Lily climbed out of the carriage at Hogsmeade and stopped to wait for the boys to climb out. “Where to first?” she asked when they had joined her.
“Honeydukes,” they all answered simultaneously, as if it should have been obvious to Lily.
“Where else would we start, Lily?” Sirius grinned down at Lily and led the way to the sweets shop.
James shrugged at Lily as he walked with her behind his friends. “Don’t you worry; we’ll try to make today as painless as possible for you,” he said with a grin.
Lily looked sheepish. “Sorry. I’m sure it’ll be fun,” she said, immediately changing her expression to a cheerful one.
James laughed and reached over to rumple her hair. Looking up from under a few strands of her now dishevelled hair, Lily rolled her eyes at James and turned her head to hide a smile.
“You know,” Remus called back at them, “if you two can’t keep your hands off of each other, we can give you some privacy.”
Lily blushed, but took out her wand and held it in front of Remus mock-threateningly. “What was that, Remus?”
Sirius lowered Lily’s arm for her. “He was just trying to keep his mind off of Felicia. But you can breathe easy, Moony, she’s only here with her friends.” Sirius raise his hand to noticeably point at Felicia, who was walking with the Ravenclaw girls a few yards in front of them.
“Put your hand down,” Remus said, shoving Sirius to the side.
“Why don’t you go talk to her, Remus?” Lily asked curiously, motioning at Felicia.
Glancing at Sirius’s smug expression, Remus rolled his eyes and began walking towards the group of girls. James let out a whoop and yelled, “Go, Moony!” but Remus didn’t look back.
After taking Felicia aside from her friends and talking to her for a few moments, Lily and the other Marauders watched as Remus walked away towards the Three Broomsticks with Felicia, looking awestruck.
“Wow. I can’t believe he actually worked up the nerve to do it,” said Peter, amazed.
Lily laughed and clapped her hands, seeing James and Sirius’s proud faces. “All right, you lot, time for Honeydukes.”
The group didn’t leave Honeydukes for several minutes, but when they did, all were weighed down with at least a pound of sweets, looking content.
“Do you all want to visit the Shrieking Shack?” Lily asked mischievously, sucking on a Sugar Quill.
“Not really,” the three Marauders answered together.
“Zonko’s!” Sirius shouted out, marching away to the store without looking back.
“I guess we’re going to Zonko’s, then,” said James.
Lily bought nothing there, but the boys refused to exit without a considerable amount of pranking supplies.
“So now that you have your Zonko’s fix, how about… the Hog’s Head?”
“Sounds good,” answered Sirius, with James and Peter nodding their agreement.
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“I can’t believe you’ve never collected Chocolate Frog cards!” James said, clanking down his bottle and sounding shocked.
“I never really saw the point.” Lily explained.
James smiled and shook his head, then began tapping his fingers to the old-sounding tune playing from the bar’s WWN. Lily turned her head slightly and was a little surprised to notice that his arm was on the back of her seat, but James didn’t seem to notice anything. For some reason, this made Lily smile.
When Sirius and Peter left the groups corner table to talk to a few students that had just entered the room, Lily leaned back against James’s arm and closed her eyes.
“You know, I’ve had more fun that I thought I would’ve,” she confessed without opening her eyes.
“Oh, really?” James asked with surprise. His arm tightened around Lily amiably as he smiled at her. For some reason, this didn’t bother Lily at all or even strike her as odd; it felt comfortable and she realized she was beginning to really like being around him.
“Hey, one more, please,” Lily called to the bartender, holding up a finger.
The man behind the counter glanced at Lily and nodded.
“Rather thirsty tonight, are we?” asked James, raising his eyebrows and gesturing at the two empty bottles in front of her.
“Something like that,” Lily answered light-heartedly. “Anyway, you’re drinking, too.”
“This is the same one I’ve had all evening,” James began.
Lily shushed him and touched a finger to his lips. “I’ll stop after this one.”
“Okay,” James replied, smiling, once she had put her hand down.
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In the meantime, Kathleen had been sleeping in the girls’ dormitory all day. When she woke up, her head had begun throbbing, so she decided to visit Madam Pomfrey. Kathleen moved her legs to hang over the side of her bed, then quickly stood up and took a few steps, thinking of quick relief from her headache. The sudden movement came with dizziness that caused her to hastily rethink getting out of bed.
Quickly, Kathleen turned to her bed to climb back in, but had to let herself drop to the floor. She sat there for a moment with her eyes closed and her hands on the floor behind her to hold her up.
“Whew,” she breathed out.
Then she felt a sheet of parchment beneath her hands, which were partially under Lily’s bed. Leaning her back against the bed, she slid the parchment around in front of her and saw Lily’s handwriting.
Kathleen frowned, immediately recognizing the male handwriting next to her friend’s. Feeling around back under Lily’s bed, she pulled out several more notes and began to read the notes to herself. Her expression became slightly darker with each one, until she dropped them on the floor, another wave of sickness coming over her.
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“Okay, you wait here. I think Peyton has a Sobering Potion in the dormitory that I’ll be wanting before the feast.”
James nodded at Lily and smiled as he watched her climb the girls’ staircase.
Lily began to open her dormitory door, but it only swung forward a foot until it stuck. Frowning, she slipped in the open space and looked to see what was on the other side. Her hand flew to her chest when she saw what the door had hit. Kathleen was lying there with closed eyes, not moving a muscle.