Plot: The infamous Marauders weren't alone in their love for pranking. In fact, they often had their butts kicked by a bunch of girls. Now, this is it. Seventh year. Four girls, four boys. Two opposing pranking teams. One hell of a battle to be won.

Disclaimer: Sad as it may be, I am not J.K. Rowling in disguise, and therefore I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters or themes involved. (I do, however, own Jamie, Hannah and Regan and most elements of this specific plot—so I'd appreciate it if no poaching occurred. Thanks.)

Previously, in The Marauders and the Rogues...
(Oh boy, here we go...)
Hannah was being all evasive, so the Rogues came up with a master plan to corner her with a book written by a maniac and get her to spill everything about her self-abusive behaviour, her troubles with Sirius, and the fact that (shock, horror) she secretly thinks he's "bloody perfect".
James and Lily had a Heads meeting to finishing organizing their haunted house idea, in which James invented a cool gadget called a "Scare-o-meter" and tested it out on Lily by nearly hitting her in the face with a clock. Oh, Jamesy-Poo, you sure know how to woo a girl.
Lily convinced Regan to dress up as a typical "Muggle-style" witch for firstie-scaring purposes by bribing her with cake and crayons.
So the Marauders, as well as "three ladies and a... what the hell is that?" went down to the haunted house to finish setting up, and various mishaps ensued, including Hannah falling into a pit of lava (but not really) and Sirius getting seriously (ha, ha) mad, and... Yeah, that was about it.
The Marauders and the Rogues decided to have a three-on-three "Try Not to Scream" competition using Scare-o-meters, which Peter subsequently lost for the Marauders because he is such a freaking girl.
The gang stumbled into the Boggart Room at the back of the haunted house, revealing that Sirius doesn't want the Marauders Map to burst into flames ('cause that totally wasn't symbolism or anything), Peter is scared of everything, Jamie is scared of her friends dying (namely Lily, whose Boggart-corpse scared the living daylight out of dear Prongsie) and Hannah... er, has a phobia of cracked mirrors?
The Marauders mysteriously disappeared after that, so the Rogues decided to stalk them, got some deets out of Paul Abbott, and escaped the haunted house. They saw the Marauders' clothes by the Whomping Willow and eventually put the pieces together. (They're sitting naked somewhere in the grounds. Duh.)
Thus ensued a series of dramatic events including Hannah and Regan being cornered in a cave, Remus the werewolf chasing Lily and Jamie up a hill, Lily almost dying, and the big (and very literal) cliffhanger): Jamie getting thrown off a cliff. YIPPEE, happy day for everyone!

Phew. That was tiring. So if you're not already exhausted from reading my attempt at condensing TBDO, feel free to, you know, read this massive chunk of text down here... If you feel like it...

Chapter Twenty-Six: Awakening

Time stopped.

At least, for Lily it did.

The moment she saw Jamie fly over the edge of the rocky precipice, things seemed to slow right down until the whole world was practically at a standstill: the werewolf, thrashing angrily beside her; every sound that filled the forest—the rustling of the overhead canopy, the wolf's growls, the scuffling of animal feet on the forest floor—abruptly silenced; the wind, no longer blasting angrily into her face and making her eyes water, but instead creating a solid wall of cold that seeped into every inch of her body.

Lily couldn't think, couldn't bring herself to move—and even if she'd had the vocal chords required, she'd have been unable to make a sound.

This couldn't be happening.

In fact, as the world lay before her dazed eyes, frozen in the midst of all the chaos, she began to believe that this was all some crazy dream. Everything that had happened—everything that was happening in this instant—was too unreal to be anything more than that. Remus, a werewolf... The rest of the Marauders chasing him through the forbidden forest, each in their own Animagus form—Animagi, just like the Rogues...

Jamie, falling... Falling...

It was in that moment, with that horrible realization, that the world whirred back into motion; the werewolf threw its head back and unleashed an ear-piercing howl, and Lily felt everything speed back up, jolting her brutally back to reality. She was barely aware of her body transforming involuntarily back to its usual human form, the harsh wind biting through the thin layer of clothing she wore like icy water as she fell to her hands and knees, letting out a cry to match the wolf's. Her cry turned into a whimper and then a series of sobs, and she soon forgot about everything around her—the wolf, the stag, the dangerous cliff side—as she scrambled forward through the leaf litter and sodden dirt, desperate to peek over the edge. She stumbled once or twice when she cut her hands on twigs and sharp rocks, but she finally made it, and, ignoring how precariously she was perched on the rocks at the edge, leaned over to see what had become of her best friend.

She felt as though a hand had closed around her heart. There, down at the bottom, lay a crumpled figure, limbs splayed in every which direction, meek and shrunken by distance. She was more or less intact, it appeared, but it was difficult to tell; it was had been a long fall, that was for sure. The shock had forced her to change back from fox to human, but she wasn't moving. And the worst part of all: even from here, Lily could tell that there was blood pooled around her head—lots of it.

"Oh, God," she heard herself say, and her hands flew up to her tear-streaked face as another sob shook her body. "Jamie...," she croaked. "Jamie, please, no..."

A voice suddenly rang out behind her. "Lily! Get back from there! Are you mad? MOVE!" There was a sound like crumbling skyscrapers as the wolf growled again, and a monstrous shadow fell over her.

This should have been a wake-up call for Lily, but these sounds barely penetrated her mind as she sat on her knees, staring down at Jamie's broken form. Tears poured liberally out of her eyes and blurred her vision, until she could almost feel herself falling, too...

And then a hand closed around her upper arm and lifted her cleanly off the ground, and she was whipped through the air so quickly that she barely even had time to register a single thought before she was back on the ground again, this time on her feet—and pressed into the trunk of a massive tree. As she came to her senses, she feared for a moment that she might have been snatched up by the werewolf, and that, for the umpteenth time this evening, she might be inches away from her demise.

But it wasn't the wolf. James's face hovered just in front of her own, anger and panic and fear all merged into one wild expression as he stared right into her, his hazel eyes intensely serious. Only now did she realize that he, too, had changed out of his Animagus form—and if she'd been in any state to think normally, she'd have noticed his fully-clad figure and would have been rather irked at the fact that the Marauders clearly had this whole clothing thing scoped out far more thoroughly than the Rogues.

Then again, from what she'd seen so far, she could only assume that this was a much older habit for them than it was for the Rogues.

Her mind, however, was far away from trivial things like that. Her best friend had just fallen off a cliff, and may well be dead by now. She didn't care how scantily she was dressed—all she wanted to do in that moment was hurry down to the bottom of the ravine and see if Jamie was okay. She had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that the outcome wouldn't be good, but she desperately wanted—desperately needed—to know.

James, unfortunately, was apparently more concerned about the danger the werewolf posed. He kept her pinned to the tree with one arm, glancing every now and then around the trunk to make sure it wasn't about to sneak up on them. Lily could hear the creature's low growls turning into something like whimpers, but it didn't seem as though it was moving at all; from the sounds of it, the wolf was ignoring them—for the moment, at least.

"What are you doing?" Lily hissed, more hysterically than angrily. "I have to... We have to go back—" Before she could finish her scrambled train of thought, James pressed a hand over her mouth, silencing her, and shook his head resolutely.

"No," he whispered fiercely. "If you stay around here any longer, you'll be killed. We have to go. Right. Now." Lily wanted to object, but the fire in his eyes was so powerful that she could only avert hers and nod sadly. Tears slipped out of her eyes once more, falling onto James's hand where he held it over her mouth. There was a momentary lapse in his steady gaze and his eyes softened sympathetically as he pulled his hand away.

"Look, I'm really sorry, Lily, but we need to get out of here. It might already be too late." She didn't know whether he was talking about Jamie's fate or the werewolf lurking just on the other side of the tree, but she was barely listening anymore. Her whole body had gone numb.

James glanced around the tree, and when he turned back to her, he was all business again. "Right. In about five seconds I'm going to change back, and you're going to get on my back as quickly as you can so I can get you out of here. Understand?"

"What?" said Lily, suddenly defensive. "I can change back too, James; I can run! I—"

He shook his head furiously and interrupted her; "No. You're too cut up—you'll get left behind. Just do what I—"

A branch snapped loudly overhead, and Lily felt herself being pulled through the air once again as James threw her out of the way just in time to avoid the claws of the werewolf, which was advancing on them again, swinging its massive arms blindly at them in a feral sort of rage and snarling. Evidently, it had heard them. Lily drew in a sharp breath and stumbled backward, James clutching onto her wrist all the while, as if desperate to keep her within arm's reach. She couldn't help but stare at the savage beast, trying to comprehend that it was really Remus—shy, sweet Remus—behind those glinting yellow eyes and razor-sharp teeth—that it had really been Remus who'd attacked Jamie and sent her flying to her potential doom. As much as she thought about it, she couldn't quite convince herself that somebody so gentle could become something like this, even if it was an involuntary transformation. And as much as she stared into the werewolf's eyes, she could never quite picture it as being the Remus she knew; it was too huge a contrast to even visualize. If this was indeed Remus Lupin, then his mind was long gone. She didn't need to rely on her DADA research to know that he had no idea, and no control over, what he was doing tonight.

She was so distracted by this disturbing thought that she narrowly missed having her skin shredded to ribbons once again, but when she felt James's grip on her arm loosen and turned to see the magnificent stag standing there, looking at her urgently, she remembered where she was and what she had to do. She hated to leave Jamie behind like this, but in that split second she had no choice—and so, without another thought, she reached out and slung herself onto its back.

No sooner did she have her arms fastened around James's neck than he took off at full speed, bolting down the hill they'd climbed in their previous mad frenzy to escape the wolf. Lily clung on for dear life, threading her fingers together in an attempt to secure herself. This time, the escape was much faster; James was obviously far more accustomed to his deer legs than Lily was, and it certainly helped that he was so athletic to begin with. Trees soared past on either side of them, so quickly that they all merged into one dark, greenish blur. All they had to light their way was the moonlight filtering through the canopy overhead, but Lily wasn't even sure James had a specific destination in mind. Every now and then he would make a turn so sharp that Lily was almost thrown clean off his back, as he cut in and out of the trees and traced a crazy pattern through the forest. Once she managed to adjust her grip and make sure she wasn't going to fall off the next time he veered left or right, she realized that it made sense. Right now, all they really needed to think about was getting away from the werewolf.

Lily's heart pounded violently in her chest as she thought about it. The wolf could be right behind them at this second, ready to sink its claws—or, even worse, its teeth—into her back or James's. Sitting here like this, she felt sort of helpless, and kept wanting to turn around and see if the wolf was on their tail; at the same time, though, she felt an overwhelming sense of security as she rode swiftly away on the stag's back.

While the wind beating against Lily's face swept her tears away and froze her so deeply that she became numb and emotionless, she could not forget what she had left behind. It was like something was tugging at a part of her brain, and the farther she got from the ravine, the worse the nagging became. Biting her lip, she tried to focus on the here and now, on the escape.

After a while, Lily realized that they must have left the wolf behind. When she became gradually more adjusted to the speed they were travelling at, her hearing came into focus, and there were no pounding footsteps behind them, no snarling or howling to be heard. Maybe the werewolf had been confused by their sudden flight, or maybe James had somehow—miraculously—managed to outrun it, perhaps by taking such a crazy route through the darkened forest.

Or maybe, Lily thought, the wolf was still on their tail, but was simply being as silent as possible in order to sneak up on its prey. The thought sent a chill up her spine that had nothing to do with the cold weather.

James's stamina was incredible. He kept up this rapid pace for longer than Lily could have imagined, darting around in all sorts of directions. Finally, he began to slow down, and Lily braced herself, still slightly doubtful of whether or not the werewolf was still following them, worrying that maybe James was only slowing down because he was tired. When nothing hit her from behind, she let out the enormous breath she'd been holding for quite some time.

At last, James came to a stop. He lowered himself to his knees and Lily took this as her cue to dismount; shaking all over, she slipped off his back and landed on the forest floor, her unsteady legs promptly buckling underneath her weight and causing her to fall to the forest floor. She landed on her raw hands and knees, and before she knew it, the tears were flooding out of her eyes again. A thousand emotions hit her at once: relief, despair, desperation, longing, guilt, grief... The list went on, but worst of all was the despair. She felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, knowing that she was so far away from Jamie now that she could do nothing to help her.

If she could even be helped, that was.

How had they even gotten to this point? Earlier on, she'd been enjoying herself, with the Marauders, of all people, in the Hogwarts Haunted House. It had been a carefree Halloween night—disregarding the mishap with the Boggart—and might have stayed that way, had they only thought to leave this Marauder-stalking business alone. Of course, there was no way they could have predicted what would happen when they walked through the door of the Shrieking Shack.

She thought about Hannah and Regan, and wondered where they were. Considering they'd taken off in the opposite direction, she could only assume they were safe.

But then she thought about Hannah and Regan, and how they'd been so gung-ho to embark on this mission in the first place, and an intense and inexplicable bitterness was added to the list of emotions.

She couldn't seem to stop her body from shaking. It wasn't the cold, she knew—these weren't shivers, but uncontrollable spasms of fear and exhaustion. She had no idea why she was the one who was exhausted—surely James, who'd carried her on that massively long detour through every nook and cranny of the Forbidden Forest, should have been ready to collapse by now. She turned her head slightly to the right and saw him standing there, back in human form, panting and red-faced and bent over with his hands on his knees, his shirt plastered to his torso and sweat dripping from the tip of his nose. At that moment, she was filled with an enormous sense of gratitude—to think he'd gone through all that for her—and was hit with a nearly irrepressible urge to hug him. (On any day but this one, she'd have committed herself to a mental asylum the moment she realized she was thinking such thoughts—but right now, she was too distracted to exercise such self-discipline.)

Then she remembered Jamie lying on a bed of rocks far away from here, and her mood collapsed once more, giving way to complete and utter misery.

"James," she said, her voice wavering as it caught on the huge lump in her throat. "You don't... Jamie... You don't think...?"

James, who had seemingly caught his breath, was now somewhat frantically kicking leaves aside, clearing the forest floor as if searching for something. When Lily spoke, he turned around briefly and regarded her with sympathetic eyes.

"I dunno, Lily," he said gently, his voice more serious than she'd ever heard it before. "She... Well, it was a long fall. And I'm not sure if Re—if it would've gone back for her."

Lily hadn't thought of that. The notion made her chest tighten and her stomach begin to turn. "You mean it would go after her again?" she squeaked, panic rising from within her. Even if it didn't, she was beginning to realize now—and if Jamie wasn't already a lost cause—they'd been stupid to leave her behind. Completely idiotic. Why had she let James persuade her like that? Hysteria began to creep up her throat once again. "Well... then, we have to go back for her!" she exclaimed desperately, scrambling to her feet at once. She felt dizzy and her legs threatened to give way again, but now she was filled with purpose and she forced herself to remain upright. "We have to go back, James!"

James, who had finally stopped moving leaves, turned to face her again. He looked at her with those same eyes, filled with sympathy and something else—like he knew something she didn't.

"I'm really sorry, Lily, but we can't go back," he said simply, and bent down to pick something up. "At least, you can't." Lily saw now that what he had in his hands appeared to be a blanket of leaves, but was really a square mesh-type network of twigs and vines, woven through with scattered foliage to make it appear natural. It looked like the sort of thing she'd seen in Muggle war movies—the sort of thing used to conceal a hiding place. She looked down, and sure enough, there was a large, dark hole at James's feet where he'd lifted the cover away.

"What are you talking about?" Lily exclaimed, her voice rising in pitch and volume. "I can't just sit here, if that's what you think I'm going to do! That's my best friend back there—we have to go back!"

James, perhaps sensing that she was about to go completely wild and potentially alert the wolf to their location again, took several swift steps toward her and stared straight into her eyes. There was something almost angry in his gaze now, but Lily wouldn't relent, and kept hers steady and imploring.

"As I'm sure you've gathered by now," James said in a low tone, "that's one of my best friends back there, too. No offense or anything, but you have absolutely no idea what we're dealing with. I do. So I need you to stay here while I go get help—I can't let you get hurt, too."

Lily had opened her mouth to interrupt him, but she snapped it shut went he uttered that last sentence. He sounded so sincere that she only stared at him for a second more before dropping her gaze to the ground and stiffly nodding her head.

"C'mon," he told her, and reached out to grab her by the arm. He led her over to the hole in the ground, which she noticed was less a hole and more a tunnel. It looked like something an animal would build—some kind of burrow, maybe—but much larger. Large enough to accommodate a person or two.

"Do you need help?" James asked kindly, nodding toward the hole. It looked shallow enough that one could get in or out without much trouble, but still deep enough that Lily felt a little bit apprehensive about jumping right in. She was beginning to feel a little too dependent, though, and decided she'd rather do one thing on her own.

"I'm fine, thanks," she said, and dropped down so that she was sitting on the dirt floor with her legs hanging over the edge of the hole. She used her arms to fling herself forward, and then she fell for about half a second until she hit the bottom. A searing pain shot up her calves, but she righted herself quickly and turned back to look up at James, whose eyes were clouded over with something dark.

"How'd you know where to find this thing?" she asked.

James hesitated a moment before replying, "We've had to take a lot of... precautions. This was one of them."

Lily said nothing. She was thinking about Remus again, and about Jamie, struggling to understand what the Marauders must have been going through for the past who-knew-how-many years. Trying to understand what was going to happen after tonight.

"You alright?" he asked her, though his voice was almost void of feeling.

"Yeah," she said. "I'll be fine."

He started to turn around, but Lily stopped him. "James." And then, in a mere whisper: "Please bring her back."

He swallowed, shoved his hands in his pockets, and cracked a very small, very sad smile. "I'll do what I can, Lily." And then he lifted the leafy cover and fitted it into place over her head, shrouding her in darkness. The sound of his footsteps faded away, quickening with every stride. She thought she heard something scraping into wood, and after that there was silence.

And then Lily was all alone.

"So you're actually planning on keeping us here all night," said Regan, voicing her annoyance for the billionth time in the past hour or so.

"If I have to," said Sirius lazily. He sat in the mouth of the cave, his back rested against one of the walls and his feet propped up on the other, casually picking up twigs, breaking them apart, and then throwing them out into the open. Regan and Hannah had made several attempts to get past him, but—infuriatingly—he had a defensive manoeuvre for every trick they tried, and they always ended up on their faces or their backsides, still confined within the cave.

"I don't get it," Hannah snapped impatiently. "What's the point? If this is what you do when someone catches you doing something stupid, then how do you know your idiot friends aren't doing the same thing to Lily and Jamie over on the other side of the grounds?"

Sirius's face broke into a half-smile, but the expression on his face was dark. "Oh, trust me—they're not."

"I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you, Black."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't throw you as far as I could trust you. Too much bloody effort."

Anyone who'd witnessed a single squabble between the two would have expected Hannah to fire something equally derisive back without even a second's hesitation. After all, that was just the way her arguments with Sirius worked—the way they'd worked for the past six years. It was old habit for both of them. So when Sirius's remark was met with nothing but an uncharacteristic silence, his eyebrows shot up and Regan's head snapped toward Hannah, who had a strangely dark, thoughtful expression on her face and was staring down at her knees.

After shooting a confused glance at her friend, Regan took it upon herself to answer Sirius with, "That's only because you've got the biceps of a two-year-old girl."

He gave a short bark of laughter, but conveniently ignored Regan and kept his eyes scornfully narrowed on Hannah. He hadn't failed to notice her bizarre state of unresponsiveness, and he wasn't about to let it slide. "Cat got your tongue, Milton?" he sneered, chuckling at his own pathetic humour.

"Looks like a cat got your face," was Hannah's feeble response, mumbled noncommittally as she continued to stare at her knees.

Another sharp laugh. "Ouch," Sirius joked. "Nice one, Milton. That cut me deep, that did."

"Lay off, Black," said Regan, raising her voice in a sort of warning.

"Or what? You'll peck my eyes out? I told you before, Tain, if you even try to change back into your stup—"

"Look, a distraction!"

Both of them were so shocked to hear Hannah's voice so loud and clear that, in spite of her pathetic diversion tactic, they turned to look where she was pointing. By the time her words really registered in their minds, she'd already darted to the mouth of the cave and was in the process of leaping over Sirius's legs.

"Bloody hell, Milton!" he shouted, lurching forward just in time to catch her by the ankle. Hannah, apparently unprepared for this, toppled forward and took a nosedive into the gravelly ground, landing face first and scattering pebbles and dead leaves everywhere.

Sirius laughed, but when she twisted around to glare at him and had blood trickling down her chin, he stopped abruptly.

"Oh, you're going to pay for that," said Regan dangerously, standing up and advancing on him. But Sirius, looking pained and a little exasperated, just grabbed Hannah by the arm, yanked her up and shoved her into Regan, and the two of them stumbled back into their original place at the back of the cave. Regan looked murderous, but Hannah restrained her and shook her head, giving her a look that seemed to say, "It's not worth it."

The two girls slid down onto the floor and sighed almost simultaneously, defeated once again. Hannah used her sleeve to wipe the blood off her face, and Regan could see now that she had a split lip coupled with an angry red graze down one side of her jaw. She felt a surge of fury toward the boy sitting at the front of the cave, blocking their way, staring straight ahead with an oddly dark look on his features, his eyes narrowed at the stone wall. She could tell he was just avoiding looking at them, knowing that if he did, he would have to explain himself—or worse, apologize. And never, in their six years of being so-called enemies, had either Hannah or Sirius ever said the word "sorry" to the other.

Hannah seemed to be recovering from the attack, which, though nobody said as much aloud, had been completely out of line. But Regan, who was used to standing up for her friends, couldn't let it go that easily. She'd been harbouring a huge amount of resentment for Sirius ever since Hannah had come clean about her condition, but now her anger had been brought to a boil and was threatening to spill over the edges. He'd already damaged her emotionally, and that was bad enough—but now she'd been physically hurt, and Regan found it difficult to restrain herself from physically hurting him.

"I can't believe you fell for that," Hannah scoffed across the space after a while, breaking the tense silence that had fallen upon them. She wiped a hand across her mouth, grimacing when it still came away with fresh blood and then wiping it on her robes. They were already tattered and muddied enough that one more stain would hardly matter.

Without looking at her, Sirius responded almost automatically: "I hate to break it to you, but I think you were the one doing most of the falling."

"And that was my fault?"

"It's not like I didn't warn you! Were you too stupid to learn your lesson the first fifty times you got your ass kicked?"

"Oh, I would hardly call this an ass-kicking, Black. A bit of blood and dirt? This is nothing."

"Actually, you're right. It's an improvement on what your face looked like before."

Hannah's bottom lip twitched, but she bit down on it hard, forcing her mouth into a rigid line and causing more blood to pour out at an alarming rate. "I'd have to grind your face to a pulp before you'd see any improvement at all." Her words were spoken quietly, but with such vehemence that the temperature in the cave seem to drop a further couple of degrees.

It took a lot to faze serious, though, and apparently that wasn't enough. He simply shook his head slightly, arched an eyebrow and smirked. "You keep telling yourself that, Milton, but everyone knows you could never hope to be as good-looking as—"

"STOP IT!" Regan bellowed, the sheer volume of her voice causing Sirius to stop midsentence. He turned to look at with confused, incredulous eyes, paused a moment, and then burst out angrily.

"What the hell is your problem, Tain?"

Regan was livid as she pushed herself up the cave wall to her feet, fists clenched at her sides, eyes alight with a fierce passion she hadn't displayed in a long time. "What's my problem? What's your problem? Why do you have to be such an asshole all the time?"

Sirius scoffed. "Because it's what I do. Part of my natural charm, you know."

"No," spat Regan, advancing on him now. "I mean why to her? Why do you have to be so god damn cruel?"

Looking mildly amused, Sirius turned his head to look at Hannah with a teasing twinkle in his eyes. "Being a meanie, am I?" he joked, and chuckled. "What are you going to do, go off and cry?"

Hannah opened her mouth to bite back, but Regan cut her off with a frustrated exclamation of: "Ugh! Are you honestly that thick, Black?"

"Regan," Hannah said quietly, a hint of warning in her voice. "What are you—"

"Thick?" Sirius interrupted, ignoring her. His face was scrunched up into a conceited look of ridicule that seemed to suggest Regan had gone around the bend. "Sorry, Tain, but I'm not the one raving like a lunatic here. So maybe you want to sit down and think about these accusations you're throw—"

"Maybe you want to sit down and think about the consequences of your actions, huh?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, I am sitting down."

Stifling what sounded like the beginning of an enraged growl, Regan marched forward and, before Sirius had the time to do any more than lean a couple of inches away from her in apprehension, planted a sharp, forceful kick in the side of his leg.

"Agh! What the hell, Tain!"

"You really don't get it, do you?" Regan's voice took on an edge of hysteria. "It's been six bloody years and you still don't understand what you're doing to her."

"Regan!"

She whipped around and her expression softened apologetically. "I'm sorry, Han, but he has to know."

"No!" Hannah gasped, her voice sounding slightly strangled. "No, please, Regan, don't—"

"Know what?" said Sirius impatiently. "What the hell are you on about?"

"Regan, you promised!" hissed Hannah, who sounded as though she was on the verge of tears.

Regan drew in a large, calming breath in preparation for what she had to do. Deep inside, it pained her to break the promise she had made to her best friend, and yet right now, she was so caught up in the fury of the moment that telling Sirius everything was imperative—there was no way she could let him go one second longer thinking he could just bash her friend around like this and not suffer the consequences. Hannah didn't want anybody—especially him—to find out about this, and Regan respected that, but if she left it to Hannah to decide, then he would never know. She wouldn't have the nerve to tell him. He'd continue to think he could just get away with it all, and Hannah would continue to get hurt by his cutting remarks. Surely there was a point where promises between best friends could be justifiably broken—when loyalty could be temporarily sacrificed in the interest of said best friend's wellbeing.

Besides, self-restraint had never been one of Regan's strong points.

"You're killing her, that's what I'm on about," she said, her voice low and forceful and serious. "You're telling me you haven't noticed how much weight she's lost since the beginning of the year?"

Face scrunched up in confusion, Sirius protested: "What? Why would I—"

"You didn't notice the cuts when she was in her cat form?"

"Cuts? Tain, what the hell are you—"

"Regan, please..." Hannah was sobbing now, and her voice was oddly muffled as she begged Regan to stop. It was too late, though; she had to finish what she'd started.

"You might think your stupid 'pig' jokes are funny," Regan carried on, making her voice as frosty as she possibly could, "but they're not. They're horrible and unfair and completely unnecessary, and they're hurting her. She's starving herself and hurting herself all because of you, and yet you just sit there like the arrogant bastard you are, completely oblivious to everything." Her shoulders rose up and down as she glared at him; even giving her a piece of her mind was doing little to help her mounting frustration, and she had to pause for a moment before she could go on. Meanwhile, Sirius seemed to have finally gotten the message, and though his jaw had dropped a couple of centimetres, his face was otherwise frozen—a blank slate. Muffled sobs came from the back of the cave, and Regan knew Hannah well enough to know without turning around that she was hiding her face in her hands.

"So I'm sorry if I'm 'raving like a lunatic'," Regan said, not apologetic in the slightest, "but I think I have a right to be mad, you bloody idiot. After everything you've done."

Nobody said anything after that. Regan just stood there, fuming, Hannah continued to cry quietly in the depths of the small cavern, and Sirius remained frozen in place, his features betraying a hint of horror, as if a wave of realization had finally washed over him after all this time. The cave had taken on a cold, sinister feel, but in her state of rage Regan's body was emitting such an intense heat that she feared she might breathe fire if she opened her mouth again. There was little left to say, anyway. She'd put it all out in the open. Now Sirius just had to deal with it.

Before any dealing could be done, however, the sound of rustling leaves broke into the bubble that seemed to have formed around them, and three heads snapped up at once. Somebody burst out of the surrounding woods, covered in scratches, clothes torn, a frantic and horrified expression on his face. James.

"Padfoot, you've got to come with me. Now. We don't have much time."

It took a moment for the three of them to process this—especially for Sirius, who was still completely still as if in some kind of trance.

"Sirius! Didn't you hear me?" shouted James, his tone of voice indicating that this was a very critical matter indeed.

This sound of urgency slapped some sense into all of them, and Sirius hopped to his feet, blinking and shaking his head quickly. "Sorry, mate. What is it? What's happened?"

James cast a nervous glance at the two girls, but quickly reverted to looking at Sirius, his eyes conveying a silent—and very grave—message. "There's been an accident—I need your help," said James. As if to highlight his words, the wind picked up and a gust of it whooshed into the cave, sending a shiver up Regan's spine. Hannah's sniffles and sobs were cut off with a choking sound as the word accident struck their ears, and the two of them stared at James, horrified.

"What sort of accident?" Hannah squeaked at the same time Regan demanded, "Who's hurt?"

"No time to explain now," said James with a shake of his head. "Padfoot, we've got to go. You two, listen to me—" he flung an arm out to his right, pointing to a thicket of trees "—I want you to head down that way, and go as straight as you can. There's a clearing about half a mile in—I marked one of the trees so you can find it."

"You marked one of the trees?" said Regan sceptically, almost forgetting that they were in the middle of a potential crisis.

James put a hand to his forehead in exasperation. "Yes, Tain—with an 'x'. And now is not the time for lame jokes. After that you need to go straight back to the school. No detours." He turned to Sirius. "Come on. We need to get going."

"Have you got the—?"

"Yeah." He fingered something in his pocket.

"Right. Lead the way."

The two of them took off at a run, gone before either of the girls could ask any questions. This irked Regan, who was desperate to know what was going on—but all she got from James as he disappeared into the forest was an exclamation of: "Make sure you go straight!"

Flustered, Regan turned back to Hannah, who sat crouched in the corner, hugging her knees. Her eyes were wide and frightened as she stared out of the cave, but when she realized Regan was looking at her, they narrowed and took on a distant quality. She shoved herself to her feet and walked swiftly out into the open, ignoring Regan as she went.

"Han, wait," said Regan, reaching out to grab her arm. She was quick, as she was trained to be as a Beater, but Hannah was quicker; she yanked her arm out of reach and picked up her pace, moving out into the forest where James had directed them.

A pang of guilt struck Regan in the chest, and she chewed bitterly on the inside of her cheek. She should have known this would happen, she realized now. She'd completely overstepped the boundary and betrayed her friend, and now she was suffering the silent treatment as a consequence. Mentally, she cursed herself for being so goddamned impulsive. You and your big, stupid mouth, she thought sourly.

But Hannah would have to get over it eventually, she tried to convince herself. She'd done the right thing. In the future, Hannah would thank her... Right?

Regan sighed and took off after her friend, reminding herself that there were bigger problems to be concerned with right now—bigger questions to be answered. Like what was going on, for starters. And who'd been hurt. That was the biggest question of all, and as Regan broke into a jog to catch up with Hannah, she could only hope beyond hope that it wasn't anything serious.

As soon as the two boys broke away from the heated tension of the cave, Sirius was all business; he hadn't forgotten what he'd heard, but he did his best to push it out of his mind for the time being. If what James had told him had any truth to it, they were dealing with something huge here. Possibly life-threatening.

"Where are we headed?" Sirius inquired as they ran through the forest, with James leading the way by a foot or two.

"Farther in. There's a big drop—if he's anywhere near where we left him, we've got problems at the top and the bottom."

"Shit," said Sirius, eyes widening as he processed this answer. For a few seconds, the only sounds were those of their feet hitting the forest floor. And then, cautiously, he decided to get the questioning over with. "Who's hurt? Peter? Lily?"

"No, I haven't seen Wormtail since we sent him off on lookout duty," James said, gritting his teeth. "It's Jamie."

"Bloody hell. Of all the people..."

When James answered, his voice was almost too quiet to hear over the wind rushing past them. "You're saying it would have been better if it were Lily?"

"'Course not, mate. Just saying... Moony's gonna beat himself up pretty good if something bad's happened to her." He hesitated. "Er, what exactly did happen to her?"

James took several more strides before giving a gravely simple answer. "Something bad."

Sirius took a moment to digest this. They'd had a couple of close calls before, when unruly students not dissimilar to themselves had ventured out into the grounds after dark and Remus had been in a particularly feral state of mind, breaking out of the constraints of the Shrieking Shack—but nothing quite so close as what James was suggesting. Hell, Remus had never even been seen by another student before, let alone gotten close enough to one to do any damage. If things were really so serious, the aftermath was going to be utterly catastrophic; Remus would never be able to forgive himself. As if he wasn't already ashamed enough of his unfortunate condition.

Sirius was so busy contemplating this that he slammed right into James, who'd come to a stop in front of him without warning.

"What the hell, Prongs," he grumbled, stepping back and wondering what had brought their mission to a halt. James, however, didn't even seem to have noticed the impact—and it only took Sirius a few seconds to realize why. He had the Marauders' Map open in his bands, and was staring at it with a horror-struck expression.

"What?" Sirius asked worriedly. "What is it?"

"He's moving," James announced, his voice full of dread, his every muscle apparently frozen.

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, of course. Werewolves tend to do that."

James ignored his badly timed wit and turned to stare at him, looking positively terrified. "He's going after Lily."

Lily wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting down here in this giant rabbit hole, but it felt like a year before she heard slow footsteps plodding through the undergrowth, moving gradually toward her. She was frozen from head to toe by this point, shivering violently, teeth chattering, sitting against the dirt wall right where James had left her with her arms wrapped around herself in a desperate bid to contain her body heat. It wasn't working very well, but it lent the illusion of company and security as she sat there all alone, trying not to think about what might be going on elsewhere in the forest. Something about compressing her chest like so helped her to contain her emotions, too—stopped her heart from exploding and sending her off the deep end again.

"J-James?" she called when she noticed the footsteps, but her voice was made so unsteady by her quivering that barely a sound came out at all. She was about to try again when she heard a low rumbling and instantly snapped her mouth shut. Even her breathing stopped as the sound registered in her mind, and she tried to stay as still as possible. That certainly didn't sound like James...

Oh, God, she thought, horrified, as she recognized the sound of large feet dragging through fallen foliage, of heavy, raspy, horrible breathing and the gnashing of teeth between two gigantic jaws.

The werewolf.

Fear flooded through her, and she dug her fingers into her elbows until her knuckles were white. This was not good. She was sure she still had the smell of blood on her, even if her wounds had been dried somewhat by the wind. And why was she sitting right below the surface, anyway? She should have thought to move deeper into the hole, where she'd have the advantage of the darkness and a little more distance—but it had seemed more prudent before, when she'd been getting used to the silence and the loneliness, to stay right here, comforted by the half-light from above. Now... it didn't seem like such a great idea. In fact, she wanted very much to kick herself—but that would probably just make things worse.

The growls drew closer, and her panic increased. Was there a possibility of moving into the back of the burrow now? Could she even budge without making a sound that would catch the werewolf's attention?

She thought about it for a second. If she stayed where she was, the wolf might walk right over her head. No doubt, it would catch her scent, and once that happened, she was done for. There was no escape. Besides, there were tiny gaps in the mesh above through which bits of the forest were visible, and if she saw that horrid creature one more time, she feared the scream bubbling up in her chest might just escape.

The draw of the darkness was too tempting to resist, and when the footsteps came unbearably close, she began to inch to her right, sliding gradually into the depths of the burrow. The further she got from the horrific sounds, the safer she felt—and the pressure in her chest began to decrease little by little.

But then she pressed her hand down on a sharp twig and let out a little gasp of pain as it dug into her already torn up palm, and the footsteps came to a halt.

Lily choked on her breath and froze right there, eyes opening wide even though she couldn't see anything from down here. The wolf was no longer moving forward—instead, it sounded as though it, too, had stopped in its tracks. She could have sworn she heard it sniff the air. And then...

A stream of loud barks burst into the clearing, causing Lily to jump and hit her head on the low dirt ceiling. The sudden loud noise startled her at first and she braced herself for an attack, certain that the werewolf had found her hiding place and was about to burst through the hole and tear her to shreds. But then she heard the wolf's aggravated growl and she realized that the new canine sounds had belonged to another animal altogether. Another few seconds and she could hear the sounds of combat from up above—of limb against limb, of claw against flesh, and the unmistakable sound of antlers clashing with bone—all frighteningly close to her now-throbbing head.

James and Sirius, she thought vaguely, once she'd managed to wrap her mind around the situation. But what were they doing here? Weren't they supposed to be helping Jamie? She couldn't say she wasn't incredibly relieved to have somebody come to her rescue, but on the other hand, she wasn't entirely sure what was going on.

She felt a pang of dread as she heard the battle rage on; if somebody else were to get hurt tonight—especially James, she found herself thinking—she simply couldn't take it. One person was bad enough. Before she knew it she had her hands over her ears and was enveloped in a cocoon of ignorance, unable to listen to the sounds any longer. All she could do was sit there and pray that everything would be alright.

By the time she could bring herself to remove them, all was silent. She lifted her head and listened harder. From the sound of it, the three animals were gone. No more angry growls, no more scratching or tussling. Cautiously, she inched toward the dimly lit entrance to the burrow, where she'd be able to tell for sure.

Silence. Nothing.

Still, one could never be too careful. She stayed half hidden in the shadows, wondering what she would do from here. She thought about trying to get out, but James had been adamant that she stay concealed beneath the forest floor, out of reach of the werewolf, and after all he'd been through tonight, she felt she owed him a little obedience at the very least. Clearly, he knew what he was doing. She just hoped his knowledge and obvious experience would get him through this night—this horrible, horrible night—alive and intact.

She heard the werewolf howl; it sounded miles away. She was safe, and it was an immense relief to have that confirmed. Still, there were so many other things tearing at her chest that she barely had the capacity to feel reassured; Jamie was still out there, and so were her other friends.

So was James.

She wasn't sure where this newfound concern for his wellbeing had come from, but for some reason it hurt to think about him being out in the forest, throwing himself in danger's path. Almost as much as thinking about Jamie on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

The next thing she heard was a set of rapid footsteps, followed by another trailing close behind. She froze up again, more out of habit than anything, before she realized how light and how utterly human they sounded. Her heart leapt when she heard a familiar voice.

"Well, there's the 'x'. This should be it."

"There's nobody here. The idiot's sent us on a wild goose chase."

Lily scrambled forward and got to her feet, stretching up onto the tips of her toes. "Here!" she tried to call out, but her voice came out raspy and pathetically quiet. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Here! I'm down here!"

"Yeah, that doesn't sound like a goose to me." Undoubtedly Regan's words.

"What the hell? Lily? Is that you? Where are you?" Hannah's voice sounded much closer than before, and Lily answered quickly so as not to lose the opportunity.

"Hannah! Right here—er, in a hole. In the ground. Like, right next to you."

There was a sound of leaves scattering as Regan rushed over to join her. "Lily? What are you doing in the ground?"

"Long story—just... move some leaves and stuff. There's a weird grate sort of thing—yeah, right there—that's it."

Two sets of fingers slipped through the gaps above, and a second later she could see again. There wasn't much of a view—just moonlit branches and little splatters of the night sky here and there—but the most welcoming sight of all was the faces of her two friends hovering just overhead. All was not forgiven (she was going to chew them out big time later) but right now, in this moment of scatterbrained trauma, the sight of them was her only saving grace.

"Lils! What happened to you? You look like hell!" Hannah looked horrified despite the fact that her own face was adorned with red-rimmed eyes, a swollen lip and a nasty graze down one side of her chin.

The last thing on Lily's mind, however, was concern for her own scratches and bruises. "Nothing," she said vaguely, and shook her head. "Hoist me out of here, would you?"

With the helping hands of both Regan and Hannah, Lily managed to climb out of the rabbit hole, finding footholds of various sizes and durability where rocks had fallen out. Finally she emerged from the pit, covered in dirt and dried blood, disoriented but filled with a sense of purpose now that she was out in the open again, back in touch with the reality of the situation. She was about to open her mouth to propose a plan of action when Regan, who was glancing expectantly over the edge of the hole and had her eyebrows pulled together in confusion, cut her off with a sombre reminder of what a horrible situation they were really in, and how difficult it would be to do anything about it.

"Where's Jay? Wasn't she in there with you?"

Lily bit her lip. The mere mention of Jamie's name caused her throat to tighten once again, and she debated remaining silent about it; if she even tried to explain what had happened, she was sure, she would break down in tears. But Hannah and Regan needed to know. It would be cruel to keep them wondering and worrying. So Lily sucked in a quick breath of cool air and began to fill them in.

"No, she wasn't," she started, and then faltered. What was she supposed to tell them? She got mauled by a werewolf and thrown off a cliff? And oh, by the way, that werewolf was Remus Lupin? That was an awful lot to digest all at once, as Lily knew from having seen it all unfold before her eyes. "She... She got hurt."

"Hurt? How?" Hannah's voice squeaked as she voiced this panicked question. Beside her, Regan's eyes were fearful and her mouth half open in shock.

Lily swallowed. "She fell. Or, well..." Another deep breath, and then the rest of the story came out in a rush of broken sentences. "There was a werewolf, and it was chasing us, and it started going after me but Jamie threw herself in front of it and—and James, he was there too, but he was too late, and Jamie... She got attacked. And it... it knocked her over this cliff, and she fell, and I wanted to go back for her but James said it was too dangerous, and he was supposed to be going to help her but I heard him and Sirius chasing it that way just now, and..." She broke off, unable to go on any further, and buried her face in her hands, shaking her head helplessly.

There were several seconds of stunned silence in which neither Regan nor Hannah said anything in response. She could only assume that they were struggling to process everything Lily had said, not to mention figure out the implications. After a while she felt a warm pair of arms wrap comfortingly around her (judging by the big blonde curls she was practically inhaling, they were Hannah's) and heard Regan say in the background, "Is she...?"

Lily peered up at her over Hannah's shoulder. "Alright?" Lily choked on the word. "No, she's not. Hell, I don't even know if she's..." She couldn't say the word. Hannah's arms tightened around her, and she whispered "Oh, Merlin" in a broken voice as they clung to one another.

Regan, on the other hand, hand, was standing still, staring straight ahead at nobody in particular with her mouth partially open. "Werewolf," she said simply. "Where the hell did a werewolf come from?"

Lily looked up at her again through glassy eyes, and gave her a miserable half-smile. "You saw the animals, right?"

"Yeah." Regan shook her head bitterly. "Bloody dog was Black, and I thought the stag must have been Potter, but—"

"You wondered where Pettigrew and Lupin were, didn't you?" Lily's voice was barely more than a whisper; Regan said nothing, just closed her mouth and nodded. Lily sighed and went on. "I'm not sure about Peter, but Remus... Well..." She swallowed. "I think we got the answers we've been looking for all along."

Regan looked flabbergasted, to say the least, and Hannah became a statue. Lily looked down.

Her own words had reminded her of earlier, when she'd thought about Regan and Hannah's enthusiasm, and how, if they hadn't tried to convince the others to come along on this stupid, wild adventure in the first place, then none of this would have happened. This prompted a renewal of the same anger she'd felt before, and she pulled away from Hannah, suddenly not so content to comfort and be comforted. She cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, her voice had taken on a cooler tone and she didn't meet their eyes.

"Um, what were you guys saying about an 'x' before? How did you know where to find me?"

Regan glanced at Hannah, who—to Lily's surprise—refused to look back at her and stood with her arms folded, eyes fixed on the ground. Regan sighed. "We ran into Potter," she explained, "right after..." She looked again at the unresponsive Hannah—who was shifting rather uncomfortably and grinding her teeth—and Lily noticed a tension in the air that she hadn't picked up on before. Tension, she thought, between Hannah and Regan? Inconceivable. Then again, everything else that had happened tonight was so unreal that she was willing to believe just about anything by now.

Regan carried on. "He said there'd been some kind of accident—remind me to murder him for that understatement next time, will you? —and then he said he'd marked a tree and told us to come here, and then 'go straight back to the school—no detours'." She shook her head, obviously in complete disagreement with the words she was quoting. "But to hell with that. If Jamie's out there, then I'm not—"

"If James said to go back to the school, then we should go back to the school," said Lily forcefully.

"What?" Hannah and Regan burst out in unison. Lily might as well have said, "Hey, Potter's going to jump off a cliff—we should go jump, too!"—apparently, they got the same message out of her original statement. But Lily only spared them a slight eye-roll; tonight, she realized, James Potter had displayed far more maturity and responsibility than any of the Rogues had, and that earned him their respect—for now, at least.

"Look, you two haven't seen this thing—I have. It's huge, and it's bloody scary." She was overwhelmed with another intense feeling of annoyance toward them, mostly at the realization that, while Hannah and Regan had been the ones who were bent and bound on seeking adventure, it had been Lily and Jamie who'd come face to face with the worst sort of danger imaginable. It had been Jamie who'd paid most dearly for their negligence, and she'd probably been the least enthusiastic of them all.

Oh, the irony.

Lily sighed impatiently. "You might think you can take on anything, but trust me, that thing could kill us all in a split second if it wanted to. The Marauders—they know what they're dealing with. They're our best bet. I think we should trust them to help Jamie."

"Trust them?" Hannah burst out, appalled. "Trust the Marauders? We can barely even trust each other anymore, apparently." She aimed a pointed glare at Regan, who looked guiltily down at her feet, and in some part of her mind, Lily was curious as to just what had gone on between the two of them.

Regan's eyes rose to meet hers. "Lily, they're the Marauders," she reasoned, her voice a tad softer than Hannah's. "They've treated us like shit since first year—do you really think we should let them handle something as big as this?"

She was genuinely concerned for Jamie's wellbeing—Lily could gather as much from the look in her eyes and the sincerity in her voice. But she couldn't help but think, if she was so worried about her friends' safety, then maybe she ought to have considered that before throwing them into this situation in the first place. "Actually," Lily answered stiffly, looking Regan straight in the eye, "I don't. I think it's unfair that they should have to undo all the damage that we caused. You know, none of this would have even happened if you two weren't so bloody reckless."

"Come off it, Lily," said Hannah quietly, "it was just for a bit of fun. There's no way we could possibly have—"

"Fun!" Incensed, Lily turned her livid stare on the both of them. "You two don't think about anything do you? We could all have died tonight—hell, Jamie could already be dead. But no, you wouldn't have considered that. No time to suddenly develop a conscience, right? No, we've got to 'bring them down whatever it takes'. What were the words? Oh, yeah—'catch them out on something big'." She paused for effect, fuming, and by some crazy coincidence the werewolf's howl pierced into the night at that very moment from somewhere deep in the forest, emphasizing her point dramatically. "Well, congratulations, guys. We did it."

She'd never seen Hannah and Regan so defeated before. Neither could muster up the courage to look at her; they stood there with their eyes downcast, looking like children who'd been caught tearing up the neighbour's flowerbeds. Good, she thought harshly. It's sinking in, at last. But even that wasn't enough—she'd been pushed beyond her breaking point, and she couldn't stand to look at their faces any longer. Lily stormed forward, stomping through the abnormally large gap between them, and started in the direction she knew the school to be in.

She made it at least fifty metres before there was any sign of them, and for a moment she wondered if they might have decided to go back for Jamie after all. She wasn't sure what to think of that. At this point, she couldn't really bring herself to care as much as she probably should have. She was full to the brim with all the other emotions that had been tearing her apart all night; the worry, the anger, the pain, the shock, the confusion, this strange new respect—all of these left little room for her to feel anything more. And as she made her way back to the castle, she felt all these emotions balling up into a massive, indistinguishable heap of junk, and her heart became a rock inside her chest, and she became completely detached from everything.

When Hannah and Regan finally caught up and fell into step behind her, she barely noticed. She stared straight ahead, walking briskly, hardly feeling her feet as they pounded the forest floor. She felt as though she was floating over everything, gravitating toward the tall stone walls of Hogwarts. Hogwarts: her home—only thing that had any chance of comforting her.

Well, not exactly the only thing...

It had been a close call before, in the clearing with Lily, when James and Sirius had finally caught up with the werewolf and diverted its attention. Close enough that, if they'd arrived a few seconds later, there was a good chance they would have been dealing with two horrific injuries—or maybe something even worse—in one night. In other words, too close. Way, way too close.

By some miracle they'd made it, though, and the wolf was far away from Lily now. With any luck, Hannah and Regan would have found her, and they'd be on their way back to the school. The thought of Lily safely secured inside the walls of Hogwarts lifted an enormous weight off his chest, but he was still burdened by the promise he'd made her. "Please bring her back, James." It was a promise he might not be able to keep—at least, not in the sense that she was probably implying—but still, he was going to do everything he could to stay true to his word. That was why, while Sirius was leading the wolf on a crazy chase as deep into the Forbidden Forest as he could—without running into the centaurs or anything more dangerous than what they were already dealing with—James was on his way back to the site of the attack, where he would assess the situation once and for all.

Even though he was used to running long distances, he found his heart pounding violently in his chest as he traversed the forest and made his way back to where disaster had struck. He wasn't sure what he was going to find once he got there. A dead body, maybe. And what would he do then? He'd have to be the one to deliver the news—along with Jamie's lifeless form—to Lily, and he didn't think he could bear to see her face if that happened. If fate was on his side, he'd find a girl with a pulse. Awake? Unconscious? Fixable, or injured beyond repair? Every question brought with it a new wave of dread, and they tumbled over one another in his mind until they blurred together and all he was left with was a sense of panic and a pounding in his forehead.

Finally he reached the part of the forest where the ground began to slope sharply downward, forming a sort of path that ran parallel to the cliff face. He wasn't sure he'd ever been this far into the forest, but he had the Map, and that meant he'd be able to navigate his way out without trouble. It meant he could monitor Sirius's progress, too, and with a quick glance at the slightly worn piece of parchment, he was reassured in the fact that the black dog and the wolf had covered plenty of distance. One thing, at least, had been successful.

As James neared the bottom of the slope, he spotted her in the distance. Or rather, he spotted the blood—a lot of it. It stood out like a beacon on her pale face, a striking splash of colour on an otherwise dull landscape. It had seeped into the ground, too, painting rocks red and turning the soil a revoltingly dark colour, like tar. James's stomach turned as he hurried forward. This certainly didn't look good.

He got closer and closer, bracing himself all the while. He almost didn't want to look, for fear of what horrible sight he might be confronted with. But then he was right there in front of her, only a couple of strides away, and the sight launched itself upon him before he could bring himself to look away.

One whole side of her face, torn to shreds, drenched in blood; a nasty open wound on the back of her head, turning her golden hair dark and sticky; nasty, greenish bruises everywhere; eyes closed, skin drained of colour, purple lips.

James couldn't breathe as he dropped to his knees beside her. He couldn't hear her breathing, either, and that was definitely a bad sign. Tentatively he lifted her wrist, but he couldn't quite bring himself to check for a pulse. He knew already what he would find. A shiver shot up his spine at the thought of it. He'd never known Jamie particularly well, but she was one of the Rogues—Lily's best friend—and that meant he'd spent enough time around her to know that she didn't deserve to die. Not yet. Not like this.

And Remus—what would Remus think? It wasn't his fault, of course, but Sirius was right; of all the people this could have happened to, it just had to be Jamie Love... Remus was secretive, but James wasn't stupid. He knew his friend had taken a liking to the quietest of the Rogues a few years ago, at least, and that this—his inconvenient, terribly unfair condition—had been the only thing stopping him from pursuing those feelings. Now he would be beating himself up yet again over something he couldn't control. That was without even considering the inevitable implications with the school. Dumbledore had no qualms about housing a werewolf at Hogwarts, but when a student died because of it, that was sure to raise a few questions. All in all, it was the last thing Remus deserved.

Still holding his breath, James looked down and prepared himself for the inevitable. Slowly, cautiously, reluctantly, he placed two fingers in the shallow crook beneath her palm, and waited.

Nothing.

His heart sunk like a boulder in his chest. Maybe he wasn't doing it right, he thought. After all, it wasn't like he had a lot of experience in situations like these. He pressed a little harder.

Still nothing.

He moved his fingers to her neck and waited, his breath still caught in his chest, every muscle in his body completely rigid with fear. For a moment, there was nothing.

And then...

...the tiniest fluttering pulsation under her skin, like the wings of a butterfly. In that instant, he felt the urge to cry out for joy—but he held on for a few more seconds, wanting to make sure that he hadn't imagined it. Sure enough, the pulse continued, frail but perfectly real. Jamie was alive.

He let out a massive breath of air, his muscles relaxed, and his face broke into a smile.

There was no time to waste, though. Even if she was alive, he needed to get her to the Hospital Wing as soon as possible, or that might not last for long. Being sure not to move her too much, James scooped her carefully into his arms—realizing as he did so that she was, in fact, breathing quiet, shallow breaths—and began to lope back up the hill, fuelled by a relief greater than anything.

The journey back to the castle was long and silent. Nobody said a word the entire time as they trekked through the cold, foreboding woods, and the only sounds were those of their footsteps and their breathing, which unfurled visibly on the frosty air. The weather was starting to cool down for sure, easing into the winter months. But it wasn't just that. Tonight there was an iciness hanging in the air that had nothing to do with the climate.

The sight of the castle was welcomed by all, with warm light emanating from some of the windows and the flags on the Quidditch pitch waving at them in the wind. The illusions were wearing off now, and it appeared as though the haunted house was empty—which, Lily supposed, could only be expected. Come to think of it, though, she hadn't the faintest clue what time it was. For all she knew, it could be past midnight by now.

By the time they'd passed the Whomping Willow—where all of their problems had begun—and reached the tall wooden door at the side entrance, Lily was ready to throw herself through them and collapse onto the ground, her warm and cosy bed all but forgotten. Strangely, she hadn't thought about it until now, but it occurred to her as she leaned forward to push against the door that she was going to be in an awful lot of trouble if (or rather, when) the teachers found out about all this. In fact, she might come face to face with trouble (in the form of Filch or McGonagall) as soon as she got inside, because she and the others were hardly being careful about making a discrete entrance. Punishment, however, wasn't exactly on the forefront of her mind right now, and the thought of running into a teacher hardly bothered her as she shoved against the door.

It took her a few seconds to realize that her efforts were completely fruitless; the door wouldn't budge at all. When she noticed this, she stood back and blinked, her tired and battered mind not quite able to process the roadblock.

"Must be locked. Damn," said Regan from behind her, smashing the tense silence as if with a brick. "Guess we'll have to find another way—"

"No," said Hannah sharply, cutting her off. She fumbled around in her robe pocket for a moment before extracting a small knife with a silver grip. "I can get it open." She moved forward, fitted the blade into the gap between the door and its frame, and slid it down in a smooth line as if cutting through nothing more durable than butter. Halfway down, the lock started spitting out blue sparks, and Hannah jumped back as if she hadn't been expecting this. When she pulled it out and tried the door handle again, however, it creaked open to reveal the darkened corridor inside.

Lily said nothing—no "thank you", no "wow, aren't we lucky you came prepared". Hannah was trying to get back in Lily's good books, it seemed, but at the moment, nothing could make up for the trouble she and Regan had led them into tonight.

The three of them slipped through the door and Regan closed it behind them, shutting out their only source of light. Had Lily been in a more attentive state, she would have grabbed her wand automatically to light up the area. Instead she just stood there, not entirely concerned with the darkness for the time being. Fortunately, behind her, Regan and Hannah had the right reaction; both reached instinctively into their pockets.

"Oh, shit," said Regan suddenly. "Where the hell did our wands go?"

Hannah groaned. "Argh—why didn't I think of that?" she said in frustration, more to herself than to Regan, to whom she was still intent on giving the cold shoulder. "We could have strapped them to our ankles, too, like I did with the knife... They must be back at the—"

There was a grating 'meow' nearby, and a pair of narrowed yellow eyes came out of the darkness toward them. Lily's heart almost stopped when she was reminded of the werewolf with its terrifying gaze, until she identified the meowing and recognized that they had indeed walked right into trouble.

"STUDENTS! STUDENTS OUT OF BED! I'LL CATCH YOU, I'LL—"

All three of them jumped when Filch came around the corner, holding up a lantern and shuffling toward them like a madman. One corner of his lopsided mouth lifted in an unpleasant sneer, and he looked like he was about to deliver a threat of medieval torture methods until McGonagall emerged behind him, looking both livid and petrified at the same time.

"Argus! No, not this time, they're the ones we've been looking for!"

Filch looked extremely put out as she came bustling past him, but the look on McGonagall's face quickly drew their attention away from the caretaker. Her eyes were wide and fearful, her lips pressed into a stern line, and to top off the frazzled appearance, her black hair, normally pulled back severely, was sticking out all around her face.

"Oh, thank goodness," she said breathlessly, and then quickly reverted to a more McGonagall-ish tone. "And just where have the three of you been?"

She hadn't been concerned before, but now that she was actually confronted with a teacher interrogation, Lily was stumped. How was she supposed to answer that? Oh, you know, we were just running for our lives from a werewolf in the Forbidden Forest. That is, after we cut out of guard duty, escaped the haunted house and ran off into the grounds in the middle of the night without permission. Yeah... Here, have my badge. I'll go pack my bags.

Yep, it was starting to sound pretty ridiculous in Lily's head by now. There was no way to dress it up, either—they'd broken about a billion school rules, and that was all there was to it, at least where McGonagall was concerted. Again, Lily probably should have been more worried about this, but her mind was so worn out that she couldn't bring herself to be overly bothered.

"We were just, er...," started Regan, but couldn't seem to get any further than that.

"We went for a walk," Hannah offered. She always had been the best at lying in difficult situations, but this situation was going to be a stretch even . "Sorry. It's after curfew, we know. We... we shouldn't have been so irresponsible."

Unfortunately this didn't seem to cut it for McGonagall, who simply looked like she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "A walk?" The incredulity in her voice caused it to rise about an octave in those two small words. "Although it is indeed completely irresponsible of you, I am not talking about your being out of bounds after hours." She turned her head sharply to Lily, who flinched a little. "What I am referring to is your whereabouts when the rest of the students were being evacuated to the castle!"

A fragment of Lily's brain perked up at that, and she regarded the professor in alarm. "Evacuated?"

McGonagall sighed and straightened her hat as if it would help her regain some degree of composure. "Death Eaters, Miss Evans. There were reports of Death Eaters lurking outside the boundary, and we had to move all the students to a safer place. Of course, when we couldn't find our Head Boy and Girl—not to mention the bulk of our seventh year Gryffindors—well... you could say that complicated things a little." She gave them one of her classic what-do-you-have-to-say-for-yourselves? looks, and Lily's heart sank. This was far more serious than she'd originally thought.

"Death Eaters?" gasped Regan. "You mean—"

"Yes, Miss Tain," McGonagall snapped. "Followers of You-Know-Who. I assumed you were familiar with the term by now."

Regan fell silent and shrunk back. Of course, she thought, Regan was very familiar with the term and with everything it implied—not because she was involved in these things herself, but because of the degree to which her family was caught up in the Dark Arts, and the effort she'd gone to in order to separate herself from their traditions.

"So which one of you would like to attempt to explain this?" the professor asked, looking sternly between the three of them through her spectacles. When nobody responded in the next few seconds, she began to look impatient. "Well?"

The door swung open for a second time just then, causing all five heads in the vicinity to turn. In stumbled James, panting and carrying a limp figure drenched in blood. Lily's heart shot up through the ceiling and came crashing back down again all in the space of about a millisecond.

"Jamie!"

Instantly forgetting the presence of McGonagall and Filch—and ignoring the horrified gasps that came from Hannah and Regan—Lily rushed forward. Anxious to confirm that Jamie wasn't just some sort of illusion generated by her weary mind, she grabbed her friend's hand and squeezed it. She was there alright, but her skin was very, very cold. Stunned, she looked up at James, who was staring down at her with an unreadable expression. "Is she...?" she asked in a strangled voice.

"I think she'll be alright," James said quietly, as his mouth formed a tired smile. Lily's heart jumped through the roof again, and a massive amount of the pressure in her chest was released. She could breathe. And, crazily, for the second time in a couple of hours, she wanted to throw her arms around James Potter.

"HEAVENS!" exclaimed Professor McGonagall, who, apparently, had only just gotten a good glimpse at the figure in James's arms. "What happened to her?"

It was only now that her worst fears had been dispelled—and now that McGonagall pointed it out—that Lily really thought to examine the extent of Jamie's injuries, and she sucked in a breath through her teeth at what she saw when she looked more closely. Several jagged cuts snaked their way down one side of her face, making for a gruesome display of blood and torn flesh. There was an obvious gash on her head where she'd hit the rocks, and she looked pretty beaten up all over, but everything else paled in comparison to the wounds on her forehead and cheek. She was forced to look away from the upsetting sight, and she found her eyes travelling automatically up to James's face. He wasn't looking at her, though, or even at Jamie. Instead he was staring at Professor McGonagall with an expression of utmost panic on his face.

Lily whipped around when she realized why. Of course, she thought, suddenly feeling very stupid—it wasn't as if the entire staff would be aware of Remus's predicament. In fact, for all she knew, even Dumbledore hadn't been told (although, come to think of it, she suspected that this probably wasn't the case). McGonagall was no idiot, though; seeing Jamie with such blatantly bestial injuries, she was bound to be a little suspicious. You didn't get these kinds of disfiguring gashes from tripping over a rock.

Judging by the expression on McGonagall's face, suspicion was only the beginning of it. She'd been horrified before, but now it was as though she'd just been given the sack, or seen Slughorn pitch himself off of the Astronomy Tower. It took Lily's brain a moment to realize that she was expecting answers, and when she did, her mouth went dry. Yet again, there was no possible explanation for all this that wouldn't result in at least one—if not all—of them being expelled. James seemed just as lost as she felt, and Hannah and Regan weren't doing much to help, either (possibly because they were still so shocked at the sight of Jamie all covered in blood).

Just when Lily thought they were going to have to give up the pretences and surrender the whole truth, a voice—familiar and calm but undeniably commanding—sounded through the small gathering from just behind McGonagall and Filch.

"Ah, good, I see you've found them."

Looking a little startled, McGonagall hurriedly stepped back and turned around to face the new arrival. Albus Dumbledore stood in the gap between the Deputy and the caretaker, his face as serene as usual even though his features were set in all seriousness. He wore his usual festive Halloween robes, made of navy blue velvet and adorned with little silver moons and matching trim. It was almost a strange sight—Halloween, with the haunted house and everything, seemed so far away to Lily now, though if she thought about it, it could only have been a few hours at most since the day's termination.

There was something comforting in the knowing look Dumbledore wore as he regarded them all, and Lily realized that she'd probably been right in her earlier assumption—if any staff member knew about Remus's lycanthropy, it had to be the headmaster. And if anybody knew how to deal with something like this without causing the entire school to worry, it was Dumbledore.

"Minerva," he said softly, but in a voice that clearly implied he meant business, "I believe Filius and Aurora could use your help with security matters up on the Astronomy Tower. It sounded rather urgent when I spoke with them."

It was a few seconds before McGonagall managed to respond. Her eyes flitted again over to Jamie and widened as they rested there, before she seemingly snapped out of it and turned back to Dumbledore. "I... Yes, yes, of course," she said, and she straightened her robes and swept off down the hall.

"Argus, if you please, I think I may have spotted several first years out of bed on the third floor," he told Filch, who was still looking extremely aggravated at having been denied several detention victims until the Headmaster spoke these words. At this point his face lit up like it was Christmas morning and he hobbled off in the same direction McGonagall had gone, moving faster than Lily had ever seen him move before.

And then Dumbledore was left alone with the five rule-breakers just by the door, their small group illuminated only by the light from his wand. He looked at Jamie for a moment, and then at James, finally skimming over the other three of them before speaking. He directed his words at James in particular. "She was not bitten, I presume?"

James shook his head. "Just scratches. But they're pretty bad."

Dumbledore tipped his head down in acknowledgement. "It would be wise to take Miss Love to the Hospital Wing, I believe. You'll have the chance to explain yourselves once she is being attended to by Poppy."

James nodded in understanding and began to move down the hall. Lily followed along mindlessly, with Hannah and Regan and Dumbledore behind her, speculating over the strict, business-like order with which the two of them had addressed one another. She wondered if anything like this had ever happened before, or anything even remotely similar. She thought about how difficult it must have been to keep a secret like this for all these years... And suddenly, the brother-like bond between the Marauders made a lot more sense to her—in a very twisted, almost saddening way.

When they arrived, Madam Pomfrey (somewhat surprisingly) was still bustling about the infirmary, straightening sheets on beds and gathering up various bottles and vials from nightstands. Her head snapped up when she heard the door open, and she looked momentarily irritated at the sight of these late arrivals. "Another one? I swear to Merlin, this whole haunted house thing was a bad—" She broke off when they came closer and she saw the state of Jamie's face, and she let out a horrified gasp. When she glanced at the rest of the crowd and saw Dumbledore was there, a look of horrible realization dawned on her features, and she snapped her mouth shut before opening it again to stutter out, "A-Albus, what is the meaning of this? I thought...?"

"Our resident werewolf may have been provoked, it would appear. But there is no time to discuss, Poppy—as you can see, her case is very dire."

"Alright, alright," said Madam Pomfrey, and she set to work immediately, pulling back the woollen blankets on the nearest cot and gesturing for James to lay down her patient. "Right there, Mr Potter—I'll be back in a few moments."

He lowered Jamie carefully onto the white sheets so that she lay perfectly straight, with the soft pillow caressing the back of her head. Her hair, the colour of butterscotch, poured out in soft ripples across the pure white pillowcase, and from this angle the cuts on her face were completely invisible; she almost looked peaceful for a moment. That was, until Madam Pomfrey came hurrying back into the room with a tray of cloths and assorted medical items that looked like they were reserved for emergencies. When Lily saw the sinister-looking bottles marked with unrecognizable symbols, the reality of the situation sunk back in, and she felt tears threatening at the corners of her eyes again.

As the nurse approached Jamie with all her strange implements, Lily was forced to look away, only to have her eyes land on James. He was fidgeting uncomfortably, looking down at his feet, and after a couple of seconds his face set into an expression of resolve and he stepped toward the Headmaster.

"Professor, if you don't mind, I should probably go back and help with... damage control," he said somewhat quietly to Dumbledore, who met his eyes and nodded in response.

"I trust you'll be careful."

James nodded hurriedly and swivelled around to start on his way out the door.

"NO!" Lily exclaimed before she could stop herself. At least four heads turned toward her at the sound of her raised voice, and she froze in place as she realized what she'd just done. The truth was, she couldn't bear to have James—or anybody, really—go out there again. Now that they were safe behind the walls of Hogwarts, it seemed stupid and reckless to back out into the fray. Maybe she was being selfish, but it pained her to think of James jumping straight back into battle, risking his life when he had the option of staying right here... with her.

"I mean...," she said slowly, desperately racking her brain for a way to rectify the situation. In the end, she decided to tell some portion of the truth. "Err... It's dangerous. Do you have to go back out there?" Tomorrow, maybe, she'd be kicking herself for admitting her concern out loud. Right now, certain other things were just slightly more important than her dignity.

James appeared to be vaguely amused—if a little surprised—as he looked back at her, but there was something warm in his eyes, too—a sort of reassurance. "Sirius can't do it all on his own," he reasoned. "It's alright, Lily—I'll be fine. I know what I'm dealing with, and like I said, I'll be careful."

Lily felt blood rising to her cheeks as she smiled shyly in response; James mirrored the gesture and held her gaze for a moment longer before turning around and hurrying out the door.

Once he was gone, the room suddenly seemed ten times emptier. It was colder, too, and Lily shivered involuntarily as she turned back around. Madam Pomfrey working efficiently on Jamie's wounds, dabbing them with a damp cloth and applying an assortment of liquids and gels to the open abrasions. Hannah and Regan were looking on worriedly but didn't say anything. She wondered if they were still feeling guilty from the blow-out earlier. A strangely sadistic part of her hoped that they were.

All the while, as she watched the nurse treating her unconscious friend, something was nagging incessantly at Lily's thoughts—something that had been on her mind for quite some time, but something she wasn't entirely sure about. Something she remembered from all the notes she'd taken in DADA. More specifically, something she'd written about in her late essay—the one dreadfully concluded with "werewolves are people too".

She took a deep breath and decided to get it over with. "Those aren't going to heal, are they?" she blurted out, and regretted it almost immediately. She felt far more nervous now that she'd actually voiced her worries aloud, and to add to the anxiety she felt, Hannah's and Regan's heads had snapped toward her as she spoke, their startled expressions almost identical. Clearly, it hadn't occurred to them—or, more likely, they hadn't been paying attention in DADA.

The nurse looked up at her with very serious eyes. "I'll do what I can," she said, "but as I'm sure you know, werewolf-inflicted injuries, by nature, are very difficult to treat. The skin almost never returns to its original state after such trauma. " She looked vaguely apologetic as she spoke her next words. "I can tell you with complete certainty that there will be scars—although how severe, it's difficult to tell at this stage." She poured a small amount of some green liquid into a tiny cup and moved it toward Jamie's bluish, immobile lips. Apparently, she didn't have anything else to add.

Lily was shocked into silence and unconsciously began to move backward. In the process, she hit the leg of a chair with her foot, and in turn was so tempted by the draw of actual furniture that she collapsed into it without even turning around. The hard wood did little to comfort her, but it was better than standing up in any case, for she feared she might soon have passed out from exhaustion and emotional overload if she'd remained on her feet.

Jamie was going to have scars. By the looks of it, major ones. She'd always been exceptionally beautiful, and now... one whole side of her face would be permanently marred, all thanks to one night of carelessness and an entirely unexpected turn of events. Lily knew it was shallow to be so devastated at something like this, and she was one hundred percent confident that she would love Jamie all the same even if she looked like a pile of dung with arms and legs, but it was sure to take a toll on her self-esteem. She wasn't all that confident to begin with, and her looks had always been what had driven her to be more self-assured. Hopefully Jamie could get past that, but Lily couldn't help but worry. One self-deprecating friend was trouble enough. Two would be unbearable.

For the next twenty minutes or so, Lily sat there and watched Madam Pomfrey work her magic on Jamie. Neither Hannah nor Regan seemed to see fit to find a chair, and they continued to observe from slightly further away, their faces painted with concern but otherwise quite blank. Dumbledore stayed for quite some time, but eventually told them he had important business to attend to, and departed, mentioning on his way out that he would save the interrogation for tomorrow when they were all "well rested" and "of sound mind".

At long last, the nurse put down the bottle and cloth she'd been working with, stood up, and sighed. "I've done everything I can for now," she announced, beginning to clean up her work station. "That's a nasty head wound she's got—by the looks of it, she'll be out for a while."

"How long?" Lily inquired.

"It's hard to say. But even if she woke up this instant, I'd still have to keep her in for her other injuries. It's probably best if you all go back to your dormitories."

Lily wasn't sure she wanted to leave Jamie here all alone, but she stood up anyway, mostly because she was too tired to argue at this point. When she got to her feet, however, Madam Pomfrey stopped her.

"Hold on—you've got to be cleaned up, girl."

She'd all but forgotten about her own afflictions; despite the gash in her forearm, she'd barely felt any pain since the incident out in the forest, and with everything else going on, she hadn't thought to examine herself for further damage. Madam Pomfrey quickly took to her cuts and grazes with some kind of healing solution, and Lily discovered that her palms were practically torn to pieces—apparently, those rocks and twigs had done far more damage than she'd originally thought. She had a scrape on her head, too, and several other injuries she had no recollection of receiving. Finally, Madam Pomfrey gave her a potion to drink and, after informing her that she'd feel better after a good night's sleep, moved on to Hannah's face with a tut-tutting noise.

After that, the girls were released. They made their way silently out of the Hospital Wing and up one flight of stairs in single file, each following the previous by quite some distance. When they made it to the next staircase and Lily veered off down the corridor instead of climbing it with the others, Regan turned around and looked at her in confusion.

"Hey, Lils, the Common Room's this way...," she said, but seemed to realize halfway through her sentence what Lily was doing, and trailed off into silence.

"I'm going to the Heads Room," said Lily dully, looking away from her. "'Night."

With that she set off down the hall toward the familiar double doors at the end. She wasn't quite sure what had made her come here, but she'd decided, back at the Hospital Wing, that it would be the best place to go tonight. She needed to clear her mind, and she couldn't do that while she was in Hannah and Regan's presence, let alone in the room that housed Jamie's empty bed. She just needed to sink into a cosy mattress and think comforting thoughts while she drifted off to sleep, forgetting that any of this had ever happened.

"Extremo Otium," she mumbled to the door, and it swung open for her. She stepped inside, and almost immediately her battered mind and heart were soothed, as if just being here were some sort of remedy. On her way to the stairs, she walked past the couch she'd once harboured an irrational fear of, and she almost laughed out loud. Maybe that's why I came here, she mused, and the thought prompted her to stop in her tracks. Her mind ceased all proper function then, and her feet carried her toward the sitting area, where she gravitated toward the two-seater couch and melted into the cushions. She inhaled deeply and smiled to herself, noting that the scent of James Potter was still inarguably present.

And when she drifted off to sleep not ten seconds later, her mind was far away from werewolves and scars and guilty best friends. Instead, she was thinking of messy black hair and a pair of hazel eyes, a shy smile, and the words: "It's alright, Lily—I'll be fine."

She knew he would, somehow. And maybe she'd wake up tomorrow and start kicking herself for all the things she'd said and done, or think she'd been crazy to be comforted by the thought of James Potter, and to trust him over two of her best friends. Maybe this would all seem like some nutty, completely illogical dream.

But in a way, it had all been a dream up until now. Despite how dazed she'd been all evening, tonight had been a night of clarity for Lily.

In a way, she felt like she'd only now awoken from a very long slumber.

A/N: Right. So I didn't exactly update when I said I would (the first time... or the second) but from now on I'm saving my pathetic explanations for the TMATR blog I created as another excuse to procrastinate, just so I can reserve these author's notes for important stuff like... Like... Begging for reviews and advertising my various redundant websites. Yes. Important stuff like that.

On that note, though, if you haven't yet seen said TMATR blog, you might want to check it out. Link is, as usual, in profile. I'm actually really, really tired right now (I'm like a zombie), and I don't think I have enough brainpower left to write a coherent AN, so I might just cut this here and write a blog post tomorrow instead. Sound good? It does to me. Mmmm, sleep...

Okay, important points: 1) Dreadfully sorry for the ridiculously long wait. I am as pathetic as Peter Pettigrew. And you know how much that means, coming from me. 2) I know there are some inconsistencies in this chapter (i.e. Lily suddenly not having an aversion to blood) but these are mostly things that I'm in the process of reworking in earlier chapters for various reasons (i.e. I hate Twilight with a passion now and can't believe I ever drew inspiration from it). 3) There are probably other important things to say, but I'm just too tired to remember them (let alone put them into words) so I'm going to stop here.

Oh, and review. If you feel like it. :)

~PrincessEarth