"Lily," James said low. "Lily. Lily." He rubbed his hands together, briskly; it was cold in study hall, even though it was barely evening. "Lily."
She didn't even look up from her work.
"All right," James said weakly, "obviously you're angry."
Lily clicked her teeth together, and bent over her notes. Professor McGonagall eyed the two of them, but as this wasn't technically silent study, let them be. James ran a hand through his hair, impatiently tapping one finger against the ancient desk. How many students before him had sat down in this study hall, in this very chair, and felt utterly hopeless about their prospects, their futures? Maybe all the great Gryffindor students had once sat right here. Maybe there was some kind of magic in the chair itself; maybe all the Head Boys before him had perched right in the same spot, tapped their fingers under the watchful eye of a teacher, and felt helpless.
"I said what's wrong?" Lily asked softly.
James glanced up. He'd been staring at a knothole in the table, and Lily was now looking at him, face registering concern. "I was just thinking about feeling," and he stopped tapping his finger. "Helpless. I guess."
"We are not helpless, James," she said immediately. "But even feeling that way doesn't give you the right to try and learn things that could get you expelled." She lowered her voice even more, though it was apparent that McGonagall, currently absorbed in clucking her tongue over some third year essays, was paying them no mind. "Or worse," she added ominously. "You can't just play about with things like that."
James started stuffing all of his things back in his bag. "You know, I was quite willing to grovel for as long as it took to get you to forgive me for lying to you," he told her, not bothering to be that quiet. A few other seventh year students looked up in mild interest. He kept his face very blank, very formal. "But if you think that I would dare 'play about' with." He stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "I have an essay to finish, and then I have Quidditch practise," he told her. "In the dark. So if you don't mind, I think I'll go find some peace and quiet."
As he walked stiffly down the row of tables to the doorway, he mentally begged Lily to get up and follow him. Obviously, she didn't.
~
"She really thought that's what we were doing?" Sirius said, toting the blanket over the grounds. No one in their right mind was out that afternoon - the wind was howling and the air was fierce. James' cheeks felt positively pinched with cold. "Playing about?"
"I don't know," James muttered, and ducked behind the shed. "There, hand me the blanket." He spread it on the ground, and then conjured them up some heat. "Okay, we shouldn't be seen out here. Do you have it?"
Sirius rooted around in the bag, and pulled out a feather cushion. "Are you sure you want to try this one out in the open?" He squinted into the sky; the Ravenclaw Quidditch team was flying over the field, and there was a teacher supervising them. "In the day time?"
James held his wand grimly. "Just get ready with the counter-spell, all right?" He stared at the pillow. "Agrippina's book wasn't too specific on how to put the fire out, but I want to be ready, just in case."
Sirius murmured, "because a little dousing spell is going to help against this," and backed up a few paces. "All right," he said, "go."
James narrowed his eyes, pointed his wand steady, and said low, "incendio."
The pillow burst into flames, orange fire slowly engulfing the whole thing. Sirius muttered, and the flames were extinguished - though not without charring a great deal of the insides and the pillowcase as well. "Augh," and James waved his hand in front of his nose, "that's going to stink forever."
"Good thing we're not trying this in the castle," Sirius commented. He pulled another little pillow out of his bag. "Want me to protect it first, or do you want to work up to that?"
"Let's just see if this works at all," James told him, and pulled his sleeves up. Their little pocket of air was rapidly cooling, even despite the fire they'd cast not two minutes ago. His arms already had goosebumps. The wind had died off though, so they weren't shivering quite yet. "Okay, back up. I'm not even sure a little dousing spell will work against this at all. Agrippina didn't specify any counters to this."
"Handy, that," Sirius said, stepping away several paces. He was practically in the underbrush. "She obviously didn't want anyone to be able to stop this one."
"Or any of them," James said, and then swallowed. "All right, and mind, if anything else goes up we hoof it straight into the Forest for the rest of the period."
Sirius nodded.
"Incendatur," James whispered. Nothing happened. He took a breath, and hissed, "incendatur!"
The pillow smoked for a moment, then there was a flash. Sirius tilted his head, then stepped forward cautiously. When there was no subsequent sign of anything going up in flames, they both lowered their wands. Sirius grabbed the white pillowcase, and peered inside - then turned it end over end, shaking out what was inside.
A handful of ashes fell onto the frozen ground. "Well," he said, a little shaky. "I think that worked."
~
"--can't believe that really happened," Sirius was saying as they sat down to stuff themselves. James had two hours to rattle off all of his homework and then he could sleep exactly eight hours. Then Quidditch, then class, then Quidditch, then another jaunt into the Forest with Sirius.
Remus passed them the platter of potatoes, pleasantly enough. "What happened?" he asked, voice even.
"Nothing," James said immediately, and Sirius added, "nothing," and Remus smiled tightly, and told them,
"that's fine, it doesn't matter," and got up to move.
James admitted, "I can't believe it really worked," to Sirius. "For the first time in my life I want to pay attention to History of Magic. Too bad we threw out all of Binns' notes." He dished up. "Agrippina managed to use a change in her own verb tenses to effect the intent of a spell."
It was like a whole new world had opened up for James - suddenly, instead of the rules of magic being about how to change what thing, the rules were why you wanted to change and how. "Do you think that if I asked someone who'd gone to a Muggle primary school, they'd explain these language things?"
"Take Runes," Sirius said absently. "Say, do you think he's really angry with us?"
"It's too late to take Runes, why don't you just tell me?" James answered, and then frowned. "I understand half of what she says about all of it - the twaddle about needing to conjugate and use passive and active. But it would help ever so much more if someone who actually knew how to speak another language could take a look at it."
"I don't think I've seen him this angry with me in a while," Sirius murmured, oblivious to what James was going on about. James stopped, looking up. He had no idea who Sirius was talking about, until he saw him staring at Remus - who was talking to Lily at the end of the table, surrounded by Peter and a couple of Lily's friends. One of them was giggling at Remus, obviously flirting. "I suppose I can't blame them. We won't tell them what's going on."
"He can't be half as bad as Lily," James said, suddenly not in the mood to dissect the intention behind curses and the ideas of language and how it reflected and literally shaped the world. "She thought we were just playing around."
"Well, isn't that what we're doing?"
"Come off it," James said angrily, "it's not like we were going to try that 'burn only your enemies and leave their clothing' spell in the common room! We went out to the Forest, we made sure that no one would be hurt. We're only learning these to try and figure out a way to stop them."
Sirius picked at his food. "The Forest where, I might add, there are all manner of creatures who are alive and would burn quite well."
"It worked, didn't it?" James said. "Burn the animal, leave everything else." He speared a piece of meat. "Scary stuff."
"You want to try the solvo" and Sirius' goblet clinked "tomorrow? Best do that in the cupboard."
James nodded, then yelped as Sirius' goblet faded away, his juice spilling all over the table. Sirius muttered, and the goblet reappeared. "You want to watch it," James hissed at him, "you weren't even holding your wand."
Sirius mopped the mess up with a napkin. "I didn't mean to."
James stared at the wet patch. "You have to be careful."
~
Peter found James hard at work late the next night, this time on some things Gus was asking about. The prefects were still worried about the school itself, and while despite the chaos outside, it seemed Hogwarts was untouchable - a few people, he and Gus included, weren't totally convinced. Of course nothing James seemed to try would really solve the underlying problem: what they needed was a real plan in case anything drastic happened, and he just didn't know how to set that up.
"Do you do anything but work anymore?" Peter said, sitting down across from him. "Every time I look over, you or Sirius have your head stuck in some book or another. I know that we can't copy as much homework as in lower school," he added, "but you two never worked hard to get top marks. I'm working half as hard as you and we're nearly tied enough in standings." Peter shook his head good-naturedly at the idea of getting marks anywhere as high as James' usual standing. "It's unnatural."
"Not homework," James answered absently, sketching another route. Maybe if they trained some of the fourth years, made sure all prefects knew all the secret passages out of the school. It killed him to think about giving away those secrets, though. Something had to work. James added, "For the prefects. They asked if we could meet again tomorrow, and I want to have something to show this time."
"Right."
Peter sat there quietly for a moment, until James looked up. He sighed inwardly. Just what he needed. "Are you waiting for a chance to yell or scold me as well?"
"What?" Peter looked puzzled. "I was waiting for you to finish whatever it is you're doing so we can go. But if you'd like I'll scold you." He pulled his eyebrows together fiercely and scowled, scrunching his whole face up. "How dare you do such a thing, James, how dare you. I'm ashamed."
"Oh, shove off." James shoved the parchment into a corner. They'd never work out the details of such an elaborate evacuation. And maybe it was irrational paranoia to assume that they'd need it. He said to Peter, "I thought you might be angry at Sirius and I as well, is all."
Peter shrugged. "I assumed that when you and Sirius had it all figured out - whatever it is - you'd tell us what was going on. That's usually how it works." He looked a little alarmed. "That is how it works," he repeated.
"That's the plan," James answered, trying to sound normal. He pictured that pillowful of ashes, and said, "Sirius and I are just ironing out a few kinks."
Peter flicked him on the forehead, and then stole his quill. "Where is Sirius, anyway?" he said. "We're nearly late."
"Late?" James stared blankly at Peter, forehead aching slightly. He'd been getting headaches - perhaps he needed new glasses, for reading or something.
"For Remus?" Peter stared. "Surely you haven't--"
James smacked himself in the forehead, hopping up madly. "No, I didn't!" Peter stared some more. "All right," he said, "just please don't tell him. I don't want him to know I forgot it was the full moon, all right?"
"Where is Sirius, anyway?" Peter followed him up to the dorm to grab his Cloak, and added, "the way those two have been acting, he better not skip this or he'll be even more in the doghouse."
"Oh, hah hah," James said weakly. In truth, Sirius had probably forgotten all about Remus' transformation as well. He and James hadn't been paying much attention to anything other than Agrippina and her kin, that week. "Let's check--"
But Sirius came wandering out from who knew where. "Where are you two heading?"
James cleared his throat, trying to subtly indicate they were in major trouble. "Thought we might go visit Remus, my friend," he said casually, "while he's in mortal danger and all. Care to join us?"
Sirius' face rippled for a brief instant, and then he said, "well, if we must, James." He loped an arm over James' shoulders. "Lead on."
They snuck out of the portrait hole, and Peter, looking around cautiously, transformed, then skittered down the hallway. James and Sirius followed him, wrapping the Invisibility Cloak around themselves as soon as they were out of sight of the Gryffindor hallway. No one would probably question the Head Boy out of bed at this hour, but it was wiser not to take that chance.
They snuck through one of the many shortcut passages and then walked rapidly after Peter as he darted across the lawns towards the Willow. The branches stilled, and James glanced up at the castle. Sirius was already transforming, bounding out from under the Cloak. James said to the big black dog, "he's probably already changed," and then looked up at the dark castle, Cloak hiding him from view. He murmured, "we should have been here sooner."
~
The next afternoon James visited Remus in the hospital wing, where he was in bed trying to mend a fractured elbow. "No idea how it came about, either," he told James, and winked. "One of those things."
James rolled his eyes, all too clearly remembering the ravine Remus had fallen down in his wolf form the night before. "You're just clumsy," he told Remus, "every month, you're in here with a broken bone."
"Yes," Remus said, but he wasn't joking anymore. James dropped the pretense as well, handing Remus his lunch tray. "I suppose Sirius had to study."
"He wasn't sure you wanted to see him," James answered, fidgeting. "But he said he'd save you some cake from tea."
"Thank him for me," Remus told him.
James nodded, suddenly very uncomfortable. He'd kept a huge secret from his friends and his girlfriend, he'd hidden the fact that he was studying illegal magic, and here was he and Remus, talking about today's tea. "Do you think I'm horrid, for keeping secrets? Do you think that we would play about with something like that for no reason?"
Remus blinked, and flexed his elbow gingerly. James peered at his arm; everything seemed to be in working order. "Are you asking me this because you're concerned about you and Lily?"
"Well, what am I supposed to do, Remus?" He fiddled with his quill. "Lily and I aren't even speaking. We may break up."
Remus pushed his blankets away, sighing. He said flatly, "What answer do you want? I'm as angry at you as I am at Sirius," and flexed his fingers carefully. James flinched a little, stung. He'd had no real idea that Remus' anger welled as deep as Lily's, because it manifested so much more silently. James watched Remus' arm cramping, hand shaking gently as he tested the bounds of his own bone, muscle.
James got up quietly.
~
"We have to talk some time, Lily," James said, wearily. He tried to keep his voice quiet so that the rest of the room wouldn't hear their fight. "Even if it's for you to tell me to shove off for good. And call me selfish but I'd rather that be now, than later."
"You know, I'm not that concerned with what you want," Lily said, refusing to look at him. "I have to concentrate on what I know."
James threw his hands up. "Well, what do you know?"
Lily finally stopped playing around with her chess pieces. "I know that you kept a huge secret from me, that you were trying out" and as James looked around the room nervously, she stopped, not actually saying it aloud. "I know that you kept that secret from me, both as your girlfriend, your friend, and as Head Girl of this school."
James could believe her anger, could believe and understand it. He nodded, slowly. "I didn't tell you because, as Head Girl, you would have perhaps felt responsible to make sure it didn't happen; that our experimentation stopped." He bit his lip. "As a friend, I didn't want to, either directly or indirectly, involve you - or Remus, or Peter - with something that was dangerous and nasty."
"And as your girlfriend?" Lily asked him. "I suppose that it never occured to you that I was worried about you. Or that Remus was worried about Sirius, not that those two are ever going to have this conversation."
"No," James replied, "they're probably not." He pulled his glasses off to rub his eyes, pressing them into his head. He definitely needed a new prescription. He didn't answer her question, staying quiet. There wasn't really much of an answer. He did say, "I was, however, offended that you would even think for a second that I would do something as irresponsible as 'play around' with magic that, mean."
"Magic isn't mean," she answered, "wizards are."
"And that's exactly the point!" James said, annoyed. "Which implies that you think we have that cruel streak, that it goes past-- That I, of all people, would want to know those things, for any other reason than to try and protect, stop--" James took a breath. "That I would be interested for one second in actually wanting to use these things to hurt people."
Lily stayed very, very silent. "Fine then," he said, and practically jumped out of his seat. "I'm going to bed," and he made his way up the stairs, not caring anymore if she was watching or not.
~
"James," Lily said. "James."
He inwardly rolled his eyes - it was kind of stupid, really. Their roles were reversed almost fully now: she'd spent three days completely ignoring him, up to and including the prefects' meeting about a potential - now concrete - Hogsmeade trip, and was now just wearing him down with sheer stubbornness. The theory being, eventually, he'd have to give in and speak to her, and it was sound. "Please, James," she said.
He ignored her, continuing to read. Lily gave up for a few minutes, then pulled her chair a little closer to his. Despite the rumors, neither of them had bothered to tell anyone of their precise relationship status, and so the places nearest to him were usually reserved for her. "Look, I'm sure you think that I'm being horribly juvenile, or worse female, about this whole thing." She pursed her lips. "After all, look at Remus and Sirius - they're getting along well enough, they're playing cards right now."
James obediently looked at the two of them, even though he was trying to ignore her. They did appear to be getting along, though neither of them were smiling. Peter watched them deal out another hand of some Muggle card game that was popular this term among the lower school - Sirius had taken a liking to Muggle cards. "They're speaking, sure, but have you noticed that they haven't touched each other once?" Lily said to him. "Not once. Sure, they're getting along fine."
It was true. They hadn't touched once, hadn't fought, hadn't argued. Lily added, "I sometimes wonder if they ever speak about anything serious."
James shrugged - couldn't help himself. She cracked a small smile. "So you do respond." He went back to his book, reading the same line about some stupid thing over and over. "All right, you don't," Lily continued, "fine, I'll speak then. Perhaps this will be easier anyway."
Lily leaned over to him, frustrated and obviously so. Her cheeks were flushed a little, and she looked tense all over, hands clasped together. "This whole thing, the secrets, what you're trying to do - it's like I don't even know you anymore, James," Lily said. "I don't know what's gotten into you, I don't know what you're doing. Even the James Potter I couldn't stand only humiliated Severus, you didn't-- it wasn't like this. And. I just. I don't know."
She glared at a couple of fourth years who were sitting up, talking excitedly about the Hogsmeade trip tomorrow, as if she was mentally willing them to go to bed so they could have some privacy, even if there were a dozen students still talking and reading. Tomorrow would be the first - and James knew possibly the only - Hogsmeade trip this term. It was just too dangerous.
He ignored her. He flipped another page in his book and wrote a line of notes - not from one of the books he and Sirius had liberated from the Restricted section, but for an essay that was due the day after tomorrow. Since there was another Quidditch practise for the Chasers tomorrow morning, early, before the Hogsmeade trip - he'd scheduled it himself, back when he was motivated and insane - he had to finish this now. Another roll, and he'd be done. He could do that before midnight.
"Are you ever going to answer me?" Lily added. "Because I've had it up to here, and I'm starting to think that maybe we need some time apart." She sighed. "Perhaps permanently."
James did look up at that. "You're really that angry?"
"I'm not even angry!" she hissed, ducking her head as one of the students still awake glanced at them. "I just don't understand."
James put his quill down on the table, blowing gently over the still-wet ink. "You know, when my parents were killed," he said, "I didn't feel helpless. It felt like, if I just picked my wand up?" he told her, "I'd be able to do anything. I could get revenge. I just had to do it."
Lily sat down, folding her hands in her lap. The frustration in her eyes faded, but her mouth was still thin, jaw still clenched. "You very nearly did," she said to him.
"I did," he admitted. "But Dumbledore made me a prefect," he added, "and so that wasn't what I wanted to do." He pushed the essay - Ancient Curses and How To Break Them - aside, and leaned back. His left temple had started to ache some time last hour, and now it was throbbing, almost in time to his heart. At least James imagined it was in time with his heartbeat. "But I had the power to get revenge if I wanted to."
"And now you don't have that?" she asked him.
James looked around the Common Room. The fourth years were still in the corner, bent over whatever they thought was the new fad; most of the rest of the students had gone to bed. Peter had snuck away, probably to the kitchens, and Remus and Sirius, in those few moments, had disappeared who knew where. One of the other prefects was out visiting a girlfriend, not that he'd ever admit it. None of the upperclassmen except them were around. "If someone came in here and started hexing kids in their rooms," James said slowly, softly, "Even after all the extra prep we've done, the things that Dumbledore has tried to teach us - I wouldn't know how to block them all."
Lily exhaled, slowly, and then brought a hand to her mouth, pressed it there until her knuckles were white and shaking.
James shrugged, smiled wryly. "I don't know as it's going to happen," he said quietly. "But I just keep thinking," he continued, reluctantly, "about the fact that we have students living within this school that may be a danger."
Lily sat there, and after a moment James returned to his essay to give her a bit of private thinking time. Eventually she stood, stretching. "I'm going to bed," she told him, then added, "You're a good Head Boy, James."
He watched her mount the stairs, and look cautiously around the corner before stepping onto the landing. James sighed. He really didn't want to mention it to Lily, not when his worry was just that - a nebulous anxiety that they weren't prepared if students within the school wanted to take action against them. He didn't really think that anyone would be so foolish as to try something when Dumbledore was around. And yet.
He wrote the rest of his essay, and in the morning couldn't remember having
finished it, but could recall in great clarity the nightmare he had.