Chapter Eight
Lily watched James leave, furiously hating him and whatever he thought was more important than working things out with her at the moment. She didn't believe for a minute that he'd rather be with her, and she certainly couldn't think of anything that was a matter of life and death for him to be attending to with the likes of Sirius, Peter, and Remus.
Leaning against the wall, she angrily dashed the tears from her eyes. How dare he call her out of the common room just to abandon her there, alone? How could he have said he loved her the night before only to leave her now, alone and confused? She glanced the way he had gone, irrationally hoping he might come back. Yet she knew he wouldn't; he had obviously made his choice, and it wasn't her, in spite of everything that had happened.
Pushing herself off the wall, Lily took a deep breath and turned to head back toward the common room. Out the corner of her eye she noticed something lying on the floor; it looked like a piece of old parchment. She had seen Sirius tuck something behind his back; was this what they were so busy running for, then?
Grinning to herself, Lily picked up the parchment and opened it. It appeared to be a map of the castle, but to her amazement, there were hundreds of black dots moving across the parchment, each labeled with the name of a student. Her own name was in exactly the same place where she was standing, and she saw Mary and Sandra's names in the Gryffindor common room, right where she had left them.
"No way," she breathed, watching as several students approached her on the map. They appeared around the corner as she hid it behind her back. She pulled it out as they passed, and watched their black dots move away from hers.
"Yet another secret revealed," she murmured to herself. Not only did James and his friends sneak around under his cloak, but they had a map of the castle that could take them anywhere safely, away from prying eyes. No wonder they had such a reputation.
Folding up the parchment, Lily hurried back to Gryffindor and entered the common room, ignoring the Fat Lady's question about rounds. It was nearly curfew, and though students could stay up later in their own common area, Lily made excuses to her friends and hurried to her dormitory. They probably suspected something had gone wrong between her and James, and normally, she would have told them about it. Now, though, she only wanted to explore the map further.
She was glad the dorm was empty. Throwing herself on the bed, she drew the curtains and pulled out the map again. There she was, in her dormitory. It was truly an amazing bit of magic. She wondered how they had gotten hold of such a thing. It certainly couldn't be legal to have such a detailed insight into the castle and students.
She tried to find James, Sirius, or Peter, but they did not appear anywhere on the map. She frowned, wondering if they were hidden under the cloak. She remembered that Sirius had seen her and James, so apparently the map could see through cloaks. Surely they had not left the castle? She searched the grounds, but did not see any dots bearing their names, either.
Frustrated, Lily decided to get ready for bed and look over her Charms homework before checking the map again. She could hardly concentrate, however, and kept returning to the fascinating parchment. She heard the other girls come up, talking quietly. With her curtains pulled, they did not bother her, and she continued to stare alternately at the map and her Charms text. Her eyelids drooped several times.
Finally, she saw four dots appear next to the Whomping Willow: James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus. She frowned, wondering what James had said about letting Remus down if he did not go out with them. Was that all it was, a chance for them to slip off the grounds at night, undetected? It certainly didn't seem as if life or death depended on whether James skipped a midnight run to Hogsmeade for once.
Suddenly curious, Lily decided to follow the map and find out for herself what they were up to. She threw her feet over the bed, determined to get dressed, but paused as they touched the floor. She had snuck around the previous night, and wondered if she should bother with it again. If James had chosen his friends over her, it was probably not worth compromising herself and getting in trouble to simply satisfy her curiosity.
Falling back against her pillows, Lily stared at the map, tears in her eyes. She didn't want to and knew she shouldn't, yet it nagged at her: she had the map, and she could clearly see the four of them out on the grounds by the Forbidden Forest. What were they doing that James had left her to go with them? She had to know.
She told herself that perhaps it was her duty as Head Girl to ensure their safety, and then rolled her eyes at her pathetic attempt to justify what she was about to do. In spite of her doubts, she stood and grabbed her clothes and a warm cloak from the foot of the bed. Mary heard her and sat up, rubbing her eyes.
"Leaving again so soon?" she asked, yawning. "He's a bad influence on you, I think."
"I know," Lily muttered. "But he ditched me, and I want to know why. I'll be back soon."
Mary nodded sleepily as she snuggled back into her pillow. "Good luck, then. And would you finally settle this thing? It's exhausting, waiting up for you." Her voice drifted off even as she finished her sentence, and Lily couldn't help but smile. Mary had waited for her the previous night, and they had stayed up quite late talking. She was probably exceptionally tired, but Lily knew her friend would be fast asleep before she even left.
Checking the map as she headed downstairs, Lily was glad to see that the common room was empty. She still tip-toed to the portrait hole, where she paused. What was she going to tell the Fat Lady this time? She decided to make up a story about tracking down some students she'd seen out on the grounds. In many ways, it was true; it just had nothing to do with being Head Girl.
To her surprise, the Fat Lady did not question her, only nodded and closed her eyes again, much like Mary had done. Lily did not realize it was that late. She must have spent a long time staring at the map in her bed. As soon as she turned the corner, she cast the Disillusionment Charm, much as she had the previous night. She glanced down at the map and saw that she was still visible, her black dot stationary in the corridor. All the other students were in their own dormitories except for James and his friends. Filch, the caretaker who often prowled the castle at night, was in his own room, as were the professors. The castle was truly asleep.
Lily moved quietly through the corridors, occasionally checking the strange magical map to be sure she had not lost James. She stole out a side entrance, her heart pounding as she once again thought about what she was doing. She was Head Girl and out of the castle after hours. It was dark, it was snowing again, and she was magically concealed as if she had something to hide. It was even more irresponsible than her trip to Hogsmeade the previous weekend, and yet she couldn’t stop herself: she had to see what was so important that James would leave her and sneak out of the castle.
As she walked across the moonlit grounds, Lily noticed a large dog bounding through the snow near the edge of the forest. An even larger stag followed, joyfully leaping over the large drifts that had fallen from the branches. Lily had never seen any animals on the grounds before, and assumed they had come from the woods. Yet when she stopped and glanced down at the map, she saw James and Sirius’s name quite clearly, moving around the grounds in exactly the same place as the creatures in front of her. She frowned, confused. Were they under the Invisibility Cloak somewhere?
Taking a deep breath, Lily called out softly into the darkness, "James? Are you out there?" The stag stopped and turned. It had hazel eyes that were so familiar that she felt her heart skip a beat, though she couldn’t say why. She dropped her Disillusionment Charm and called out again. "James?"
The black dog turned and howled, then bounded away into the woods. The stag stared at her and seemed to hesitate, but then leapt away after the dog, withdrawing behind a thick tree. She glanced down and saw that Sirius had disappeared completely from the map, but James was still not far in front of her. Looking up, she saw him stepping out from in back of the same tree that the stag had just run behind.
"James?" she asked hesitantly, taking a step backwards as he walked toward her. Something about his sudden appearance alarmed her. He couldn’t Apparate on the grounds, and she hadn’t heard anything, anyway. Was it the cloak after all? Or was it something else?
"Yes," he replied quietly, glancing around as if he were afraid of being seen, or perhaps looking for something. "What are you doing out here, Lily? It’s not really safe, you know."
She just stared at him, speechless. He seemed tense and his hazel eyes were watching her warily. A part of her wanted to run away; yet another part of her was fascinated. Had she inadvertently stumbled upon one of those other secrets Remus had been referring to? Was this why James was top of Transfiguration? Was it even possible?
Lily silently held up the strange map. James’s eyes went wide. "How did you get that?" he asked. He clearly sounded rattled as he glanced nervously toward the Forbidden Forest and ran his hand through his hair.
"Sirius must have dropped it in the corridor before he left," she whispered. "Maybe I shouldn't have, but I wanted to know what you were doing out here that was so important you had to ditch me." She handed it to him, studying his face and telling herself it was really him, that he was human, and her imagination must be playing tricks on her.
"Thanks," he mumbled, avoiding her eyes as he folded the map and placed it in his pocket.
"Are you—"
"I have to—"
They stopped and stared at each other. "I’m sorry," Lily said. "I shouldn’t have come. I’ll go." She started to leave, biting her lip to keep the tears of disappointment back.
"Bollocks—no, wait!" he called, and he reached out to her. He grabbed her hand and pulled her close, and Lily thought for a fleeting moment that he was going to kiss her again. Instead, he threw his cloak over both of them and hurried her back toward the castle.
"What are you doing this time?" she whispered. "Where are we going?"
"I want to get you back to the castle safely," he replied, still holding her hand.
"What’s wrong?" she asked. "What’s so dangerous?"
He didn’t answer, but she was sure she saw him glance up at the sky. The moon was full, though wispy clouds deadened its milky glow and tossed filmy shadows across the snow. She heard a howl behind them and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
"What was that?" she asked.
"Exactly what you think it was," he replied as he led her into the shadow of the castle entrance. He took off the cloak and shook his head. He looked both worried and upset. "Lily, I wish you hadn’t come out here tonight."
Lily was suddenly angry: it was one of the last things she would have expected him to say, and she certainly didn’t feel like she deserved to be reprimanded. "Then maybe you should have made the effort to actually talk to me before you ran off with your friends!" she snapped. "You grab me for a quick snog in the corridor before leaving me there alone, when I still don’t understand what happened in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and we still haven’t even talked about what happened last weekend!"
"I wanted to talk about it days ago, but you weren't ready!" James replied, frowning.
"I was confused," she said, stung by the comment, but ready to fight back. "And you didn’t even bother to take the time to try and understand that before you stomped off and got yourself put up in the hospital wing."
"Understand what, Lily?" he asked, his eyes wide with disbelief. "You just rambled on about how things have changed. And then showed up to spy on me in bed."
"I wasn't spying," she snapped, feeling defensive. "And things have changed. Certainly you can see that."
"Obviously!" he exclaimed. "Now we just have to figure out what the hell to do about it."
She opened her mouth a few times, unable to respond to his directness. "Do about it?" she finally repeated stupidly.
"Yes," he replied, staring at her intently. "What do we do about it, about us? What do we do about last weekend, about Defense Against the Dark Arts—about what you just saw?"
"What I just saw?" she repeated again; she seemed unable to speak for herself at the moment, now that they might actually settle things between them. "I don't know what I saw."
James threw up his hands in frustration. "Lily, I really have to go, but I don’t want to leave until we’ve worked this out."
The ultimatum once again stirred her anger. "What’s the rush, Potter?" she snapped, resorting to the old address in spite of everything they'd been through all week. It grounded her; she was familiar with it, she could handle it. "Where are you going? I know you disappear every month. I saw you looking at the moon. Are you a werewolf? Is that why I’m in danger?"
His jaw fell open, and he stared at her as if he couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. In some ways, she couldn’t either; it was not something she had ever considered until the moment she said it. Yet she knew it wasn’t true, because that was not what she had seen earlier. If she really believed it, she would have been more frightened.
"Shit, Lily," he muttered. "You’re close, but not quite. I think you know what I am." He stared at her, as if daring her to admit it.
"Show me," she demanded, hoping it wasn’t true.
He moved her deeper into the shadows of the castle and glanced around to be sure no one was looking. Taking a deep breath, he tipped his head to her, and…changed.
It was fascinating and grotesque at the same time. His head elongated as his ears grew into fur tipped points and his nose into a cool black snout. Large antlers appeared as his arms lengthened and he dropped to all four legs. His back legs became thick and powerful, and a short tail swished behind him. Yet his eyes didn’t change: they remained the same deep hazel, and they stared at her with perfect recognition as he pawed at the snow in front of her.
"Merlin’s hairy ears," she whispered. "You’re an Animagus." She stepped backward, bumping into the rough stone of the castle. He quickly transformed back into James, into the man she thought she knew, and reached out toward her. She shook her head, dazed and even more unsure what to think.
"No one knows, Lily," he said, his eyes begging her to keep the secret. "We’d be expelled for sure."
"We?" she asked weakly. "So that dog…was that Sirius?"
He reluctantly nodded. "Peter too?" she asked. He nodded again. It was almost too much to process. "And Remus?"
James looked away at her last question. "That's not for me to say," he replied. She opened her mouth to retort, but he shook his head. "No, please don’t ask me," he repeated. "That's not my secret to share. I gave my word. I shouldn't have said so much already."
A long silence stretched between them. James glanced nervously back toward the grounds as another howl echoed across the snow.
"So you’re a stag," Lily finally said, trying to wrap her head around it and failing. She was having trouble reconciling the image of his animal form with the man she had just kissed hours ago.
"I’m still me," he said, for apparently the look on her face was one of revulsion. "Lily, you’ve studied the Animagus transformation, you know it’s not a disease or something. It’s just magic."
"Really, really advanced magic," she murmured, both shocked and impressed in spite of the implications. The Animagus transformation was something they had discussed in class, but never even attempted. It was a rare and dangerous type of magic, and she couldn't even begin to imagine how he had managed it on his own.
He shrugged. "It took us quite a while to figure it out."
She laughed nervously, still unable to believe it was even possible. "Why?" she asked. "So you could run around the forest every month?"
Another howl split the air. James looked pained. "No," he replied, looking down and kicking at the snow with his toe. "There’s much more to it than that, I promise, but I can’t tell you. And I have to go." He started to back away, and Lily felt like he was leaving her all over again.
"Wait!" she exclaimed. "You yell at me for not giving you any answers last weekend and now you do the same? And then leap off after your animal friends? How is that fair?"
He took her hand and looked deep into her eyes. "It’s not," he admitted. "But tonight it’s not about me, or us. There’s just something I have to do, for a friend." He sounded so sincere that Lily was finding it harder and harder to be mad at him. Another howl sounded in the forest and she felt him twitch. It was not that he simply wanted to get back to his friends; she sensed that he needed to, that when he had made the comment about it being life or death, he was only slightly exaggerating. Perhaps she was still in shock: she nodded, not knowing what else she could say without sounding selfish and petty.
To her surprise, he grinned and took her face in his hands, brushing away her hair as he had several times now. He traced the line of her lips before he leaned down to kiss her, short but hard, almost driving the breath from her with his ferocity. "I love you, Lily Evans," he whispered, and her heart stopped in her chest. But then he stepped back and tossed her the Invisibility Cloak. "Meet me in the common room before breakfast in the morning. Please."
She glanced down at the cloak. "Won’t you need this?" she asked instead of answering him.
"No, I can just use the map," he replied. He winked, and the mischievous gesture somehow made her feel better, like he was still himself after all. "I’ll see you in the morning."
Before she could say another word, he transformed into his Animagus form. She hesitantly reached out a hand toward him, and he let her rub his head, nuzzling her with his cervine snout. Then he turned and bounded across the snow, disappearing into the forest by the Whomping Willow.
Lily stood in the shadow of the castle for several moments. Suddenly something clicked inside, something she had been thinking but couldn’t articulate. Instead, she raised her wand, cast a spell, and watched as a silver doe bounded off after him. Even though she could cast a Disillusionment Charm, she threw the cloak around her shoulders, enjoying the feel of it.
Lily walked up to the castle entrance with a small smile on her face. She knew what the doe meant now, and she knew what was going on between them. As she stopped in the doorway to look back at the Forbidden Forest one last time, she even knew what to do about it all.
"I think I love you, too, James Potter."
* * *
Things Change by Gmariam
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you, Apurva!!