I’ll Fight For You

By Hazelmist/Summerskies

Disclaimer: I can’t even afford to buy myself notebooks and have to resort to writing my stories on paper plates and paper bags. So don’t sue me because everything (with the exception of the insane plot and some of the weird characters or crazier characteristics of the known characters) belong to J.K Rowling.

Summary: Grace is alive but barely, suffering from the effects of a curse that causes pain and raises the body temperature to impossible heights as organs boil. Wilkes wants the location of the weapon. Hope tells Wilkes that Grace has it and the curse’s worse effects are reversed but she needs a healer to stay alive and Lily is sent in search of one. She runs into the unconscious dog that started it all, and it transforms into Sirius, revealing that he is an animigus. With Sirius’s help Lily tracks down James and Rohan (who is practically a healer) and Lily takes Rohan to see Wilkes and Grace. Once Grace is stabilized Wilkes attempts to kidnap Grace and Rohan but Hope bargains for twenty four hours to track down the rest of the memories to find the weapon for him. Lily tries to help Rohan and Grace escape, but her efforts are fruitless for Rohan reveals that Wilkes will kill Grace unless they go with him. They vanish and James arrives to comfort Lily. Hope and Lily go to talk to Professor Dumbledore at the conclusion of the chapter.

For a more complete summary of the whole story, see Ch. 31: Stupid Cupid.

A/N: Sorry this is late, my laptop got destroyed by a virus.

Chapter 35: Breaking the Rules

As soon as Hope and I step into Professor Dumbledore’s sunlit office, and sit down amongst the whirring, glaringly bright silver instruments around the room, I’m struck by an overflow of memories from my previous visits to this particular room. In December, I had been summoned here after Grace broke McLaggen’s nose and we launched an attack on the banshee in response to a nasty comment she had made about Grace’s parents. I wasn’t punished for the “accident”. Instead Dumbledore had informed me that I wouldn’t be going home to see my parents for Christmas or perhaps ever. Grace of course had refused to let me spend Christmas alone at Hogwarts and had immediately offered to take me home with her. Then in September, I had come here with Grace, Sirius, James, and “Angel” to meet with James’s parents. I remembered how Grace had stubbornly refused to let go of the child – even then she had felt a powerful connection to her mother though she hadn’t quite understood it at the time. But the memory that stands out in my mind isn’t from either of these visits but from my very first trip to the Headmaster’s office as a terrified Third Year.

Most of it is a blur. The Marauders had found it hilarious to frame Grace and I for one of their biggest pranks. Surprisingly Filch didn’t have the same sense of humor, because he marched us up to Dumbledore’s office promising us that we’d be expelled and Grace and I had readily believed him. Just before we spoke with Dumbledore, Filch left us outside for a moment.

I vividly recall turning to the tall raven haired girl beside me (that had yet to shed a single tear) and realized for the first time what the word “best friend” actually meant. Impulsively I hugged her, whimpering something about how if we were expelled I would never see her again. Grace’s careful mask had finally slipped and her eyes became suspiciously watery. But she pulled back from me and fiercely promised, “I won’t let it happen.”

Years ago I had thought that she was talking about us getting expelled, but now, three years after the incident and faced with the frightening concept that my best friend might be dead in less than twenty four hours, I wonder if perhaps she was addressing my second fear: the fact that we might never see each other again.

“Ms. Evans?”

Looking up, I pull myself back to the present where I’m sitting across the sparkling desk from Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, with not my thirteen year old best friend, but her distraught mother who’s slumped down in the chair beside me.

“Ms. Evans, do you have anything you’d like to tell us?” Professor Dumbledore asks me, for what I now realize is probably the second or third time.

Not really. Right now all I want to do is crawl back into my bed and pray for this whole thing to be one big fat nightmare that I’ll wake up from after a good nights sleep. But I’m beginning to realize that reality is a hell of a lot worse than any of the nightmares I’ve ever had.

“Grace saw me,” Hope says suddenly, staring off into space. “She knew who I was,” she continues softly. “And Wilkes and…”

“Yes, I’m afraid your disguise is gone Hope, there’s no use lamenting it now. What’s done is done. You’ll have to leave us I’m afraid,” Professor Dumbledore sighs, suddenly looking weary. A pained look comes over Hope’s face and she sorrowfully bends her head.

“I don’t understand how it happened,” I whisper, finding my voice again.

Professor Dumbledore glances at Hope, who refuses to lift her head and then turns back to me.

“Hope thinks that during the confusion and chaos of the duel someone might have inadvertently canceled out and reversed the effects of the spells and charms holding her disguise in place…”

“But – but you’d have to remove each one individually!” I say, shaking my head at the seemingly impossibility of someone doing this. “There’s a slim chance that with a particularly powerful Finite countercharm could have-” I stop abruptly, as Hope’s hand crushes mine and her nails dig into my skin.

Only one person had cast a Finite countercharm on Hope.

Me.

Not only was the start of the fight my fault (because I’m sure Sirius even in his animigus form was more than capable of taking care of himself), but the revelation of Hope’s identity was also due to my actions. Grace and Rohan were gone because of me.

The conclusion sickens me. I gasp, doubling over in the chair. I wrap my arms around my middle and try very hard not to throw up all over Dumbledore’s office. Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore rise from their chairs, alarmed and worried. Hope gently encircles me with her arms and I half heartedly try to push her away.

“Minerva, bring back Poppy,” Dumbledore says to Professor McGonagall.

“No!” I cry. “I don’t want to go to the infirmary,” I protest feebly, shivering.

“I think perhaps, Lily should lie down,” Hope suggests, automatically switching into maternal mode. She gently smoothes the hair back from my forehead as my mother had done on many occasions, and rubs my back comfortingly. “She’s been through a lot today,” she reminds them quietly.

“Of course,” Professor McGonagall agrees immediately sympathizing. She starts to move toward me as if she’s going to escort me herself, but suddenly green flames erupt from the fireplace to the left of Professor Dumbledore’s desk. The disembodied head of a vaguely familiar attractive man with cat like eyes appears in the flames, demanding the attention of both professors.

“Minister McLaggen,” Professor McGonagall says in surprise, but the face gives her a cold glance and then turns on Professor Dumbledore.

“Albus, what on earth is the meaning of this?! I demand to know what’s going on!”

I don’t stick around to hear what this stranger - who I have a sneaking suspicion just might be the Minister of Magic, Debbie’s father – has to say and neither does Hope. With a distracted nod of permission from McGonagall we exit the room and bolt down the stairs.

Once we’re out in the hallway I feel only marginally better than I did when I was sitting across the desk from the Headmaster. But at least now I can breathe.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

“Me too,” Hope says, nodding solemnly. “But like Dumbledore said ‘what’s done is done’. The only thing that can be done now is to bring Grace and Rohan back.”

“We can start by fixing your appearance,” I decide, after a pair of girls pass us and give Hope a peculiar searching look. She looks like she’s just come back from the dead and literally and figuratively she has. Grabbing her arm, I yank her into the empty bathroom and lock the door behind us.

“I highly doubt Wilkes is going to care what I look like,” Hope retorts bitterly when I drag her over to a mirror, “And if you’re worried about Hannah Smith, she just got herself an expulsion and a premature death. You can tell everyone that she really was a Death Eater, and she did kill Professor Binns because she didn’t like the way he snored at her, and she also killed her daught-”

“Hold still!” I interrupt her, aiming my wand at her eyes. “Or I’ll put a binding charm on you and force you to be still.”

“You’re aiming a wand at my eyes and you expect me to be still!” Hope grumbles, as her hand automatically goes to the pocket that holds her wand.

“Don’t you trust me?” I ask her, sweetly.

“Not really,” Hope snorts, “You cut my hair the muggle way and it was uneven – OW!”

The spell gets her right in the eye and she winces. I brace myself but Hope doesn’t light me on fire or attempt to kill me, like I had imagined she reflexively would have done. She blinks and tries to clear her now bright blue eyes as I seize a lock of her hair and curl it around the tip of my wand. The curls in her raven locks unravel as her hair becomes as straight as her daughter’s. Madam Pomfrey’s healing charms had failed to heal the bruises and cuts on Hope’s face so I use the makeup coverup charm that I’d recently mastered. After six years I had finally put some of Tiffany Crowley’s hair and makeup tips to good use.

“Now look,” I tell her, turning her face toward the mirror. “You don’t look like you belong in a tomb or a mental institution, and hopefully everyone will think that you’re Grace, and stop freaking out every time they see you. We might even be able to keep the whole thing quiet like Wilkes wanted to so that no one knows Grace is missing.”

“Clever, but what about your other friend.” Hope touches her cheek and suddenly freezes. But she’s not looking at her reflection or mine…

“JAMES POTTER!” I let out a startled scream and whirl around so fast that I hit my elbow on the faucet. “What do you think you’re doing in here?” I demand, gingerly rubbing the injured arm and frowning at the handsome Marauder that just opened the stall door behind me.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” he replies, raising his eyebrows. “It’s not that I’m not happy to see you here, I’m just surprised…”

“But you - you shouldn’t be in here!” I stammer, trying not to lose my train of thought. James has an infuriating habit of making me forget everything except him. “This is the-”

“Men’s room?” James interrupts me, smirking slightly as he steps toward me. “Unless I’ve had a sex change that I’m not aware of I’m fairly certain that I am in the right place and that you are not. But perhaps there’s something you wish to tell me, it might explain why you’ve found it necessary to turn me down so many times?”

I gape at him, readying a comeback. He smugly brushes past me and accidentally pushes me into another sink. Or at least I thought it was a sink. To my horror I realize that it’s a urinal and James is in fact right, again. Hope makes a sound in the back of her throat that sounds suspiciously like a laugh, and I realize that in my haste to disguise her I hadn’t been too choosy about which bathroom I entered. I blush hard, glancing around worriedly.

“Don’t worry Lily, there’s no one else here,” James reassures me, turning off the tap and drying his hands. “We’re completely alone,” he whispers, dropping the towel and moving his hands to my shoulders.

“I locked the door,” I tell him without thinking.

“Good idea, we wouldn’t want anyone to interrupt us,” James says, moving his hands down my arms and then back up to my shoulders. I shut my eyes and savor the pleasant tingling sensation that I feel at his touch. It’s always different when Rohan touches me. It’s like I’m missing that spark, a spark that ignites only when James touches me.

Hope clears her throat and my eyes snap open to find her leveling us with a reprimanding glare that makes me blush.

“Are you alright Lily?” she asks me.

“Perfectly,” I say in a voice that sounds suspiciously high as I step back from James.

“Good, then let’s get back to the part where we try to save my daughter and your boyfriend.”

“Right,” I agree nodding and sobering instantly. “We need to go after them, time is running out we probably only have twenty three hours left.”

“Twenty three hours?” James explodes, his hazel eyes widening behind the framed lenses. “What are we waiting for then?”

“My memories,” Hope sighs, furiously rubbing her forehead and pacing restlessly in front of the mirrors.

“But I thought you said you knew where they were!”

“I know what I said, Lily,” Hope snaps back at me, “And it wasn’t a complete lie. I do remember some stuff. I did scatter the memories that I’m sure of. It’s the only logical explanation as to why they left me alive. Wilkes’s master, Lord Voldemort is a skilled Legilimens-”

“He can read minds?” James interrupts her, with a kind of frightened awe.

“Dumbledore thinks so and so did my brother, which is why Harry gave them to me years ago, and I chose to scatter mine when I found out he was after me…” Hope explains, her brow creasing. “But unfortunately I don’t know who I gave them to.”

“You gave them to Grace,” I remind her, recalling her earlier words to Wilkes. But then I catch sight of her face as she pauses in front of the mirror and my heart stills.

“You lied to Wilkes, didn’t you?” I realize, gaping at her. If Hope lied to Wilkes and Wilkes has a master that can read minds… Oh, crap. I feel what little hope I had in me start to shrivel up and die.

“Not really,” Hope says, shying away from my gaze. “There’s a good possibility, I’m just not sure…” she trails off, frustration deepening every slight wrinkle on her weary face.

“Hope, do you remember anything?” James softly asks, gently turning her toward him so that she’s forced to look into his eyes. “Anything at all about the location of the unnamable weapon?” Hope bites down on her lip, desperately racking her brain. At the same time I start racking my own brain because something is teasing at the back of my mind, something that I had filed away months ago…

“No,” Hope shakes her head miserably. “I – I can’t think! I just want Gracie back!” she wails, sitting down on the tiles and covering her face with her hands. James sits down on the floor beside her and hesitantly moves closer to comfort her. And that’s when it hits me.

“Heather!” I exclaim, earning two confused glances from the said woman’s son and sister. “Hope! You passed the secret on to Heather Potter!”

“My sister knows?” Hope queries, frowning. Then she shakes her head at me and James, resolutely denying my conclusions. “No, there’s no way.”

“Why not?” I ask, crossing my arms defensively over my chest.

“It’s too obvious!” Hope says immediately. “And that would put my family into danger when the goal is to prevent that from happening. It just seems too risky and frankly, it’s a really dumb idea.”

I exchange a glance with James, resisting the urge to point out that we’re already in enough danger as it is, and then with a sigh I turn to Hope.

“Hope, it may be stupid, but I think that’s exactly what you did.”

“How do you know?” Hope demands, standing so that she can meet me head on.

“Grace told me,” I answer her. Immediately her gaze softens and the fight goes out of her. “She got locked in the kitchen closet and was there the day that you passed the information on to your sister,” I explain to her, my eyes flicking to James, as I recall everything Grace told me the day I escaped from the infirmary and Grace found me spying on her in the alcove.

“Then Grace must know…” Hope looks up at me with what might have been a flicker of hope.

I hesitate but reluctantly shake my head.

“I’m sorry Hope, Grace said it was passed on non-verbally and she didn’t catch any of it,” I remember sadly.

Hope’s shoulders slump.

“At least we have a starting point,” I say struggling to remain optimistic and desperately trying to avoid the thought that at any moment my best friend and Rohan might be murdered.

“Possibly,” Hope says, resuming her pacing, “But chances are Heather only knows one piece of a giant puzzle.”

“Well, we could at least talk to my mother and find out what she knows,” James suggests, causing Hope to pause and look up at him in surprise. “She might know something about the location of the rest of the memories or perhaps even the weapon itself.”

“Alright,” Hope agrees slowly though she still looks doubtful and unconvinced. “Since we haven’t got any other options, I guess that it couldn’t hurt to try,” she decides finally, standing up straighter and suddenly taking control.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go down to the staff room and make a floocall to Heather-”

“The staff room? Is that even allowed?” I wonder, suddenly having a bad feeling about this idea.

“Nope. Which is exactly why we have to get in there,” James says, rubbing his hands together and almost grinning as I imagine he always does at the exciting prospect of breaking and entering. He is a Marauder after all.

“It’s the only place where fireplace visits aren’t monitored or blocked,” Hope explains to me. “So, while I’m in there speaking with Heather we’ll need a diversion to distract the professors.”

“Or an invisibility cloak?” James suggests. “And a certain Marauder’s map perhaps?” He pulls a folded up piece of parchment from his pocket, one that I instantly recognize as the same map that James shared with me when we pranked Zabini in the Slytherin dormitories.

“You’re always prepared to make mischief and wreak havoc, aren’t you?” I ask, unable to stop a small smile at the thought of the reassuring predictability of the Marauders even in dark times such as these.

“Someone has to be!” James defends himself, puffing out his chest as if he’s taken on the role of some kind of superhero and he’s going to save/wreck the world one prank at a time. I snort and roll my eyes. Typical.

“You’re laughing at me, Lily, but I don’t think you understand that being a Marauder is a fulltime job. In addition to the map, the cloak, and the two-way mirror, I carry around two dungbombs at all times just in case of an emergency prank,” James explains, taking this entirely too seriously.

“Good, we’re going to need them,” Hope cuts in grabbing the invisibility cloak and slipping it on before James can launch into what I’m sure would have been a lecture on why one must be always prepared to stage a prank at any moment. It sounds so silly and contradictory, but now that I’m in a situation where pulling off a prank could be a matter of life and death, I find myself thanking Merlin that we ran into James Potter and not someone like my fellow rule abiding prefect Rohan Corner. At the guilty thought of Rohan I flinch.

“What’s the matter, Perfect Prefect Evans? Are you afraid to break the rules?” James teases me as I crack open the bathroom door again to make sure no one’s coming.

“Of course not!” I hiss back at him, holding the door open for the invisible cloaked Hope. Just as I’m about to follow, Remus Lupin and Tiffany Crowley come around the corner. I pull the door shut so fast that James narrowly misses getting his hand stuck.

“Are you trying to cut my fingers off?” he whispers.

“That would actually make a really good diversion…” I muse, pretending to seriously consider the idea.

“Perhaps,” James says shrugging and running his fingers down my arm in a suggestive manner as he proves a point of his own. “But I happen to like my fingers.” I shiver in response to his electrifying touch, agreeing with him though I’ll never admit it. James grins and leans dangerously close. “And besides I think I have a better idea.”

Before I can ask what makes him think his idea is so much better than mine, James has opened the door and shoved me out into the hallway right in the middle of a group of students.

I stumble but I could have caught myself and easily escaped potential humiliation at the hands of my peers. Unfortunately, my robe gets caught as the heavy door swings shut behind me and I tumble forward, falling face first onto the stone floor of the hall in front of all those faces. Surprise turns to amusement, and the hall fills with titters and barely muffled giggles.

“Lily, are you alright?” Tiffany Crowley asks, coming forward with Remus Lupin to help me up.

“Fine,” I grumble, blushing in embarrassment as my robe tears in the back when I get to my feet. Or I will be fine, as soon as I get a hold of James Potter so that I can murder him.

“Did you just trip?” Remus asks me, as Tiffany discreetly tries to fix the damage done to my robe like any good friend would do.

“Yea,” I answer then I remember that I’m supposed to be creating a diversion. I probably should’ve faked a horrible injury or something. “I mean – no – I was-”

“Snogging James Potter in the men’s room?”

I whip around just in time to find James Potter coming out of the loo behind me, and my despicable room mate Debbie McLaggen looking between the two of us with a sly grin. Still furious, I make a sudden move toward James, intending to make it clear through physical violence that we stick with my ideas from now on. But alas, Tiffany being the good friend that she is has her foot on my robe as she quickly tries to sew up the rip in the back with some subtle domestic magic. And so I repeat the process, only this time James catches me before I hit the ground.

“Thanks,” I mutter sarcastically when I end up with my face squished comfortably against his firm chest.

“Just being a gentleman,” James chuckles in my ear, as I press closer to him and use his body as a temporary support in order to regain my footing.

“SEE!” A shrill voice causes me and James to turn around. “See! I was right Kissy!” McLaggen continues to enthusiastically gloat to one of her devoted minions, looking at me and James. I’m temporarily distracted by the fact that she has a friend named Kissy. I can only imagine how she might have gotten that nickname.

“I knew they were secretly snogging! I knew it!” she exclaims, practically jumping up and down with excitement.

“Who?” I ask stupidly. But to my surprise James turns an alarming shade of red and glares at the banshee.

“Lily and James were snogging in the loo! Snogging in the loo! SNOGGING IN THE LOO!” she sings, making a kind of childish rhyme out of this latest piece of juicy gossip so that no one will ever forget it. “Look!” she squeals loudly, pointing at us. “They’re going to snog now!”

I look at James and realize how awkwardly close we still are, though I regained my footing ages ago. We separate from each other as we’ve just been burned and as if we really had been just caught snogging in the loo.

“Lily and James caught snogging in the loo!” McLaggen says in a singsong voice, and then to my horror her four minions take it up as well, amplifying it so that the entire castle can probably hear their miserably off key chanting. My face burns so hot that I lose all feeling in it and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be seen within two feet of James Potter without hearing, “Snogging in the loo! Snogging in the l -”

“SHUT UP!” someone roars. But it’s not James, or me, but a furious Tiffany Crowley that barrels past us and runs right up to McLaggen.

“James and Lily were NOT snogging in the loo! Or anywhere else for that matter!” she shouts loud enough for anyone in the castle to hear.

“You don’t know that!” McLaggen pouts.

“Neither do you!” Tiffany points out. “But what I do know is that Lily has a boyfriend that she would never cheat on! And I think I would know if MY boyfriend were snogging my friend in the loo!” Tiffany looks back at us fiercely, with a glance so full of trust and loyalty that my eyes sting and I’m forced to look away.

“But Tiffany you didn’t know that when Dante Zabini was your boyfriend he was shagging me!” the banshee reminds her, tossing her beautiful hair over her shoulder, giving us a better view of the ample bossom that has turned many a male head.

“Zabini’s a slimeball! James isn’t anything like that!” Tiffany defends her boyfriend who carefully avoids her gaze. I swallow a lump in my throat wondering if today will be the day that I lose two of my closest friends.

“Oh, really? Have you seen the way he looks at Evans? Have you heard how he still hits on Evans all the time?” One of McLaggen’s cronies – Kissy - pipes up smirking at us. I turn an even deeper shade of red because I know that there’s truth in this statement, and so does everyone else standing around, even Tiffany. Though she never took it seriously, until now.

“Poor Tiffany, can’t stop her men from straying,” McLaggen giggles, with a pitying shake of her head at little Tiffany who still seems shell shocked by Kissy’s statement of truth. “Poor girl’s going to end up exactly like her abandoned father or perhaps her mother and her ex-husbands-”

“I AM NOTHING LIKE MY MOTHER YOU – YOU – YOU WHORE!” Tiffany screams, pulling out her wand.

“MS. CROWLEY!” Professor Sprout, the new and inexperienced Herbology Professor appears. “LANGUAGE!”

Tiffany ignores the professor and aims a hex at McLaggen. The banshee shrieks as her precious locks get covered in some kind of green slime. Then to my utter shock and disbelief, instead of whimpering and hopping about as she normally would, McLaggen shakes out her slimy locks and pulls herself up to her full height.

“No one ruins MY hair and gets away with it!” she says, launching herself at Tiffany with hands outstretched like claws, and judging by the length of her florescent pink fingernails, they pretty much are claws. Tiffany drops her wand and meets her head on. She jumps onto McLaggen and starts pulling her hair, and slapping her. McLaggen screams shrilly and scratches at her with her razor sharp long finger nails, but despite these lethal weapons, Tiffany is clearly winning. None of us help her because we’re in a complete state of shock. It’s so unexpected out of both of them to react in this manner, and in all my years in Hogwarts I don’t think I ever saw a cat fight quite like this one.

“GIRLS! STOP! MS. MCLAGGEN! MS. CROWLEY! STOP!” Professor Sprout screams foolishly trying to physically tear them apart, only to get kicked in the face by McLaggen. “AH!”

“HELP!” James cries out suddenly. “Help! Professor Sprout is hurt! HELP!”

Professor Sprout is fine, and the fight’s basically over, but these apparently are the magic words. No less than five professors come racing around the corner, evidently coming from the staff room. So, it turns out that James and I did finally manage a diversion with a little bit of help from McLaggen and Tiffany. When James grabs my hand and pulls me away from the crowd, Tiffany is all scratched up and being awarded a month’s worth of detention, but she’s victoriously grinning at the whimpering McLaggen who will never bother her or perhaps any of us ever again. Remus is staring at Tiffany with a mixture of awe and profound admiration as if he’s just met a goddess that he isn’t quite sure whether to fear or revere. And when Tiffany catches sight of his gaze she blushes in a way that I’m sure James was never able to make her blush. It makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe James isn’t the marauder that managed to capture her heart.

“My Aunt’s probably going to need some more time so here,” James says, thrusting something into my hand as soon as we round the corner and the sounds of the crowd have faded away. I yank my thoughts away from Tiffany and Remus and force myself back to the task at hand. Or rather the task that is physically in my hands.

I gasp, nearly dropping the object in my surprise.

“Hey! Careful with that! That’s Zonko’s newest product, they haven’t even released it for testing yet!” James warns me, holding out his hand as if he thinks I might drop it again. I gingerly turn the brown package (that strongly resembles a muggle whoopee cushion) over in my hands knowing that if I drop it the hallway will instantly be filled with the overpowering stench of dung.

“What’s the matter Evans, haven’t you ever seen a dungbomb before?” James asks me, grinning.

“I happen to have four in my trunk,” I inform him. After practically living with the Marauders for the past six years, me and my roommates started packing them in our trunks in case of emergency retaliation. Fortunately, the Marauders (after James fell in love with me and Grace nearly hexed Sirius’s bits off) finally decided to leave us alone… most of the time (which is why I still have them).

“Wow Evans, I’m impressed,” James says, whistling in admiration. “I didn’t think you had it in you to bring a forbidden object to school,” he mocks me with a grin.

“Shut up,” I growl back at him, “And show me how to use this thing because it looks nothing like any of the ones I have in my trunk,” I grudgingly admit, searching and failing to find the trigger on it. As I turn it over it grows warmer in my hands and colorful enchanted drawings of flames start to dance across the surface.

“Well that’s because it’s Zonko’s newest model,” James repeats.

“Which means…?” I wait for him to finish, spinning it faster and faster between my hands, watching as the drawings grow brighter, and more vivid, and appear to glow like real flames that blur, and burn between my fingertips.

“Which means…” James tapers off, cocking his head as he watches the flaming dungbomb in my hands with interest. “I haven’t the foggiest idea as to what it does.”

“What?!” My eyes widen but the dungbomb keeps spinning, and spinning, and I realize now that I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to. It’s too late. I’ve already accidentally activated it.

“So, what do we do now?” I ask, trying to hang on to the thing, even though it’s spinning so fast now that it’s threatening to take off.

“Er…”

“James!” I squeak, suddenly hearing the sounds of footsteps in the distance heading this way. We need to figure out how to stop it before they get anywhere near here! I have a very, very bad feeling about what’s going to happen when this thing goes off. Not to mention what might happen if a professor catches me with it!

“I’m thinking,” James assures me.

“Think faster!” I hiss.

“Okay!” James says, decidedly rubbing his hands together. “Lily, on the count of three you’re going to let go of it.”

“Let go!? Can’t you-”

“One… two… Th”

I shriek as I feel an explosion of heat at my fingertips, and I throw the atomic dungbomb high into the air before James finishes. It arches above our heads, whirring faster, and faster until it suddenly bursts into flames. In a flash, James pushes me up against the wall, shielding me with his body. I cling to him, watching in awe as the flames disperse and a shower of ash rains down, covering the entire corridor.

“Are you alright?” James asks me, quietly as the soot rains down around us, almost like snow. Except… I reach out as if in a trance and brush some of ash from his soft inky hair, and it’s then that the unbearable stench strikes me. The ash, it smells like dung. The entire corridor now reeks of it. And if we stick around we’re going to be in deep shit. Literally.

James seems to reach the same conclusion as I do because he takes my hand and we start to run. I can hear the distant sound of alarmed voices and rapid footsteps, but James and I already halfway down the hall, leaving a trail of footprints in our wake. All they’d have to do is follow our tracks…

I cast a quick spell over my shoulder, and a giant burst of wind picks up the ashes, scattering them in all directions. I point my wand at my traitorous trainers, and James quickly scourgifies any of the remaining dung smelling ash from himself.

“I… think… I… know… why… it… hasn’t… been… released… yet,” I gasp between greedy, gulping breaths as James and I try to double back around to the staff room where we left Hope before someone manages to pick up the trail.

“Why’s that?” James asks me, barely breaking a sweat as we whip around another corner. Merlin, why does he have to be so damn good at everything? Even now when we’re running for our lives and my lungs are about ready to explode, James looks as if he’s just shooting the breeze.

“It… needs… more… testing… LOTS… more… testing…”

“You think?” James quips, grinning as he gradually slackens our pace, giving me an opportunity to finally breathe.

“You… can… tell… Zonkos… that… I’ll stick with… traditional… dungbombs… and that… you… want your… money back.”

James laughs and pulls me toward him, casually slinging an arm around my shoulders.

“I’ll let Zonkos know that you disapprove,” he whispers, grinning. “But I think I underestimated you Evans.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. Though I’ve already caught my breath, the close proximity of James Potter’s dangerously handsome face nearly causes me to lose it once more. He wraps his other arm around my shoulder, turning me so that I’m fully facing him. I’m forced to look into his gorgeous laughing hazel eyes and try to remain calm and breathing at the same time. An impossible task.

“I was wrong,” he continues, leaning closer to me and grinning.

“Wrong?” I whisper, as my heart skips a beat at his answering nod.

“You’re astoundingly good at breaking the rules,” he compliments me, scanning my face closely as if I really had taken him by surprise. Truth be told I think I was more shocked by my actions than he was. But I’m not going to lie. I had fun, a lot of fun. In fact I feel so liberated from that prank that I begin to wonder how it might feel to go a little bit further…

“You know,” I whisper, pressing closer to him and running one of my hands slowly up his chest. “Sometimes I wish I could break all the rules.”

“What’s stopping you?” James asks, his eyes darkening as my hand gently traces his jaw line. I lean toward him, overwhelmed by James and the reaction that only he can create within me. All those rules, all those reasons: reputations, trust, loyalty, friendships, suddenly everything that once seemed so important is millions of miles away and utterly meaningless. Because it’s James, and it always has been.

“I’m not sure anymore,” I admit so softly that I don’t even know if James hears me.

“James! Lily!” the voice comes from a long way off and every ounce of my being is telling me to ignore it. But James releases me slowly, ever so slowly. He reaches up and gently takes my hand, taking it away from his face and lightly pressing his lips to it before letting it go. Now he’s relinquishing his hold on my shoulders just as painstakingly sluggishly as he did with my hand, as if letting go is the very last thing he wants to do. But the outside world calls to us in the form of Hope.

“How’d you like our diversion?” I ask her, unable to keep a little bit of pride from creeping into my voice.

“Great, it was great I’m sure,” Hope says distractedly.

“You didn’t get caught, did you?” James queries, frowning.

“No, no, nothing like that, but James I went to see your mother,” she tells us, pausing to take a breath.

“And?” James grabs her shoulder, compelling her to look up at him. It’s then that we see the deep sadness, and the wild anxious fear traced all over her weary beaten face, and all at once I remember that this isn’t some prank that Wilkes is playing with us but the lives of two innocent students, one of whom happens to be my best friend.

“You were right Lily, she had it,” Hope confirms. I don’t feel any relief though, because Hope looks worse off than when she went to see Heather.

“She had it?” I echo quietly.

“Yes, she did, but I was too late,” Hope whispers sadly, hopelessly pressing a hand to her forehead as James’s face goes ghostly pale and all of the blood freezes over in my veins. “The Death Eaters… They got to her first.”

A/N: Sorry this took so long. To make a long story short my sister destroyed my laptop with a virus. I always laughed when people used this excuse but then it happened to me. It’s finally fixed but I’m going to be very, very busy with school. I’m going to make every effort to finish this story though and since writing is my stress reliever hopefully you will see a post soon. But no guarantees! I may have some extra time on my hands this week so there’s a possibility that I might be able to get one more out but no promises! Anyway what’d you think? I realize the Tiffany vs. McLaggen fight was already done, but I wanted Tiffany to get her chance to finally finish it, if you know what I mean. Hope you all liked the prank, I tried very hard to put some humor and James into this chapter because many complained that he was missing and that it was getting a little too sad. I realize that this also might sound a little like the scene in OotP but once I noticed it I tried to make it different. If you have questions just let me know!