Epiphany

7 ~ Who But James Potter

The next day was immediately loud. Lily had woken at the crack of dawn to hopefully avoid the common room chaos, but it wasn't long before all of Hogwarts filled the Great Hall. She had secretly hoped that Severus would be able to sit with her for a short while, but he had arrived too late.

"Attention students!" Dumbledore cleared his throat and silenced the room. "Apparently some of you haven't quite grasped the gravity of this threat to Hogwarts. Last night, a total of five students were caught roaming the school after hours."

Lily bet she could name four of the rule-breakers, but the fifth?

"Perhaps I wasn't clear enough before." The headmaster continued gravely. "If an attack were to occur, breaking the imposed curfew could cost you your life. I have given the Aurors permission to give a weeks detention any student caught out of bed. This is your final warning."

And with that, he sat at the teacher's table and breakfast commenced.

Though the rest of the school seemed to return to their conversations immediately, Lily couldn't shake the feeling that the situation was more dire than Dumbledore cared to let on. She ate the rest of her breakfast in silence, wondering who the fifth person could be.

Her first lesson of the day was transfiguration with Professor McGonagall. It was certainly not her favourite lesson but, McGonagall doted on her so, Lily always performed as well as she could. Then came muggle studies, which she took simply to quietly laugh at all the lesson got wrong, and a short break. She met up with Severus in one of the many courtyards and the two walked to the library.

"I say," Lily broke the silence more abrubtly than she had anticipated, "We study in the library every evening: the perfect way to end the day."

Sev stopped and sighed. "I can't. Not this week, anyway."

She gave him a quizzical look.

"I-" He spluttered, embarrassed for some reason, "I have detention."

"Every night?" Lily laughed.

"Every night." He repeated solemnly.

They stopped walking. The seconds stretched out into minutes as Lily thought. She had put the pieces together immediately, yet still didn't quite understand.

"It was you." She whispered. When he looked confused, she elaborated, "One of the five out of bed that Dumbledore mentioned."

"Yes."

Another pause.

"I'm gonna kill Potter." She said without explanation, storming off. Severus didn't try to stop her.

Lily found him by the lake, which she had not expected, and with his friends, which she had. They were laughing and seemed to be drenched through, presumably they had fallen in. Briefly, she was jealous. Once again, here was evidence that others enjoyed life more than her. She contemplated leaving, until Potter looked up at her with the smug grin he so often wore, and she was reminded of her intentions.

"Potter!" She shouted through her teeth.

"What did you do now?" Black teased in the background as Potter approached.

"You look exactly like James Jr." He laughed, holding up an angry wet cat. "The exact same expression!"

Lily smacked the stupid grin off his face with her book, carefully avoiding the poor cat. Black, Peter and Remus all errupted into more laughter, further angering her. Potter himself was shocked. Good.

"How dare you." She snarled.

"What the hell!" He responded.

"How dare you get Severus involved in your idiocy!" Lily continued angrily. "I can forgive surrendering yourself to a week's detention, but leave him out of it!"

She left, feeling the burn of their stares and her shame.

Author's note: I'll make this quick, because I know how annoying these can be. I'm back indefinately, sorry for the long wait. I plan to update more regularly from now on (at least once a week hopefully) but the chapters may be slightly shorter.