For a while the library was quiet but for the scratching of quills and the odd whisper. After several attempts to get through a mind-numbing article on the altered properties of transfigured mammals, Alice gave up, retiring with a yawn. Promising she would follow as soon as she finished her conclusion, Lily stared with aching eyes at the blank parchment before her. She had nothing more to say on the subjects of crustaceans or crockery, and in spite of herself, her attention began to stray. Two tables away, James and Remus rose and wandered off to peruse the shelves; she watched them lazily, noting with mild interest they were headed towards the Potions section. Remus seemed rather reluctant.
‘If Madam Pomfrey doesn’t have anything…’ she heard him murmur as they passed.
‘Well, you never know,’ James muttered back. ‘Be nice if we could get that scar-healing stuff not to make you nauseated, wouldn’t it?’
‘Shhhh,’ Remus warned, and James fell silent as they disappeared down a corridor of towering bookshelves.
Why was Remus taking a potion to heal scars? she wondered vaguely.
Back at their table, Sirius was attempting to help Peter with his star chart for Astronomy.
‘No, Wormtail, you’ve got this all wrong. Look, Bellatrix is part of Orion, it’s nowhere near Cassiopeia.’
‘Easy for you, your whole family is named after stars!’
‘Fine, have it your way. It won’t be me failing the test tomorrow.’
‘No, no, wait. I’m sorry. So Cygnus is part of…of…Polaris?’
‘Polaris is it’s own star, I keep telling you. And Cygnus is a constellation; they’ve got nothing to do with each other.’ Black groaned, rubbing his face. ‘Look, just—let me fill out a new sheet for you, this one’s all mixed up.’
‘Oh, thanks,’ Pettigrew breathed gratefully, handing over his chart.
‘No problem,’ said Black dryly. ‘Why don’t you go find that book on moons while I’m at it. You can start on that extra credit thing.’
‘So you don’t think I’ll fail the class?’ Pettigrew asked hopefully.
‘Well, we’re working on it.’
Pettigrew scurried off. Black watched him go, catching Lily’s eye as Peter passed her. He raised a brow and waved. Chagrined, Lily nodded and quickly bent back over her homework.
A few moments passed, until the sound of footsteps stopping in front of her table made her look up.
‘Hey,’ said Sirius Black, dropping lightly into the chair across from her.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked guardedly.
‘Nothing illegal,’ he countered, grinning in the careless way that had charmed so many of her female classmates.
‘Just come to socialise?’ she suggested, not believing it for a minute.
‘Merlin, no. I come to study, look.’ He set Pettigrew’s newly blank chart on the table before him with a flourish and began inking in the blanks, his quill flying quickly over the parchment.
Lily narrowed her eyes, but Black seemed in no rush to divulge his purpose. Silence stretched again.
‘You know,’ he said pleasantly, eyes still on his paper, ‘he’s been positively mooning over you all summer. No pun intended,’ he added, smiling at the star chart.
‘This is about James,’ Lily groaned in sudden understanding. ‘He asked you to talk to me.’
‘My dear Miss Evans. This has nothing to do with my romantically-challenged comrade. I come completely of my own volition, to ask a personal favour purely for my own benefit.’
He looked up, grey eyes glinting with amusement, but in an easy, personable way. No wonder he had girls running after him left and right. Refusing to be taken in, Lily folded her arms over her chest, sitting back in her chair. ‘Oh? And what favour might that be?’
Black put on a face of infinite suffering. ‘Take pity on me,’ he pleaded. ‘I have to listen to him moan and mope all day, every day. How am I supposed to be a good student with that kind of perpetual distraction?’
Lily snorted, but Black pretended not to notice, now leaning in with a confiding air. ‘I know it’s a great sacrifice, but just give him a chance, just an hour or two.’ He studied her face. ‘He really does like you, you know.’
For some reason the sudden candour in his voice made Lily’s cheeks burn. She opened her mouth without knowing what she was going to say, but he was already brushing by the moment.
‘Come on, Evans. For my sake. It really is the least you can do, when I’ve had to put up with him these five long years. A sort of civic duty, if you will. One should always fulfil one’s duty to society,’ he finished, in admirable mimicry of McGonagall’s stern tones.
‘Like one should always fulfil duties to one’s family?’ she quipped, raising her eyebrows.
The stark surprise in Black’s eyes caught her unawares. She had meant to share a distracting joke; Sirius made no secret of the fact that he didn’t keep his family’s traditions, and his clownish impressions of his parents’ speeches on ‘familial duty’ had several times been the subject of much hilarity in the Gryffindor Common Room.
‘Oh,’ he said, apparently at a loss. ‘Wow…well, that’s me told, isn’t it?’ He gave a little bark of a laugh and Lily frowned, confused. But Black was rising, his mocking grin back in place. ‘Well played, m’lady,’ he smiled, gathering his star chart and quill. ‘Note to self: tease not the girl who studies.’
Leaving her completely nonplussed, he strolled back to his table, where Peter and Remus had returned. She couldn’t hear what he said to them, but it must have been funny, because both boys laughed appreciatively and the three of them slung their book bags over their shoulders and left the library with enough show of frivolity to earn a murderous stare from Madam Pince.
‘Bit harsh, that, wasn’t it?’ said a quiet voice.
Lily whipped around to see James Potter leaning against a nearby shelf, the most curious expression on his face.
‘Eavesdropping, Potter?’ she demanded acidly. ‘Have you been lurking there the whole time?’
‘No,’ he said neutrally. ‘I was just coming back when I caught that last bit. He was only joking with you, you know. No need to get personal.’
‘But I—I didn’t mean—I mean, he’s always joking about his family, I wasn’t trying to…’ She trailed off, utterly frustrated. She was tired and confused, and she didn’t want a lesson in tact from James Potter.
Potter frowned at her, looking as puzzled as she felt. Cautiously, he moved forward and sat across from her at the table, perched on the edge of the chair as though expecting her to order him off at any moment. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘that’s true, he does joke about them from time to time. But I reckon he’s just a bit touchier about it at the moment. You know, after this summer.’
He was scrutinising her in a way she was completely unused to, as though she was behaving in a manner he didn’t understand at all.
‘This summer?’ she asked bewildered. ‘Why, what happened this summer?’
He stared at her for a moment, and then his face relaxed, understanding flooding his eyes. ‘Oh! You don’t know! I thought that story had made its rounds by now.’ He sat back with a laugh. ‘Geez, Lily, I was wondering why you were being so mean!’
He didn’t seem to realise he had called her by her first name. The easy way he said it made her strangely uncomfortable, but she was too perplexed to examine the feeling. ‘What are you talking about?’ she hissed, not appreciating being left out of the loop.
Potter sobered at once. ‘Oh, well, he ran away this summer. And his mum disowned him. It’s kind of common knowledge now, or I wouldn’t say anything.’
‘She disowned him?’ she Lily repeated in horror. ‘Why?’
‘For not being enough like the rest of his family, I reckon. But you can understand why it’s sort of a …tense subject, especially since his brother Regulus goes to school here and all.’
Lily clapped her hands to her face, suddenly realising how she must have sounded. ‘Oh no!’ she moaned between her fingers. ‘I was only trying to joke around, I didn’t mean—he’s going to think I’m a horrible person!’
‘Well, I’m sure it surprised him, coming from you, but I doubt he’ll think you’re a horrible person.’ Potter chuckled ruefully. ‘He probably just thinks you really hate the idea of going out with me.’
He was trying to cheer her up. She lowered her hands slowly. ‘You’ll explain, won’t you?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, sure. Don’t worry about it.’
She smiled in gratitude. ‘Thanks.’
They lapsed into a comfortable silence. Lily stared wearily at her unfinished homework, thinking how strange it was to be sharing a comfortable silence with James Potter.
‘Well,’ she said finally. ‘I suppose I’d better get to bed. I don’t seem to be able to do much of anything right tonight.’
Potter laughed and rose with her. ‘Don’t worry,’ he repeated. ‘Your secret’s safe with me. Lily Evans, closet sadist. Who would have thought?’
‘Oh don’t!’ Lily groaned, laughing in spite of herself. ‘I feel awful. Where’s he staying now?’
‘With me. It’s been pretty cool. Mum and Dad love him, so he’s—everyone’s better off anyway.’
Lily nodded mutely. His face was different than usual, full of concern for a friend. She had never thought of James Potter as a sensitive person, but the way he had handled her faux pas had been…kind. Without thinking, she smiled up at him. Tentatively, he smiled back, and they left the library together.
Neither of them noticed the pale, dark-haired boy who was huddled in a corner table by the door. Severus Snape peered around the towering stacks of books that surrounded him, his face blank as glass.