Chapter 21 - Slivers of Darkness

On Friday evening, Lily Evans was huddled in a quiet and secluded corner of the school library, several open textbooks in front of her. A piece of parchment was laid out before her, her quill was poised in her hand.

But she just sat there, staring down at the blank parchment, unable to concentrate.

Connor, sitting across from her, looked up from the assignment he'd been working on, his eyes solemn and a little worried.

"Are you okay, Lily?"

"Sure," Lily shrugged, offering him a small smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Connor leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I heard about what happened the day before yesterday, during your Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson."

Lily grimaced. "The Hogwarts rumour mill strikes again. It's almost impressive, isn't it, how quickly and widely things like this spread?"

Connor reached across the table. He took Lily's quill-free hand and clasped it in his warm, reassuring grip. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." Lily kept her gaze fixed on their clasped hands. "I don't know." She heaved a sigh.

Connor didn't say anything; he simply waited patiently for Lily to gather her thoughts.

"I don't know how I feel about it, and to be honest I'd rather not think about it," she replied at last.

"I understand. And if you ever do want to talk about it, I'm here for you," Connor promised.

Lily squeezed his hand. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

Connor smiled and went back to his assignment.

Lily stared at him for a moment, envious of the ease with which he focused on his task. Lily might as well been sitting a world away from him instead of a few scant yards, because as soon as Connor had turned back to his schoolwork, he'd forgotten all about Lily.

She didn't really mind it, either – just wished that she could have even an ounce of that concentration just now.

She kept staring at the parchment in front of her, but no sentences began to flow into her head. Her mind stayed frustratingly blank.

Lily gritted her teeth and put down her quill. She grabbed one of the textbooks and tried to start cramming up rune translation.

She gave up on that when she realised she had been reading the same line multiple times without registering any of the words.

Lily pinched the bridge of her nose. She had to get at least something done today – if she put off her assignments they would only pile up and the end of the week would be hell.

Then again, she wasn't going to get anything worthwhile done right now, not in the state she was in.

In the end, the words that started flowing onto the no longer blank parchment were not about Ancient Runes or Potions theory or her Charms essay. Lily gave into her urge and wrote home to her mother. She wrote about how the spring term had begun, how nice it had been seeing her friends again after the Christmas break. She described their first Apparition class in detail, though omitting the bit about Avery's Splinching. She told her mother about the chaos in their Common Room just last night when Augustus had spotted a mouse and promptly given chase. She asked after her father and Petunia.

With her assignments, she hadn't been able to put a single thought on the parchment, but now, writing to her mother, the words came to her with ease.

She didn't miss home, not really; after all she'd just been there for Christmas. But she felt a sense of connection as she wrote her letter, could picture the house perfectly – and her parents' reactions once her letter would arrive.

Lily smiled to herself, and signed the letter with all her love.

THD

Lily woke up early on Saturday morning. As usual, she'd left her schoolbag on top of the trunk at the foot of the bed, and she crawled across the mattress to pull it in through the drawn curtains of her four-poster bed. She snuggled back under the thick blankets, murmured a quick Lumos and tucked her lit wand behind her ear.

She pulled out her Rune textbook, a bit of parchment and her ink and quill and set to work.

After a good night's sleep and having no distractions at hand, she made quick work of the Rune translation that had felt impossible last night. She even managed to get started on her paper of Herbology theory before her friends started to wake up.

Lily stuffed her things back into the schoolbag and pulled open the curtains of her bed, wishing everyone good morning.

The girls made their way down to Great Hall for breakfast together and sat down at the Gryffindor table. The sixth year boys walked in soon after and joined them at the table.

The conversation babbled amiably, the topics varying from the second Apparition class they'd be having soon to grumbling over schoolwork to arguing which jam was the best on toast (which got a little heated for Sirius, Peter and Marlene) to the Quidditch practice the Gryffindor team was having later that afternoon.

Lily was pouring herself a second helping of tea when the post arrived.

No owl arrived for her – she would've been surprised if one had – but Marlene got her Daily Prophet and James had got a letter from home; Lily recognised the owl and James unfolded the parchment eagerly.

Marlene picked up her Daily Prophet, glanced at the front page, then sighed and put the newspaper back down.

"Bad news?" Gwen asked, one eyebrow raised in question.

"The same old," Marlene said, "which is the problem."

Lily pulled the newspaper to her. The headlines themselves were just as Marlene had said – just the same old stuff. Calling for the Ministry to do more against the Death Eaters and the threat they represented, that new aurors were needed, and of someone being arrested for attacking Muggles. What caught Lily's eye though were the list of names and moving photographs at the side of the page, under the title "Missing".

Her stomach lurched, as her gaze ran over the photos and names.

"There's so many," she murmured, her voice trembling.

"I feel like there's more each day," Marlene replied, staring glumly at her half-eaten toast.

"There probably is," Gwen said, frowning as she picked up the newspaper to skim it over.

Lily sipped her tea, drew comfort from the warmth it spread into her chilled body.

Safe inside Hogwarts, busy with all their lessons and schoolwork, surrounded by friends and teachers… sometimes they could almost forget what was happening in the world at large, until something like this would come to remind them; little slivers of darkness poking through the thin walls of their bubble.

The mood between the Gryffindor girls remained glum for the rest of the breakfast. Some of the gloom still lingered when Lily walked back to the Great Hall a couple of hours later for their Apparition lesson. The rest of the students didn't look nearly as enthused as they had been last week, either.

This did not seem to concern their Ministry appointed Apparition instructor in the slightest.

"Hello again!" he greeted them. "Let us continue where we left off last week!"

He flicked his wand and the wooden hoops appeared.

A couple of groans rippled in the crowd. Some students looked a little queasy when they saw the hoops – they'd been scared by last week's Splinching accident, Lily supposed.

Others regarded their hoops in resignation while a handful of students were outright glowering at theirs, Avery included.

Lily couldn't blame them.

"Now everyone, remember again the three D's: Destination, delibration and determination! Focus and fix your mind and on the count of three, turn in the spot, please!"

Lily barely stifled a groan. Twycross made Apparition sound infuriatingly simple when it was anything but. There had to be a catch, right? Some trick to it other than the three D's that after just one lesson Lily was already sick of.

Besides, how was she to focus on her destination and stay determined when she needed to keep an ear out for Twycross' instructions?

"One – two – three!"

The students turned and stayed on their spots – no one had Splinched. Or Apparated for that matter; not even Andrew Buchanan.

"Again, please!" Twycross called out.

Lily sighed and fixed her gaze and her mind on her stupid hoop.

THD

Lily and Remus were still complaining about the Apparition lessons on Sunday evening, when they made their rounds. A couple more people had managed to Apparate during yesterday's lesson. Sirius had been among them, which Remus and Lily unanimously decreed to be horribly unfair.

"He's never going to stop gloating," Remus sighed.

"Yes he is, as soon as you or me or James or anyone else gets the hang of it," Lily replied.

"Great, no pressure then," Remus muttered.

"It is absolutely maddening," Lily agreed. "I feel like I'm so close but I still don't see how to do it? Like a word that's right on the tip of my tongue."

"You'll be Apparating in no time, I'm sure of it," Remus told her. "It's gonna take me a little longer, though. I always need to work at least twice as hard to keep up with you geniuses."

"Oh, shut it. You'll get the knack of it, I mean if Avery managed to Apparate…" Lily shook her head.

"Well, there's no hurry anyway," Remus shrugged. "Even if I learned to Apparate right now I couldn't take the exam yet and get my license."

"That's a fair point too," Lily said. "I think I'm –"

She stopped walking and frowned.

Remus stopped too and gave her a puzzled look. "Lily?"

Lily was looking around the long corridor, her wand in the air. She gave it a decisive flick and called out: "Finite incantem!"

A fourth year Gryffindor boy appeared seemingly out of thin air, crouching between the wall and a statue a couple of yards from them.

"Bloody hell," Remus cursed.

"Drat," the boy muttered, his shoulders hunched.

Lily propped her hands on her hips. "Brilliant Disillusionment charm, Shacklebolt, but I'm afraid the curfew's in twenty minutes so you'd better head up before we have to take off points."

The boy gave her a lopsided smile. "Cheers, Evans."

Remus struggled to keep a straight face, while he and Lily watched Kingsley Shacklebolt walk away towards the staircase.

The rest of their patrol was uneventful – they heard Peeves cackling in a third floor corridor and chose unanimously to give it a wide berth. While they were walking back towards Gryffindor tower, they saw Mrs Norris sitting at the top of the stairs, her bulbous eyes trained on them in disapproval.

Lily ignored her, while Remus shot her a dark glare.

They swept past Mrs Norris and continued up another staircase, heading for the seventh floor.

"I bloody hate that cat," Remus muttered under his breath.

"Me too," Lily said.

They stopped before the portrait of the Fat Lady and Remus gave the password.

Climbing through the portrait hole, Lily felt the tension slip from her body. A smile came readily to her lips – especially when she spotted Shacklebolt playing Exploding Snap with a couple of other fourth years.

Across the Common Room, lounging on the usual sofa and armchair, were Lily's and Remus' friends. They were chatting about something and the discussion seemed lively, if James' gesticulating was any indication.

Lily walked over, Remus trailing after her.

"Okay, fine, forget about the cauldron cakes. What about pumpkin pasties?" James was saying, just as Lily reached them.

"Pumpkin pasties sound good," Lily chimed in, plopping down on the armrest of the sofa, brushing against James' shoulder in passing. "What are we talking about?"

Dead silence followed her words.

Peter and Mary had gone a little wide-eyed. Sirius was glaring at Remus. Marlene crossed her arms while Gwen studied the carpet. James was gawking at her, his jaw still hanging a little open.

Laughter bubbled in Lily's throat.

"Ah, I see," she said, as the silence still stretched, heavy and awkward. The corners of her lips twitched. "I'll just go up to the dormitory and get out of your hair. Carry on."

She patted James on the shoulder and got up.

Lily had scarcely taken five steps, when she heard Sirius curse with feeling behind her.

"Fuck."

The laughter burst out and echoed in the spiral staircase as she climbed up to her dorm.

THD

At any other time of the year, the Potions classroom could feel stifling with the fires lit under several cauldrons, with smoke and slowly swirling steam and vapours hanging heavy in the air.

On a Tuesday afternoon in late January, however, the Potions classroom was a welcome refuge from the stubborn chill that seemed to lurk at every drafty corner of the castle.

James stirred his potion slowly, so his fingers could linger longer in the warmth emanating from his bubbling cauldron.

Beside him, Remus was muttering swearwords under his breath while he worked on his potion. In a stark contrast to his glum glowering, on James' other side Lily hummed quietly as she carefully diced thistle roots. She measured the needed amount and tossed them into her potion, stirred it once and glanced quickly at their textbook. She pursed her lips, shook her head and added another pinch of her diced roots.

Without looking up from her potion, Lily spoke.

"You should be paying attention to your potion, James; not staring at me."

The heat rising to James' cheeks wasn't just from the vapours of his potion – the colour of which had grown noticeably paler while he'd been neglecting it.

"Just watching a master at her work," he quipped, in what he hoped was a blithe tone.

Lily shook her head but smiled.

James was grinning as he went back to his potion.

"How's the party planning going?" she asked him, gathering her next ingredient.

James narrowly missed cutting his own thumb.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said with a straight face.

Lily slanted him a glance, the corners of her lips twitching. "That's a very suspicious statement from someone who's always snooping around."

James caught her gaze and gave her a wink. "Perhaps I've mended my maraudering ways."

Lily snorted a laugh. "Yeah, right. I'll believe it when I see it."

"Feel free to check my record, Miss Prefect," James replied. "I haven't been getting into trouble nearly as much this school year as I did last year."

"He says with a cheeky grin that screams of innocence," Lily retorted, adding powdered dragonfly wings to her potion and giving it a good stir.

James hacked at the thistle root, thoroughly amused. He'd always appreciated Lily's quick and snarky come-backs. "Have you got cheeky and charming mixed up again, Lily?"

Lily bit down on her lip to stifle a laugh. "You wish, James Potter."

James felt a little giddy, and though he kept his voice light and joking he half-meant what he told her. "And what if I do?"

Lily opened her mouth, but James never got his answer.

There was a knock at the door, and it opened a moment later.

Professor McGonagall stood in the doorway, her stern face grim.

Every head in the classroom had turned to the door.

Professor Slughorn hurried over, and the two teachers had a quick whispered conversation.

Lily had abandoned her potion.

James wasn't sure if she'd even realised she'd reached for him, but he wouldn't be quick to bring it to her attention. He held her hand in his; squeezed it gently, hoping to reassure her.

Professor Slughorn was pale and fumbling for his handkerchief so he could mop the sweat from his forehead when he turned to the class.

"Miss Worthing," he called, his usual jolly smiles gone, "you'll need to go with Professor McGonagall."

Deborah Worthing, a Muggleborn girl from Hufflepuff, got to her shaky feet after a pat on her shoulder from her housemate Dale Hudson.

Trembling from head to toe, she walked across the classroom that had gone deathly silent.

Lily was squeezing James' hand now so tightly it hurt.

He was squeezing hers back.

They didn't talk again, for the rest of the class.

THD

That night, the Hufflepuff table in the Great Hall was subdued when the students gathered for dinner. There was the sibilant hiss of whispers along the edges of the hall, but the mood was grim.

Even the Gryffindor table was quiet and eerily devoid of laughter that night.

Lily was staring down at her plate, trying to tell herself she needed to eat even if her stomach felt like lead.

She wasn't the only one who regarded their dinner with a lacklustre manner. Even Peter seemed to have lost his appetite.

"It's her sister," Betty Narang said, jolting Lily out of her thoughts.

"What?" she asked, turning to Betty.

Mary stopped pushing her food around her plate.

"McGonagall came to get Debbie because they'd just heard about her sister," Betty said in hushed tones. "Nora Worthing. She finished school two years ago. She was a Hufflepuff, too."

Was.

That one word caught in Lily's throat, had her body chilled to the bone.

"Bloody terrible," Gwen hissed. "I remember Nora, she was really nice."

Lily's fingernails dug into her palm, her hand curled into a fist.

Mary was staring down at her plate, her eyes swimming with tears.

Wordlessly, Marlene threw her arm across Mary's shaking shoulders and pulled her close.

"You were there, right? When McGonagall came to get her?" Betty squeezed Lily's shoulder. "It must've been awful."

"Yeah," Lily said.

She felt the weight of a stare and knew – though she couldn't have explained how – that it was James.

Lily's hand clenched in her lap, as she remembered the firm, warm grip with which he'd steadied her in the Potions classroom.

She drew a breath, squared her shoulder and picked up her fork.

"Did you hear what happened? How Nora…" Mary's voice broke, the sentence hanging heavy in the air, unfinished.

Betty shook her head. "I didn't want to pry."

"We know what happened," Lily said, her voice tight. "Nora was Muggleborn, like Deborah."

She met Mary's eyes from across the table. Tear-filled, they mirrored the same unspoken knowledge that was lodged in Lily's throat.

Like us.

Sirius wrapped his arm around Lily in a half-hug. She let her head rest against his shoulder for a moment, tried to draw in some comfort from the gesture and their friendship.

But inside her churned a whirlpool of fear and frustration, helplessness and anger and a deep, bottomless sorrow.

In the silence that fell over their group, Lily forced herself to eat. She was halfway through the meal, when the silence was shattered by the appearance of Dana Watson.

She wasn't smiling tonight, no hint of dimples anywhere. She hovered hesitantly behind James for a moment, before finally asking if he was busy.

James shook his head. He sent a sweeping glance down the table, briefly meeting Lily's eyes. Then he abandoned his partially-eaten dinner and got up.

As he was walking away, Lily noticed how that steady hand she had squeezed for comfort earlier in the Potions class now rested on Dana's shoulder with casual ease.

Her stomach twisted.

Lily ignored it, and went back to her meal.

THD

The next day, Deborah Worthing still attended each class, even if her face was pale and her eyes red-rimmed. The Hufflepuffs still gathered around her, a united front of loyalty and kindness. Some rumours were circulating about how Deborah had fought with her parents, saying she wanted to stay in school while they would have pulled her out.

And after a day or two, the twisting corridors of Hogwarts once again filled with chatter. The Great Hall echoed with laughter. The students complained about classes and schoolwork, enthused about Quidditch, spent cosy evenings in their Common Rooms surrounded by friends.

Lily was relieved to once again wilfully ignore the happenings in the outside world. She threw herself into schoolwork, excelling in her classes. She replied cheekily to Professor Slughorn's lavish praise on the Potion she'd brewed, while pretending not to notice the way James Potter grinned at her.

Next Saturday, on their third Apparition lesson, Lily finally managed to Apparate, and even if she couldn't replicate the feat right away she was absurdly pleased with herself.

The rest of that weekend, Lily spent mostly in the library, working on a paper for Defence Against the Dark Arts. The hard work paid off, because she did manage to impress Professor Quirke as she had hoped, and got an O for her effort.

She crammed Transfiguration theory, memorised Runes vocabulary and rehearsed her Charms.

And before she knew it, eleven days had passed and it was Sunday, 30th of January.

Her seventeenth birthday.

Lily did not wake up smiling, but as soon as the usual grogginess abated enough for her to realise what day it was, the smile appeared. She pulled Augustus to her from where he'd been curled beside her pillow, and buried her face in his soft fur. Augustus flicked his tail and rewarded her with a purr.

When Lily got up, she was enfolded into warm hugs from Mary, Marlene and Gwen. Betty, too, congratulated her and gave her a card.

"It's lovely, Betty, thank you!" Lily smiled, then slanted a glance at her friends. "I notice you lot are all empty-handed?"

"Patience is a virtue," Mary giggled.

"You'll get your gifts at the party we're totally not having this evening," Marlene said.

"Well, as long as you haven't forgotten," Lily replied, then laughed.

The surprise party might've been a bust after she'd caught them red-handed, but at least her friends seemed to be in good humour about it.

And Lily had left them alone with their plans, so though she knew there would be a party tonight, she would still be surprised, because she had no idea what they'd come up with.

Lily got ready for the day, spending a little more time than usual to make herself look nice.

Then, she left the dorm, chatting and laughing with the girls.

Benjy Fenwick was down in the Common Room and walked over as soon as they entered. He smiled at them, took Marlene's hand in his.

"Happy birthday, Lily!"

"Thanks, Benjy," Lily replied.

Marlene had told her that Benjy had been coming over a lot during the Christmas break, and that her brother Marcus had finally come around.

Lily was happy for them, and glad to see Benjy and Marlene holding hands all the way to the Great Hall on the ground floor. They were usually very low key when they were in public, so the hand-holding from them was as good as a declaration.

A few more people than usual greeted Lily as she took her seat at the Gryffindor table.

By her side, Gwen had remained standing. Lily frowned and was just about to ask her why she hadn't sat down when James Potter, grinning at her from across the table, stood up. Then down the table where they'd been sitting with other seventh year students, Marcus McKinnon and Craig O'Sullivan got up. Holly Willoughby and Kimberly Wu stood, giggling. Brent Russel, the fifth year Beater, was the last member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team to stand up.

A little slack-jawed, Lily turned to stare James.

James Potter gave her a wink, then raised his arms. He looked like a conductor, his wand acting as a baton.

And then, in unison, the Gryffindor Quidditch team began to sing happy birthday to Lily. Sirius and Remus quickly joined in, as did Mary, Marlene and Benjy. By the time they came to the last verse of the brief song, it felt like the whole long table was belting along.

Lily was laughing, her heart so full she was clutching at her chest.

When the song ended, she clapped furiously, until her palms were aching.

Then she got up and circled around the table.

"You're mad," she declared as she stopped in front of James Potter, her green eyes alight with laughter.

Then she rose on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek, while Sirius whistled and everyone around them laughed.

"Where's my kiss, Evans?" Marcus called.

Lily turned, her hand resting against James' shoulder.

"You got yours three years ago, Marcus, don't get greedy," she called back.

Feeling light and followed by the laughter her comment had elicited, Lily walked back to her seat and squeezed Gwen's shoulder in passing.

As the Gryffindors settled down for breakfast, Lily was sure that if she were to cast the Patronus Charm at this very moment, her slender doe would glow impossibly bright.