lost or hurt. She wasn’t even wearing a scarf or earmuffs, just that thin cloak. 

She can take care of herself, I thought. 

Normally. Whatever was going on right now was not normal. 

After exactly fifteen minutes, I lost patience. Grabbing my coat and gloves, I hurried down the stairs, clumsily pulling them on as I went. I had half-buttoned up the coat by the time I reached the side door, and I had to leap back as it burst open with a blast of frigid air. Merula stumbled in, along with a wave of the powder that was pelting down outside. Snow not only dusted her hair, but also clung to her shins and gloves, as if she had fallen in it. She clumsily closed the door behind her, her fingers slipping off the handle. 

“T-told you I wouldn’t be long,” she chattered. 

“You’re insane,” I said in disbelief. 

“You’re the one to t-talk.” She swayed on her feet. I threw my gloves to the floor as I launched myself forward, slipping my arms under hers before she could collapse. She leaned against me, shivering violently. “Some…something’s not right,” she breathed, her voice a panicked octave higher. 

Wrapping an arm around her waist, I half-carried her up the stairs and lowered her to the floor in front of the fire, where I stripped off her cloak, gloves, and boots. After vanishing the rest of the snow from her clothes, I grabbed the blanket off the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her shoulders. She continued to shake, her head low and her eyes unusually glassy. 

“I’m supposed to be the one that does stupid stuff,” I said, and placed the back of my hand on her forehead. 

“Your hands are cold,” she protested weakly. 

My hands were cold? To the contrary. Her skin was scorching. “You have a fever,” I said incredulously. “Have you been feeling sick this entire time?” 

She only whined in distress. 

“Oh, hush,” I told her. I pulled the blanket more securely around her shoulders. “I’ll get you a potion.”

“Not Pepper-Up. I hate that stuff.”

“No, you need something stronger.” Merlin knew why she let it get that bad in the first place. 

Tearing through my bathroom cabinets, where I kept a few emergency potions, I located a vial of pale orange liquid, which I returned with a minute later. With a pop, I unstoppered it and held it out to her. She eyed it warily, her pale cheeks tinged green. “If I drink that, I’ll vomit,” she said. 

“Take it slow,” I insisted. “It’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

She swallowed hard. Unsteadily, she took the vial from my hand, and one small sip at a time, she forced it down. On the final swallow, she clamped a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. I tore the empty vial from her, ready to bolt out of the way, but she managed to keep it down, although her hands trembled worse than before. 

“Good girl,” I said in relief, and she grunted in annoyance. “Right, well, you’re not going home tonight. Where do you want to sleep? There’s the sofa, or you could take my bed…?”

“Here…right here is fine.”

“On the floor?”

She nodded. 

“No. As soon as you stop shivering, I’m moving you away from the fire.” She needed to cool down (which was half the reason I didn’t want to use Pepper-Up Potion), but she wouldn’t cool down until her body stopped thinking it needed to warm up. 

“The sofa, then,” she relented.

“All right.”

I sat with her on the floor, waiting until her shoulders were no longer visibly shaking. When it seemed she wasn’t about to keel over, I helped her to her feet so that she could get ready for bed. She refused a change of clothes (her jumper did seem rather soft), but accepted a toothbrush and a water glass (although I had to command her to drink). 

Once she had vanished into the bathroom, I placed a clean pillow and blanket on the sofa, while Pip, confused why there was someone else in my room, wandered out to watch the goings-on from a nearby chair. I frowned at the makeshift bed. Surely that wasn’t comfortable enough, not when a fever was already cause for achy muscles. I should have just forced her to sleep in my room instead. 

When Merula trudged back out, however, wincing faintly, she sat down on the sofa without complaint. Seeing her hang her head, I forgot my argument again. 

“Do you need any more water?” I asked. 

She shook her head, sinking down onto the cushions. 

Once she was beneath the blanket, I brought my hand to her forehead again, ignoring her grimace. Not quite as scorching as before, but still warm. “Maybe I should give you a stronger fever-reducer,” I murmured. Or at least properly check her temperature. Where was my thermometer?

“No. No, I'll be better in the morning. I just…I’ll be fine.”

I was slow to remove my hand from her head. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick? We didn’t have to go through all this.”

She didn’t answer, simply stared at the ceiling. 

“Well, no matter,” I sighed. Jokingly, I added, “You’re under my care now, whether you like it or not.”

She made a noise that might have been annoyance or amusement. Or both. “You’ve always been good at this healing stuff,” she said. 

“You have my mum to thank for that. Madam Pomfrey too. I’ve never cared for it, exactly, but it has come in handy.”

“That must be nice—to have actually inherited good things. The main trait I’ve inherited from my mum is that I can’t keep good things alive.” She spoke with a laugh, but it wavered and broke. She covered her eyes with the back of her hand, as if shielding them from the light. 

“What happened?” I asked softly. 

“I told you, nothing happened. I…I don’t even know why…” Her breath shuddered, but she played it off with another weak laugh. “Why am I like this?”

I brushed her hair behind her ear, gently running my fingers over the soft, uneven strands. “You’re tired, you’re sick, and you’re just plain miserable overall. Get some rest, feel better, and then we can talk in the morning, all right?”

She nodded without uncovering her eyes. 

After letting my fingers linger a moment longer, I stood up to head to my room, but she caught my wrist, holding me in place. “What is it?” I asked, startled. 

Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She didn’t even open her eyes, although she released me. 

“I’m just going to take my contacts out,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

She grunted in acknowledgment. 

In my room, as I got ready for bed, I felt odd. It was far too early for me to go to sleep, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to put my focus on anything other than her, not when the situation was so…volatile. 

Right as I finished replacing the lids on my contact case, the distressed call of “Lily!” sent me running back into the other room. What I saw forced me to skid to halt while I suppressed a snicker. Pip was on top of Merula, purring and kneading on her stomach, much to the latter’s discomfort. 

“Oh, no, kitty,” I said, scooping up the tawny furball. “She’s hurting right now.” I set the cat down on the floor, but she hopped back up on the sofa to snuggle against Merula’s side instead. “You have a new friend,” I told the sickly witch. 

“Damn cat,” she muttered. 

Laughing softly, I returned to preparing for the night. On the coffee table, I set out a glass of water, a thermometer, and a collection of other potions—anything that might be needed. Once my teeth were brushed and I was in a more comfortable set of clothes, I retrieved my pillow and spare blanket from my bed and laid them down on the floor a short distance away. 

“Wake me if you need anything,” I said, pulling the blanket over top of me. 

“Mm,” was her only affirmation. With that, I waved a hand and turned out the main lights. 

It was a rough night. Merula slept fitfully, tossing and turning so much that Pip had to move to the safety of the floor to avoid being crushed. Sometime after midnight, in a half-conscious state, she began to whimper, so I crawled over to her to check her temperature. When the thermometer showed thirty-nine degrees and climbing, I forced her to sit up and drink another, stronger potion, one that would induce drowsiness. She settled down after that, falling still and silent. 

Even after she had gone quiet, I remained wide awake. Part of that alertness came from listening in the darkness, waiting to see if she would get worse again, and part of it was that the floor refused to soften, no matter what position I lay in. But mostly, it was that she was right there, so close. I had never slept in the same room as Merula before, and now, I couldn’t not notice her. I could hear her soft breathing, see the faint outline of her body in the dying firelight, and make out every small movement of her chest. She was there, just there, and for that, I couldn’t fall asleep. 

At least, that’s what I had thought. Considering that I woke up to sunlight streaming onto my face, I must have dozed off at some point. But, by Merlin, not for long enough. I fought the urge to groan as I rubbed my eyes, which felt glued shut, and my aching back told me just how much it appreciated sleeping on the floor. Freeing my arm from the blanket, I reached for my glasses on the coffee table and immediately shivered in the chilly air of the room. The sun couldn’t have been up for long. 

With my sight restored, I burrowed back under my blanket and rolled over to look at Merula. She was lying on her side, sound asleep, with one arm draped over Pip, who had evidently decided it was safe to curl up next to her again. Both cat and witch seemed very content with their arrangement, their faces relaxed and peaceful. 

As soon as I sat up, however, Pip stirred. She wiggled free from Merula’s arm, and after a big stretch, she trotted up to me with a small trill. “Shh,” I quietly hushed, and kissed the top of her head. “Good morning to you too.”

Wrapping the blanket around my shoulders like a cloak, I climbed stiffly to my feet and made my way to the kitchen. Pip wove around my legs, nearly tripping me. Her trilling grew louder when I grabbed her food bowl. 

“Pip, hush,” I whispered. She ignored me, and as soon as I opened a can of cat food, she started meowing instead. “ Pip, no. ” I shoved the bowl in front of her to shut her up, but she still made a disgustingly wet smacking sound while she ate. I sighed in defeat. 

There was a shuffling as Merula rolled onto her back. “What time is it?” she croaked, her eyes closed. 

I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Quarter till nine.”

She pulled her blanket over her head with a groan. “Damn cat.”

Amused, I kneeled on the floor next to her and uncovered her face. She winced at the sudden exposure to the light. “Let’s see,” I said, and brought my hand to her forehead one more time. To my relief, there wasn’t a striking difference in our temperatures. I playfully rubbed my thumb against her cheek as I withdrew my hand. “Not about to burst into flames, I don’t think,” I joked. “How do you feel?”

“Like I could sleep until New Year’s.”

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

She opened her eyes to squint at me. “You’re wearing glasses,” she said. 

“I am.”

“You look like a nerd.”

I pulled the blanket back over her head with a snort. “Yeah, you’re definitely feeling better.”

She pulled the blanket down again to reveal her grin. There was the genuine smile I loved so much. It really was cute, especially in combination with her sleep-tousled hair, and it caused an odd fluttering somewhere between my chest and my stomach. 

“Well,” I said, pulling back from the sudden warmth, “drink some water first, and then you can sleep as long as you like.”

“Mm.” She stretched her arms out over her head, twisting her body like a cat might. “I’m hungry.”

“Yeah? Anything you want?”

“Eggs. And toast.”

“We have bacon too.”

“And that.”

“I think I can manage that,” I laughed. 

“Thank you.”

I don’t know what it was about that phrase—that one simple Thank you —that made me pause. She hadn’t said it with any extreme sincerity, although it had been genuine. It had been no more than a thank you for breakfast. That was all. But, coming from her, it seemed to hold all the meaning in the world. 

I patted her arm as I climbed to my feet. “Merry Christmas, ‘Rula.”

“Merry Christmas, Lily,” she said sleepily.

Retrieving my wand from the coffee table, I returned to the kitchen to heat up the stove. Merula disappeared into my room while I was laying the strips of bacon in the pan, to return five minutes later, bright-eyed. The front of her hair was damp, as if she had splashed water on her face. 

At the table, I set a plate down in front of her—bacon, eggs, and toast—as well as a large glass of fruit juice. She clearly didn’t lack an appetite this morning. Unlike yesterday evening, she dug into her breakfast without hesitation, barely pausing between bites. I struggled to focus on my own meal, so caught up in my amusement. 

She covered her mouth with her hand when she noticed me staring at her. “What are you smiling at?” she asked through a mouthful of eggs. 

“I’m just glad you don’t look miserable anymore,” I said. 

Apparently, saying that aloud was all I needed to do to jinx it, because her expression grew sullen. “Sorry I ruined your Christmas,” she muttered, stabbing at her breakfast with more aggression than necessary. 

“What did you ruin?” I asked her seriously. “Tell me, what’s one thing you ruined?”

She didn’t answer, just continued to stab at her eggs with her fork. 

“See?” I said. “Nothing. If anything, it’s fun for me to take care of you. You never let me do that.”

She pouted, a childish expression I hadn’t seen since we were kids, and it made me laugh. 

“You’re being cute,” I teased. 

Her pout turned into a scowl. “Am not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re adorable.”

“I am not!”

“Absolutely adorable.”

She swatted across the table. I batted her hand to the side. 

“Flores!” she growled, swatting at me again. 

I clumsily knocked her hand away, unable to aim through my laughter. “Oh, I see. I’m only ‘Flores’ now when I’m in trouble, is that it?”

She finally caught my hand and squeezed it hard. “I will break your wand hand,” she warned. 

“Better break both. Unless you want me to fix it.”

“You…you…you’re impossible!” she spluttered, her lips curling as she fought desperately against a smile. 

I squeezed her hand back. “I like to think I’m cute too.”

She scoffed, and then promptly broke down in giggles. 

“There we go,” I said happily. 

That made her pause. She studied me suspiciously, and when she realized we were still holding hands, she dropped mine with a start. In a concerning mirror of yesterday, she lowered her gaze to her plate, where she began to push her food around. “You always have to do that,” she said grumpily. “Always have to make everyone happy.”

“You do the same for me,” I said. 

“Yeah, but you’re not everyone.”

Taken aback by that statement, I blushed. Seeming to register what she had said, she shoved a piece of toast into her mouth, suddenly preoccupied with eating again. I focused on finishing my breakfast as well, although I struggled to chew, mostly because I couldn’t get rid of my smile. 

When both our plates were empty, we sat there awkwardly, at a loss for what to do next. She stared at the last dregs of her juice without drinking. I rotated my glass between my fingers. 

“If you want seconds, we have plenty,” I said. 

“I’m okay, thanks,” she said, not looking up. There was one beat. Another. I rotated my glass the other way. She took a deep breath. Then, “I didn’t cast the charm.”

My hands fell still. “What?”

“The Snow-Making Charm. I didn’t cast it.” Lifting her head, she gave me a distressed look. “I wandered around in the snow for…I don’t even know how long, and I couldn’t do it. I went out there for nothing.”

“That’s okay,” I said quickly. “If you don’t want to do it anymore—”

“No, I want to. I just…” She hesitated, her words lodged in her throat. “I want you to cast it with me. If you’re still willing.”

“If that’s what you want,” I said with pleasant surprise. 

She nodded. “It is.”

“Then let’s do it.” I pushed back from the table and beckoned her over to the kitchen. She followed, bracing her feet apart an arm’s length from me. I waited for her to make the first move. 

Raising her wand to the ceiling, she swept it over her head, and then snow was swirling through the kitchen. It wove through the pots and pans, twisted past the holly, and danced around our heads. I raised my wand as well, and then there were two flurries, spiraling around each other. Two swirling clouds of white twisted together and split apart and collided, again and again, dancing through the tinsel, through the lights, and through our outstretched fingers. 

When we lowered our wands, the clouds burst and froze, and snowflakes hung suspended throughout the air, rotating slowly in place. They floated down, little spots of white that clung to the counter and the floor and our upturned faces for no more than a second before they faded away. I held my hands out to catch the flakes as they drifted past, wanting to hold the little crystals before they disappeared forever. 

When I cast a grin over at Merula, however, it was to see that she wasn’t looking at the snow. She paid no attention to the snowflakes that were falling down around us, not even as they caught in her hair. Instead, she was staring at me. Her face was tight, and her eyes were shiny again, although this time not from a fever. 

I stepped toward her with a hand outstretched, but stopped short of touching her, uncertain if I should. “Please tell me what’s wrong,” I murmured. 

“I can’t,” she said faintly. She wrapped her arms around herself. “Could I stay here a little while longer? I’m not ready to go back to that house.”

“Of course.” Making up my mind, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “You could sleep here till New Year’s,” I said humorously. 

She gave a half-smile. “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“Come here.” I gently pulled her with me over to the sofa, where we sat down together. 

As I braced myself against the arm of the chair, she did something that she had never done before—and that I never would have expected her to do. Pulling her legs up on the sofa, she closed her eyes and snuggled up against me, resting her head near my collar bone. I tentatively adjusted my arm around her, barely daring to breathe. It felt like I had a wampus cat in my arms—not a bad thing, just rare and unusual. And a little wondrous. 

While we stayed like that, time drifted like the snowflakes: slowly, fragilely, with odd loops and turns that didn’t seem quite real. With her partially lying on me, I could feel every little movement of her body, including the moment that her breathing became so slow and steady that she might have fallen asleep. Exhausted from last night, I almost did the same, but for the same reason as then, I stayed awake—mostly awake—just because she was there. 

She shifted, ever so slightly. With her head resting beneath my chin, I could smell the shampoo in her hair. Vanilla. Or maybe almonds. Whatever it was, it made it easier to ignore the slowly growing discomfort in my shoulder. I didn’t want to move, not even if my arm lost feeling. 

She shifted again, enough to suggest that she was not, in fact, asleep. Her upper body started to slide, and struggling to stay in place, she placed a hand on my thigh. I pulled her tighter against me, putting my hand firmly on her waist. Her ribs rose and fell beneath my fingers, shallower than before. My heart fluttered as her thumb brushed against the inside of my leg.

I laid my other hand next to hers on my thigh, brushing my pinky against her thumb. For one brief moment, she hooked her finger around mine. But then she withdrew her hand to a safer position on the cushion. 

Without pulling away, she lifted her head. Her face was right there, in front of mine. Every fleck, every shade of purple was visible in her striking violet eyes. There were a few freckles on her flushed cheeks, not easily noticed from a distance. A small scar, almost too tiny to see, crossed the edge of her right brow, perhaps from an old duel gone wrong. Gorgeous irregularities and beautiful imperfections. 

And her lips were right there, so close. They were parted, almost unmoving with each breath. It would be so easy (if I wanted to) to lean forward, to bring my face closer. It would be so easy (if I wanted to) to put my lips on hers. 

It would be so easy to kiss her. 

Do it, a voice said, somewhere from the back of my mind. Her lips were right there. I could brush my fingers against her cheek as I leaned in…if I wanted to. She was there. Right there. 

Do it. 

So close. 

Do it.  

So easy. 

My body felt like it was shutting down. My brain buzzed with white noise, my stomach was in knots, and my lungs ached to the point of burning. 

I raised my gaze to hers. She was staring at me with those eyes, those striking violet eyes. Those eyes that were tight in the corners with some painful emotion. 

Her words tickling my lips, she whispered, “I need to go.”

The knots in my stomach twisted, pulling tighter. “If that’s what you want,” I breathed. 

That wasn’t what I had wanted to say. I had wanted to say, Don’t go. Stay close to me. 

Come closer, even. 

But I didn’t, and she sat up, pulling free of my arm. Pulling away from me. 

I stayed seated as she retrieved her cloak and boots from where they lay in the corner. She hesitated in front of me, hugging them close to her chest. “Thank you,” she said, with an attempt at nonchalance. “For breakfast. Er, I’ll contact you, next time I’m free to train. Might be a couple weeks.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” I said, hoping my voice was calmer than my heart. 

“Merry Christmas,” she mumbled, and with a hasty declaration of “Snyde Manor!” she vanished into the flames. 

“Merry Christmas,” I whispered to the empty fireplace. 

In the resulting silence, in the resulting isolation, I put my burning face in my hands. My heart continued to skitter, not with the fierce pounding of fear, but with the faint fluttering of another feeling entirely. 

I had almost kissed her. I had wanted to kiss her. 

I still wanted to kiss her—to call her back, to wrap my arms around her again. Anything to recapture the warmth that had been lost to those flames. 

I wanted to kiss Merula Snyde. 

Oh. 

Oh, shit. 

Chapter Text

January 1997

The transition from December to January was a blur. There was always an odd, unreal quality about the days in between Christmas and New Year’s, but never before had the feeling been so pervasive. I would get jittery at random moments, only to later space out for long stretches of time. My mind kept drifting to Merula—how vulnerable she had been, how close her face had been to mine, but every time it did, my cheeks would heat and my heart would kick up to a gallop, and I would have to pace around the room until the near-panic went away.

Penny, naturally, had noticed as soon as she had returned from her parents’ house, but to her credit, she had withheld commentary, at least for her first week back. However, on one particular morning in the brewing room, when I had failed to engage with her exciting recount of Bea’s accidental bewitchment of an eggnog-filled cauldron, she had evidently given up on waiting for me to explain what was on my mind. 

“You’ve been distracted lately,” she prompted. 

I looked up from my cauldron, my nose wrinkled at the bubbling liquid inside. Doxycide—blacker than ink and fouler than dragon dung. Penny watched me from the next table over, a bemused expression on her face. 

“What makes you say that?” I asked. 

“Because you’ve had ground streeler shell on your gloves for the past five minutes.”

One glance at my hands revealed a multicolored powder on the backs of my dragonhide gloves, which were beginning to steam. With a hiss of alarm, I leapt back from the cauldron, prepared to rip off the gloves and run to the sink, but Penny stopped me with her raised wand.

“Here,” she said calmly, and vanished the toxic powder with a single wave. My gloves were a little blackened, but otherwise intact. 

“Thanks,” I said. Willing my heart rate to slow down, I returned to stirring the tar-like substance in the cauldron before it could settle. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“I told you before it ate through the gloves, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

She tapped her foot, waiting for me to elaborate on my odd behavior, but I pretended to focus on the foul-smelling task before me. I wasn’t going to give in that easily, not when I didn’t know how to put all the anxious, swirling feelings into words.

“Are you worried about Sam?” she asked. 

“No, I’m looking forward to seeing her, actually,” I said honestly. “Did I tell you her sister might be coming?”

Her expression brightened. “Oh! No, you didn’t. That’s good. I know she’ll be happy about that.”

“She’s ecstatic. Thank you again for agreeing to this, by the way.”

“You know I love having them here. It’ll be fun.”

I had written to Kathy Leigh, explaining Sam’s desire to have an actual birthday party for once, and how Dumbledore and Flitwick had agreed to let us host it at the Scarlett Cauldron. We would hold the party a week before the true date, before classes went back into full swing, and she was welcome to join us if she liked, as long as we had her permission for everything, of course. Kathy’s response had been cordial, and not only had she agreed to the plan, but she had seemed certain she could convince her boss to let her off work on that day. 

To no one’s surprise, Sam was over the moon. Her sister had briefly stopped by Hogwarts over the holidays, but I knew she wished the visit had been longer. They normally only got to see each other during the summer, and even then Kathy worked long hours on most days. 

Admittedly, I was curious what the older Leigh sister was like. I vaguely recalled her from my time as a student—we had shared a house, in addition to being similar in age—but while she had struck me as a kind person, she hadn’t stood out much. Not in the way Sam did. But perhaps that was a good thing. 

With the Doxycide adopting the appropriate shade of ink, I turned off the heat and began the process of transferring it into glass vials—using my wand, that is. No way I was touching that stuff, even with my gloves. 

Penny continued to look at me expectantly. “You changed the topic,” she said. 

“No, I didn’t.” 

“You avoided what I was asking. Why are you so distracted?”

I frowned at the vials without answering. A stray droplet ran down the side of one, which I carefully magicked away. 

“Did something happen over Christmas?” she pressed. 

I pressed my lips together. The answer wasn’t “no,” exactly. Nothing had happened, and yet, at the same time, everything had. 

“Is it something you can’t talk about?”

“No,” I said hesitantly. “I’m just not quite sure how.”

“Oh?” She rested her arms on the table. “Nothing bad, I hope?”

“No. Merula and I had a great time. You know, besides the whole ‘getting the flu’ thing.” And the whole secret crisis she wouldn’t tell me about. Besides that, though: “It was nice.”

Penny grinned. “Oh?”

I fiddled with my wand, rubbing my thumb against the marble handle. Anything to keep from looking at her as my face warmed. “It was almost too nice, actually. Because we were sitting together Christmas morning, and she was really close—I mean, really close, and I kinda, er...I kinda wanted to, you know…”—the words, which had caught in my throat, came free as no more than a faint exhale—“kiss her?” 

Penny’s smile widened. “Did you?”

“No!” I exclaimed. “She was sick, and she had to leave, and I didn’t know…I don’t know if she even likes women!”

Penny gave me a look like, Seriously?

“You don’t get it,” I said defensively. “Someone like me can’t afford to be less than certain with things like this. You know, we have to make guesses, and when we make mistakes, they’re big mistakes. Bad mistakes.”

“She likes you . Have you seen the way she looks at you?”

I began pacing. “This isn’t what I meant. When I promised I would try dating again, I didn’t mean Merula!”

“But you like her?”

I paused to face her, but the words wouldn’t form. I couldn’t form them. The feeling, the one that had stuck with me since Christmas...it was electric. No, Penny had been electric. Sometimes she still was. But every time I thought back to Merula’s smirk or laugh or the way her lips had been so close to mine...it was more than electric. It was like holding bottled lightning. 

Penny clapped her hands together. “Oh, this is so exciting!”

I held my hands out. “No, no. An Order witch cannot just start dating the daughter of Death Eaters. Her family would probably kill her, none of the others would trust her—it would ruin everything.”

“But you’re going to keep training with her, right? ‘Cause if you’re going to keep seeing her anyway…”

I met her delighted gaze with my distressed one, and as the flurry of feelings swirled faster, I made a split second decision. I poked my head out the door, and confident that no one was listening in, I shut it firmly and placed my back against it. “It’s not that simple.”

Penny raised her eyebrows. 

I crossed my arms anxiously. “I haven’t told you everything,” I said slowly. “You, Tonks, Tulip, or Merula.”

“You mean…”

“My first vision. I lied. I said I didn’t see who tortured me. That was a lie. I just didn’t want anyone to mistrust her until we learned more. I still don’t know more...I still don’t know what to think. I don’t believe she would do it, but—”

“It was Merula,” Penny breathed. 

“Yes. She’s a better person now. I know she is. But I’m worried something might push her. Her parents—you should see how she reacts to her parents. She won’t tell me that’s what’s going on, but it has to be.”

“Well, what exactly did you see?”

I described the vision: how Merula had stalked out of the smoke, no recognition, no emotion in her eyes beyond cold fury. No sign she had heard my screams. 

It was the first time I had told anyone about the vision in its entirety. Merula’s curse had been the very first moment of that very first vision, and yet I had kept the secret for so long, so afraid of what people might think. The words almost burned as they left me, but without their weight, I suddenly felt much lighter, if a bit shaky. 

Penny, ever considerate, did a good job of hiding her horror as she listened. She tightened her jaw, taking a moment to swallow whatever panic she was experiencing. When she finally spoke, her voice was as thoughtful and level as she could force it to be. “We still don’t know if any of those visions are supposed to come true,” she said. “You keep seeing Rowan, and she’s…well, gone. Unless, she’s supposed to come back—”

“I hope not,” I said, as horrible as it was to say it. There were a dozen fairy tales to explain why bringing back the dead was never a good idea. And one real, seemingly reincarnated Dark Lord. 

“Like Tulip said, it could be a trick or, if it is the Vaults, something meant to drive you insane. Or”—she snapped her fingers—“maybe it’s the Imperius Curse. If Merula were to get put under the Imperius Curse, it wouldn’t be her fault. She wouldn’t have a choice.”

“All of those sound absolutely horrible.”

“They’re better than the alternative.”

“I suppose so.” 

Although, if Merula couldn’t resist the Imperius Curse, then no one could. “Strong-willed” was a mild way of describing her, and strong-willed people weren’t so easily forced into doing others’ bidding, whether they were magically coerced or otherwise. 

“I don’t think mistrust is something we can afford right now,” Penny said. “Not until we know for certain.”

“So you agree with me.”

“I do. Or, at least, I don’t want to doubt her either. I’m glad you told me though. I know why you didn’t, but I’m glad you did.”

“Thank you,” I said, relieved. It wasn’t clear if she believed what she was saying, but she was staying calm, perhaps for my sake. If she had freaked out—if she had begun to echo my own doubts, I don’t know what I would have done. 

She gave me a half-smile. “You really care about her, don’t you.”

“Yes,” I whispered. I didn’t have the strength to say it any louder. If I said it any louder, the bottled lightning would shatter in my hands. 

“Then”—she pulled my hands to her—“whatever happens, you’ll have done everything you could, I know that.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because you’re the only one that never gave up on her, in the past.” She playfully swung my hands back and forth. “You’re kind of stubborn like that.”

Against my will, I laughed. “God, I love you, Pen.”

“I know. I love you too. And thank you—for being honest with me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the only stubborn person in this room.”

She dropped my hands in mock offense. “Careful, or I’ll tell Tonks you have a crush,” she warned. 

“I do not have a crush!” I protested. 

“Yes, you do. You fancy Merula!” she sang, darting around the tables while I chased after her. “You fancy Meruuula! You—ack!” I had caught her by the waist, prompting her to squeal, “There’s glass! Watch the glass! This is a safety violation!”

I released her before her squirming could knock over the hazardous vials. “Why don’t you go kiss Conall or something,” I grumbled. 

She touched a finger to her lips in a poor impression of contemplation. “Hmm, I think I will.”

And, with that, we broke out into hysterics, giggling like children on a playground, until we were doubled over with tears in our eyes and stitches in our sides. There shouldn’t have been anything funny about this moment, not when it was undercut with fears of torture and betrayal, but in some strange way, that only added to the hilarity. 

What a time we lived in, where love could be made so complicated, and yet, fundamentally, remain ever the same. 

* * * *

When the day of the party arrived, Penny and I did everything in our power to make the Cauldron as festive as possible. Penny baked the cake, which she artfully decorated with a gorgeous drawing of a horse mid-canter. I conjured streamers of blue and bronze, as well as enchanted banners to alternate between congratulatory messages and images of eagles and bludgers. We also cleared a space on the coffee table to set the presents. Kathy had already sent hers ahead of time, and based on the way one of them shuddered every so often, Sam was in for a treat. I set that particular gift on the floor, safely out of the way, just in case. 

In the days leading up to this one, I had mentally rehearsed every scenario for my first conversation with Sam in months: what apologies I might make, how to placate her anger if she was still upset, any walls I might have to break through. Anything to fix whatever had happened between us. It wouldn’t be easy, but I was determined. 

At least, that’s what I had thought. Apparently I hadn’t imagined every scenario. 

When Sam stepped out of the fireplace, I almost didn’t recognize her outside of her house robes. I had never seen her in Muggle clothes before, but the blue flannel shirt and jeans she sported fit her so naturally that, for a moment, I was stunned by the obvious realization that she existed in the world beyond Hogsmeade and Hogwarts. Of course she did. I knew that. But now the evidence was right in front of me. 

She stumbled a bit, her paddock boots catching on the rug as she ducked to avoid hitting her head on the upper bricks. Her eyes scanned the room as she straightened. Until they landed on me. My greeting caught in my throat. 

Before I had registered her move, she crashed into me, knocking me a step backwards and crushing my ribs. Unlike the last time I had seen her, she didn’t let go. 

“Hello,” I said in surprise, wrapping my arms around her. 

“I’m sorry,” she gasped into my shoulder. 

“What for?”

“I yelled at you again.”

“That’s okay.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not. It’s not supposed to be okay. It’s just...I was so frustrated and afraid...I thought you didn’t want to put up with me anymore, and then I...I yelled at you again, and I was certain…”

“No,” I said softly. I put my hand on the back of her head. “No, love, no.”

“I know it’s stupid. I just couldn’t get the thought out of my head. And now you’ve gone out of your way to do this when really you shouldn’t have, and—”

“Oh, you hush now,” I scolded lightly.

“But—”

“No. Have you ever thought that maybe I like having you around?”

She laughed weakly. “I don’t see why.”

“I can make a list, if you would like. Self-deprecation won’t be on there though.” 

She pulled back enough to look at me. “Really?”

“Sam, you sent me flying down the street. It will take a lot more than that to chase me away.”

She gave me a watery smile. I used my thumb to wipe off her cheek. Although she wrinkled her nose in silent complaint, she didn’t fight it. 

“How does it feel?” I asked. “To be considered a full witch?”

“My birthday isn't till the tenth. Still underage till then.”

“Doesn’t change anything. You’re still bright and beautiful and determined. And you’ve grown so much this past year, so we’re going to celebrate you no matter what.”

She turned her face away, her cheeks flushing pink. “You’ve gone soft in the head.”

“Well, guess what? You belong to the house of the Mad Witch, so you’re not allowed to talk.”

“You’re not really mad.”

“No?” I asked humorously. 

“No. They just say that about anyone that’s different. I like different. Anything else is boring.”

“And anyone that says otherwise gets thrown across the courtyard?” I teased. 

“That happened once!” she protested. “I finished my detentions weeks ago.”

“Sorry, you what? ”

At the sound of the new voice, Sam’s eyes lit up, and she whirled around to face the fireplace. “Kat!” she exclaimed, and tackled her sister in a hug. 

Kathy Leigh was very different from her younger sister, in more ways than one. They had similar faces, perhaps, and the same hazel eyes and raven hair, but that was where the similarities stopped. Everything about Kathy was dainty. Sam could have easily picked her up if she wanted, she was so small and short—shorter than me (and I was shorter than Sam). Her brown blazer and gray skirt were prim and plain, and her long hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail. She looked like she belonged in an office, or a library, especially with the thick horn-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. I was almost afraid Sam would break her. 

“Sam!” she laughed, struggling not to stumble into the bricks. “I saw you Christmas Day.”

“That was almost two weeks ago,” Sam complained. 

Kathy laughed again and stood on her tiptoes to kiss the side of her head. “Happy birthday, Saoirse,” she murmured close to her ear, almost too low for me to hear. “Mam would be proud. Dad too.”

“And Gran would turn in her grave,” Sam joked.

“Good,” Kathy said in satisfaction. 

“Have you met Lily?”

“I have.” Straightening her glasses, Kathy held out a hand to me. “Hi, Lily. I don’t know if you remember me. It’s been a few years.”

I shook it. Her grip was gentle, just like her voice. “No, of course I do,” I said. “You were a year ahead of me, weren’t you?”

“Two years, technically. But I took a year off.” Which was a simple way to put it, but I supposed the more detailed explanation—that she had been traumatized beyond imagination—wouldn’t have suited the mood of the room. “You were my favorite prefect. No offense to Chester, but…”

“The house point obsession?” I chuckled. 

“The house point obsession,” she agreed. 

“You would’ve made a better prefect than me. I remember you were wonderful with the first-years.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I did have a lot of practice though.” She playfully wrapped an arm around Sam’s waist. 

“Hey!” Sam exclaimed.

“Well, it’s good to see you again, Kathy,” I said pleasantly. 

“You never told me you knew each other,” Sam said, a little pouty. 

“Not exactly,” Kathy said. “Everyone knew the Curse-Breaker to some degree. It was impossible not to.”

“Don’t remind me,” I sighed. 

Kathy smiled. “Sammy here won’t let me forget. You’re all she ever talks about.”

Sam’s face fell. “You’re going to try your hardest to embarrass me while you’re here, aren’t you,” she said. 

“Oh, absolutely,” Kathy said cheerfully, squeezing her waist. 

My lips twitched. “Sammy?”

Sam pointed a threatening finger at me. “Don’t you start,” she growled. 

The door to the flat creaked open, and in walked Penny, carrying a small gramophone. “Oh, happy birthday!” she squealed when she saw Sam. Setting the device down on the table, she rushed over to hug her. “I can’t wait till you open your presents. You’ll love them, I just know it!”

Sam’s bright mood returned, and Kathy moved to introduce herself to Penny. As they began chatting, the fireplace whooshed, and in popped Mason, wearing a vibrant tie-dye hoodie and the biggest grin I had seen in months. 

“Look at you,” I said as I greeted him. “All smiles. Are you feeling better?”

“Better than ever,” he said. “You?”

“Same. It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“It’s grand.”

“Robin right behind you?” I asked. 

He shook his head. “He’ll be a few minutes. Dumbledore needed to talk to him about something.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Nothing bad, I hope?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen much of him the past day or so.”

That wasn’t unusual for Robin. He needed time to himself every once in a while. But if the headmaster had personally wanted to see him… Well, that had never been unusual for me, but for the quiet fourth-year?

“It’s Robin,” I said. “I doubt he’s in trouble.” That wouldn’t stop me from keeping an eye on him though. 

Mason relaxed a fraction. “Right.”

“Did you have a good Christmas?”

“I did. I…” With a glance at the others, he drew me over to the kitchen. “I told them,” he said, not quite whispering, but keeping his voice low. 

“How’d that go?”

His eyes sparkled. “Smashing. You know Robin: he’s cool with just about anything. And Sam…she said, and I quote, ‘I already knew, mate, but thanks for telling me. If anyone gives you trouble—’”

“Just tell me where to aim the bludgers, and I’ll do the rest.” Sam had drifted over. “I meant it.” She draped an arm over his shoulders, purposely pulling him off balance so that he fell against her side. He lightly elbowed her in the ribs, but made no significant effort to free himself. 

“She wanted to break Tommy’s nose,” Mason told me. “I had to talk her out of it.”

“Hardly,” she snorted. “I’ll get him on the pitch. It’s been a while since I’ve knocked someone off their broom.”

“Without a foul, right?” I stressed. 

She smirked. “Of course. My captain would kill me otherwise.”

“Sam,” I sighed. 

“Oh, lighten up. I’m only codding ya.”

“Ooh-ooh, Lily,” Mason said with sudden excitement. “That reminds me. Guess what we finally named the bowtruckle.” Sam rolled her eyes, which provided enough of an answer for him. 

“What?” I asked in amusement. 

“Samuel. You know, to avoid confusion.”

“You didn’t,” I laughed. 

“Oh, he did,” Sam said flatly. 

“Come on, you know you like him,” Mason teased. “You two have a lot in common.”

“He tried to stab me!” she exclaimed. 

“Only in the beginning! He had to get used to you, is all. Oh, wait, doesn’t that sound just like—argh!” She had pulled him into a headlock. “Okay, okay! Sorry! I’m sorry!”

She released him. “I thought so,” she said smugly. 

He gave her a cheeky grin. “You love me, admit it,” he said. She pushed him away from her with a scoff. 

“Sam,” Penny called, holding up a vinyl disc. “Do you have a music preference?”

Sam went over to look at the selections on the table, and with one last smile cast in my direction, Mason followed. I smothered a giggle with the back of my hand.

Kathy took their place at my side. “Thank you for doing this,” she said softly (although perhaps not intentionally so; her voice seemed naturally soft). “I know she can be a lot.”

“She’s a good kid,” I said. “Or she tries to be. I enjoy her company.”

Kathy gave me a look of amazement. “That’s not something I hear often,” she said. “You’re right, but I don’t hear it often.”

“Can I ask…Saoirse?”

“Her middle name. It’s what our mother would call her. Mam wanted us to grow up at least a little Irish. Harder to do now, living in London.” She glanced at Sam, who was animatedly describing the different wizarding bands to Mason. “There’s a lot she should have grown up with. It’s my fault we lost some of it, which she’s right to blame me for.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “She told me how hard you work. You have a Ministry job, right?”

She smiled grimly. “In the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I’m an assistant to Mr. Thicknesse. By day, at least. I work at a pub the rest of the time.”

“That’s…intense.” And not what you would call lucrative, as essential as both those jobs were. 

She nodded. “Especially now.” 

It was hard to imagine. Not only had there been an abrupt change in department heads with Madam Bones’s death, but with all the other murders, as well as Scrimgeour’s push for more arrests, the amount of paperwork that was coming from the Auror Office alone had to be tremendous. Merula and Talbott had been doing a lot more grumbling lately, in any case.

“You’re all she talks about here, you know,” I said sincerely. “She loves you a lot.”

“She’s my whole world,” Kathy said, still watching her sister. “But she deserves more than just me. She never really had friends before, and now…” She gestured across the room. “I don’t know what you did or how… I don’t even know what to say.”

“She’s not the first person I’ve met that’s, er, like she is. Or you, for that matter.”

She turned her gaze on me. I suddenly had to fight the urge to look away. From behind her glasses, her hazel eyes were striking, almost soul-piercing, in a way that did not match her dainty appearance. Had I not been practicing my Occlumency these past few months, I would have been afraid that she was reading my mind. She probably didn’t have to. This was a person that saw a lot more, understood a lot more than she ever let on.  

“No, I suppose she wouldn’t be,” she said, ever gentle, while I remembered how to breathe. “I shouldn’t be glad of that, but I am.”

“That’s our job, isn’t it?” I asked. “To make the world a better place for them?”

Her smile became genuine. “And that, Curse-Breaker, is why they made you prefect.”

“They made me prefect to keep me out of trouble.”

“Oh. Well, that didn’t work.”

I snorted. “No. It didn’t.”

Across the room, Sam was continuing her demonstration for Mason. Songs started and stopped as she swapped out vinyls, giving him a sample of the different kinds of music. Penny looked on, occasionally offering up gossip on the musicians—how many times certain bands had broken up, what had happened when this singer had begun to date that one, and so on. 

We watched them for a minute or two, until Kathy glanced at me from the side and said, “You’ve been quiet since you’ve been back though. You used to be in the paper all the time. Everyone knows who you are, but no one talks about you anymore.”

“They talk about me here,” I said. To say I had caused a stir in the village would have been an understatement.  

“Not in the Ministry. Harry Potter, Dumbledore, You-Know-Who—those are the names I hear daily. Not yours. Not like I used to.”

“I suppose that’s good.” It’s what I had wanted for years, wasn’t it? To escape the spotlight?

She gave me another intelligent look, just as unsettling as the last. “It's interesting,” she noted. “Because that either means you’ve done nothing to draw attention, or it means someone is keeping attention off of you.”

“Or maybe I’m not worth paying attention to,” I said with a shrug. “I’m not that important these days.”

“Maybe,” she said, but she didn’t look convinced. 

I wouldn’t admit it—I didn’t want to admit it, but she had just sent me reeling. When Dumbledore had called me a remarkable witch, he had basically called me a trouble magnet. I drew attention whether I liked it or not, and the only reason I hadn’t drawn the attention of the Ministry or the Death Eaters was because I hadn’t been allowed the chance to. Because Dumbledore hadn’t allowed me the chance to. 

Dumbledore, who had a plan he hadn’t fully shared. 

“I don’t mean to offend,” she added abruptly. “Merlin knows you’ve dealt with more than enough gossip.”

I waved a hand dismissively, as if I wasn’t thoroughly flummoxed. “No offense taken. You’ve, um, given me some things to think about.”

“Just consider me awed. It’s not often one comes face to face with the Hero of Hogwarts.” Her eyes sparkled good-naturedly. 

“Oh, God,” I laughed. 

“I kid, but only because you’re Ravenclaw. You can take it.”

“Birds of a feather with wit beyond measure cause chaos together,” I recited. Tulip’s favorite saying. 

“Exactly,” she said, and we high-fived. 

Laughter rang out from the other group. I had missed the joke, but whatever had been said, it was funny enough that Mason couldn’t get through his gasps to finish the story he was telling. Sam was clutching her ribs, giggling uncontrollably. 

I rubbed my thumb against my pendant. This is what I had almost given up by pushing them away. I was happier since I had fixed things, certainly, but did that make me selfish? Besides the occasional odd stare, people had mostly left me alone since the pub incident, but how long could this really last? I was a trouble magnet. I did get people hurt, sooner or later. That was simply fact. 

“What would you think though,” I asked slowly, “if I did draw attention to myself?”

Kathy was silent for so long that I feared she didn’t have an answer for me. But then, pulling her gaze away from Sam, she said, “You’re the Curse-Breaker. I would like to think you would do more to protect her than I ever could.”

“That’s…a lot of trust.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m terrified. I would lock her up if I could. I just…I can’t take this from her. She would hate me if tried, and I can’t lose her like that.”

I tightened my grip on my pendant. “I wish I could promise nothing will happen around me, but I can’t. I’m not safe. You know that.”

“No, I know. But this is better, I think, than how things have been. She smiles now, you know? She used to not do that.”

There were quite a few people I knew that used to not smile. Merula was one of them. I was another, for a time. I would definitely take a smile over a scowl, I thought, especially now. 

Kathy raised her voice to a normal speaking tone (which for her may have been the equivalent of shouting). “Besides, have you tried controlling her? Never goes well.”

“What was that?” Sam called from across the room.  

“Nothing!” Kathy laughed. Sam rolled her eyes. 

“You’re welcome here too,” I told her. “Anytime.”

She smiled wistfully. “Thank you.”

There was movement at my elbow. Robin had appeared at my other side, swamped in a green wool jumper. A little silver bird was embroidered right over his heart. “There you are,” I said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

He attempted a smile, but it looked more like a grimace. 

“Everything all right?” I asked, reflexively reaching for his shoulder. 

He shrugged off my hand. “I’ll tell you later,” he whispered. 

“Is that a promise?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Reluctantly, I forced myself not to press. Not here, in any case. “Okay, let me know if you need anything,” I said, ignoring the flutter of anxiety. 

“Oh, Robin,” Penny exclaimed. “Good, you’re here! I can start taking orders now. I’m about to run to the Broomsticks. What does everyone want?”

Kathy stepped forward. “Let me help cover that.”

“Nonsense,” Penny said. “We’re the hosts. You just have fun.”

“I insist.”

There was a bit of chaos as food requests were shouted across the room and as Penny and Kathy debated how to split the bill. I indicated for Sam to put another vinyl on, and soon an upbeat rock song had drowned out her sister’s objections, allowing Penny to slip out the door. Kathy gave me an exasperated look while I tried not to smirk.

While we waited, Kathy goaded Sam into dancing with her, and despite the insults that flew back and forth, they both obviously enjoyed it, although some of the moves they performed would have scandalized Flitwick. Mason joined in willingly, but Sam had to drag a resistant Robin out of the kitchen. She was gentle though, and by taking both his hands, she directed his movements until he relaxed into it (as much as Robin could relax) and had fun too. I laughed at them until Kathy grabbed my hands and, with complete disregard for my protests, pulled me into a dance as well. I stopped trying to free myself when she winked at me, because then I was blushing too much to think straight. 

Penny cried out in dismay when she returned with the food, since we had started the party without her, so Mason twirled her around until she was laughing giddily, unsteady on her feet. 

The laughter continued even after we had all collapsed into chairs, both energized and out of breath. Stories and gossip were exchanged in between bites of Rosmerta’s finest cooking: tales of new professors (“Professor Slughorn is, er...interesting.”), Ministry mishaps (“There’s been a blizzard outside the windows for weeks. Maintenance must want another raise.”), and the contenders for the Quidditch Cup (“Gryffindor’ll be the challenge, honestly. Ginny Weasley is a fierce Chaser. Haven’t been able to hit her.”)

Afterwards, too full for cake, we moved straight to presents. Penny gifted Sam a box of potion ingredients, some of which were difficult to acquire, as well as a recipe book filled with her own corrections and notes, to the novice potioneer’s delight. “This ought to get Professor Slughorn’s attention,” Penny said. 

Along a similar vein, Mason gave Sam a Muggle chemistry textbook—far from a typical birthday gift, but one she took great interest in. Robin, on the other hand, gave her a little wooden horse figurine that, astonishingly, he had made himself. She gave him a kiss on the cheek for that one, which brightened his mood considerably. 

On my turn, I held out a small slip of paper, trying not to look too smug. “What’s this?” Sam asked. 

“Just read what’s on it,” I said. 

She did, although she stared at it for a long while, not quite processing what she was seeing. “Signed Gwenog Jones and Erika Rath,” she finally breathed. 

“Who?” Mason asked. 

“ Who? ” Sam exclaimed incredulously. She waved the paper at him. “Only the two best Beaters in the history of the Holyhead Harpies—in the history of Quidditch!” She turned to me. “How did you manage this?”

“I told you I played Beater for a few years,” I said. “Erika and I were on different teams, but she’s a good friend. And she’s friends with Gwenog, so the connection is there. They said to tell you there will be a spot available if you ever get tired of Potions.”

She shook her head. “Never. But I love that.”

“Wow, Lily,” Kathy laughed. “How are the rest of us supposed to beat that?”

“Aw, Kat…” Sam said. 

“I didn’t mean—” I began, suddenly chagrined. 

“I’m joking,” Kathy said. “Really. It’s perfect.”

“Well, what did you have?” Sam asked. 

“A few things.” Holding up a short, vaguely cylindrical package, Kathy added dryly, “You’ll never guess this one.”

“Haven’t a clue,” Sam agreed humorously, as she unwrapped what was, sure enough, a new Beater’s bat, its wood smooth and polished and its metal yet undented. “Wicked. Is this maple?”

“Yep. Should be better than your old ash one. You’ll need it”—with a grunt, Kathy dragged the large case away from the corner I had stashed it in—“if you plan on doing any extra practice with this.” The case shuddered angrily. 

Sam’s eyes lit up. “You didn’t.”

“You’re not releasing it at home,” Kathy said sternly. “It stays in the case over the summer. You can do what you want when you get your own place, but I’m not Obliviating the landlord again.”

With a delighted squeal, Sam ran over to hug her sister. “You’re the best!”

“There’s one more thing.” Kathy pulled something out of the pocket of her blazer, which she pressed into Sam’s hand. “This was Dad’s.”

Sam froze at the sight of the device sitting in her palm. It was a watch. An old, bronze watch—tarnished and dented, with a worn leather strap, but it was a functioning watch all the same. 

“I found someone to fix it,” Kathy said. “It’s a little fast, but the hands move now, at least. It’s all yours.”

“Are you sure? You turned seventeen first, so shouldn’t you—”

“It’s yours . You deserve it. Especially since his bat broke.”

“Kat,” Sam protested. 

“Here.” With gentle fingers, Kathy fastened the watch on her wrist. “Now you look just like Dad.”

“ Kat. ”

Kathy trapped her hands between her own. “Happy birthday, Sammy.”

Sam bit the inside of her cheek, biting down on whatever emotion she didn’t want to show the rest of us. It seemed a private moment, one I was intruding on. I turned my head away, and as I did so, realized Mason was silently trying to catch my gaze. 

I looked at him expectantly. He nodded toward Robin, who had his eyes glued to the floor. My heart sank. With shoulders slumped, the young Slytherin looked very much like he wanted to curl in on himself and fade away, and I suspected I knew why. 

I nudged Penny, intending for her to cause a distraction, but Kathy caught the movement and glanced over. Her eyes fell on Robin. Without a change in expression, she said casually to the group, “What do you think? Anyone ready for cake?”

Sam glanced back, but Robin had already raised his head, unexpectedly composed. Mason frowned at him in concern, prompting a confused look from Sam. 

“That sounds great,” Penny said, almost too cheerfully. “Sam?”

Sam pulled her attention away from the boys. “Soon. I want to see if Ravenclaw’s famed Beater will help me test out the new bludger.” She grinned at me. 

Kathy pursed her lips. I shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not supposed to take you outside,” I said. It had been Flitwick’s one condition, half in the interest of safety and half in the interest of fairness, since technically no students were allowed to visit Hogsmeade until further notice. 

“It would only be in the yard. You would be there. What would happen?”

“I don’t know…”

“Please?”

“It’s up to your sister,” I deflected. 

Kathy grimaced. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that. You know I can’t be the one to say no.”

“Please, Kat. Give me ten minutes.”

“Fine,” Kathy sighed. “As long as it’s only ten minutes. No more.”

“And that’s why you’re my favorite sister,” Sam said happily. 

Kathy gave me a look along the lines of, You see what I have to deal with? Chuckling, I went in search of my old bat. 

Five minutes later, we were all standing around the back of the Cauldron. Everyone was bundled in their respective cloaks and coats (Mason having gleefully borrowed the rainbow scarf Mrs. Byrne had knit for me for Christmas), except for me and Sam, who couldn’t afford to have our movement restricted by extra layers. I shivered, hoping my fingers wouldn’t become too numb to keep a grip on my bat. The last thing I wanted was to shatter a window. Or someone’s bones. 

I gave a few test swings, trying to readjust to the bat’s weight. The handle was disconcertingly cold and unfamiliar. “I haven’t played Beater in years,” I said uncertainly. 

Sam smirked. She flipped her bat over her hand, catching it with ease. “Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you,” she teased. 

With a scoff, I waved a hand at the open case on the ground between us. The rattling chains, which had been restraining the twitching metal ball within, fell away, and the bludger launched itself straight up in the air, shrinking to a distant speck. I shielded my eyes, struggling to track it in the sun’s glare as it selected its first target. 

“Aaaand it’s me,” Sam said, squinting at the rapidly descending blur. Planting her feet, she swung her bat, and with a harsh crack, the bludger was rocketing toward me at a terrifying speed. Not allowing myself any time to think, I twisted my torso, and crack! Metal connected with metal, sending vibrations from my hand up my arm, and the bludger rocketed back toward her. I took a step forward, and as the bludger returned, crack! I performed a backhand swing and let my leg swing back. 

I laughed, giddy with adrenaline. There was a rush that came with each swing, with each moment of anticipation as the bludger pelted furiously toward me, and the satisfying release as the bat cracked against it. There was a refreshing mindlessness to it. I didn’t need to remember any spells, didn’t need to rely on any magical prowess. I just needed to see the bludger and react, falling upon training that was ingrained as instinct. 

“All right!” Sam laughed, and she picked up the pace, each of her hits increasing in intensity until I could barely take a breath between swings. I grunted as I struggled to adjust my form to keep up. 

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that mindless. 

“What’s wrong, Flores?” she taunted. “Getting tired?”

I brushed off the goading. “What’s with that footwork?” I responded. “Move your feet, Leigh. You’re too solid.”

“There’s no footwork on a broom!”

“Who said we were playing Quidditch? Spell coming at you!” I hit the bludger to her right. With a gasp, she hopped toward it, clumsily carrying through with her swing as she deflected it back toward me. “Good!” I praised. 

“What eejit leaps towards spells?”

“Just move those feet!”

She did, perhaps to my regret. Because the more she moved to deflect my intentionally wide shots, the more I had to move in return. While her steps were clumsy at first, her approach swiftly became faster and more creative as she mirrored me, and while her backhand was weak, she made up for it by switching her bat between hands—and catching me off guard every time.

“They’re going to break a window,” Kathy said anxiously, as, for the third time, I leapt to stop the bludger from smashing into the greenhouse.

Merlin’s beard, I was out of practice. Forget ten minutes; I was winded after five. The frigid winter air burned against my throat with every ragged inhale, and my arm felt as heavy as the bludger. The cycle was never ending. Step, swing, step…step, swing, step… At least I was no longer cold—sweat dripped off my forehead and ran down my back. 

I could practice spellcasting for an hour and duel for half of one without issue. But there was a big difference between waving around a thin stick and striking a ball of iron with a weighted bat. 

Giving in, I drew my left hand across my throat. Sam dropped her bat on the ground with a smirk and raised her gloved hands in a diamond shape, providing a target. 

“Oh, I can’t watch this,” Kathy groaned. 

I bumped the bludger toward Sam more than I hit it. With a soft grunt, she caught it, using her own body to cushion the impact, and shoved it back into the case. I relocked the chains, successfully returning it to its restraints. Both our faces flushed, Sam and I high-fived. 

“Good work,” I said breathlessly. “You’d make a good duelist.”

Kathy lowered her hand, which she had been holding in front of her glasses. “No, absolutely not,” she said sharply, to which Sam grinned. 

“That was awesome,” Mason said. “I’ve never seen any of the house Beaters train like that before.”

Sam rested her bat across her shoulders. “That wasn’t typical,” she said, with a quizzical glance at me. “Lily is showier than most Beaters.”

“What does that mean?” I asked in genuine confusion. 

“Your footwork,” she said. 

“Why didn’t you dance like that earlier?” Kathy asked. “You made it out like you couldn’t.”

“What?” I asked. 

“It looked like you were dancing as you moved. Was that not intentional?”

“Oh, um…” My face heated. “Sort of. I’ve had some unique instructors.”

Penny smothered a giggle behind her hand. 

“Huh. Well, you’ll have to give me another dance then,” Kathy said, “now knowing what you can do.”

Sam punched her sister in the shoulder while I stumbled through a noncommittal response, feeling distressed. Penny and Mason snickered quietly in the background. 

“Since we’re already out here, I’d like to check on the greenhouse,” Penny said. “Anyone’s welcome to join, especially if you’re interested in a tour.”

“I’ll admit I’m curious,” Kathy acceded. 

“Where’s Robin?” Sam asked. “This is normally his thing.”

With a start, I realized Robin was nowhere to be seen. I hadn’t noticed him vanish, or even when he had done so. 

“He went to the toilet,” Mason said casually. “He’ll be back.” His eyes flicked briefly to me. 

I didn’t miss a beat. “Tell you what,” I said, holding out a hand for Sam’s bat, “I’ll take the gear inside, and if I run into him, I’ll tell him where we’re going.”

She hesitated to let go of it. “Are you sure?” she asked. “I can help—”

“It’s hardly a challenge. Go on ahead.” I tugged the bat out of her grip, and before she could argue, I levitated the bludger case through the door into the Cauldron. 

Alone inside, I set the Quidditch gear down upstairs and then did a lap through the building. My room was empty, all the lights off, including those in the bathroom. Penny’s room was the same case. With a frown, I wandered back down the stairs, poking my head in each door along the narrow corridor. There was no one in the brewing room, nor the storeroom. The door to the shop, however, was cracked open.

Slowly, I pushed the door the rest of the way open. An unmistakable sound drifted out, one that caused my heart to sink to my stomach. Someone was sobbing.

Stepping into the room, I closed the door behind me. There was a small gasp as it clicked shut. Hidden behind the main counter was Robin, crouched with his head in his hands and a handkerchief pressed against his tear-stained face. I sat down on the floor next to him. His shoulders shook.

“Talk to me, love,” I said softly. 

“I…I’m okay,” he sniffled. “I’ll be okay.”

“You’re not okay.” 

His breath hitched violently. “No, I just need…need a moment to…to pull myself together, and then I…I will be.”

I reached out, intending to pull him to me, but he recoiled.

“Don’t touch me!” he snarled. “I need to be okay, and if you touch me I won’t…won’t be able to…”

I withdrew my hand, placing it in my lap. “Robin,” I said firmly. “Tell me what happened.”

He pressed his head to his knees. “Death...Death Eaters attacked my house. I found out yesterday. My aunt...she’s in the hospital. She won’t...she won’t wake up.” He let out another sob. “And my uncle’s dead. They killed him. They...oh God.”

“Dear God,” I breathed. “Oh, Robin.”

“No. No, no pity. I need…I need to be fine.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do! I’m not ruining today. It’s Sam’s day. I’m not ruining it.”

“Forget about that.”

“I won’t!” he shouted, finally raising his head. His eyes were red and wild. “She hasn’t had a good birthday in years. I can’t…I can’t ruin this one too. Not today.”

He was grief-stricken. Hysterical. He didn’t know what he was saying. If his family had been attacked, that was far more important than a single birthday. But I didn’t know what to do, what to say, not when he wouldn’t even let me touch him. 

I was completely helpless. 

I swallowed hard, fighting against the tightness in my throat. “Let’s go upstairs,” I said, for lack of a better suggestion. “You can sit in my room, I’ll get you some water, and you can take all the time you need. All right?” I could at least get him off the floor. 

He nodded, sniffling, and I offered a hand to pull him to his feet. He didn’t accept it. Instead, he used the edge of the counter to pull himself upright and quietly trudged to the first floor, keeping a distance in front of me. In my room, he sat down on the edge of my bed, while I set a glass of water on the nightstand. Pip hopped up next to him, although he nudged her away when she tried to climb in his lap. 

“Can I get you anything?” I asked. 

The handkerchief once again pressed against his face, he said thickly, “I just want to be left alone.”

I lingered at the door. That sounded like a very bad idea. But I didn’t know what to do. What was I supposed to do? 

“I’m here,” I said faintly. “Whenever you need.”

He shrugged. I was granted no other response.

With nothing else to say, I walked out and shut the door behind me. I made it no further than the stairs. There, I sank down onto the top step, gasping into my hands and repeating every swear word Tonks and Jacob had ever taught me. I counted out ten seconds...twenty...thirty. One long deep breath. Another. Forty seconds...fifty...a minute. One last deep breath.

As composed as I would ever be, I stood up and went to reunite with the others. 

In the greenhouse, I found them clustered around the wiggentrees, Penny halfway through explaining the bark-collection process. Sam turned her attention to me instantly. “There you are,” she said. “I thought you were bringing Robin with you.”

“I needed him to do something for me,” I lied. “You’ll find out later.”

She arched an eyebrow. “So serious.”

“Am I?” I said with forced lightness, well aware of how closely everyone was watching me. “Not intentional. Has Penny shown you the new plants yet?”

“I was about to,” Penny said, before Sam could speak. 

“Great. Shall we then?”

Sam frowned, but held her tongue—something that surely wouldn’t last. Based on the way the others kept trying to catch my gaze, she wasn’t the only one I would have to field questions from. 

But, for once, that wasn’t a terrible thought. 

Penny extended the tour as long as she could, but considering that plants weren’t her forte, there was a limit to how much even she could hold an audience’s attention. As we shuffled back inside, I hung back to allow the others up the stairs first, although I had to give Sam a push when she attempted to stop beside me. Mason followed her with similar reluctance. Kathy trailed after them. 

I had intended to catch Penny before she reached the foot of the stairs, but she grabbed my arm first. “What’s wrong?” she whispered. 

“Robin’s uncle was just killed,” I said, keeping my voice low. “And his aunt may be in a coma.”

“What?” Penny’s restrained gasp echoed from the direction of the stairs. Kathy had doubled back, her eyes wide. 

“Keep this quiet right now,” I said quickly. “It’s too delicate.”

“Are you sure?” Penny asked. 

“No. But I don’t know what else to do.”

“Lily,” Kathy said, “his last name is Feare, isn’t it.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Yes.”

She nodded slowly. “That explains a lot then,” she murmured. 

“Poor Robin,” Penny said mournfully. 

“Where is he?” Kathy asked. 

“In my room,” I said. “He…he wouldn’t let me do anything.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” Kathy glanced up the stairs. “I’ll talk to him later.”

“Are you sure that’s—” 

“It has to be me.” She spoke with such certainty that arguing wasn’t a thought, much less an option. 

“Are we just supposed to pretend like everything’s okay?” Penny asked. 

“You won’t have to,” Kathy said. 

“What?”

Kathy didn’t answer. She didn’t have to, not after an enraged voice burst out of the flat:

“Why would you keep that a secret?!”

Without a change in expression, Kathy turned around and hurried up the stairs. Penny and I bolted after her. Beside the fireplace, in a too familiar scene, Sam towered over Robin, her face twisted in fury. Robin flinched and closed his eyes, tears streaming down his face. 

“Mate,” Mason said in horror. But he wasn’t addressing Sam. His eyes were on Robin. 

“Saoirse,” Kathy scolded. 

Realizing what she was doing, Sam took a step back, relaxing her posture into something less intimidating. She forced her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “My God, Robin,” she said, more level, but thoroughly astonished. 

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you,” Robin cried. “I wasn’t supposed to ruin it.” He swiped at his face, but the tears fell faster than he could wipe away. I stepped toward him, but Kathy caught my hand with a warning look, holding me in place. 

“Ruin what?” Sam asked. “Today?”

He nodded. 

“You made things worse for yourself because of me?”

“You don’t deserve this,” he sobbed. 

“Mate,” Mason repeated, at the same time Sam said, “That is so stupid.” Robin started crying harder. 

“Don’t you dare put yourself through hell like that,” Sam ordered. “Not because of me. Never because of me. Understand?”

Robin didn’t respond, only covered his face with his hands. Abruptly, he gasped as, with surprising gentleness, she pulled him into a hug. While he stiffened briefly, he ultimately leaned against her, sniffling into her shirt.

“I’m the one that’s always putting you through hell,” she murmured. “You don’t deserve any of it. Especially not this.”

“Really, mate,” Mason added. “You’re more important than that.”

Kathy released my hand, her face having softened. On her other side, Penny had a hand pressed to her mouth, not from shock, but from trying to suppress whatever emotion that was threatening to burst out. 

Sam kept one arm around Robin, even once he had finally pulled back. Kathy held out a fresh handkerchief, which he accepted with eyes lowered. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking. There was such a weight behind that apology—far more weight than an apology for a ruined birthday party, and far more weight than any kid should ever carry. 

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Kathy said softly. “It’s not your fault. It never was.”

“Which I’ve told you before,” Sam added. 

“We have a lot in common, I think,” Kathy told him. “Which is why I think the two of us should have a chat. It doesn’t have to be right now—or ever, if you don’t want, but we might be able to help each other.”

Robin wiped his nose. “Why wait?” he said dryly into the handkerchief. “You couldn’t make it worse.”

“It won’t be like that, I promise.” With a glance at me, she asked him, “What if we go to the greenhouse? Penny says there are some new plants you haven’t seen yet. Would you like that?”

Robin glanced at me as well. I nodded my consent. “I’ll only go with you if you want me there,” I said, as if I wasn’t fighting the urge to tackle him in a hug and never let go. 

He detached himself from Sam. “It’ll be fine,” he said. Kathy nodded, and with her arm around his shoulders, she led him out the door, leaving the rest of us behind.

Helpless. 

As soon as the door clicked shut, Sam took an audibly shuddering breath. Her eyes fixed on the worn watch on her wrist. A beat later, her hands began to shake. 

Hurrying over to her, I took her hands in mine. “Hey,” I said gently, “you did well. You handled that beautifully.”

“I don’t want to do well,” she said, right as she burst into tears. I wasn’t sure who hugged who, but then we were both embracing again. “Why does this keep happening? It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” I said, stroking her hair. 

Past her shoulder, Mason raised his eyes to the ceiling, while he blinked a little too quickly. Penny sank down onto the sofa, tears silently rolling down her cheeks. 

“It’s funny,” Mason said weakly. “You hear about people being...found all the time, but it’s different, you know, when it’s not in the paper.”

Sam’s fingers curled against my back. “They’re monsters. All of them. They don’t care what they’re doing to people—what they’re taking away, and it’s horrible.”

“I know,” I said. Oh, did I know. 

“I hate them.”

“I know.”

Mason sat down next to Penny, although he didn’t seem quite aware of his surroundings. “I’m the only one here that can’t see thestrals, aren’t I,” he said.

Penny wiped her eyes. “That’s not a bad thing, Mason.”

“Yes,” he said grimly, “it is.”

One in six. One in six people in this building hadn’t witnessed death, and it was the person least likely to survive if we lost this war...besides me. 

I tightened my arms around Sam as a bolt of terror shot through me. Why did I think that?

Because it was true. Mason was Muggle-born; Death Eaters would kill him if we lost. Just like they had killed the families of so many people—people like Talbott, Sam, Kathy, and now Robin. Just like they would kill the families of so many more people, like Penny, Tonks, Badeea, and every other half-blood, Muggle-born, and blood traitor out there. 

Sam suddenly pulled away. “I’m okay,” she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

“You don’t have to be,” I said, the same thing I had told Robin. 

She crossed her arms determinedly. “Nine years. That’s how long I’ve been dealing with this: nine years and two weeks. Robin lost his uncle yesterday . I don’t get to do this, and he doesn’t get to see. He’ll just start beating himself up again.”

“You can’t pretend it’s that easy. The way your families are connected—”

“Robin is my family. This git too.” She jerked her chin toward Mason. “They didn’t give me a choice about it. Neither did you, for that matter.”

Mason laughed softly. “I knew you loved me.”

Sam ignored him, although her lips twitched. “They’ve taken care of me, so I owe them. And Robin deserves a lot better than slugs and…this.” She gestured vaguely. “It needs to be my turn for once.”

“You had a panic attack last week,” Mason pointed out. 

“My turn,” Sam repeated with a growl. 

“We’ll all take care of Robin,” Mason said firmly. He turned to me, and with a nod toward Sam, added, “And I’ll watch her.” Sam glared at him.

I wrapped my fingers around my necklace, trying to ground myself as my throat tightened. “You three really are family,” I said. 

“Only because of you,” Sam said. “You and that ruddy letter you sent Flitwick.”

Mason smiled. “And that Gobstones match. You’re kind of our hero, Lily.”

The necklace fell from my fingers. I pressed my hand to my mouth, unable to speak while heat prickled behind my eyes. They exchanged an alarmed look. With a sympathetic smile, Penny stood up and slipped an arm around my waist. “Please tell her that more often,” she said. “She doesn’t believe it.”

I shook my head. That wasn’t it. Not entirely, at least. 

None of this should have happened. These were children— children —that were being orphaned and cast out because of some bloody bigoted cause that we were failing to stop. I wasn’t even doing anything to stop it—just picking up the pieces that fell to me. 

Sam claimed Penny’s spot on the sofa. “Well, aren’t we all nice and broken,” she said sardonically, leaning against Mason. 

“Not broken,” Penny corrected. “Just a little scarred.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Sam grumbled. 

And it was, as was demonstrated not long after Kathy and Robin returned, both exhausted and puffy-eyed. Sam swiftly scooted over to make room for him on the sofa, where he curled up between his friends. The three of them didn’t exchange a word—simply sat together, which was all they appeared to need. 

According to Kathy, their talk had gone well, she thought, and while Robin wasn’t better, he was “less distressed,” as she put it. The same couldn’t be said for her. She fidgeted at the edge of the room, her jaw clenched and her fingers curled against her sides. It wasn’t quite clear if she was breathing.

I managed to subtly drag her into my bedroom before it got worse, while Penny went in search of a Draught of Peace. Seated on my bed, she apologized profusely, never mind that her breaths had turned into gasps, or that she was on the verge of tears. 

“It’s okay,” I said, awkwardly rubbing her back. “It happens.”

“It’s…it’s not Robin. It’s just bad timing.”

“I know. But let’s save that dance for another time, all right?”

She laughed weakly. “All right.”

There were so many scars: some visible, some not. And this was only the beginning. 

When I reentered the main room, leaving Kathy and Penny to talk, Robin raised his head. “Lily?” he said quietly. 

“Yeah?” I asked. 

“Could you come with me to the hospital? Dumbledore says I can visit Aunt Eritha this weekend, but not without an escort, and I don’t want an Auror or...or anyone else.”

“Of course. Whatever you need.”

“Thank you.”

I smiled, pleased, and then instantly felt disgusted with myself for doing so. This wasn’t something I should have been pleased about. 

His request did cement one thought though: like so many others, I wouldn’t survive if we lost this war. 

The more time passed, the more certain I was. In fact, if we were to lose, I wouldn’t even live to see the end of it; I would go down fighting long before then—on Dumbledore’s orders or not. No one was going to touch these kids, or any other member of my little, scarred family. 

And if someone was targeting Robin now, I was going to find out who…if only so I knew who to take down with me. 

Chapter Text

“Lilianna Flores and Robin Feare here to visit Eritha Williams.”

I barely moved my lips as I spoke, and I leaned close to the window, as if I was only inspecting the outdated clothes on the dummy behind the glass. I needn’t have bothered. The Muggles passing by weren’t paying any attention to us or to the red-brick department store we stood in front of (“Purge and Dowse Ltd.,” as it had been so cleverly named). The sign on the glass, “Closed for Refurbishment,” had been there so long that the building had faded into the background for most. Just another part of the city. 

Robin and I could have passed for another part of the city as well, with our Muggle-approved clothes. Beneath my coat and scarf, I wore one of Bill’s old wool jumpers (Gryffindor red, naturally, with a large gold “W” across the front) and a well-worn pair of jeans. Robin was back in his green jumper from the party, the one with the silver bird on the chest. If not for the conflicting house colors, we could have been matching. 

“Do we go in?” he asked.  

“We go in,” I confirmed. “Just step right through the glass.”

I offered him my hand, and with some trepidation, he took it, his exposed fingers icy through my glove. It wasn’t like Apparating; I didn’t need to keep us bound together as we stepped through the barrier, but I wanted him close to me nevertheless. So, together, we stepped away from the noise of the cars and the chattering groups of Muggles and into a whole other kind of chaos. 

Gone were the dirty streets, replaced by white walls and a too-clean floor, both smelling strongly of a chemical I could never place. Gone were the coat-bundled shoppers, replaced by Healers in their lime-green robes, rushing in and out of the room with clipboards in hand. In the reception area, several Healers wove in between the rickety wooden chairs, taking information from the witches and wizards that waited. The chairs were almost completely full today, filled by people with all manner of strange ailments—everything from extra limbs to plaid rashes to uncontrollable giggling. As we passed by one young wizard with vivid purple, reptilian scales on his arms and face, his friend leaned over to him and muttered, “See? I told you it was a bad idea.”

St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was, quite frankly, one of my least favorite places. I admired the Healers that worked here, of course; they practically sacrificed their sanity to make their patients well again. But I only ever came here when someone I knew was sick or hurt—or dying. There was always a tense, exhausted air about the place, and sometimes one that was further tainted by desperation and grief. I had a biased view though, albeit for good reason. 

Robin let go of my hand as we approached the reception desk, although he walked as close to my side as he could without touching. The Welcome Witch behind the desk, a plump, blond woman with a permanent frown, didn’t look up from her clipboard when we stopped in front of her. 

“Hi,” I said. “We’re here to visit a patient. Eritha Williams.”

“Names?” the witch asked tersely. 

“Lilianna Flores and Robin Feare.”

She aggressively flipped through several pages. “What ailment?”

“Er, a curse, I think.”

“Then they’ll be in Ward 49—the Janus Thickey Ward. Fourth floor.”

“Thank you very much,” I said, and turned toward the stairs. 

Her head shot up, seeming to fully register that we were there. “Wait,” she ordered. “No visitors are allowed in that ward unless accompanied by a Healer at all times. I’ll also be holding onto your wands.”

“What?” I exclaimed. I had been in Ward 49 plenty of times. They’d never confiscated my wand before. 

“New policy. We’ve had too many incidents lately. Not chancing any more.”

Instinctively, I rested my hand on my forearm, where my wand was attached to a strap beneath my sleeve. I despised going anywhere without it, especially in a place as chaotic as this one. I would be too vulnerable, too defenseless. If an incident did happen—a jinxed patient going wild or breathing fire—the only shield I would be able to put in front of Robin would be myself. 

Robin pulled his willow wand out of his pocket but didn’t hand it over, instead watching me uncertainly. 

“It’s okay, Sarah,” a soft voice said. “I can vouch for Lily’s character. She’ll be better with her wand than without it.”

With a wave of relief, I gave a grateful smile to the slight, platinum-haired witch that had appeared next to the desk, sporting the same lime-green robes as the other Healers. She smiled happily back. 

The Welcome Witch sneered. “That means very little coming from you, Lobosca.” She extended a hand toward me. “We have a policy for a reason. No wand, no visitation, no exceptions.”

“Fine,” I sighed, and detached my wand from its strap. 

She accepted the two wands with a look of satisfaction. “I’ll take good care of them.”

Chiara touched my elbow before I could think of a reply I would regret. “If you’ll follow me,” she said, “I can take you to the ward.”

“Right. Thank you.” I nodded to Robin, and together, we followed the young Healer up the stairs, although I fiddled with the empty strap for the entirety of the first flight. 

This is why Merula has you strengthening your wandless magic, I thought. You’re not defenseless. You’re fine.  

But that didn’t stop me from fidgeting. 

Chiara waited until we had passed the first floor before she spoke again. “Sorry about that, Lily,” she said. “I know you feel safer with it.”

“That’s okay, Chiara,” I said. “I trust you.”

She chuckled, a hint of incredulity in her voice. “Well, I’m glad someone does.” She glanced over her shoulder with a grin. “I really am glad to see you. I’d give you a hug if I hadn’t just been cleaning up vomit.”

“We can hug in spirit then,” I laughed. That right there was one reason I had given up my apprenticeship to Madam Pomfrey, among many others. Apologies to my mum, but a full Healer certification would never be in my future, especially now that Puking Pastilles existed. My basic training was enough. “How are things since I saw you last? You still have your position, right?”

“I do, fortunately. Some wanted to see me demoted—thought I was ‘unfit,’ but management decided against it. Turnover rates are too high for them to afford it, with all the burnout right now. And I never actually did anything wrong. I couldn’t do anything, period.”

Chiara was one of the Healers in charge of the Janus Thickey Ward, specializing in spell damage and long-term care. She had been promoted to the position recently, after the previous Healer in charge had been temporarily suspended for failing to prevent a Devil’s Snare from killing a patient. But as quickly as she had earned the promotion, she had nearly lost it last August when she had consumed a Wolfsbane Potion made with tainted moonstone, resulting in a more miserable monthly transformation than most. 

“It’s not like my condition has ever been a complete secret,” she continued. “They have my medical records. And most Healers have assisted a werewolf through a transformation before. But I guess it alarmed some people to see me like that. It was weird to be a patient, for once.”

“You’re a werewolf?” Robin asked, startled. A witch that had been about to pass us on the stairs froze in place, and then promptly turned around and retreated back into the third-floor corridor. Robin clamped a hand over his mouth, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” he whispered through his fingers. 

Chiara gave him a kind smile. “Don’t be. Like I said, it’s not that much of a secret anymore.” 

Despite the bad potion, she hadn’t hurt anyone. Jae had said she had been too sick to even move. But the Daily Prophet article that had followed had painted an unkind, unwarranted, and inaccurate picture of the incident. It was sickening, but not unexpected. If our society was having trouble accepting Muggle-borns, then why would anyone accept werewolves? Especially after we had pushed so many to join the other side. 

We stepped out into the fourth-floor corridor, where she paused to face him directly. “Sorry, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

“Oh, right,” I said. I gestured at my young companion, who was staring at the Healer with a kind of wonder. “This is Robin. Robin, this is Chiara. She’s an old friend.”

“Nice to meet you, Robin,” she said pleasantly. “And who might we be visiting today?”

“My Aunt Eritha,” he mumbled. 

“Ah.” To her credit, Chiara’s kind expression didn’t change, but the subtle gap between her words was enough to cause his face to tighten. “That’s good to hear. She hasn’t had any visitors yet, besides the Aurors. Here. Right through here.”

Turning to the nearest door, labeled with the number “49,” she unlocked it with a wave of her wand and ushered us in ahead of her. My last visit to the Janus Thickey Ward had been in June, when I had been here to see Tonks, and even now it remained unchanged. Meager sunlight streamed in from a single small window opposite of the door, leaving most of the room to be illuminated by the shining crystal bubbles that floated near the ceiling. Beds lined the pale walls, with curtains drawn around many of them to allow their occupants privacy. Other patients reclined in the open, such as a fur-covered woman that was snoring softly and a man that quacked like a duck every time he turned a page in his book.

Chiara led us to a closed set of curtains at the far end, near the window. “Here,” she said, and pulled the curtains back. Robin stiffened. 

Lying motionless in the bed, her eyes closed and features slack, was a woman with a face very much like Robin’s. She was startlingly young, or at least younger than I had been expecting. The way Robin always spoke of her—with such reverence—I had been picturing someone my parents’ ages, but she couldn’t have been beyond her late thirties. Her dark-brown hair tumbled past her waist in tight braids, and not a single visible injury marred her rich black complexion. If not for the hospital gown on her tall body or the way she lay so still, nothing would have seemed the matter. 

Robin moved to her side, taking her limp hand in his own. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked faintly. 

“How much detail would you like?” Chiara asked. 

“All of it. Everything you know.”

Her eyes flicked to me, and I nodded. “Well,” she said, “the good news is, I can tell you she’s not dying, and she’s not getting worse. Both promising signs.”

“But she’s not waking up,” he said. 

“Not currently, no. We’re still figuring out the properties of the curse. It was most likely invented by the caster.” There was no hesitation in her delivery, nothing to indicate that she was speaking to someone much younger. Instead, her calm manner was almost business-like as she addressed him, as one might address a peer. “But fortunately for your aunt—and for us—it appears they botched it.”

“How can you tell?” I asked. 

“She had minor internal damage,” she said. “Nothing we couldn’t fix in an instant. The spell was probably intended to kill her over the course of several minutes, but it didn’t—and, as things stand now, it won’t. Instead, it put her to sleep, which is a side effect I doubt even her assailant expected. It’s puzzling, but a puzzle at least has a hope of being solved. The Aurors are searching their records to see if they can narrow down which Death Eater did this. If we can learn more about their methods, we’ll have a better chance of breaking the curse.”

“Have you consulted any curse-breakers?”

She gave me a pointed look. “What do you think a Healer is?”

I winced. “Sorry.”

“No, I understand. We’ve brought in a few outside experts, but they know about as much as we do. All we can really do is keep researching, keep performing tests, and keep her comfortable until we learn more.”

“There has to be more,” Robin said, desperation woven into his words. 

“And I’m hopeful there will be,” she said gently. “We just have to give it more time.”

“What exactly happened?” I asked. 

Now she hesitated, her gaze still on Robin as she said, “I’m not certain I should—”

“No, I want to know too,” he interrupted. 

She looked at me again, but when I offered no objection, she said finally, “The Ministry is playing very need-to-know, but I’ve overheard some things. Sounds like there was quite the battle. Two Death Eaters were found at the scene. One dead. The other one was brought here. Died of his injuries within the hour.” She gestured at Mrs. Williams. “She didn’t go down without a fight.”

Robin raised his chin, proud. 

“Anyone we know?” I asked. 

Chiara shook her head. “No big names. New recruits, maybe? Neither cast the curse, according to their wands. Any others fled before the Aurors arrived.”

It had taken three Death Eaters to bring down one witch? No, actually, correction: it had taken at least three Death Eaters to fail to kill one witch. 

No wonder she had prevented Robin from coming home. With that much power, she had known she would be an early target. 

“I don’t know any more,” Chiara added. “You’ll have to ask Talbott or Merula for details. They’re the ones that brought her in.”

“They did?” I echoed. They hadn’t told me anything to remotely suggest that. “I’ll definitely do that, thank you.”

The doorknob rattled at the other end of the room, and footsteps rushed through the ward. Moments later, an older Healer poked her head around the curtain. “Oh, Chiara,” she gasped. “Thank goodness you're here. I need your help. I can’t find Gilderoy anywhere.”

Chiara’s eyebrows knit together. “I thought he was with you?”

“He was. I turned my back for less than half a second and he was gone. I’ve been up and down every floor—nothing! It’s like he’s vanished.”

“I can’t leave visitors unattended. Miriam, you know that.”

“Please,” Miriam begged. “I can’t afford this. If something happens to another patient, that’s the end of my career.”

“He’s probably signing autographs in the shop again,” Chiara sighed, and in tired reservation, nodded toward the door. Miriam’s shoulders slumped in relief. “If anyone pops in, you’re not here,” Chiara told me, and with that, she shut the curtains, enclosing Robin and me in the dim space around the bed. Her shadow sped off after her anxious coworker. 

Robin shifted a chair closer to his aunt and sat down at her side, where he gently rubbed his thumb across her hand. I claimed the chair on her opposite side. It was strange, watching a stranger while she slept. Yet again I was an intruder in a moment that didn’t belong to me, and I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what I had a right to say. 

“Do you think she knows?” he whispered. “That…that Uncle Martin is…” He trailed off, as if he didn’t want her to hear.

“I think it’s possible,” I said softly. “You heard Chiara—she fought back. And she held her own, for a while. She probably held on for as long as she could.”

“Maybe that’s why she won’t wake up. She doesn’t want to. She knows he’s dead, and she doesn’t want to.”

“No. And leave you behind? I doubt that very much.”

He rubbed the heel of his hand against his eye. “They’re telling the Muggles my uncle got caught up in a gang war or something, but no one in the neighborhood is going to believe that. Everyone loved him. Everyone. He taught at the local school—poetry and Greek plays and stuff. Everybody’s favorite teacher. Who’s gonna kill a teacher?”

“Do you want to tell me about him?” I asked. I didn’t know if it would help, but sharing stories had made things easier for me after Rowan had died. Not better. Not any less painful. Just easier. 

Robin didn’t react, simply kept his eyes on his aunt, but he did keep talking, which was somewhat reassuring. “I could tell him anything,” he said. “He didn’t always understand all the magic stuff, but he was a good listener, and he always knew the right thing to say. He was funny too. Loved those stupid Muggle card tricks. And woodworking. He’s the one that taught me to make those little animals.”

“Your horse was beautiful.”

“Not as good as his.” He paused and squeezed his aunt’s hand tightly. “They killed him because she fell in love with him. It’s not fair.”

“No,” I agreed. 

“Aunt Eritha got her teaching license because of him. She learned to do things the Muggle way so that she could help kids like he does. Look,”—he ran his fingers over the silver bird on his chest—“she embroidered this by hand.” His voice cracked. “Why should they have to die because of that?”

“Your aunt’s not dead,” I said. “You still have her.”

“What if she doesn’t wake up? What will happen to me? I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have anyone—”

“Robin,” I hushed. “You’re not going to end up on the street. No one’s going to let that happen, okay? I’ll take you in myself if I have to.”

He rubbed his eye again. “Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“I really wish she would wake up just so you could talk to her. You’re a lot alike.”

“Sounds like I should take that as a compliment.”

“You should.” He continued rubbing his eyes. “She’s always been my real mum. They’ve both always been my real parents. No one else.”

“God, Robin, can I please hug you?”

“Please,” he said weakly. 

Dragging my chair over to him, I pulled him to me for the first time since before all this had happened. He didn’t break down (not audibly) but he did squeeze my waist with a strength that would have made a Devil’s Snare jealous. “It’s okay,” I said, rubbing his back. 

“I just want her to wake up,” he said into my jumper. 

“I know. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” I would make sure of it. No matter what happened, I would make sure of it. 

At the other end of the ward, the door clicked, and in walked multiple sets of footsteps, along with a mix of different voices. 

“What a naughty boy you’ve been today, Gilderoy!” Miriam cooed. “What would we have done if we had lost you?”

“You must be exhausted after such a long adventure, Mr. Lockhart,” Chiara said. “I imagine you’d like a nice kip now.”

“Oh, no, I’m feeling quite energized, actually!” a man exclaimed. 

“I really must insist,” Chiara said firmly. 

There was a passive-aggressive exchange (one that grew steadily less passive as the minutes dragged on), until they had at least convinced him to sit in bed. When only Miriam’s voice was left fussing, the curtains opened to announce the reappearance of a startlingly haggard Chiara. “Sorry about that,” she said. 

“When’s the last time you slept?” I asked, belatedly registering the dark circles under her eyes. 

“We don’t ask questions like that here,” she laughed, and then promptly smothered a yawn. “Jae is cooking tonight, fortunately. I don’t know what I would do without him.” As she took in Robin leaning against me, her expression softened. “I understand how scary and overwhelming this is right now. I truly do. But I promise I’m not going to give up, no matter what.”

“You don’t know if you can bring her back,” Robin mumbled. 

“No, but we’ve faced more than a few challenging curses before, haven’t we, Lily?” She smiled at me. “I haven’t stopped trying to break my own curse, and I’m not going to stop trying to break this one too.”

“You can believe her,” I said. “Chiara is one of the best Healers there is. Your aunt is in good hands.”

The pressure around my waist lessened, and Robin sat up straight. He turned his head away so that we couldn’t see his face. “Is it all right if I spend some time alone with her?” he asked thickly. “I want to tell her some things.”

“Of course,” I said.

“I can’t leave you completely alone,” Chiara said, “but I can check on the rest of the ward, if you would like. And, Lily, there’s the tearoom on the fifth floor, if you’d like to stretch your legs.”

“I think I would, thank you,” I said. I gave Robin’s shoulder a gentle squeeze as I stood up. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

He didn’t look at me. “Right.”

Chiara and I left the bedside, and once she had closed the curtains behind us, she walked me to the door. As we passed by the quacking man and the fur-covered woman, I shifted closer to her side to murmur, “Could I ask you a favor?”

“What do you need?”

“Robin wants to be a Healer. Do you think you could, I don’t know…show him some things? Or give him some resources or something? I think he might like that.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, he does? That’s so exciting! Of course I will.”

“You’re a hero, Chiara,” I said in relief. 

She abruptly grabbed my shoulders, spinning me around to face her, and looked me dead in the eyes. “Lily,” she said seriously, “please visit more often so you can tell me that over and over again.”

I grabbed her arms in return. “If you need to hear that from me, I need to have a word with Jae—because he owes you a very nice dinner.”

She grinned. “It’s Jae. I always get a nice dinner.”

“Good.”

Leaving her to her duties, I continued to the stairs on my own. I probably shouldn’t have…because stepping away from that ward was like walking into a wall. I took five steps before I noticed how empty the fourth floor corridor was compared to the rest of the hospital. Five steps, which echoed off the pale, windowless walls. On the sixth, echoing step, the silence slammed into me, along with everything else. 

Staggered, I threw my hand out to catch myself on the wall. My breaths shuddered, and I wanted them to stop. Because the more they shuddered, the more my eyes threatened to burn, and that couldn’t happen. Not now. 

But it wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. 

“Lily?” 

I rammed my knee into the wall, I had straightened so quickly. Pain spiked through my leg, causing my eyes to water, and I hissed a rarely used word as I blinked back the involuntary tears. 

Merula beelined for me, an intense expression on her face. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” I squeaked, startled by how hard my heart was pounding. One moment it had been contracting painfully; now it was attempting to burst from my chest. “Not with me. I’m here with Robin. We’re visiting his aunt.”

She slowed her pace. “Oh.”

I swallowed, waiting for the pounding to fade from my ears. I hadn’t seen Merula since Christmas, and we had barely exchanged a word afterwards, through either parchment or paint. All things considered, she looked strangely…normal. It was odd to see her stand in front of me like nothing was different. She was the same lean witch with the same unruly curls and intense violet eyes. And, dressed business casual, in a black blazer and tie, she was as enchanting as always.

Merlin’s pants. Enchanting? Where had that thought come from?

I clasped my hands together to hide my nervous fidgeting. “You’re here to see her too, I take it,” I said, with an attempt at nonchalance. “Chiara said you were a part of this case.”

She stiffened. “That’s right,” she said, surprised. “Robards sent me to get an update.”

“Well, she’s still unconscious. That help at all?”

She gave me an uncertain look. I didn’t blame her. The bitterness in my tone had come out of nowhere, but now that it had seeped out, my heart was beginning to constrict again. 

“You’re upset,” she noted. 

“Upset?” Upset didn’t even begin to describe the writhing, scorching feeling that was spreading out from my chest, burning its way to my fingertips. If I breathed wrong, it would send me into tears, but since I couldn’t allow that, I let it burn hotter. “I’m pissed off,” I spat. She recoiled, as if I had cast an actual curse. “There’s a kid in there wondering if he’s just lost the last of his family, and we don’t even know what the hell happened. How did we even let this happen? We knew Eritha Williams was a blood traitor. We should have given her some sort of protection. We should have...have done something!” I waved my hands, the gesture as directionless as it was furious. 

She caught my wrist. “Hey, okay, maybe let’s slow down a moment.”

I yanked my hand free with a scowl. “And how are you even up here without an escort?” Reaching inside her blazer, she calmly flashed her gold Auror badge. “Of course,” I muttered. No exceptions. Dragon dung. I bet she got to keep her wand. 

“Are you done?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, taking a deep breath. I was making a fool of myself. “Right, yes, sorry. Hi.”

She smiled wryly. “Hi.”

“How are you?”

“I was better a minute ago.” She tilted her chin up, exposing her throat—and the silver chain tucked under her shirt. “Is my head still attached to my neck? I think I might have lost it.”

“Sorry. I’m glad to see you, really.”

“Er, likewise.”

We stared at each other for a too-long moment. She went to cross her arms, decided against it mid-gesture, and put her hands in the pockets of her trousers instead. I leaned back against the wall, and then straightened two seconds later, struck by an odd wave of vulnerability, like that of a cornered animal. 

I rubbed my eyes in exhaustion. “I’m sorry, I was just about to head upstairs for some tea. Do you want some?”

“There’s going to be an interrogation I won’t be able to get out of, isn’t there?” she sighed. 

I gave a half-smile. “So long as we’re on the same page…”

“Let’s go, then.”

We shuffled up the stairs to the top floor of the building, which opened up into a wide, airy room filled with little tables and thin-cushioned chairs. There were far more windows up here, and the abundant natural light made the pale walls seem less jarring. There were even a few broad-leafed plants tucked in the corners, granting additional life to the atmosphere. A handful of visitors sat at the tables in low conversation, sipping tea and eating sandwiches and pastries that they had purchased from a counter to the side of the room. 

From a disturbingly cheerful wizard, I robotically ordered the first things he listed: a cup of chamomile (I hated chamomile) and an overpriced ham and cheese sandwich (I wasn’t hungry). Merula requested the same, minus the sandwich, and with paper cups and plastic-wrapped lunch in hand, we tucked ourselves away at a table at the edge of the room, next to a sign advertising the gift shop. 

The tea was lukewarm, and I grimaced when I took a sip. Flower water. That’s all it was—vaguely perfumey flower water. Merula didn’t even try hers before she dumped two packets of artificial sweetener into the cup. 

“Tell me what you already know,” she said tiredly. 

I relayed what Robin had told me during the party, as well as what Chiara had revealed today. Merula drummed her fingers on the table, her face impassive as she listened. 

“You’re up to date then,” she said, once I had finished. “Can’t give you more than that.”

“That can’t be it,” I said incredulously. 

“What more is there to it? Death Eaters attacked a blood traitor, killed her Muggle husband, and fled before Aurors arrived. That’s about as straightforward as it gets.”

“But don’t you have an idea who did it?”

“How? None of us saw. I didn’t arrive until later. If they hadn’t made such a racket, we wouldn’t have known an attack had happened.”

“What about the two that died?”

“Ah.” She wrapped her fingers around her cup. “Lobosca had a nice guess. They wore the robes, but neither were Marked, so probably new recruits. Could have been an initiation of sorts—commit a murder, join the club kind of thing. That or they were Imperiused. Spell fodder either way.”

I glared at her. She took a sip of tea, meeting my gaze defiantly over the lip of her cup. This was familiar, I reminded myself. Her callousness, as if she didn’t care. My anger, as if I believed what she was saying. She was trying to distract me from my questions, and I wasn’t going to let her. 

“Then surely someone higher ranked was there,” I said. “If they cast a curse that specific, then surely you could identify—”

“What does it matter?” she said tersely. “If they have a Mark, they’re already at the top of our most wanted list. All priorities remain the same, so why does it matter which one?”

“You’re starting to sound like our new Minister.”

She scowled. “You’re not sympathizing with Death Eaters.”

“No!” I exclaimed. “I just think it’s important to know exactly who’s responsible. Chiara said if you figure out whose curse it was, then the Healers might be able to—”

“And we’ll let the Healers know that information when we learn it,” she interrupted. “I don’t see why it should matter to you. What would you do with a name?” When I took too long to answer, her eyes widened. She set her cup down, hard enough that tea spurted out of the lid. “No-no-no-no-no, don’t even think about it.” 

“I want to know who killed Robin’s uncle,” I said.

“No. Flores,” she groaned. 

“Snyde,” I said coolly. 

She winced. “No, don’t…please, don’t do that.”

“Then don’t call me ‘Flores.’”

“Lily,” she whined, to my satisfaction. She wasn’t as good at playing the bad guy as she thought she was. “What do you expect to do? Just what do you expect to do?”

“I want to protect him.”

“How?”

It was a valid question. The honest answer was that, when it came to a plan, I had bugger all. But I was still too furious to give an honest answer. I refused to accept that was all there was: nothing. “I will not see another kid grow up alone, Rula,” I stated. 

Her cheeks reddened. “How will getting yourself killed accomplish that? Because if you’re planning to go after the attacker—”

“I’m not! I’m not that stupid.” 

A couple at the next table over cast curious glances in our direction, as did the cheerful wizard. I ducked my head in chagrin. Subtlety—forever my strong suit. 

“I’m not,” I whispered to the worn tabletop.

Merula lowered her voice. “Then drop this. Knowing won’t make it any better, trust me.”

“Then you do know who did it?”

“No. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. So, please, just drop it.”

We had begun to talk in circles, which was something else familiar. Her secrets, my impatience, and our combined stubbornness. This argument would go nowhere, but I couldn’t ‘just drop it’ either. 

“What about Talbott?” I asked. 

“What about him?”

“He was there too. Does he have anything to add?”

She silently debated her answer, but seeming to decide there was no harm in it, said, “I don’t know. He assisted the Obliviators for most of the night. Ask him.”

“I will, thank you,” I said politely. 

She gave me a wary look. “Is this over? Please, tell me it’s over.”

There was that word again. Please. She had said it three times already. That was something less familiar, and it was half because of it that I said, “It is. For you. For now.”

She relaxed back in her chair. I sullenly took a bite of my sandwich, which tasted nothing like ham and cheese. Disgusted, I threw it down on the plastic and shoved it over to her. She tore it in half and shoved the larger piece back to me. 

“I hate hospitals,” I grumbled. 

“No argument there,” she said, through a mouthful of faux sandwich. She finished her half without issue. I forced myself to eat the rest of mine without tasting it. (It didn’t have much taste to begin with.)

Finished, I crumpled the empty plastic in my hand, if only to make it crinkle. It was an annoying sound, but in the calm of the tearoom, with food on my stomach and lukewarm flower water in my system, there wasn’t much left to sustain the remnants of my anger. And the only place the heat had left to go, when no longer in my chest, was behind my eyes. 

I had gotten nowhere. This whole conversation had gotten me nowhere. There was so much going on and so little I could do. 

Merula rested her elbows on the table, watching me with a kind of fascination. I turned my face away to wipe my cheek. “Hey, what’s this?” she asked. “This isn’t like you.”

“I’m so tired of watching this happen,” I said, hearing the waver in my own voice. “You should see the state Robin’s been in. That any of them have been in.”

She gazed at me steadily. “Getting upset now isn’t going to do any good. You’re setting yourself up to break before things have even begun.”

“And that just makes it worse!”

“Hey.” Beneath the table, she bumped her leg against mine. “This is no good. I need my fighter with me. She was here two seconds ago. Bring her back.”

I looked at her in despair. How pitiful I was, getting all tearful now. She was going to think I couldn’t handle this, or anything remotely like this. She would never tell me anything, never let me help her, not when I was crafting a losing argument. 

“I hate feeling so useless,” I said. 

She snorted in disbelief. “You’re not useless. Believe me, you’re not.” My face must have betrayed my skepticism, because she added, “Tell you what, next month, if I’m not too busy, we’ll start training again. Because if you’ve been clawing at the walls, that means you’ve been driving Penny insane, and Merlin knows she needs a break.”

“I would like that,” I said quietly. 

“Good. And, for the record, I think you’re doing exactly what Dumbledore wants you to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Helping people. You know, real people—the ones we’re supposed to be fighting for.” She pointed downward, to the floor below. “If it were left up to me, I would say you’re too attached, which is why it’s your job and not mine. But let me do my job, all right?”

That…was a surprisingly reassuring thing for her to say. The old Merula never would have said something like that. She had seen forging relationships with others as a waste of time (if not a weakness), unless it was to her benefit.

“Fine,” I said, pushing away the thought. “But when you do catch this monster, you better make sure as hell they never hurt anyone again.”

She locked eyes with me, her expression unreadable. I could have used Legilimency on her, if I wanted. Not that I would see anything. Even with eye contact, her Occlumency was stronger than mine. Still, what I would have given to know what she was thinking. Somehow she always seemed to see my thoughts better than I could see hers, and yet she used no magic. 

No ordinary magic, anyway. 

“You have my word,” she said finally. And she meant it. The long pause, the way she held my gaze, the weight behind her words—she might as well have made an Unbreakable Vow. This was a promise.

Why, though? Why the determination if it didn’t matter who it was?

Unless, of course, it did matter. And it did, if not to her, at least to me. 

She turned her attention back to her cup, and as her eyes dropped, I felt like I had snapped out of a trance. There was a quickness to my pulse, a fogginess to my brain that I hadn’t registered while under her stare. Maybe she was part-Veela, if all she had to do was look at me to have such an enthralling effect. 

The tea had gone cold, but I downed the last disappointing swallow regardless. I needed to get out of this building. I was losing my mind. 

“Don’t you get hurt either,” I said, after another too long pause. 

She flashed me a playful smile. “Worried about me?” she teased. My words to her last month. 

“Yes,” I answered seriously. 

Her smile faded. Whatever she had been about to say next—whatever callous or nonchalant remark she had been about to pull from her arsenal—never left her lips. She settled for a half-hearted shrug, and put too much focus into rocking her empty paper cup back and forth on the table. 

“Are you all right?” I asked. 

She grimaced. “I…I’m not feeling well all of the sudden.”

I sat up straight. “We’re not having a repeat of Christmas, are we?” I asked. 

“No. Nothing like that.”

“We are in a hospital. I’m sure if I go find Chiara—”

“I’ll be fine.” 

“If it’s something else, I always carry pain relievers on me—” 

“ Lily, ” she said, exasperated. “I’ll be fine.” She pushed back from the table. “I think I'm just gonna go home.”

“What about your report?” I asked. 

“I’ll come back later. Not gonna make a difference if nothing’s changed.” She stood up. 

Anxious, I stood up as well. I had done something wrong. I didn’t know what, but she was leaving, so I must have done something wrong. 

“We’ll be in touch,” she said, and turned away from the table. 

“Wait!” I caught her wrist, spinning her back around to face me. She stared at me, wide-eyed. I gaped back at her. I didn’t actually have anything to say. Our conversation was over. She wouldn’t let me ask any more questions if I tried. That, and she had a perfectly convenient excuse to leave. 

No, I did have something to say. Stay, is what I wanted to say, but there was no good reason I could give to make her do that. 

“Sorry,” I said, releasing her. “Never mind.”

She rubbed her wrist. “Er, see you later, then,” she said, and, slowly, walked toward the stairs. 

My face burned, but still I called after her, “If you collapse again, I’ll never forgive you!”

She laughed at that, genuinely laughed, so that her voice rang out through the room. From the other tables, heads turned to follow her exit. And why wouldn’t they? There she went: the unruly witch in the black blazer with a voice larger than herself.

Why wouldn’t they watch her like I watched her? That is, as I stood there alone, letting her leave once again. 

* * * *