The Seventh Year

The Seventh Year Saga

Chapter Two

Lily Green Eyes

Sarah Brown Eyes, don't be shy, now

Sarah Brown Eyes oughta take a chance

~Ragtime

Then it clicked. He remembered what Narcissa Black had said, mistaking him for another. The last marauder was missing. He closed his mouth, gulped, and whispered into James' irate face.

"James, where's Sirius?"

The marauder eyed him viciously, but sat down and buried his face in his hands. "He went out last night to look for you, around nine. I don't know where the hell he is now."

Peter sat down next to Remus. "It's horrible. We were up half the night waiting for you, and Sirius left last night. James nearly fainted when he read the headline, reckoned you'd both been killed. Might have owled the police to see who the victims were if you hadn't shown up, as James was nearly in tears--"

"Shut up Peter; no one wants to hear it," James muttered, steeply dropping from incensed anger to empty despair. "Why don't you sit down and hold still before you fall out the window and get yourself killed?" Remus raised an eyebrow at him, trying to signal him to get a hold on himself. James rose to pace by the window, hoping to see his missing friend on the street below.

"All right," the black-haired boy exhaled. "What now?"

Remus was ready with a solution. "Wait for Romulus to show up. He's meeting us here, remember? You should have seen the look on his face when I told him I was living with three other guys for the summer."

Peter laughed nervously, trying to gage the silent James' thoughts. James turned from the window and grinned wickedly. "Good old Romulus," he murmured. "Barmy bloke. Hope he's made it here alive."

_

"Stramaledetto bastardo!" the young man screamed as he slammed on the brake of the muggle car to keep from colliding with a passer-by. The screech of the tires pierced his ears as the near-victim marched up to the car and banged on the window as if he meant to break it down. His long hair was falling into his face and his eyes were half shut, surrounded by blue circle of exhaustion. His face was growing redder by the second and he nearly spit on the young driver.

"Who gave you a license, you prat? You nearly killed me!"

"I am sorry--"

"Why don't I shove your head down the loo and see how sorry you are th - Remus?" His shoulders slumped forward as if he were about to collapse. "Good God, Remus, I've been looking all over this place for you since ten last night."

The driver smiled and shook his head. "Romulus. A pleasure to meet you too," he added with a grin. "Who are you?"

The man didn't answer the question. "Romulus Filardi? Like, Remus Lupin's long-lost twin?" Romulus nodded and Sirius let out a disbelieving, "Ha!"

"What is very funny?" Romulus questioned in far-from-mastered English.

"It's just that I think we're looking for the same person. I'm Sirius Black. I'm one of Remus's best mates. We're living together."

Romulus raised an eyebrow.

"No, no, not like that," Sirius laughed. "We're all mates, that's all. Helping each other get girls, as it were."

Romulus smiled and nodded. "You say you too are looking to my brother?"

"They're probably looking for us now; let's run back to the apartment and start from there."

"Yes, yes. Get in."

Sirius sat on the passenger's side and drew in his long legs. They were squashed against the dashboard.

"There is a way to move the seat back, but I do not know it." Romulus started the engine.

"Doesn't look like you know muggle cars very well. Why didn't you just floo here?"

Romulus peered down the road. "It was too - how do you say it?" He scratched his chin. "Do you think we have space to drive the way? The car is not big but there are many people in the road."

Sirius turned away, puzzled at the obvious change of the subject but decided not to press it. "I bet she can fit. Anyway, she's a beautiful car. It would be a shame to run her into something."

"The car is a Quattroporte," Romulus stated with pride. "Only thirteen were made." He tried to put the car in gear and sped forward, tires squealing in protest, nearly missing the side of the Daily Prophet building.

Sirius panted. "And they gave one to you?"

In fits and bursts, the pair inched towards the flat, leaving a path of terrified pedestrians behind them. Sirius tapped Romulus on the shoulder after he thought his heart had stopped beating. "Hey Rom," he said, "What d'you say to me taking a turn in the driver's seat?" Romulus gladly gave up his place and Diagon Alley breathed easily.

"So, Romulus," Sirius began with a casual glance towards Remus's look-alike, "Remus never told us how you ended up in Italy."

Romulus laughed and peered out the window into the overpowering sunlight. "We lived with my mother in Scotland for several years before she decided we would do better at boarding schools. We could not get - how do you say? Scholarships? Yes, scholarships to the same school so I went to Italy and Remus went here." He gestured to the horizon. "England. We were young, five years only."

Sirius nodded, half listening, half-concentrating on the road in front of him. "What school, did you say?"

"It was a long time ago. Elementary was," he searched for the name, "the Scuola . . . Pesci Martedì. My magic school, like your Hogwarts, is Stregistruza."

"Lovely," Sirius muttered without hearing what Romulus had said. He pulled over to the side of a building, there being no difference between sidewalk and road. The two boys left the car for passers-by to wonder about and walked the few feet to the alleyway. Sirius pulled Romulus's reluctant arm and tore him away from his precious vehicle and into a place he certainly did not feel like entering. It was day, but still the alley was dark and dank, filled with the stench of smoke and scattered with remains of decayed animals. Romulus stepped around anything unusual looking, keeping his eyes on the ground so as not to ruin his shoes.

Sirius pushed open a door, stepping around the unconscious girls on the doorstep. Romulus did a double take, and tapped Sirius on the back, motioning to the figures laid out on the ground.

"Don't worry about them," Sirius muttered darkly. "My cousins, on the Powder, the both of them. Just avoid them." He pulled the door back with one arm and motioned for Romulus to enter with the other. The Italian picked around the figures and gladly stepped into the warm, bright building.

"What you mean, on the Powder?" he queried.

"I mean, they smoke Powder. Floo Powder," he added before Romulus could ask.

"Why?"

"How the hell should I know? Saw us trying it one day and picked it up themselves, I suppose. Isn't my business," Sirius responded gruffly as he led Romulus up the staircase.

"It is you who smokes it, then? So you are like them," Romulus piped up, proud of his analysis.

"No." Sirius turned to face him. "Don't tell me you never tried anything. You're seventeen too - you're a wimp if you haven't."

Romulus turned to climb the next flight of stairs. "I have not. I am a good person, good student. I do not belong of these things."

Sirius skipped a step to be ahead of him. "What makes you think you are so noble?"

"I do not live in this." He gestured around the building. "If your summer home is this, I do not like to see Hogwarts. I live in a villa on Mediterranean in summer and my school is rich, rich, rich . . . I do not want to come here."

"Why did you, then?" Sirius challenged.

"The school is closing. Everyone must go somewhere else."

"So there goes your beautiful school," Sirius said satisfactorily, assuming he was on top. Romulus turned for the last stairwell.

"Yes, but I get yours, don't I?"

Sirius smiled a strained grin. "If you must." He skipped ahead to the apartment door. Romulus tried to hide how tired his legs were.

"Why could you not afford an apartment on a lower floor?" he panted.

Sirius leaned towards him with a grin. "Why didn't you just apparate up here?" Romulus stared at the floor, finally opposed. "That's what I thought. I think I should warn you now, Romulus: I don't take kindly to people walking on my turf. If you let me be, I'll let you be. I just want you to know that I've been here a long time and I know how to keep my spot."

"Do you think I would do something to take it?" Romulus showed a disbelief that Sirius knew was fake.

"You're a horrible actor, Rom. Don't think you can fool me." He pushed open the door as Romulus opened his mouth to protest, but promptly closed it when his mirror image looked back, but not at him.

"Sirius! We've been so worried about you. I'm so sorry I didn't catch you--"

Sirius held out his hand to silence him. "Remus, I haven't had a wink of sleep. Just let me sleep and you are forgiven." He chuckled at the formal language. "You know what, I'm glad you got back okay. It's not like you were in any danger, right?"

Both Remus and Romulus shifted uncomfortably. "There was a murder last night," Remus intoned. "Several murders." Romulus nodded after Remus said this.

Sirius turned to glare at his best friend's twin. "You knew about this? And you didn't tell me?"

Rom shrugged. "It was not important; you were tired." Remus turned as if first noticing that Romulus was there.

"Hey, Rom, come on in! How are you doing? Were you traveling all night?"

James peered out through the doorway. "Rom, old boy! How've you been?" He got up, strolled over to the doorway, and steered Romulus into the room. "Sit down, let's talk." James struck the Italian speechless, and Sirius was dumbfounded. He couldn't understand the immediate power that James commanded over Romulus. Sirius had lived with an easy confidence that had shielded him from the treachery of adolescent boys that he bestowed upon other students, but there was something about this Italian fellow that he could not match.

The party entered the apartment and found Peter Pettigrew snoring on the couch. His rat-like nose twitched slightly as he let out a breath. James tiptoed past him and whispered, "Let the bloke sleep - he's been up all night." A charity he was obviously not willing to grant himself or Sirius. James led the other three into the bedroom and they each sat on one of the four beds, uncomfortably peering at Romulus or Remus.

"Alright," James began. "The first thing I think Sirius wants to know more than the rest of us is why you didn't come back last night without telling us?"

Remus blushed and looked away. "I was busy . . ."

"Don't try and pull that," Sirius demanded. "I didn't nearly become road kill, thanks to your brother, to hear you tell me you were busy." The aggression in his voice was fully backed with anger, but everyone knew that Sirius would never do anything to Remus or James.

"I was with a friend. We met up at the Leaky Cauldron--I didn't know they would be there." He shrank from the unmerciful stares of Sirius and James that he could sense changing to amusement.

"And who is the lucky, er, friend?" James articulated.

Remus wanted to tell them, was longing to give them his news and the reason he was on cloud nine for half of the morning, but he didn't want Romulus to know. Didn't want him to know that there was something he desperately wanted, something he had wanted for so long that to lose it would be literally heartbreaking.

"Come on, Reme," egged Sirius.

"Cynthia," he muttered. James, always the most perceptive, was the first to decipher his muffled answer. He let out a huge, dramatic gasp.

"No! How did that happen? Oh my God, Remus!" As James spoke, the pitch of his fully developed voice ascended into a screech and Remus found it increasingly harder to hide his grin.

"Wait, what did he say?" Sirius begged.

James completely ignored him, but answered his question. "I can't believe you spent the night with Cynthia Lipton! What happened?"

Sirius nearly choked on the words. "Cynthia? As in the girl you've been infatuated with practically forever? You're supposed to take her out for an ice-cream or something first, mate!" Remus' jubilance spread throughout the room until Romulus was the only one who wasn't bouncing and laughing.

"We didn't sleep together or anything," Remus murmured, grinning modestly.

James caught sight of him. "Oh no, guys. Rom's got the right idea here."

Sirius turned with a jokingly angry expression. "Why can't we celebrate, James?"

"Look at us. We're acting like girls. That's the sign of the apocalypse."

_

On a balcony overlooking the rugged landscape of Scotland, an unrecognizable man perched. He didn't simply stand, but was positioned erect, as if frozen to the stone. His eyes were brought to a burning focus on a figure far below, shrunk with perspective. The man did not move a muscle of his blade-thin body, but the tense and deliberate self-discipline of his position proved that his limbs were deadly when in use. The man's breath was deep and silent, the rise and fall of his chest imperceptible.

He had assumed the look of a lion hiding in the grass, hunting its prey, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. His eyes kept a deadly aim on their target, a figure scurrying towards the entrance of the stone tower, all that was left of a Scottish castle of long ago. The figure glanced up at the tower as it ran, squinting in the bright summer sunlight, trying to spy the tower enemy he had come to eliminate. Little did he know that the man he sought had different intentions.

He did not see the man on the balcony, perhaps because of his stillness, perhaps because the man did not want to be seen. The figure crouched to the ground and crawled the last few yards to the entrance and rested, making his fatal mistake. When he reached the ancient, arched doorway, he sat a few feet outside of it to rest before standing up to stroll, dignified, into the building. The man on the balcony didn't turn his head to see the figure, didn't even breath anymore, but waited. His face morphed into a nuance of the maniacal expression young boys wear who discover they can burn ants with a magnifying glass. His prey was right under the lens.

As the figure proudly stepped directly under the archway, the man blinked, letting his eyes roll into his head. He blinked, and the figure disappeared.

_

Lily Evans didn't know which was more unlikely, the fact that she was keeping a relationship with a muggle, or that her best friend had gotten together with the man she had been subconsciously snubbing for years. The day was built for opposites. She had flooed into London with her family and stayed to purchase books with her little sister. She hadn't expected Cynthia to be there, or for Cynthia to know her hotel phone number, either. What luck that they could meet in the city!

She sat in Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor and ordered two butterbeer floats, one for her and one for Petunia, before remembering that Petunia wasn't there and for once wasn't coming. The girl was fifteen and still tagged along wherever Lily went. Lily thought that maybe the girls could have been true friends, if they had been born in the same year to different mothers. The sister-sister dynamics were enough to turn off any compatible pair.

She sipped her quickly melting float and pushed the one she now reserved for Cynthia in to the shade of the table umbrella. That was her Petunia, always being shaded by Lily from the things that could harm her. But when it came down to the line, Lily backed into her own life and left Petunia to fend for herself. Well, that was her job, she reasoned. An older sister is supposed to prepare her sibling to deal with these things.

Cynthia hailed her from across the cobblestone street, and Lily waved back, motioning her to take a seat. Cynthia threaded a path between the shopping students and filled the empty wicker chair beside Lily's.

"Here." Lily pushed the float towards her best friend. Cynthia dug in with her spoon and licked the cold dessert off with the sparkle of gossip in her eye.

"How is it that you're going out with Vee Dursley?" she asked delicately, a saucy grin playing at the edges of her lips.

Lily swallowed a spoonful of ice cream and, ignoring her friend's impish expression, stared off into the bustle of the street. "I don't know. It had been a while since we'd seen each other, a couple years at least. He'd really gotten in shape. Perfect summer crush, right?" She laughed, almost bitterly. "Didn't quite work out that way. He wanted more than I did. Kept talking about Christmas and next summer and forever . . ." She turned her head to directly face her best friend. "I should have broken it off, shouldn't I? I'll send him an owl when we get to school. Thanks, Cynth. You always have good ideas."

Cynthia laughed. "It was your idea, Lily. How's he looking these days, anyway? Maybe I'll take him when he's free." She laughed, and then muffled it with her hand, shaking her head. "I forgot! I'm taken now," she added, pulling off the claddagh ring on her right hand and flipping it over so it faced the other way. "My boy Remus."

Lily smiled half-heartedly, and inwardly frowned. The Irish were always so foolish, and though Cynthia was only half, the trait certainly showed through. Hadn't she realized what the marauders did every month? Even though she wasn't friends with Remus as Lily was, couldn't she have guessed? Every full moon, Lily stood at her window and watched four figures scurry to the cover of that lethal tree that broke her arm in her first year, when she had tried to follow and see where they went. Remus had apologized later, and explained the truth to her. Focusing on this memory, she added, "He's a good guy. He'll be good to you."

"He better be. If he's not, I have the airport security guy to fall back on."

"What?" Lily asked in disbelief.

"He gave me his number!" Cynthia pulled her textbook out of her bag and flipped to the inside cover.

"No way!" The girls giggled and Cynthia stuffed the book back into her bag. "But seriously, Cynth, you have to promise me to be careful with him."

"Why? It's not as if he's dangerous. You just said he was a good guy."

"I know, but just promise me." She held out her hand, and Cynthia sighed, but gripped it.

"Okay. I'll be careful with him. I've always looked out for myself, Lily." As she said this, she swept her arm back and knocked over her butterbeer float. "Oops! I guess I can take that back, then," she added as she mopped up the mess. "Oh, look it's ruined my tarot cards! Those were two galleons from Pandora's Box - I'll have to stop by and pick up some new ones." She fished through her pursed money, but Lily was quicker.

"You're broke, right? Let me lend you the money. Trust me, I know you'll pay me back." Lily flipped two gold coins at her best friend and stood up. "C'mon, let's get a move on. How about I come with you to get this and then you come with me to get school supplies?"

"Sounds like a plan!"

The girls left a tip for Florean Fortescue and started for Pandora's Box. The day was beautiful, and everywhere they looked, they found friends and schoolmates breathless and smiling, soaking up the sky and the brilliant sun. The weather seemed to change as they made their way down the ancient street to the darker side of the town, leading into Knockturn Alley.

"I've never been down here before," Lily whispered as they drew nearer to the apothecary's shop. She kept her voice soft and low, as if she were hiding from something. "Well, not since my first year." She remembered the origin of her permanent fear of portkeys when, on her first trip to visit Diagon Alley, she sat on the steps outside of the apothecary's shop where her father had planted her and her brother, Harry. They were to wait for him while he went into a pub to get some water for Petunia, who was feeling nauseous.

"Don't go anywhere," he had said. "I don't want to lose you."

"Don't worry, Daddy." Lily clutched her little brother tightly and smiled. "It'll be fine. Just a few minutes." Her father winked at her and slipped Petunia away into the crowd. The two siblings played games and sang songs, but after several minutes went by, Harry grew restless and pawed at Lily's hands, trying to break free. She let go for a moment, just long enough to smile to a dark-haired boy about her age who had been watching her. Just long enough to miss seeing Harry run down the street. She panicked, turning every which way to try to spot him.

"Harry?" she screamed. "Harry, where are you?" The boy she had smiled at ran over.

"Hey," he panted. "Can I help you?"

Lily nodded. "It's my brother--he's disappeared! I don't know where he went." She spoke in broken, frantic sentences.

"Alright, calm down. I'll help you look for him." The boy patted her hand rather awkwardly and Lily nodded, unable to calm down. "Let's ask around first," he suggested. They ran through the crowd, pulling aside strangers and inquiring: did you see a little boy? Four years old, about this height, green eyes? They had no success, though they continued for at least fifteen minutes. No one had seen him. It was as if he had disappeared into thin air.

"I can't believe this," Lily moaned as she leaned on the boy's shoulder in despair. They were resting on the steps to the apothecary shop, and the sun was lowering. She had no ideas where her father and her sister were, or where her brother was, for that matter. "I lost him! He could be dead."

"Don't think like that," the boy said soothingly. "Maybe he's with your father."

"You don't understand! Harry's like my son! I care about him much more than parents do. And I promised to watch him, I promised to keep him safe. Oh god, my dad's gonna kill me--Harry Evans, where are you?" she pleaded to the absent child

The boy gave her a quizzical look. "Harry Evans? That must mean you're an Evans too, right? I've heard of you--Lily Evans."

"You heard of me?"

"Your hair is infamous. Hello. Nice to meet you. I'm James Potter."

Lily grinned, allowing the introduction to drag her into a world of pretend, a defense mechanism she employed as a temporary eye of the storm. She was, she supposed, Harry's real mother. What a perfect scenario. And James Potter was very cute - she tried it on for size. She was Lily Potter, looking for her son with James Potter, searching together for their little Harry Potter, protecting him against all evil. Her reveries smiled to James, and he smiled back.

"Come on. Let's keep going." The pair suddenly looked up, startled, as the cry of a little boy split the air around it. Lily stood up and frantically searched for her brother as if the look in her eyes would call him to her.

"Where is he? Where did that come from?"

"I think it was from that alley," James pointed to the narrow, dark space, ever so faintly illuminated by a green light, between the two buildings. "I don't really think I want to go in there, though."

Lily grabbed his shoulder. "I'm not going in there alone! And I have to find him." James nodded in consent, and the two continued into the alleyway. Lily stared into the darkness, trying to adjust her eyes to the dim light. After standing in the dark for a few seconds, she could see James's form next to her, and the uncertain outline of two quite certain figures further down the alley.

One was a man, tall and slim, possessing long hair that seemed to reflect the light of his wand, who didn't look at all happy to be stuck in a grimy back street. The other was a child, a small boy who struggled to free himself from the man's grasp. Suddenly, the man whispered something, the green light flashed brilliantly, and the boy slumped into a lifeless position, sprawled at the man's feet. Lily forgot all of her fear and ran up to the child to save him from whatever the man had done, but he was too quick, and flipped his wand so that it pointed at her. The light from it grew in strength, until she had to shield her eyes from the harsh, unending beam.

"Miss Evans, I presume? I was waiting for Mr. Potter to lead you here. As you see, I have your brother, thanks to your negligence and Potter's . . . charm."

Lily whirled around and stared at James. "What is he talking about?" she whispered, angry but reserving her energy for a bigger battle.

James shook his head. "Don't ask me - he's playing us both here. I had nothing to do with this."

The man snickered a cold, arrogant laugh. "Say what you wish to say, Mr. Potter. The fact is that I had a joke up my sleeve for you as well as her. Now that I have you both here, we can leave." He strode forward quickly, leaving Harry's body to fall into the mud. James tugged at Lily's sleeve, trying to get her o move, but she couldn't, not with that terrible light in her face. It burned into her eyes and she stumbled backwards, losing her footing and knocking James into the ground. The two scrambled to get up, but the man was too close and the entrance of the alley was too far. Lily got on her feet, and leaned to help James up, but the man leaned forwards and grabbed her arm before she could, and reached into his pocket to pull out a small key.

As soon as he touched it, Lily felt as if a fishing hook had caught her head and swiftly jerked her backwards, into nowhere. In her last glimpse of the alley, she saw James grab onto her disappearing arm and pull, pull with all his might. The forces pulling her two ways seemed to split her, drag in to two separate nowheres. Her eyes burned, her body screamed, and her brain nearly burst as it tried to stretch itself further than it could. For an instant, she couldn't feel anything, was separated from her body and saw her self stretched, so thin she was transparent, the green light branding her eyes. With horror, Lily saw her eyes change, from brown to green, the same deep, evil green that emitted from the man's wand.

She was conscious of her body again and felt a scream emit from her lips, excruciating pain wracking her limbs, a knife cutting her in two parts. She could feel the mysterious man's scorching touch on her arm, searing her flesh, and James's ice cold grip on her other arm burning her with equal force. The tug suddenly let go of its hold from both sides, and she felt her mind give way to unconsciousness and she fell to the ground in the alley, smashing her head against the hard, brick wall of the narrow back street, lying in a dead faint next to a dead boy.

Lily, caught up in the past, didn't see Cynthia walk into the shop.

"Hey, Lil," she called behind her. "Are you coming in?" Lily stood on the steps of the Apothecary's shop, watching the gap between the two buildings. If she crossed it to reach Pandora's Box, she would half expect the old, anonymous enemy to emerge from the darkness clutching her beloved little brother, sporting another portkey and an annoying, tenacious Potter to send her St. Mungos for a month again. Lily advanced towards the other building, trying to hold down her fear. Nothing was in there. She was just making a big deal over nothing.

Lily grabbed some over-certain courage and strode right in to the shadowy space between the buildings. She peered into the darkness with the eyes that the unknown man had bestowed upon her, that ever since that incident had been more perceptive, better able to see in the dark than the light. Sometimes she even felt herself peering into people's minds, gazing at their emotions. It was a power that scared her and pleased her, and she wondered if the man had meant for his spell to affect her this way.

Without warning, a suspicious figure appeared in the shadows. Lily's eyes widened, her heart quickened, and her breath shortened. What a fool she was to come back here! The figure moved, slowly loping with ever-increasing confidence towards her. Lily felt heat rising in her cheeks and white spots falling before her eyes. Her nervous brain felt the pain of being torn in two, the stretch of her mind over too far a distance. With a scream, she collapsed backwards onto the pavement and into the sun.

"Lil! Lily, are you alright?" Cynthia's clear voice brought her back to reality. Out of the alley a figure walked into the daylight - it was - James Potter?

"You okay, Lily?" he inquired with a puzzled, mocking expression. He extended his hand to help her up.

Lily rolled over onto her stomach and pushed herself up to a standing position, brushing the dust off her jeans. "I'm perfectly fine, no thanks to you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that this is the second times you've given me a scare in that alley. Why don't you give it a rest, or I might have a heart attack."

James's smug façade lifted for a few seconds, just long enough to show insecurity. "Now, Lily, don't tell me you still hold that grudge! I told you a million times - I had nothing to do with that!"

"So you say. But what about -" Lily didn't finish. She had spotted a man standing right behind James, a man whose appearance distinctly excused Lily's lack of a comeback. He was tall and muscular, with a look of self-discipline but with an air of fun and excitement as well. He seemed to possess a magnetic quality that drew everyone's gaze towards him. Lily could tell that Cynthia was having a distinctly hard time staying at her position on the doorstep of Pandora's Box.

_

Romulus left the small flat after James, his excuse being that he was hungry and wanted to eat as well. Of course, he knew that breakfast wasn't James's real reason either - Rom had seen the look on his face when he had peered out the window and saw a strawberry-blond beauty striding towards the Greek knick-knack shop, friend in tow. This, he reasoned, must be the Evans girl.

As he reached the bright sunlight, he shielded his eyes with his hand, and decided that the redhead was much more delectable than the blond. "You are the Lily Evans?" he asked the blond, who stood on the steps of the shop.

She shook her head with a flirtatious flip of her hair. "Nope, but for you, I could be." She laughed and assumed a preppy grin. "I'm your girlfriend, remember?" She dropped the flirtatious persona and assumed a direct attitude. "Lily's the one over there, about to blow up Potter. But you of all people should know who she is."

Romulus turned to the redhead, and grinned at her charmingly. "Ciao, Miss Evans. I am Romulus Filardi."

Rom extended his hand but Lily didn't shake, just looked at him inquisitively. "That's funny," she said softly. "You two don't look a thing alike." She sensed a shift of his appearances, something that wasn't quite Remus, almost under the surface of his skin. She shook her head, and the slight difference disappeared.

"What are you talking about, Lily?" Cynthia inquired. "They're identical! I can just barely tell them apart, now that I know they're different people."

"We do look a bit different. We are . . . how do you say . . . fraternizes?"

Lily shook her head and laughed a clean, pure laugh that seemed to melt James to the ground. "No, no. Fraternal twins - that's what you mean." She looked at him oddly again, a look that clearly stated that his appeal had lessened, as if by something he had said. She smiled and continued into the Greek Shop with her friend, but Rom felt that there was something she knew about him, without him even realizing he had told it to her. This plan was working so well - everyone believed that Remus and he were really twins. What could be done with charms and potions was amazing. Lily seemed to be the only one who wasn't fooled.

James sighed. "Looks like you have something I don't, Rom. Maybe someday she'll warm up to me." He stated this hopefully, but the despair in his eyes promised that this outcome wasn't possible. Romulus smiled to himself. No, he thought. Lily and James must never be together.

_

"Right, Petunia," Lily said as she snapped her suitcase shut. "Time to go. Are you ready? Everything packed?" An annoyed nod answered her. "Good. Cynthia, we're meeting my parents at the station. Are yours coming?"

Cynthia lovingly tucked her brand-new tarot cards into her packed clothing and closed her suitcase. "Nope. I'm going to owl them when we arrive."

"Ok, that's it, then." Remus appeared in the doorway of Cynthia's room, where the three girls had spent the night, with a cart to carry their bags to the Knight Bus that would carry the Hogwarts students to King's Cross station. The three seventh years and one sixth year made their way down the crowded street of Diagon Alley and boarded the bus, cleared of beds but full to the brim with students. Remaining from the regular bus rides were about thirty small, wooden chests that Petunia supposed were for holding luggage were suspended from the ceiling, each with many tiny drawers on each side of it. As the foursome walked on the bus, Petunia jumped and gave a shout in shock when she saw a long, thin arm descend from the case nearest and latch its fingers onto her suitcase.

"Petunia, be quiet. It's just the way they store your bags," Lily said disapprovingly as Petunia smoothed her countenance and tried to look casual. The arm in turn pulled each of their suitcases up towards the chest and quickly, resting her bag in the palm of its hand, shrank it until it fit into one of the tiny drawers on its side. A label appeared on that drawer, reading 'Hogwarts, Gryffindor, 6^th Year, Petunia Evans.'

The group pushed themselves further into the crowd, and waited for the ride to begin. The driver pulled a long lever down to the floor, and the bus stretched out, growing under Petunia's feet. The rest of Diagon Alley, and then, as they left the magical haven, the Muggle buildings they banged by seemed to squeeze and narrow themselves to make up for the horizontal stretch of the bus.

Cynthia and Remus settled themselves against the wall of the bus as it crashed through London towards King's Cross Station. Petunia held onto the anonymous person next to her and watched Lily with the eye that only a sister can have, observing the movements and facial expressions that shifted so subtly that Petunia could barely decipher their meaning. She sensed a great confusion inside of Lily, the thought of many things happening in her life that she didn't understand. That emotion quickly abandoned Lily when she seemed to have thought of something that came as a great shock.

The bus came to crashing halt that sent the foremost passengers flying against the windshield. Lily exited her inner thoughts and hustled towards the open door of the bus, grabbing Petunia and signaling for Cynthia and Remus to follow her. She strode ahead so quickly that Petunia jogged to keep up as they entered the station, upset at the quick change in her sister's mood.

"Lily? What about our bags?" She was scared to even ask the question, seeing the look of talk-to-me-and-you-die upon Lily's face.

"The bags will be taken to the train from the bus. They labeled the drawers with your house for a reason. Use your head."

Cynthia noticed Lily's attitude and left Remus's side to try to match her best friend's brisk pace.

"What's up, Lil?"

Lily turned to Cynthia with a sour grin on her face. She stared sullenly at the sky, trying to express the volcano that had exploded inside her head. "You know, I was always looking forward to being Head Girl this year," she began, spitting out the words as if they were poison. "But I realized on the bus that it means that I am going to spend the entire year living in a separate tower with the head boy, starting with sharing a compartment with him on the train."

Cynthia, Petunia, and Remus ran so to keep up with Lily, and she strode briskly through the barrier without looking back. The threesome came through to the other side panting, and saw Lily standing by the parchment posted to the brick wall, showing the compartment assignments for the Head Boy and Girl and the prefects.

"So," Cynthia wheezed. "Who is it? Who's the Head Boy?"

Lily pressed her finger against a name on the sheet, digging her index nail into the parchment. "James Potter," she hissed. "James Potter."

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