#***writing

The man raised his cheerful eyes from the newspaper, and peeped at her for a few seconds with his most innocent look. When her severe expression made it clear that he couldn’t get easily out of this one, he tried to hide his sheepish smile behind the publication.

“Something for James. I’m waiting for the owl to come back to send it over,” he muttered, hoping that she would be satisfied with this answer.

Of course, she wasn’t.

“Fleamont,” Mrs. Potter took a step toward the brown wrapping, and lifted it in the air to inspect it. “I swear to Merlin, if you get my son into detention once more -”

Mr. Potter clicked his tongue on his palate, and dropped the Daily Prophet on his lap, half-purposefully slapping the Minister of Magic’s squeamish face, “May I remind you, darling, that this was an accident. Minerva oughtn’t to punish her students because-”

“Somebody’s hair has turned into sheep fur? No, surely not,” Mrs. Potter burst, trying to decipher the letters that labelled the bottle—for it was a bottle, in the parcel—through the thick paper. “Mind you, maybe when one or two students get such a relooking, one could think of a mistake in the shampoo brewing. But when half the staff walks around the castle with a fleece on their head for an entire week, with not charm to solve it-” When she looked down from the little package, her husband had found cover once more behind an outraged Minister of Magic. “ Fleamont .”

“Fine,” Mr. Potter said, sending the newspaper flying to the other end of the room. “I might have sent James some Mutton Mixture for testing last time, but this is a completely safe product.” He stood up, and gently took the parcel from his wife’s hand. “Which I am going to send right now, with a public owl, so there will be peace again under this roof.”

Mr. Potter left a little peck on his wife’s cheek, took his hat from the coat rail, and opened the door.

“Fleamont,” Mrs. Potter called again, “What is it for?”

She just heard the words “impress” and “girl” before she was alone for good in the house.

 ***

James’ feet-tapping had become so irksome that Sirius couldn’t get himself to gulp down any food anymore.

“Alright. What is it, Prongs?”

For an answer, James only beamed—and Sirius very much felt like throwing him the rest of his porridge square in the face. Hadn’t it been for Remus-

“What Pads is trying to say, Prongs,” the lanky boy articulated between two mouthfuls of tart, “Is that you’re fucking annoying, beating some dumb rhythm and looking like you’ve been told that Snivellus got bitten by a Blast-ended Skrewt.”

“Has he?” Peter shrilled. His eager expression faded when Sirius muttered that no, but he wished.

Ignoring this, James leaned toward the pumpkin juice carafe, placed between their four plates.

“I have a plan,” he whispered, and his eyes immediately darted to the redheaded girl that was sitting at the far end of the bench.

Sirius dropped his head, and Remus and Peter groaned, but the three boys listened nonetheless.

***

Everything was clear in James’ head.

Ever since Lily had come back from summer vacations, she hadn’t stopped going on about this Muggle spy movie. She loved the actor, she loved the story, she loved the character, and she couldn’t stop gushing about it all.

Of course, this annoyed James very much.

It’s not like him and Lily were good friends—or were friends at all, to be honest—but they were on fairly good terms, and James was working his way to become her hero—it is a truth universally acknowledged that girls fall in love with their heroes. So the fact that a fictional bloke was standing in his way was clearly the worst of all things.

To bypass the whole my-crush-of-forever-keeps-swooning-over-a-fictional-dude-and-thus-does-not-notice-me-as-she-should situation, James had first brooded quite a lot. But as he was not too much of the emo type—it made him too similar to a certain slimehead he found absolutely repulsive—, he had tried to get Marlene and Dorcas to talk Lily out of her fangirling. Which would have worked, had he not gotten not too politely rebuked for apparently acting like a creep.

James had considered every other solution, but had come out with none that would work: dueling, arranging a date with another girl, and pranking would of course be pointless, as the guy was fictional, for Merlin’s sake;  throwing a tantrum or threatening to fling himself from the astronomy tower seemed to be a bit dramatic, and he doubted that McGonagall would ever forgive him if he wrote “Hey Lily, I am here,” on any wall of the castle.  She still hadn’t forgiven him for the last time he’d done it.

So, at this point, James had found himself in quite a dead end, and Lily kept talking about that cold-blooded, heart-stealing spy with flushed cheeks.

Yet, one day-

One day, James heard the name of the character, and something clicked in his head.

He had a plan.

***

“Do we tell him or-?”

Remus slapped Sirius round the head, “Come on Pads, James is our best friend. Between having a good laugh, or telling him the truth, we shouldn’t even hesitate.”

As they watched the bespectacled boy climbing the stairs to the common room, parcel at hand, the three-fourth of the Marauders grinned, loyal to their rebellious teenager natures.

“‘Course we ain’t telling him,” Peter concluded.

***

As James got out of the bathroom, an electric silence fell in the sixth year Gryffindors’ room.

“So?” he asked, wiping the mist away from his glasses with the fabric of his t-shirt.

The three other young men thanked Merlin that he couldn’t see shit without those, because it let them enough time to regain their composure.

“Mate,” Sirius said, when his best friend's hazel eyes finally put his face into focus.

He whistled, and that seemed to be enough to James. He looked at his friends with expectancy,

“Are you coming to witness my triumph?”

A little silence followed, and Remus considered throwing himself out of the window to avoid chuckling. But this would mean missing the next scene, so not thank you.

“‘Course,” Sirius said, his face professionally solemn.

“Wouldn’t want to miss that,” Remus added, skillfully turning his snort into a cough.

James sought Peter’s answer, but the boy just nodded. (Fact is, he had a part to add too, but he was chewing the inside of his cheeks really hard, and didn’t trust himself to contain his laughter otherwise.)

James beamed, and turned around, riding one of his hands in his messy hair. (That hadn’t changed.)

As the boys followed him toward the common room, Sirius let out his umpteenth groan, and Peter nearly suffocated.

***

“Oi, Evans!”

At the sound of James’ voice, Lily prepared herself to execute the most massive eye-roll in history of eye-rolls. What did he want, now? Couldn’t she study in peace on a Sunday morning? Considering the looks she spotted on her friends’ faces, their inner voices were shouting the same.

Still, when Lily turned around, a salty remark already on the tip of her tongue, all the air was knocked out of her lungs, and her jaw dropped somewhere near the floor. 

For a second, she considered that the sunlight coming through the window might be playing her some wicked trick.

“James-” she whispered in shock, struggling for words that didn’t want to line up in her mind. “You’re- you’re-”

“You’re blond!” Marlene squeaked, raising a hand to her mouth, only to let it drop soon after.

To her cry, all the students in the room looked up from their books, essays, or games of exploding snaps. Some of them gasped, while the other half choked on their saliva.

“Yes,” James said, puffing his chest up with a smug smile. “Like that Muggle spy you always talk about, Evans.”

He wriggled his eyebrows at Lily, in that ridiculous way that he surely believed was charming.

Some sort of noise escaped Lily’s throat—similar to the squeaks that Peter made when somebody told him it was exams day—and said boy had to take one of the cushions from the couch to muffle his wave of giggles.

From the floor, Mary and Dorcas were still staring with open mouths, and the former braced herself, blushing for James, hoping that Lily wouldn’t be too hard on him: it was a cute thought, after all.

“What,” James asked, when the awkwardness in the room became so palpable that even he could sense it. “Have I grown a horn or-”

“See, Prongs,” Remus finally said, torn between a smile of pure amusement, or one of slight guilt. “The fact is that-”

“You look like him,” Lily cut across the lanky boy, springing from the floor. “You exactly look like James Blond.”

Sirius’ expression went from I’m-on-the-verge-of-dying-from-laughter to excuse-me-but-what-the-fuck??

“It’s-” her voice came out a bit strangled, laughter threatening to burst from her throat at the realization of his misinterpretation, but she checked herself, and swallowed.

She couldn’t entirely bite back her smile, though, but made it as gentle as she could. There was even a slight hint of red on her cheeks.

“It was kind of stupid of you, Potter-”

She was close enough to him now for his nose to face her forehead. One of her hands rose, as if to touch the pseudo-sunburned streaks of his hair, but she seemed to ditch the idea. Instead, she propped herself on the point of her toes, and left a swift kiss on his cheek.

“But it’s a nice surprise.”

When she left towards the dormitory, holding a hand to her mouth, the Marauders were so surprised that Sirius forgot to whistle.

***

It turned out that Mr. Potter had been quite mistaken about his affirmation: they dying lotion wasn’t as safe as he’d believed. Just like it had happened with the Mutton Mixture, the Blonde Brew lasted one week before starting to fade away.

Now, I could leave to you the task of imagining how these seven days went by, but something tells me that, maybe, you’d like to hear it from me.

The first to notice, apart from the Gryffindor students, was a very confused Filch. During his morning stroll, before which he had maybe drank a cup too much, it caused him a shock to see a blonde replica of James Potter—for his first thought was that it was a clone of his worst nightmare wandering around, you see. Filch ran to Mrs. Pomfrey in panic, and swore to never drink a drop of firewhiskey again, or it’d cause him a stroke, sooner or later. He instead moved on to vibringvodka.

When Professor McGonagall and a couple of other teachers came across James, in the hallways, they blinked furiously for a couple of seconds, but did not even try to understand. There was some relief in their countenance, as if they were just glad their own hair hadn’t been turned into something else, this time.

Professor Dumbledore eyed James’ mane very intently during dinners, and envied him this dazzling color for a while, while Professor Slughorn got quite distracted by the change, and blew some cauldrons during lessons.

As for the core of the Hogwarts student, anyone who even thought about telling James about his little mistake ended up jinxed, spluttering slugs instead of words. Said students never knew how it happened to them, but when they turned around to race toward the Hospital Wing, they’d always bypass a redhead, her rosy cheeks stretched in a fond smile.

Lily giggled at the two -- who already bickered like an old couple, at the age of seventeen -- and focused back on the messy-haired young man standing tall in front of her. She prompted herself on her tiptoes, but with no better result than before: his outstretched arm held the box too high for her to reach it.

Puffing, she stomped her heels back on the floor. Her hand travelled to her pocket, but she remembered that her wand was not in it anymore.

“You’re the worst of the gits, Potter.”

James’ shit-eating grin widened. “Stop it, with the compliments, Evans. I might blush.”

The playful punch that hit his shoulder surprised him at the point of forcing him one step backward. “Oi!”

“At least give me back my wand.”

“So you can properly hex me? No, thank you.”

Against her will, Lily smiled too.

It was already late in the afternoon, the sun outside was mild, and the common room was peaceful and warm. It would have been a perfect ending for her birthday, if James wasn’t refusing to let her open her last present.

“Why are you so mean to me, you pratt?”

James turned toward Marlene -- who looked sorry that she had not brought some popcorn to enjoy the scene -- and smirked, “See? My girlfriend calling me tender names.”

Marlene burst in a wave of snorts, and Lily’s tip of her ears turned the same shade as her hair. “I’m not your girlfriend, Potter.”

The young man hummed. “Not yet.”

Something in Lily’s chest took a fly to the Moon. She would have wanted to dig a hole, transfigure as a mouse, and disappear under the crust of the Earth.

James’ eyes softened at her confused expression. And at her lack of refusal.

“I’m sure the package is empty, anyway,” Lily mumbled, playing with the sleeve of her sweater.

The boy shook his head, as his heart drummed in his ears. “I just want to make sure you deserve it.”

“Give it to me, then” Lily said, recovering some of her fierceness.

James tilted his head sideways, his hand still holding the red box up in the air. “Ok,” he said. “Just try to reach it one more time.”

Her hair smelled of flowers, like always. He sensed the scent wrapping him. He let it turn his mind numb. He let his senses get lost.

And he leaned forward just as Lily stretched toward the contended object.

At first, he felt nothing but the warmness of her pink lips, the smoothness of her skin gently pressed against his. The world had stopped spinning, his head was, instead.

For a moment, he feared that she would push him back, slap him, and that he’d have to go to set on top of the Himalaya, and live there until his beard grew enough to reach the bottom of the mountain.

But then her hands grabbed the collar of his shirt, and he dived into the passion of a kiss he had long hoped for.

What had left Lily’s chest in direction of the Moon came back to her with such a cheerfulness as to make her dizzy. She felt her heart waltz, her pulsion climb up. She was standing on her tiptoes, but it felt as if she was flying.

Sirius, not giving two twisted ties about Remus’ intimations to stay sit, jumped from the couch and threw his fists in the air. Marlene ran to him, and they started crying and laughing together when Peter joined their group hug.

“What a bunch of suckers,” Remus muttered, but his scarred face was embellished by a sheepish grin.

When James and Lily pulled apart, both reddish and out of air, he was beaming and she was shining.

The boy desperately wanted to say something clever, but she beat him to it, even though it was said quite shyly,

“I think, Potter, that you’re less of an idiot when you kiss.”

There is no need to say that Sirius, Marlene, and Peter -- who had somehow managed to get their composure back -- started fangirling again.

“According to your usual complaints about me being a jerk, Evans,” James said, as he ran a hand through his hair, “I guess that, for your own good, you should kiss me again.”

He didn’t have to say it twice, as Lily reached for his mouth a second time.

James shrugged, and tapped his quill on her right fist.

She opened it, shaking her head, and revealed an empty palm. “Bad luck.”

The young man fit the tip of his quill between his teeth, and felt a cracking sound that announced its breaking. Another one.

“I suppose you won’t show me, then,” he resigned himself to go back to his work.

The redhead seemed to think about it, biting her lip. “I wouldn’t. But I really want to, now.”

“So show me.”

“Nah.”

James raised his stare to the roof, “What have I done to get you as a girlfriend.”

From the other side of the room, Sirius croaked something like “six years of bullying everybody,” and was rewarded with a cushion in the face.

Lily giggled, balancing her red, loose bun on her neck, completely careless that the whole Gryffindor house -- hung portraits included -- was paying more attention to their dialogue than to their legitimate occupations.

“Okay, I’m going to show you,” she said, and James exaggeratedly sighed.

To the count of three, the witch opened her fist, and a shot of golden zoomed upward. It circled around the couches at a vertiginous speed, sent a couple of panicking first years to the floor, and knocked on the back of Remus’ head -- “What the fu-” -- before disappearing up the boys’ dormitory staircase.

James’ stare remained fixed on the open door for a second, before coming back to his girlfriend’s face.

He was gaping.

“You caught it?”

Lily ripped her own dreamy look from where the snitch had disappeared and nodded, breaking her solemnity with a sideways smile.

“How?”

James’ astonishment was very visible, and his girlfriend would have scolded him on it, had Marlene not spoken,

“Nearly breaking my neck.”

“She saw it entering the window yesterday, and she made us close any exit,” added Mary, as she carried a pile of books toward the back of the Fat Lady’s portrait. “Door and windows.”

“We spent half an hour locked in there, twiddling our thumbs, until she finally caught it with a jump,” Alice repressed a chuckle, which turned into a sneeze.

“Obviously, she landed on Marlene, who couldn’t resist the urge to be in the middle of the way, and who landed on the floor,” Dorcas finished.

While Sirius and Marlene widened the conversation -- “That’s what you were doing? I thought you were planning a prank.” “Well, that too. One has to occupy herself when locked in a room for an hour.” “Alice said half an hour.” “Same shit.” “No, it’s not.” “Whatever, beware of your socks.” “Fuck, Marlene.” -- James looked at Lily with an expression that showed both admiration and pride.

“Whoah,” he whispered. “Woah.”

Gently, Lily leaned forward, and left a delicate kiss on the tip of his nose.

“Maybe, in another life, I’ll be a seeker,” she said playfully.

“A ginger seeker? Mmmm… That sounds possible.”

“And we’ll have enough kids to make up a whole team,” she added.

“Kids?” James’ choked on the world.

“Well, yeah. You know, that kind of miniature humans that run everywhere and eat anything except vegetables.”

She was as read as her hair when she pronounced the last word, and her boyfriend quickly followed.

He was one lucky guy.

“Er- but we’ll make them like carrots, at least.”

Lily hummed her agreement. “We’ll make them like carrots.”

And, as Remus cried at them to “get a room already,” the Sun set, wanting to end that day with a pair of blissful smiles as a conclusion.

Caught in his excitement, James didn’t notice Marlene’s sideways smile as she shouted at him to right his glasses, nor did he hear Kingsley's imprecations as they nearly collided before the Fat Lady’s portrait. He didn’t laugh at Remus’ hot chocolate mug almost ending up on the floor as he suddenly appeared in the hallway, nor did he take time to stuck his tongue out to a very flustered Filch -- “No running in the corridors, you duke of limbs!”

In less time than it would have costed Sirius to enrage Professor McGonagall, James’ boots were drowned in the outside snow, his eyes frantic behind his glasses in search of a spot of color among the whiteness. A red spot, to be precise.

“Good morning Potter.”

She was to his right, a foot behind him, grinning like a four year old who’d just won a game of hide and seek.

His heart skipped a bit.

“‘morning Evans.” His tongue was as numb as the rest of his body.

The clarity around made her cheeks look like a rose’s petals, and James sucked in a deep breath at the sight of her red lips.

Her smile widened as she stepped forward. “You almost look decent today.”

He wanted to answer. Really. Something witty maybe. But he could have opened and closed his mouth a thousand times, nothing was going to come out of it.

Merlin, she was gorgeous.

Lily gently tilted her head, amused by the boy’s lack of his usual readiness. “Are we going to stay here for long? I’m becoming an ice cube.” 

James shook his head, and premorously offered her his arm, making her laugh.

They began their stroll in silence, her looking at the sky in innocent distraction, him holding her as close as he could without being awkward. The way was empty, except for a couple of squirrels that seemed eager to follow them while rolling in the snow.

The temperature was not as low anymore, and the boy assumed it was because the sun was on its way to the roof of the sky. Or was it because of the growing heat on his face? 

If she had been there to watch the scene -- which seemed to come right out of a Peynett drawing -- Euphemia Potter would have told her husband that ‘They look very much in love.’ After an amused look from Fleamont, she would have added ‘The squirrels, of course,’ and then hid her malicious smile -- the one Sirius had taught her -- behind her handkerchief.

But the Potter parents were not here.

It was just the two of them, on a date, finally.

James and Lily.

And the squirrels, of course.

“So, Potter...” He glanced sideways at her perfect profile. Her words, when out of her mouth, turned into graceful clouds. “Justify yourself for making me skip my saturday morning visit to the library when it’s below zero outside.”

The first draught of the day sent chills running down his spine. Or maybe it was her grip, tightening delicately.

James cleared his throat.

“Reading too much isn’t good for your eyesight, you know.” She couldn’t hold back a snort, one of those she used to offer him when he widely flirted with her, but she was ready to decline. Except this time she hadn’t. “It’s true! Plus, it’s not good for your mood, breathing book dust all day long. You’d turn into a red headed Moony. We don’t want you to wear unmatching sox and become addicted to chocolate, do we?”

Her laugh was a bubbly hint of spring in this early stage of winter. James could have sworn she sounded like flowers blooming.

“So what should I become addicted to, Potter?”

The mischievous glint in the green of her eyes was something that had only very recently appeared, in the last months. 

He was going to fall back into muteness, embarrassed by what this question could mean. After all, he assumed that it was what she wanted: to have the last word.

But a Potter never accepts a defeat.

“Learned to be tricky, didn’t you?”

“Yes. From a real expert.” Hadn’t she been so close, James could have thought he’d daydreamed about her wink. “So?”

What could he do but smile?

“So you talk too much, Evans. I say you should make your feet work more and your tongue rest.” Lily raised her eyebrows, and her look followed the direction in which he was pointing. “See the bridge? Shouldn’t be more than thirty meters away. The last to get there is a-”

But she had already sprinted forward, ready as she always was to win a competition, the two squirrels trailing behind her with happy squeaking.

It took James a good fraction of second to stop gazing at the flames of her hair against the white landscape, and to move from his position. She had gained some advance, but he could make it before her easily.

A Potter never accepts a defeat.

He felt the air burn in his lungs, his muscles awakening after a week without Quidditch practice, and the adrenaline shooting him forward like one of Dumbledore’s spells. He heard her broken breathing, some meters before him, and pushed harder on the ground, his boots making the snow creak like broken shell nuts.

He was not more than three meters away from her…

Her inhaling waves were stressed.

A Potter never accepts a defeat.

Two meters…

She glanced behind her shoulder, and let out a high-pitched cry of surprise.

A Potter never accepts a defeat.

One meter…

Anybody else would have surrendered, preferring to let their heart recover a normal beat instead of winning a stupid race.

A Potter never accepts a defeat.

When they were just a few bounces away from the river, James gave one last effort.

But, right when he could have bypassed her, his legs slowed down, and a moment later she was perched on the first of the three stone stairs that started the bridge.

A Potter never accepts a defeat.

But a Potter knows to choose the right victory.

Holding her ribs, bent in two, struggling to inhale any air in between her chuckling, she was the best view James had ever had the chance to see.

“Nice run, Evans.” He was quicker than her to stabilize his breath, obviously. His hair was ruffled, he pushed his glasses up with a finger that would have been all sweaty, in another season. “Let’s see if you can do it again, shall we?”

“Shut up, Potter.” She muttered. “You talk too much.”

He bursted in a loud laughter, and stepped forward to offer her his help.

Had the squirrels not been there, maybe nothing special would have happened that morning. But the little animals found themselves right on the spot where James’ feet was set to land, and he lost his balance in an attempt to avoid them at the last moment.

He was going to fall sideways, but Lily was fast in catching his arms, pulling him near her. They found each other nose to nose, close enough to inhale the same air.

James’ heartbeat had climbed up to his ears.

“Look.” Lily whispered with a shy smirk. “I’m taller than you.”

Her eyes were magnets that attracted his.

“Only because you’re on a step, Evans.”

This was his very breathless attempt to cool his nerves down.

There was a pause. They didn’t notice the icy wind anymore.

“I’ve dreamt of this for quite some time, you know.”

“What? Being taller than me?”

“No.” She leaned forward, and James’ mouth became incredibly itchy. “This.”

Her lips were as soft at the snowflakes that were falling from the sky, sprinkling their hair with Nature’s pureness. The skin of her face brushed against his, her hands getting lost in his hair.

He had dreamt about it countless times, inflicted his wild imaginations to his friends for years, depicted the most hopeful scenarios, but nothing of what he had pictured was worthy of being compared to this moment.

Eyes closed, James kissed her back, circling her waist with his hands, tenderly pressing her body to his. A cherubs’ choir had set up a grandiose show in his mind.

On the border of the path, the two squirrels had stopped chasing each other. Their little eyes were fixed on the young couple, their muzzles shaking, as if in approval. One of them even seemed to sketch a malicious smile.

James felt Lily’s cold wrists on the back of his neck, her smile against his.

It was evident that the snow was falling, now, that they should probably head back to the castle if they didn’t want to be buried.

But before that...

“What do you think about this, Evans? Want to withdraw your affirmation?”

He was referring to the time she had told him he was probably awful at kissing.

A lost sun ray reflected in her white teeth.

“I guess you’re an ok kisser, Potter.”

“I know r- What? No. No way. I am an outstanding kisser. You were just too amazed to realize it.”

Her hum of indecision got a smile out of him.

“I’m really not sure, Potter. I think you’re just average.”

“And I’m telling you, you’re wrong.”

“Oh, really. Then what? It’s my word against yours.” Lily whispered.

She was teasing him, and it turned his inside into a big knot.

He could have shrugged, rolled his eyes.

But a Potter never accepts a defeat.

“I say have the right to a second round, to prove you wrong.”

The squirrels turned their back on the river and sped toward their tree, leaving the place entirely still. The mass of clouds above them separated, letting the sun bath this white parcel of the world, the wind sat down, waiting to see.

Ginny knew that if she kept eyeing the rolling balls and the turning loops, she would be overwhelmed by the will to join the kids outside, so she swung round, facing the wall.

“And some idiotic purebloods think Muggles are just witless slugs. You need to have some kind of strength of character to live without magic.”

Merlin, I sound like dad.

With her sleeve, Ginny erased the fresh paint from her face -- thankfully, Christmas was not too far, and she’d get a new sweater -- and crouched to grab another pot of the thick liquid.

“Out of all the places in the world, we had to choose the one where there are more Muggles swarming around than books in Hermione’s shelves,” Ginny grumbled, but an amused smile raised one corner of her mouth. “At least, we’re safe from the nargles here.”

With a sigh, she was back to her chore.

***

Half-an-hour later, feeling the muscles in her neck and arms contracting in protest, Ginny had already given up in favor of yet another break. As she contemplated the work she still had to do, a door slammed. The best moment of the day had arrived, and Ginny was glad to drop her brush in the paint, not caring about staining the wooden floor.

As she did so, light steps carried a voice with them in the house,

“For Merlin’s swimsuit, I still can’t get used to the draught in the entrance. I will need to pin a word under the bell to rem- This is not the right way to the kitchen,” The voice stopped, as if its owner was taking some decision, but it resumed promptly, “This house is so big, seems like a labyrinth. Would be funny if I get lost in the corridors. Actually, it would be interesting. I could write a paper about- This isn’t the right door either,” Another pause, but still, the steps didn’t give up. “These doors, all the same. We should think about painting them too, the same color as the opposite room, so it’ll be easier to find them. Ah, there it is. No? I thought I remembered from this morning. Ginny? Are you here?”

“Right here, honey! I’m coming!”

After a few more missed tries -- the house was big --, the young women managed to reunite in the living room, and, following their usual warm greetings, they both slumped on the just-bought-smelling couch, Ginny rubbing Luna’s bare feet.

“We will need to draw a map,” the blonde sighted, extracting a single pin from her bun and letting her hair cascade down in curls. “You’d think that after a couple of days, we would have gotten used to the multiple corridors. I wonder if the blibbering humdingers are confusing us. Didn’t check for their presence.”

“Bad thing about wanting a big house to host family is that it’s big,” Ginny laughed. “Let’s make a mental note to warn Ron and Hermione  about it. How was your day?” she asked eagerly, hoping to get some distraction from her boredom. With Luna’s anecdotes, she never failed to.

“Quite normal,” the other girl answered, and Ginny’s lips stretched: she was going to discover once more how far her girlfriend pushed the limits of the word ‘normal’. “Seamus and I went to interview Neville on this new discovery he made, the one about the singing cacti, and we could witness how poor Seamus hasn’t lost his ability to set things ablaze. Neville wasn’t too cooperative after this, and I kept asking questions only to distract him. Lucky I managed to take pictures of the plants before. Wonderful discovery, it was.”

The simple image of a steaming Seamus and an appalled Neville being assaulted with questions by a comforting Luna made it impossible for Ginny to suppress a snort, which she skillfully turned into a sneeze.

“Bless you, love. So, because of the explosion, we couldn’t come back by apparition, Seamus was too groggy, and we had Hagrid dropping us. He doesn’t often go to London, you know, so he kind of confused St Thomas Street with St James’, and he quickly flew away, tears in his eyes because of the name of the place. I was very sad for him, so I didn’t think it was the case to call him back and tell him it was the wrong side of the city.”

“So how did you-?”

“Oh, it was easy. Don’t you know what Muggles do to move from one place to another?” Ginny thought about the black Muggle cars, or the strange, underground metallic snake she was still not used to, and asked herself how on Earth her girlfriend had managed to orientate herself in middle of the thronging street, with a smoky Seamus to carry. “They walk of course!” Luna piped, oblivious of her lover’s groan. “It was very distracting, and it seemed to wake Seamus up because, after the first half-hour, he said he would prefer to be splinched rather than to walk a step more. He still didn’t look alright, mind you, but- ”

“So you apparated?”

“Yes, and we made it safely.”

A sigh of relief escaped Ginny’s throat. “Good. I wouldn’t have wanted to face an angry Dean.”

“Oh, we could have faced a lot more than an angry Dean. When we made it back to the Quibbler, there was the president of the D. A. F. T. who pretended he had some news-”

“The what?” Ginny asked, a bad presentment running down her spine.

“Defensive Association For Trolls,” Luna precised airily. “And he wanted to show us one of his latest pets-”

“Some nutty brought a troll in center London? He brought it to you?”

Ginny felt her fists ball on their own accord, but she agreed with them: whoever had put her girlfriend in danger was-

“Ginny!” Luna’s waving hand brought her back to the moment. “Calm down! It was not a troll, and even if it had been one, it would have been very amusing to study it. Mr. Foolsh wanted to show us his cat! He claimed it could play the piano better than anybody.”

“Oh.” The ginger’s shoulders relaxed, and she started massaging Luna’s ankles again, ignoring the allusion to how ‘amusing’ studying a 600 pounds heavy creature seemed to her. “Could it?”

“If Mr. Foolsh pressed the play button on his recorder, yes,” Luna explained, grinning happily as Ginny threw her head back in laughter. “I thought about friendly sending the cat and the man back to their home, but fortunately Ernie reached me before I could. He said Seamus was utterly sorry, but all the documents we had gathered at Neville’s were- still at Neville’s.”

“Seamus forgot the documents?”

“We can’t blame him, after the blow…”

“Did you get them back?” Luna’s eyes clearly communicated that getting ashes back was quite complicated. “So tomorrow’s Surprise Article is going to be a surprise for you too?”

“Oh no, not really. You see, that cat had some grace in its movements…”

Ginny shook her head and giggled: her girlfriend was full of original resources. 

They sat there, discussing the rest of Luna’s day -- which seemed to have been endless and, in Ginny’s opinion, not normal at all -- until the Sun bid them goodbye and the stars winked at them, bringing along the night’s usual chill air.

“How are you doing with the painting of our first guest room?” Luna asked after Ginny came back with some coverts. She had chosen the paint’s color, which she knew was Bill and Fleur’s favorite.

“Fancy a hot chocolate?” Ginny replied, wanting one herself before having to confess: she hadn’t been able to finish what they had planned the day before.

“Of course!” the other young woman said excitedly. She raised as well, stood on her tiptoes, and left a delicate kiss on the spread-with-freckles cheek. “Yours are the best.” Then, their lips quickly found each others.

Ginny blushed a dark pink, like she had done the very first time Luna had kissed her, and all the times after that. She might not be able to use magic in the day, nor find her way in her own house, but she wouldn’t be anywhere with anybody else right now.

Her heart belonged to her, to the blonde woman with wide blues eyes and a golden soul, the one with the strangest ideas and the cutest reflections. It belonged to the girl who was half-a-foot shorter than her, and who was afraid of nargles but not trolls.

Ginny’s heart belonged to Luna.

She looked as if an artist had collected features to make up a most beautiful creature, assembled them, and polished the whole in a strange way. The artisan had colored her straight hair with a lustrous ebony black color, and added some gray sparkles to the green eyes, without managing to make them kind, but turning them instead harsh and piercing, like those of a fox about to jump on its prey. This made her irritated gaze and hardness in judgment much more intense, and most of the children that crossed path with her kept their attention to the floor, their usual and typical curiosity giving place to an intuitive prudence.

In the painter’s mind, it must have been decided that the woman would look aristocratic, for her nose was straighter than ever seen, and her cheeks paler than snow, but the combination still looked handsome on the perfect oval that was the face to which they belonged. A face most always deformed by scolding and disapproval.

In order to sharpen the image of her, two or three layers of etiquette were added, covered by prejudice and discrimination, and highlighted with several strokes of illusion of superiority mixed to a natural arrogance, the total making her look haughty with a certain cruel grace.

It was no wonder, thus, that, as she walked in the sea of humans that filled the train station, the woman wore an expression of self-sufficiency and disgust which, enhanced by her midnight black dress, was bound to attract looks -- mostly intimidated and fearful.

However, she was not the only one of her party to arouse interest, and, after being captivated enough by her person, many people dared to move their eyes to her companions, and instantly felt some weight being lifted from their chest.

On the woman’s right, a severe-looking man, short and round, whose characteristics were not handsome enough to deserve a wider description, kept her pace with easiness, focusing his attention only on a portion of wall several yards in front of him. He carried in his jacket pocket an old watch, a family heirloom that didn’t belong to the present era but, as the rest of his outfit was of an outdated refinery as well, would have gone unnoticed if he didn’t take it out from its hiding constantly, only as part of a mannerism.

On the woman’s left half-runned a little boy, who seemed to be no more than eight or nine years old, but whose striking resemblance to her in composure and features would have made him look older, had his height allowed it. His costume was made of a thick greenish fabric, a lighter imitation of his father’s -- for the round man was in fact the woman’s husband -- and made his emerald eyes glow like two peas under the sun. The child’s tongue was far from being as flexible as that of his fellow kids’, but was tied and shut in his mouth following his family’s strict expectancy. At the sight of this grave boy, any mother would have shuddered to the thought of how impossible it must have been to raise him so quiet.

A the rear of the peculiar family strolled the oldest of the sons, a 4’9’’ tall boy, whose virile pride made him wish everybody would just call him an “ol’ lad” already. His face was as beautiful as his mother’s, though in a very different, and genuinely kind, way, and his body was straight and elegant. He didn’t wear the same ridiculous and outdated uniform as his father and brother, and had opted for more classic and recent clothes, but his effort hadn’t managed to make him less interesting to London’s population, mostly for two reasons. First, the heavy trolley he was pushing supported an owl in a cage, an animal scarcely kept as a pet, and whose hooting and shrieking would have raised a dead from its eternal sleep. And second, the child called out, to whomever had an ear to listen, that he was going to Hogwarts -- wherever Hogwarts was --, and added, but with extreme care to conceal his words to his parents, that he surely belonged to Gryffindor -- whatever Gryffindor was.

“Does Mr. Will desire something else?”

The elf’s croaky voice was barely audible in the tumult of pots and pans, but Will shook his head in denial. He’d got more than he needed.

“No, thank you very much,” he sleepily said, eyeing with an expert’s eyes the fruits and chocolate cake he would bring to his sick friend. “That’ll be enough.”

The creature bowing was a blurry figure through the narrow space that the first year’s eyelids left him to see. This late trip to the kitchen was not a good idea, especially because of the night patrols that frightened him so much, but he’d do anything to help his fellow Hufflepuffs. He made his way back to the exit, trying to not trip over his own feet in the way.

As he emerged into the hallway, a thunder of steps coming from the end of the corridor forced him to an unsteady halt. It was not long before he found himself engulfed in a sea of black hats and green ties, shoved left and right and not even glanced at.

Several dark robes and night outfits bolted in front of his eyes, now wide with shock and surprise, before somebody finally stopped in front of him, sheltering him from more harm. He had to incline his head a great deal of degrees backward to spot a face with dark freckles looking down at him.

“What are you doing here?” a voice snapped. Then, when its owner’s gaze fell on the plate Will succeeded to sustain only by miracle, the voice replied to its own question, “Of course, Hufflepuffs and their bottomless stomach.”

Will’s brain lasted a few seconds to process the girl’s words, while her housemates kept running away.

“It’s not for me,” he retorted, though not as sharply as he wished. “My friend is sick and this is for he-”

The Slytherin rolled her eyes. The corridor was now silent with the kind of heavy atmosphere that precedes a storm.

“I don’t care, anyway,” she blurted. Slughorn’s panicked words still trotted in the back of her mind, and the Headmaster’s absence couldn’t mean anything good. She had to get out of here, as fast as she could, but she couldn’t leave the kid wandering alone. She was a Prefect after all. “Come with me.”

To these words, the little boy stumbled back, refusing to follow her.

“You need to come with me,” she hissed.

“No!” he shouted, retreating a bit more, until he hit the cold surface of a niche in the wall.

What was I thinking? She bit her tongue, ready to catch up on the rest of her group. I can’t play the hero like that, that’s for stupid, gutsy Gryffindors.

But something held her back. The Hufflepuff’s round face resembled so much that of her ten-years-old brother, with chubby cheeks and a confused look, and so did his expression of fear.

He doesn’t know what’s happening, chanted a voice in the back of her mind.

Besides, what would this boy find behind his Common Room door? Just empty space to look at. Professor Slughorn stated that all houses were to head to the Great Hall.

Internally swearing, she brusquely swung round and grabbed his arm in an impulse, trying to get him out of the alcove where he was half-hiding, which only resulted in the plate hitting the ground with a loud shattering noise as Will freed himself.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, her question coming out as a frustrated shout.

Whatever was happening may be getting to them right then, and she shivered at the thought of another creature such as the Basilisk haunting the castle.

“You’re mean,” Will answered, his eyes sparkling with tears.

“What?” Her face was now dilated in a genuine mask of surprise.

“The fifth years,” he sniffed, “They told me not to trust Slytherins.”

For an instant, she stood there, gaping at the child, while he rubbed the point of his nose.

“I thought that only stupid Gryffindors joked about this,” she whispered.

Her heart made a strange bump, the same it made when her favorite dessert failed to show up on the tables, or when somebody mocked her for her size. Without wanting it, she realized that she cared, she was a bit deceived by the Hufflepuffs’ behavior.

A loud clattering, like of a thousand of spades hitting the ground, made them both jump, and Will let out a squeak of horror.

Suppressing her own fear, the teenager crouched, so her eyes were on the same level as the kid’s.

“What’s your name?” she asked in the friendliest tone that her building pressure allowed her to use.

“Will,” he sobbed.

A metallic bang coming from the floor above theirs announced the closing of the Great Hall’s door. Cold sweat was running down the neck of the Slytherin.

“Listen, Will. I’m Emilie. I bet you everything you want that things are getting pretty ugly up there, and we better find some other people to tell us what to do.” She let that sink in, then added, “I promise I won’t hurt you. I just want you to get out of here safe and sound. Do you trust me?”

Her last words were followed by her hand reaching out.

Will first winced. But then, his watery eyes narrowed as he looked down at this huge, brown palm, twice as big as his. Finally, his fingers found their way around it.

“Yes,” he breathed.

Emilie straightened.

“Then let’s get the hell out of here, come on.”

***

“Amanda!”

What that abyssal idiot of Pansy Parkinson was thinking back in the Great Hall when she opened that big mouth of hers, Jason didn’t care anymore. But still, if only she had shut her trap, Slytherins wouldn’t have been the first to get to the passage.

“Amanda! Where are you?”

His cry was only one more in the confused mess of people waiting by the door of the Room of Requirements, so no wonder nobody seemed to react to it more than to the others.

With nervous fingers, he got his tie off his neck. It didn’t matter to him if the yellow piece of fabric ended up forgotten in the dust, trampled by the multitude of present people. He didn’t need to feel more suffocated.

“Amanda!”

A blond head jerked in his direction, but its corresponding face was far from being Amanda’s.

“Stop shouting, Jason, she probably doesn’t want to hear about you anymore.”

Blue eyes defied green ones.

“Shut up, Zacharias. I just want to make sure she gets through that goddamn passage before they close it.”

Green eyes were now almost out of their orbit. “They’re going to close it?”

Jason tsked. “No, you idiot, it’ll stay open so the Death Eaters won’t even have to break the wa-”

But Zacharias was already elbowing away anybody who dared to stand between him and the door, far from the reach of Jason’s voice.

“Coward,” the remaining Hufflepuff muttered, but his voice raised as he spotted a well-known mane of blonde hair, “Amanda!”

This time, it’s the correct glance that finds his, and the two teenagers collide in a hug.

“I was so worried,” said the young man, a hand caressing the girl’s hair.

“For yourself, I hope,” she smiled, pulling away.

He weakly grinned back. Slytherins have such a many to stay proud beyond possibilities, he sometimes laughed about it.

“Stay in the file,” he urged her.

For the first time in her life, Amanda obeyed him.

“But stay with me,” she murmured, intertwining their fingers. “We’ll leave together.”

Her eyes tore from his, and instead stared unseeingly at the front of the line of students. This meant the conversation was over.

A knot tied Jason’s throat. How would he tell her?

She was only fifteen, but he was already overage. He wasn’t going to leave without raising his wand in honor of Cedric’s memory.

While the boy fought with his own thoughts, another blow quaked the castle, making small columns of dust fall, like dull fairy powder, from the roof. Without thinking about it, he attracted the girl closer to him.

Soon, too soon, it was time to cross the exit.

“Listen, I-”

Amanda squeezed his hand tightly. “Take care, please. And don’t forget to properly raise your wand.”

There was a smile on her lips that didn’t reach her eyes, which she blinked furiously.

“How’d you-”

“Mom sometimes says I should’ve been sorted into Ravenclaw. But I’m fine being a Slytherin.” She shrugged. “And you’re a Hufflepuff, loyal until and after death.”

She exaggeratedly grimaced, but Jason knew it was her way to cope with the separation.

Her fingers parted from his, and she brought them under her messy hair.

“Here,” she said, as she handed him her necklace, “To keep your clumsy ass from getting into more trouble.”

He took her gift, feeling his heart swell. “Love you, lil sis.”

“See you soon, big bro.”

Jason was afraid, but he’d fight for a better world. For her.

He would not forget, for the rest of his life, her look as she stepped into the darkness leading to safety.

***

Professor McGonagall had said not to get back for their properties, but for her it was easy to say. She hadn’t left her ring, the only heirloom she owned from her deceased mother, in her dormitory.

Salma was running up the steps two by two now, the little metallic circle safely stuck around her finger, hoping to remember where the Prefects had said they would take everybody.

She was covered in dirt, and had already been forced twice to turn back on her steps, by explosions that missed her for scarce, lucky inches. Her ears were filled with tearing cries, stamping footsteps, and echoing crashes, and the pounding of blood rushing to her head melted with that of her bare feet on the uneven ground.

The world was crumbling around her.

The corridor that she believed was the right one finally came into sight, but in her excitement she tripped over the last stair, and landed on the carpeted ground with a muffled thump.

She tried to raise but, to the slightest movement, a snake of fire and ice ran up the inside of her right leg, coiling itself around her bone from under her calf up to the knee.

Crap, she thought, beads of helplessness cascading from her eyes, she must have twisted her ankle.

Again, a tremendous blast caused the ground to shake, and she could hear victorious yelling coming from the outside, vibrating in her head as if the invasion happened between her temples.

She started calling for help, but who would come to rescue her in the dark hole where she had landed herself? She crossed her forearms, to have a place where to let her forehead rest and cry.

However, as desperation was taking over her, a thread of hope came from far to the left. It was someone, she believed, calling back.

Salma ordered her heart to stop beating so furiously, so she could listen harder and decide whether she was making herself illusions.

But no.

“Is anyone here?”

“Hey! We’re here to help!”

Never, in her thirteen-years-old life, had anything sounded so beautiful to her as these voices did.

“Here!” she yelled, adrenaline giving her the power to do so.

Soon, feet were scurrying toward her, and her body was lifted from its uncomfortable position.

“Are you okay?” asked one of her saviors.

Passed the few seconds of relief, Salma’s nerves activated themselves to remind her that the pain was still there, searing through her lower body. All she could do was hum a no in response, taking in the familiar features of the Hufflepuff twin girls she had several times insulted, smirking with her friends, for being Mudbloods.

She had been so mean to them, how come they were helping her now?

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, “So, so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she heard before drifting into unconsciousness.

“We’ll take you to a safe place.”

***

“There, Longbottom!”

Professor Sprout had always been a pacific woman.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

But when it came to defend her school, her students, and what she believed in, she reasoned like her Gryffindor colleague: she dueled to kill.

“Where is Habbot?”

The blonde girl tapped her shoulder, making her start. She was mouthing silent words.

“I don’t hear you!” shouted the teacher. In fact, she didn’t hear anything at all. Had the Battle stopped? Impossible, shots of light were fired haphazardly from the ground to the castle and back. “Confringo!”

Her attention came back to Hannah’s worried features and waving hands. She had always thought of the girl as of a delicate begonia, but she was now fighting harder than a Devil’s Snare, just like the Longbottom kid. She was very proud of these two.

“What are y-” But she finally understood the girl’s gesturing, and with a firm hand removed the protective cask from her ears.

The loud chaos hit her.

“Neville and I are going back for more Mandrakes, Professor!” shouted her student, her voice hoarse.

A cavernous grunt resonated higher than the now habitual discord.

“Take the others with you, there is not much more they can do here!”

“What about you?”

Professor Sprout turned her back on Hannah without answering, afraid that her response would come out quivering. After a short while, and despite the explosions and roars, she heard a dozen of shoes hammering the ground toward the opposite direction.

“Oppugno! Incarcerous!” Her voice was high and determined. If she had to die, she would do it fighting at her best.

“Protego!”

A dazzling blue light came from behind her back, diverting the course of a red attack. She turned around and her eyes met a panting mass.

“Horace! What are you doing up here?”

The man had slumped to the floor, exhausted.

Professor Sprout scanned him suspiciously for a split-second: if he thought he would find a secure space to rest on the tower, he was very much mistaken.

“C- Came across- Your students,” he puffed. “Said you were- alone.”

He was already raising when a blast on the walls sent him back to the floor. The woman hurried to help him to his feet.

“You can’t stay alone, Pomona. Come back inside.”

Slughorn’s gaze was hidden behind a veil of worry, his pupils stretched in fear.

“No.”

Her answer was rotund. This was the place they had assigned her to defend, her part of the castle to protect. It was under her responsibility. If she had chivied the children away, it was because she knew it was too dangerous for them to stay now.

Slughorn swallowed painfully.

“Then I shall stay with you, my friend.”

In a common, silent accord, both professors turned to face the courtyard, wands raised.

***

“You can’t stay here!”

“Don’t tell me what I can d-”

The wall behind the two quarreling teenagers exploded, sending them flying through the air, and spraying them with pieces of glass and concrete.

The girl reacted first, covering her head with both arms, and the boy followed her actions. They were several feet apart, their sallow and tan skin now white with dirt, coughing like crazy to free their respiratory system, but still arguing,

“Did you see this? It’s dangerous, Elke! You can’t stay!”

Elke opened her mouth to retort, pushing her body up with her elbows, but was forced to lay down again, a new choking crisis getting to her lungs. “You’re an idiot, Nat! If it’s dangerous for me, it is for you too!”

Another shot ripped the night above their heads, a lugubrious firework followed by cries of shock.

Elke and Nat raised hurriedly, hiding themselves behind a corner to have the time to evaluate and mend their injuries.

“It’s not the same thing,” rasped her friend, while examining the cuts on her forehead.

“You’re so stubborn,” she replied bitterly, ripping a sleeve from her robes to wrap it around Nat’s new wound. “No wonder you were sorted into Slytherin.”

The boy spluttered.

She was still resentful, after seven years, that they had been sorted into different Houses? It was not his fault!

“Hey.” He pushed her chin upward with his index. “But we managed to stay best friends, didn’t we?”

Yeah, they did.

“That’s why I need to battle too. To cover your back.”

Nat didn’t know if this was more fidelity or obstinacy.

“I told you, you can’t stay! You’re-”

“I am what?” she yelled. “A girl? A Hufflepuff? That’s why I can’t fight?”

The young man bit his lip. How far from the truth she was.

You’re my best friend, he wanted to shout back. I can’t manage to lose you!

But instead, his mouth articulated, “Yes, you’re a bloody Hufflepuff, and all your loyalty is going to do is get you into troubl-”

“Can you stop and observe the world for a minute?” The girl’s hands grasped her friend’s collar. “Don’t you see that everybody is being brave? Loyal? Resourceful? Witty? It’s not about houses anymore, here. We’re all in the same boat!”

The time seemed to slow down. None of them produced a sound as they listened hard to their surroundings.

Slytherins, that had come back with Nat, were encouraging Gryffindors, dueling with them instead of against them. They also followed Hufflepuffs, who had found their way through a passageway that had conducted them to the side of the enemy’s army, which was now retreating a bit under the surprise attack. Ravenclaws and students from the red House helped injured combatant getting to safety, where girls with green ties would pop flasks of potion open. There weren’t even much ties left, Nat observed, around the neck of their owners. They were decorating the walls, the courtyard, the hallways, thrown pell mell like forgotten confetti. All the students, he realized, now harbored their injuries like proud flags.

Hogwarts was being defended not by Slytherins, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors, but by people who wore the same colors: the colors of determination and caring. The colors of justice and freedom.

His eyes came back to face Elke.

“You’ll cover my back?”

“Until my last breath.”

“Then let’s do this. Together?”

Grabbing hands, they stepped out under the starry night.