“Tell us again what you did!” James shouted.
Snape merely spat at him.
“You “ you disgusting fiend! Were you not taught manners, Snivellus, when you were young? Would you like me to teach you some? How about this: If someone asks you a question then you bloody ... well ... answer ... it!” With each of those final words he took a step closer, until they were nose to nose, glaring at each other.
“You’re pathetic,” Snape sneered. “Can’t you figure it out? It’s obvious.”
They were in the Room of Requirement, after Remus and James had lured Snape there with an owl message, promising a secret and exclusive club for those interested in the Dark Arts that afternoon. Naturally, Snape had not hesitated to attend, and it was there that Remus and James had been waiting to pounce, before tying him to a chair and interrogating him.
Now, Remus stepped forwards, before James had a chance to do something stupid.
“If it’s that obvious, why don’t you tell us?” he suggested, calmly, but with a forceful note in his voice.
Snape leered. “I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out. If I wasn’t with Henrie, but Sirius believed it was her, how could we possibly pull that off?”
James gasped. “Polyjuice Potion! So who played Henrie in your scheme? Not Bellatrix, if there’s one thing sane about her it’s that she could never bring herself to touch something so slimy. It wasn’t Regulus was it? He’s desperate enough to be in with the cool guys ...” James was pacing up and down as he thought all this aloud. “But no, why would you be boasting to him, then? If I’d made out with a guy, I wouldn’t be able to stand to look at them, whether they looked like a girl at the time or not. Hey, was it Narcissa Black? I hear she’ll grope with anyone in exchange for some of Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum. And if you throw in the added luxury of ruining someone’s life, she’d be your tart any day!”
James’s flippant vulgarity never quite ceased to amaze Remus. However, he felt it was the time to point out the flaw in his friend’s theory before a definite conclusion was reached. “It couldn’t have been Polyjuice Potion, Prongs,” he said.
James looked defensive. “Why not? It would certainly fool Padfoot easily.”
“Anything would fool Padfoot easily. But the point is that they haven’t been together long enough to brew the potion in time. And it’s all a bit elaborate isn’t it, when there’s someone at hand who looks very similar to Henrie.”
James blinked, as Snape started chuckling to himself.
“Almost identical, in fact,” Remus emphasised.
“No,” James breathed. “You don’t mean ... it couldn’t have been ... she would never ...”
But even as he said it, her not totally undeserved reputation with the boys at Hogwarts came into his mind.
“Izzie,” they both sighed.
“Sirius! Sirius! Padfoot!”
At the sound of his nickname, Sirius turned, knowing it must be one of his three closest friends. Therefore, he wasn’t really surprised to see Remus sprinting towards him, as Peter was already by his side, and James would just hex him to get his attention, without bothering with all that shouting malarkey.
“What is it, Moony? And where have you and James been all day, you must have left the Dorm pretty early for a Sunday ... like, before noon, even!”
Remus panted, having finally caught up with them. “You wouldn’t believe,” he muttered. “It was hours before noon ... we knew Snape would be up early, see ... he’s the type to go out catching the worm before anyone else gets a look in ...”
Sirius and Peter looked at each other, confused. “I think all that exercise has gone to your head, mate. Would you like to sit down? What’s got you in such a state that you had to actually pick up the pace beyond a stroll anyway? You know we only do that in emergencies.”
“It’s Henrie,” Remus said.
“What about her?” Sirius demanded, sharply, his reasonable mood suddenly being replaced by a fire of hurt and anger roaring to life in the pit of his stomach, just at the mention of her name.
“She ... she’s ... Padfoot, mate, she’s innocent. It wasn’t her you saw with Snape yesterday.”
“What are you on about?” Peter scoffed, taking over from Sirius, who didn’t appear capable of coherent language.
Remus shook his head. “Follow me,” he told them, and turned back the way he came, back towards the Room of Requirement, where he knew James was waiting, probably very impatiently, for them all to return.
“I can’t stand being cooped up in here, not knowing what’s going on,” Henrie was saying at the other end of the school.
“Remus said to keep a low profile,” Lily said once again, after repeating it a million and one times throughout the day. “And that’s what we’re doing ...”
Izzie smiled half-heartedly. The guilt she was feeling seemed never ending. Her part in her sister’s misery was grating away at her all the while, but the longer she didn’t say anything, the harder it got to speak up. In a way she almost didn’t want James and Remus to succeed. She was ashamed at herself for being so naïve, but the thought of everyone finding out, everyone judging her just made her want to be sick. Yet to see her twin sister so sad, made all the feelings of love inside her cry out. She decided that maybe she could distract Henrie from the situation, just by being loud and funny. Maybe eventually Henrie would move on from Sirius, and it would just turn into one of those crazy unsolved mysteries. She forced a genuine smile on her face for Henrie’s sake.
“Should I go to the Kitchens and steal a load of puddings? That might take our mind off things for a while,” she suggested. “And it will distract us from being stuck in the freaking dormitory all day ... especially as it’s possibly the last nice day we’ll have free until next Spring.”
Lily sighed, and started up her routine again. “Remus and James promised us they’d figure it all out ...”
“If they don’t smooth it over by the end of today, this next week’s going to be hell,” Henrie muttered to herself. “Especially once the school find out I made out with Snape.”
“But you didn’t,” Izzie said, sharply. “So you can just keep to your story that it’s all a lie.”
“They’re not going to believe me over Sirius,” Henrie whispered, then sucked in her breath as if trying to keep her emotions pushed down inside her.
Lily and Izzie exchanged worried glances. “Remus and James promised ...” Lily began to repeat, but Izzie got an idea of the perfect way to distract her sister for a moment.
“Well, if we have James’s word on the subject, I’m sure we’ll be fine, won’t we? A noble guy like that? Hey, Henrietta,” she suddenly changed her voice from sarcastic to thoughtful, “have you noticed how quiet it’s been lately?”
Lily narrowed her eyes, but Henrie grinned. “You know, Isabella, you’re right. There’s been a certain lack of ... what’s the word ...”
“Um ... I know what you mean ... it’s like there’s so much less ...” they both flapped their hands around as if trying to grasp the perfect word that was just out of their reach.
Henrie snapped her fingers in mock realisation. “Childish, relentless, never ending, positively grating, continuous, non-stop bickering. I haven’t heard any of that, lately.”
“I wonder why that is, do you think? You would have presumed that with all this stress and tension, such squabbling would be amplified.”
“Yet I’ve barely heard a peep from the two main culprits for a while, now!”
Izzie grinned, wickedly. “Maybe they’ve been helping each other relieve their stress in a different way entirely!” She and Henrie started snickering as all thoughtful pretence was shattered.
“I hope you’re not implying what I think you’re implying,” Lily warned, her narrow eyes glaring at the both of them, in a startling imitation of Professor McGonagall.
“Not what you think I’m implying, Lily ... what you know I’m implying!”
Lily picked up a pillow and threw it across the room, as Izzie shrieked, and laughed, all guilty feelings temporarily forgotten.
After they had managed to extract the whole story from Snape, Sirius felt his world caving in, and he rested his head in his hands.
“I’m such an idiot!” he burst out, whirling around to face Snape, but then giving up on the stream of abuse he had been planning before it even started. He fell backwards onto a chair that was conveniently in the right place, and Remus marvelled once again at the power of the room they were in.
“You couldn’t have known,” James said, gently, and surprisingly comfortingly.
“I should have known,” Sirius replied. “I’m such a terrible guy. What have I put her through? She’ll never be able to even look at me, I’m such a fool!”
“Don’t beat yourself up. We couldn’t have known,” Peter pointed out again.
“Remus knew!” Sirius protested. “And James realised it too!”
“Yeah, but mostly because Lily made me,” James said, shrugging, and was thrown a couple of amused looks.
“She’ll never trust me. She won’t even want to come near me,” Sirius moaned.
“Can I go now?” asked Snape in a bored voice.
“You’ll be lucky,” James snapped at him.
Sirius groaned, “What am I going to do?”
The girls were working their way through a variety of puddings that Izzie had scrounged, when James’s owl began pecking on the glass of the window.
Both Henrie and Izzie noticed Lily’s eyes light up when she saw it, they both noticed how quickly she rushed towards the window to let it in, and they both noticed the huge grin that appeared on her face before she’d even read the letter. They looked towards each other with raised eyebrows, and knowing smiles, but didn’t comment, because at that moment, they too wanted to know what the letter contained.
Lily’s eyes scanned the parchment for a moment or two, before she grinned again, dropped the letter, and ran out of the dorm and down the stairs.
“Lily “ LILY!” Izzie called after her.
“Read it!” came the far away reply, and she was gone.
“Blimey,” Henrie muttered. “What do you think it said?”
“Let’s find out, shall we?”
Lily “
It’s okay, we found out what happened. You were right, and Henrie is innocent. I owe you a chocolate frog!
Sirius was horrified when he found out the truth. Come meet me outside by the lake, we need to discuss our next move “ and I’m sure you want to know how they pulled it off, too.
Love,
James
“No way!” Henrie cried. “She gets to find out before us? Whose heart got broken, anyway?”
“Sirius’s,” Izzie replied, and Henrie glared at her. “And yours, obviously. Look, Henrietta “ the thing is ... I know how they did it, too.”
Henrie blinked. “What?” she asked. Her face was blank. There was no emotion in her voice. But her eyes blazed with shock, and “ Izzie’s heart was breaking now “ hurt.
“Well, the thing is ...” her voice trailed off.
“You either know, or you don’t, Isabella, which is it? And if you do know “ why didn’t you say anything? Why would you keep it a secret? And how do you know? What happened?” her voice was becoming borderline hysterical.
Izzie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “It was me.”
“James! James!”
“Lily?”
She threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him backwards, but then let go, embarrassed, before smiling warmly.
“What happened?”
“Uh ... let’s walk. I’ll tell you then.”
As they began to stroll around the lake, James repeated the days events to her, explaining at length everything that had happened.
Once he had finished, they walked for two minutes of silence, until Lily said thoughtfully, “What did you do with Snape?”
“Left him there,” James replied shrugging. At her look, he held his hands in the air, and said, “He’ll find his way out eventually! What, did you think we’d let him go free after that? Don’t worry about him, he’ll make his way out eventually!”
Lily sighed. “So ... it was Izzie?”
James nodded.
“Why wouldn’t she say anything?”
He paused, before saying, “She probably knew what would happen if she did.”
“But ... oh, James, don’t judge her on this, please! She must have felt awful when she realised, and “ Merlin, I can’t believe it!”
“I know. But we understand “ well, we don’t. But that’s not the issue, and she’s still our friend, she didn’t do it deliberately ... there are bigger issues at the minute.”
“Like what?” asked Lily, still trying to fully digest what they had found out.
“Well, for starters “ what are we going to do about Sirius and Henrie? They belong together, that much is obvious, but ... there’s going to be so little trust left. We need another master plan.”
“All right, fair point ... but that’s only one issue. What else is more important than Izzie’s mistake? Because that’s what it was, James, a mistake, I’m sure of it.”
James looked at her, and smiled, before taking her hand.
“Well, I can think of one or two things.”
AN: *Squee* I love Lily and James! They’re so adorable together! Only one chapter of this left, guys, it’s gone by so quickly! But it was never going to be novel length. Still, I’ve really enjoyed it, and I hope you guys have too ... why don’t you let me know in the happy little review box down there? =D