“SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!” Lily bellowed, looking up irritably from a gigantic textbook and sending a large pile of notes scattering across the table in front of her. “Some of us are studying! I’m Head Girl, and I swear the next person who causes a disruption will be in detention faster than you can say ‘exam’!” She looked around threateningly, and spotted Jocelyn. “Oh, it’s you, Joce’. Has the library closed already?”
Jocelyn nodded. It was the evening before their first N.E.W.T., and all the seventh years were on edge.
“Well, I suppose we’d better get to bed then,” Lily sighed, gathering up her scattered notes in a defeated sort of way. “These” “ she waved the notes at Jocelyn “ “won’t do me any good if I’m sleep-deprived.”
Jocelyn nodded again. Lily had begun sweeping books into her bag. She accidentally knocked her Transfiguration book off the table, and Jocelyn caught it. Lily didn’t seem to notice.
“Er “ where are the boys?” Jocelyn questioned hesitantly.
“Oh, they went up to bed about an hour ago,” answered Lily absently, cramming some parchment into her bag, and looking around the table for anything she might have missed. “They said it was too stressful to study with me, apparently I was making them nervous.” She checked her bag, then looked around the table again. “Have you seen my Transfiguration book?”
Jocelyn mutely handed it to her.
“Thanks.” Lily started to try to ram it into her already over packed bag, then, still bent over the bag, she lifted her head and seemed to look properly at Jocelyn for the first time. “Sirius was with them,” she said quietly, giving Jocelyn a searching look.
“Well, he should be,” Jocelyn casually responded, avoiding her friend’s eyes. “I mean, he’s sitting the exams just like the rest of us, isn’t he?”
Lily frowned, and there was a pause while she looked probingly at Jocelyn, and Jocelyn stared at the fire. Then Lily straightened up.
“I suppose so,” she shrugged.
Jocelyn visibly relaxed. No one knew why she had come back alone from Hogsmeade that day, least of all Lily and the Marauders.
“I suppose Sirius just got tired of sitting around,” Remus had sighed, as he James, Lily, and Peter all sat around the common room one Friday evening, discussing their two friends.
“Well that’s obvious,” James had snapped, running a hand through his hair. He looked extremely careworn. Sirius’s recommencement of his weekend escapades to London had James worried. No one knew it, but James laid awake on Sunday evenings, listening for the door to open and Sirius to come in. James’s worst fear was that one night the door wouldn’t open…. That one night Sirius wouldn’t be able to return from London…. That one night he might even be “ But here James abruptly stopped his thoughts. The very idea was unbearable.
“Still, at least it’s not like last time,” Lily had said quietly.
The three boys had stared at her.
“How is it not like last time?” James had demanded.
“Well, Jocelyn’s not throwing things at me, for starters,” Lily had pointed out. “And Sirius isn’t yelling at Remus in Charms class, either.”
She was right, of course. Perhaps it had something to do with the frenzy of exams, but Jocelyn and Sirius’s estrangement was not as tense or hostile as their previous one had been. There was no shouting, no cold looks, no real tension felt by the other Marauders. They hadn’t become virtual enemies, as they had been after Christmas. They simply weren’t really friends any longer. They rarely spoke to one another. When they did they were excessively polite, almost formal. The only real similarity between this separation and the original one was that Jocelyn had taken to studying with Hector again.
She had had a very awkward conversation with him, where she had made it clear that she could hang around with him now, while somehow managing to explain nothing to him about why she was no longer hanging around with Sirius. When he had attempted to question her, she had deflected him.
“We realized our lives aren’t going in the same direction,” she’d said vaguely. For example, in a year’s time I’m likely to actually have a life, which, if he keeps this Bellatrix hunt up, is more than can be said for him, she’d added, but silently.
And this rather evasive explanation had evidently satisfied Hector, because he hadn’t questioned her about it again.
The morning of the first N.E.W.T., all of the seventh years loaded their plates, but almost none of them actually ate anything. Instead, they spent most of breakfast speed-reading textbooks, reciting spells and their effects under their breath, or attempting to perform various enchantments. Some, like Lily, looked nearly frantic, but most, like Peter, simply looked as though they were about to be violently sick. Maria Brenham burst into tears after only five minutes, when she failed to transfigure her knife into a rose, but by the end of breakfast she was not the only seventh year to have become hysterical. They were an exceedingly frazzled lot when they were ushered in to sit the written portion of their first N.E.W.T, and by the end of the week more than one person had had to visit Madame Pomfrey to receive a Calming Draught.
Lily annoyed them all at dinner the next day, after they had taken their Potions examination.
“Glad that’s over,” she sighed, helping herself to some steak and kidney pie. “Although I don’t think I really explained antidotes properly, and I definitely didn’t go into enough detail about Euphoric Elixir. I should have mentioned that if you add a sprig of peppermint “”
“LILY!” exclaimed James irritably, who had had no idea peppermint had anything to do with Euphoric Elixir. “I don’t want to take the exams again, thanks!”
“Sorry,” Lily muttered.
But the next evening, after they had completed their Charms exam, she started again.
“Did any of you get question 17b, where they asked what the most common liquids the Refilling Charm is used for are?” she asked them. “I could only remember three, but I know I read in one of my notes that there are four, and “”
But she caught the look on the others’ faces, and began eating her beef stew extremely quickly.
The evening after their last examination, the Gryffindor seventh years celebrated in the common room, but Lily, who felt very drained, retreated to her room to read in peace. She had just opened her book and was just settling in to read, when, to her immense surprise, the door opened and Jocelyn entered. The expression she wore was one Lily had never seen before, a cross between grimness and resignation. She crossed to her bed and fell onto it. Lily stared at her.
“What’s up with you?”
Jocelyn looked over at Lily, her face still that wearing that strange expression.
“Hector asked me out,” she said quietly.
Lily wasn’t surprised. She had been expecting it since Sirius had started going to London again.
“And you said yes,” she said softly. It was a statement, not a question.
Jocelyn nodded. She looked extremely bleak.
“What about Sirius?” asked Lily quietly.
Jocelyn sat up very abruptly.
“What about him?” she demanded, very sharply.
Lily gave Jocelyn a hard look.
“You tell me!”
Jocelyn glared at her.
“Sirius doesn’t have to do with this, Lils,” she growled.
Lily saw the warning signs, but she didn’t heed them.
“Really?”
“Why is this suddenly so important?” Jocelyn demanded. “Why do you suddenly care what’s going on between me and Sirius?”
“Because you’re both my mates, and “”
“Nothing’s happened!” Jocelyn snarled, now sitting bolt upright.
“Why are you so angry?” questioned Lily calmly.
“Because I’ve had a very trying day, and suddenly you’re harassing me about all this!” Jocelyn shouted, half rising from the bed.
Lily sat calmly, contemplating her friend.
“You know what?” she said finally. “I don’t think that’s true. I think what’s really making you angry is that you’re disappointed he’s given up on you.”
Jocelyn mouthed at her soundlessly.
“I “ Hector “ what?” she said jerkily.
Lily gazed at her sadly.
“That’s the real reason you went and found Hector in the first place, isn’t it?” she said quietly. “You were trying to get Sirius to stop hunting Bellatrix and come back to you, weren’t you? Only it didn’t work. A few weeks of tranquility and then he left again. That’s why you’re angry at him, isn’t it? That’s why you said ‘yes’ to Hector.”
Jocelyn opened her mouth to deny this “ but suddenly dozens of memories were assailing her: Sirius making Narcissa’s stuffed dog explode when they were six, because Narcissa had stolen Jocelyn’s toy broomstick; Sirius introducing her to Lily; Sirius begging her to come to Hogsmeade in third year; Sirius levitating her trunk at the train station; Sirius telling McGonagall he and James were uncontrollable; Sirius agreeing to help Lily and James get together, even though he didn’t want to; Sirius tipping James’s desk over; Sirius telling her about his time with Lily; Sirius pushing her behind him in Hogsmeade, the night the Death Eaters had attacked James; Sirius standing up for her in front of Narcissa; Sirius announcing to the entire Great Hall that he would kill Bella for murdering Vega; Sirius shouting at Remus; Sirius kissing her; Sirius telling her he loved her; Sirius telling her he’d die for her….
And she knew. She knew as clearly as if she had seen it written on the wall in front of her. She was in love with Sirius Black. Even after all they’d been through “ even after telling him to go “ she was still in love with him.
Only now it was too late, wasn’t it? Lily had just placed her finger on it. Sirius had given up on her. Now she had Hector. But she didn’t want Hector. All she really wanted “ all she’d ever really wanted “ was Sirius.
Lily had been watching Jocelyn as she processed all this, and now she spoke again.
“Jocelyn, remember that day you came back from Hogsmeade alone?”
Jocelyn looked up at her friend. How could she forget?
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“What happened?”
“I told him to leave.”
Lily started. She had always assumed it had been Sirius’s idea to leave. She worked hard to keep her voice even as she answered this statement.
“You told him,” she said quietly.
“He wasn’t happy,” Jocelyn answered evenly.
“No, Jocelyn, but he was willing to stay!” Lily exploded. She expected Jocelyn to flare up at once, but she did not. The fight seemed to have left her, and this worried Lily.
“Do you remember that day we were studying for our N.E.W.T.s?” Jocelyn asked quietly. “And Sirius kept putting spells on James instead of answering the questions?”
Lily nodded slowly.
“I see your point.”
“It was better to let him leave,” Jocelyn whispered.
Lily frowned as a thought occurred to her.
“Why did he stay at all?” she questioned.
Jocelyn looked around at her very sharply.
“What?”
Lily didn’t hesitate for a moment. Looking Jocelyn straight in the eye, she asked the question she’d been longing to ask for weeks.
“What happened after that Charms class?”
Jocelyn looked away from her.
“I don’t really remember,” she answered quietly, and Lily knew she was being truthful. “There was a lot of crying, and a few ‘I knows’, but we never really talked it through. There was just this sort of … understanding.”
Lily nodded slowly.
“And then you let him go,” she whispered.
“I didn’t really have a choice,” Jocelyn answered. “I couldn’t, in good conscience, let him stay.”
Lily frowned. Something about that statement didn’t seem right.
“But you could, in good conscience, send him to his death?” she demanded.
And somewhere in Jocelyn’s memory a conversation she’d had many months before echoed in her ears again.
“I know it was Bella, Jocelyn. And I swear to Merlin, I’m going to kill her because of it!”
“And what if she kills you?”
“What?”
“What if you’re the one who ends up dead? You’re all I have left, what am I supposed to do then?” …
“If she’s going to kill me I’d rather have it be on my terms!”
“You don’t have to be killed!”
“And, what? You want me to live the rest of my life in hiding, afraid of my filthy excuse for a cousin? No!”
“I want you to be alive, Sirius! I don’t care what else happens as long as you’re alive!”
“No,” said Jocelyn quietly.
Lily frowned at her.
“What?”
“No,” Jocelyn repeated, louder now. “I can’t send him to his death.”
Lily stared at her friend. This wasn’t the reaction she had been expecting at all. She wasn’t even really sure what Jocelyn was talking about.
“I have to talk to him,” Jocelyn continued, speaking more to herself than to Lily. “I have to see him.”
She leaped off her bed and crossed to the door.
“Jocelyn,” said Lily, feeling definitely alarmed. “What “?”
But Jocelyn had already left the dormitory and was bounding down the stairs to the common room. She entered it and looked around. It was packed full of students celebrating the end of the term. She didn’t see Sirius or any of the other Marauders anywhere. She fought her way over to the boys’ staircase, and raced up the stairs to the Marauders’ dormitory three stairs at a time. She flung open their door, burst in, and looked around. James and Remus had both turned, startled, but Peter wasn’t anywhere in sight….
And neither was Sirius.
“Jocelyn!” Remus exclaimed, shooting a nervous glance at James, who was extremely pale. “What a “ er “ pleasant surprise! How were the exa “”
“Where’s Sirius?” Jocelyn demanded, cutting him off.
James and Remus exchanged looks.
“Er “” said Remus uncomfortably, “we don’t know, exactly.”
“Meaning he’s up in London trying to figure out how to find Bellatrix Lestrange,” said Jocelyn curtly. She had been expecting this.
James and Remus looked at each other again.
“Well “ er “ we think he probably started in London,” said James slowly, who clearly did not want to be having this conversation.
Jocelyn frowned as the full meaning of these words sank in.
“What do you mean by that?” she said quietly.
James winced as though she had struck him. Remus took a deep, shuddering breath and looked straight into her eyes. Jocelyn was reminded forcibly of Sirius right before he had told her that her father was dying, and suddenly she knew that, whatever Remus was going to say to her, she did not want to hear it.
“We think he found her, Jocelyn,” said Remus quietly, and beside him James cringed. “We think he went after her.”