AN: Guys! Here's a new chapter! I am SO, SO, SO sorry it's taking me forever to update freqeuntly. Life has been very busy for me, but I shall try to get back on track. I do appreicate all the lovely comments and the fact that you all keep reading. <3

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Here We Go Again

Chapter 22: Tragedy in the Making

POV: Lily

"Greetings to you all! May Merlin shine his light upon you today!"

Every person sitting at the Gryffindor table looked up to see what was the cause of flower petals raining down on us. It wasn't a surprise to see Louis twirling his wand about, ruining another breakfast for his entertainment. Roxy and Hugo stood in each side of him, looking about to laugh at his ridiculous, sappy look. It made me sick.

"It's Louis and Coral's anniversary today," informed Roxy to the people frowning at our blonde cousin. She reached over to him and pulled down his wand, ending the spell and his concentration.

"And it's the first year he's managed not to fuck things up," added Hugo, clapping Louis roughly on the back. "Congratulations, mate. You've won the medal for Best Boyfriend of the Year."

Louis smiled widely, not catching the mock in our cousin's tone. "Honestly, I am. I've actually managed to survive today without McLaggen ending our relationship in a flare of anger or getting attacked by flying cauldrons." He flicked his wand up again and flower petals began to drizzle down on us. "I might actually get some proper hank-panky tonight, lads. I'm telling you, today's glorious!"

Bang.

"Today is a horrible day!" Punching the schoolbag that he'd thrown onto the surface of the table, Freddie paid no mind to all the other Gryffindors frowning at him. (Honestly, people in this castle had to hate the Weasleys. There was no way anyone got peace and quiet when we were around. People surely damned our existence.)

I was one of the people to frown. Freddie's schoolbag knocked over my goblet of pumpkin juice and it spilled onto my lap.

"It's about to get worse, you troll," I hissed at the redhead, gesturing to my lap. "Do you just wake up mucking things up?"

Freddie ignored me. "There I was," he began, like someone had asked what his problem was—other than the obvious, dimwitted one, "looking my best, as per usual, when I was going to the grounds to meet one of my lady friends—"

"—Is this a lie?"

"—Sounds like a lie."

"—You don't have any lady friends, Fred."

The redhead glared at all the interruptions. "Anyway," he hissed, "I was about to turn the corner of the Charms classroom when I heard some very peculiar sounds coming from there. Now, it could've been two things, right? Either someone was being killed very slowly and painfully, or someone was doing the dirty on poor Professor Horton's desk!

"Being the bloody good citizen that I am, I whipped out my wand and marched forward, ready to defend whatever soul was getting murdered, when—can you believe it—there was no killing scene! Someone actually was getting it on in the classroom!"

The expression on everyone's face was that of the one everyone gives to Professor Binns when he's going on and on about the stupid Goblin Wars during a History of Magic lesson. We were bored, and looked at him pityingly.

"Sometimes I wonder if any of our experiments went wrong," mumbled Louis gently as he petted Freddie's back, but looked at us Gryffindors. "James and I take full blame for his defects."

Our redhead cousin turned and punched the blonde on the throat. Louis fell to the ground of the Great Hall and started gasping; no one paid him any mind. "Anyway," he snapped again, "it was Al and Nia! The dirty bastards were doing it at this time of the morning!"

"How does that even make it a horrible day for you, Freddie?" asked Roxy.

"Al hexed me!" Freddie exclaimed. "All I did was give them a giant cheer and he sent a jinx to my manly-bits! I couldn't necessarily meet up with my lady friend then, could I? I got no hanky-panky and I'm feeling very tender—my morning is ruined!"

"You do not have a lady friend, Freddie," I repeated.

"I do, too!"

"You do not—" Appearing at the table, all loyally together, was Malfoy, Rose and Liam. My heart stopped as the brown eyes of my ex-boyfriend found mine. There was something heartbreaking about them, but before I could get lost in them, before any of the tender emotions could resurface, someone else started speaking and he took the intrusion to blink away.

Scowling at us with her parental attitude, Rose released her boyfriend's hand as she bent towards the ground and appeared a second later with Louis; pulling him up by the collar of his button-up. "I know I'm going to regret this, but what is wrong now?"

"Freddie caught Al and Nia going at it like animals in the Charms classroom," Hugo responded to his sister's question, "and he interrupted, as always. Al hexed him in the quaffles and now Freddie is very emotionally hurt."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes at my cousin. "Are you sure it was them?"

"I'm pretty fucking positive," snapped Freddie as he finally took a seat at the table. "Al faced me and hexed me out of the classroom." He stopped for a moment, laughing and shaking his head as he reached for a plate of breakfast. "I did get a full view of Harper's shapely back features—before she hid under the desk, that is. Did you know she has a tattoo on her lower back?"

Liam and Rose turned to each other, eyebrows raised and a mutual look of confusion on their faces.

"Ah! Look who it is!" But before they could question anything, Freddie was glaring once more when Al and Nia were heading our direction; hands clasped together. Their facial features were far from similar, however. There was a deeply aggravated look on my brother's face, whereas Harper looked far from the present moment. "Come to apologize for—"

Freddie was talking, turning red from his anger, but no sound was coming out of his lips. Malfoy flashed his concentrated silver eyes from him towards the arriving couple. He had cast a nonverbal on Freddie, but I had to be the only one to see the suspicion behind it. He wasn't annoyed, Malfoy, he was concerned.

"Busy morning, was it?" Malfoy narrowed his silver gaze at my brother.

"You can say that," replied Albus offhandedly. He cleared his throat and pulled his blonde girlfriend tighter to his side. Something was definitely up. Their mutual spark, that kind that made me sick was somehow retained. Al looked like he was keeping Harper captive and the witch looked like she was suffocating.

"I bet," snickered Hugo, calling the attention to him. He was smirking tauntingly, wiggling his eyebrows at Al and Harper. Merlin only knows why, but he's always had a thing for the bloody gorgeous witch. Whenever he could get a chance to flirt with her, make innuendos, he'd take them with glee. "Freddie tells us that, being the lucky bastard you are, Al, that you—"

"Emily's missing," interrupted my brother.

The cheeky atmosphere left and was replaced with a sudden, thick fog of worry. Malfoy's brows furrowed, looking like he was solving a major arithmetic problem; Rose stopped rubbing Louis' back in attempt to help him regain his lost oxygen; Liam was on high-alert; and even I stopped seeing the web of secrets Al and Malfoy were weaving together.

"We found James an hour ago," Al continued. "He's looking for her everywhere. He's going insane."

"Don't you two know where she is?" I looked briefly at Harper, but settled on Rose. "Surely you must've heard or seen her leave your shared dormitory."

Almost as if she had noticed her surroundings, like she was checking in, Harper gave a slight jump and looked around at all of us with scowling blue eyes. She shoved Albus away, looking like the aggravated girl that was so common. "We would have noticed, but she hasn't slept in our dormitory for the past month."

"Where has she—"

"She sleeps in ours," Louis cut across Malfoy's question, finally puffed with all of his oxygen. "James has been sneaking her in for weeks, but yesterday he slept alone. We assumed they had a row because James was sort of miserable all day. And as soon as he woke up and washed, he set off to look for her."

Malfoy frowned. "She shouldn't be sleeping with Potter."

"Oh, like that matters right now," I hissed at the Slytherin, standing from my seat. "This is not the first time Em goes missing, but we're going to focus on the fact of whether or not she sleeps with James? Nia and Al go at it like rabbits, but no one ever says anything about that! We girls can make the bloody choice if we have sex or not, and none of you should look down at us for it. Hypocrites."

Liam had blinked in my direction when I first spoke, but now he was looking away. Figures.

"That was completely unnecessary and disturbing," mumbled Rose, shaking her red curls at me. "Louis, you and Freddie head up to your dormitory and grab the Marauders Map. We've got an hour before lessons, let's hope we can find Em then."

                                                                              X

Most days—maybe because I was going through a breakup, heartache, and uncontrollable, teenage angst—I couldn't stand my brothers. One was worse than the other in various, irritating ways. What they had in common was that they both liked to ignore me, which I was fine with some of the time, and they both liked to belittle me. They had a habit of telling the people around them that I was their little sister; like I was a retarded puppy that was never going understand the functionings of the world. When they weren't doing that, they were pissing me off by being typical older and mocking brothers. Is there any doubt why I send them both packing to hell?

On a regular day, I'd continue on my path and pretend James was just a fly on the wall. Today, however, was not a regular day. Where he's usually obnoxious and dimwitted, today James was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"What were you two fighting about?" asked Rose as we all walked to the Head Office. It was five minutes until classes started, but according to Roxy, McGonagall was looking for James, Rose, Al, Malfoy, Harper, Liam and I.

With an expression that resembled a little boy who was told his Pygmy Puff died, James barely mumbled, "she cancelled her meetings with the Healer..."

"What?! Since when?"

"She hasn't gone since before the Christmas holidays," replied James to Malfoy's outraged question.

Rose pulled on her worried-mother face. "How is that possible?"

James shrugged as we gave a turned and came face to face with the statue of the gargoyle that hid the entrance to the Headmistress' office. He mumbled the password to it and then added, "I don't know...I just know because Neville let it slip that she had stopped. He was...He is certain she's gotten better."

I put a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe she has, Jamie. Maybe she's ready to move on now."

We stomped our way up the spiral staircase. When we reached the door Al was the one to knock. When we heard the Headmistress' voice my brother twisted the golden handle and both tall and grand doors opened for us. We were expecting, as usual when one comes to visit the Headmistress' office, to see McGonagall sitting behind her desk and glaring at us. Usually the portraits of Dumbledore and Snape were waiting, too; one with a smile and twinkling lights as eyes, while the other frowned with distaste.

This time, however, McGonagall wasn't alone and irritated.

"Mum?"

Standing at the side of the Headmistress' desk was a redhead woman. If Mum was ever present in the office, she was not happy. Of course, I have never gotten into serious trouble to know, but James has always said that Mum never bothered to hide the fact that she was on the verge of murder for being called in. This time, she was not happy, but she wasn't angry either. There was something glittering in her brown eyes that made my heart pick up a grave rhythm.

What was also odd about the entire thing was that Lysander Scamander was there, too. He was standing beside Mum, blonde hair down to his eyes and those baby blues looking tormented and guilty. (That was a first for him. He was usually Mister Happy.)

"Mum," sighed James, visibly out of energy, "if this is about the prank that was pulled on Lysander, I swear I had nothing to do with it. It was some Hufflepuffs, okay? I was just the one who sold them Uncle George's products. I didn't know who they were using them on, honest. I'll give you all their names."

McGonagall frowned at my brother—she had warned him about distributing any Weasley Wizard Wheezes products—but she didn't say anything about it. She kept her mouth shut, surprisingly, as Mum swallowed to speak. Her hands were jittering, which was also peculiar, that she had to clutch them together.

"Yesterday night, after all the Astronomy students had made their way inside the castle, Filch noticed that one lingered behind. He went to fetch her, but...but he noticed that the girl was moving into the Black Lake. When he got to the edge of it, the girl was...the girl was already...erm...He waited for her to come out, but..."

Mum was losing her resolution and that never happened. Her hands were shaking and she sucked in a deep breath. She was attempting to pull herself together, but she couldn't. McGonagall took control of the situation with her firm tone.

"Miss Taylor was pulled out of the shallows of the Black Lake almost forty minutes after she went in."

Everyone drew a breath together, but I must have been the only one to turn to James. His face crumbled, the brightness of his eyes died and drowned with tears. He turn white like powder and looked about to collapse.

I grabbed his arms before he could fall.

"She lost a lot of blood—"

"Who attacked her?" interjected Malfoy, eyes wild and terrified.

"There was no attack," replied the Headmistress.

Rose knitted her brows, her eyes leaking tears as her and Nia hugged each other. "What...What do you mean, Professor? How did she lose blood, then?"

Mcgonagall looked like her usual, composed self, but her tone sounded far from it. She sounded sympathetic, saddened, and helpless. "One slash on both wrists were the cause of the blood loss. Those punctures were self-inflicted."

"That's not true!" roared James, suddenly coming to life but looking like he was on the verge of falling to his death. "That's not true! She would have never done that! She would have never attempted to leave me! That's not true!"

He withered like an uncontrolled animal, shoving me onto the ground and looking ready to attack. His eyes were red, tears dripping with free reign, and his hands were balled into dangerous fists.

Mum was at his side within a millisecond. She wrapped her arms tight around him, fighting for him to surrender.

As James' screams echoed off the Headmistress' office, as Harper helped me off the ground, we all looked at each other and accepted what my brother couldn't. Emily would have attempted suicide. Emily would have left James behind.

                                                                             X

The rest of the school day was incredibly unbearable. There was a certain silence in the classrooms, but no one seemed to know why. There was a tragic atmosphere during dinner, making the Pumpkin Juice bitter and the food tasteless. No one exactly knew why it was that the castle was dampened by gray, but it infected everyone just the same.

Rose had skipped dinner and whispered to me that she was going to the Slytherin Common Room to try and see Malfoy. It was painfully evident that Malfoy loved Emily, more than could be expressed, and Rose had come to terms with that. She knew that his love for her was the overbearing, unshakeable love that a brother had over his little sister. Although Emily was one of Rose's closest friends, it was somehow silently said that he needed the support more than she did.

Where best friends are concerned, Roxy mentioned that Liam and Nia were huddled together in a crook of an aisle inside the library. It was calm there, perfect to be silent there together. Roxy said that Al tried to pull Nia away so they could go somewhere together, to some place where he could hug her and tell her that it was all going to be okay, but that she did not give in. She instead had suggested that Al head to the Hospital Wing and wait outside incase James needed anything.

As everyone was off in a pair, I was alone. At least, that's how I was before a foreigner came into my lonely hiding place and kept me company.

"You could tell me, you know," Octavio De la Cruz whispered to me as he sat beside me; both of us looking into the flames of Trelawney's fireplace. (I liked the Divination Professor, and I always beat anyone who disrespected her and took advantage of her trust in students, but tonight I was taking advantage that she never locked her classroom. It was the one place that was equipped like a common room. Pillows, rugs, fireplace, and even a tea set.)

I shrugged. "It's not my story to tell."

The Slytherin chuckled. "I am not referring to the reason you and your amigos are saddened tonight, but the reason why you have been hiding for the past days."

I didn't look at him. I kept my eyes on the flames crackling. "You're perceptive. Is that usual for someone like you?"

He laughed again. "For someone like me?"

"Yeah. You know, a bloke. Blokes don't notice anything."

"Well, most boys around here have friends to help them pass the time. I am the new student who people are not quite warming up to. My sister could count as a distraction sometimes, but Ophelia has found her own entertainment in your brother, it seems."

"My brother?" This time I did turn to him. "What do you mean? Are you referring to Albus?"

His dark, profound eyes trapped me. His gaze locked me in and I felt as if it all might have been a trap. They were captivating. Everything about the Spaniard made me feel different. It made me feel new and anonymous.

"You met me in the library every night at eight, remember? It was not hard to miss your presence as I was organizing books by myself. Not to mention that you ignored me three nights ago when I tried to get your attention. Rumour has it you broke up with your boyfriend."

His right brow rose up, like he was inspecting me. It made me nervous.

"I don't want to talk about it," I said. "It's not worth talking about."

"He cared about you."

"Octavio—"

"But that was the problem, wasn't it? He cared about you too much." He stared me down. "And that's why you broke up with him, isn't it? Because there is a difference between love and caring. Just like there is a difference between passion and lukewarm affection."

"Liam loves me," I said harshly, but somehow it sounded wrong to have to defend it.

"Like someone loves a puppy."

"Stop it!" I snarled and shoved him. "Don't pretend to know the functions of my relationship with him!"

He gripped my arm, pulling me in. "I do know them, Lily. It's all you talked about when we were together." He grinned crookedly at me, the light of the flames making his indigo-colored eyes looked more devilish than ever. "And I see your frustration. You are a caged bird too big for its prison cell. You want out, but no one wants to let you go. Precious Lily, fragile Lily. You were his pet, hermosa."

I raised my free arm to strike him but he clutched it before my hand could make impact with his face. "I am no one's pet, De la Cruz."

With that crooked grin of his, the Sixth Year Slytherin gripped my arms more tightly and he reeled me in. His lips captured mine roughly, his top teeth grazing my skin. He moved his mouth like he had no care in the world, like he was kissing stone instead of a delicate flower.

It lasted not as long as I thought a forced kiss would. He pulled back and eyed me carefully. "I'll stop," he said.

But, surprisingly so, I shook my head. It wasn't a bad kiss, it was just different. It didn't bubble love in my chest, but it bubbled excitement. I felt different. I felt new. I felt like I could be the released bird instead of the adorable, fluffy pet people saw me as.

He wanted me. Truly, he desired me. I saw it in his eyes.

So, I kissed him back. We fell back on the floor, a cushion underneath my head. He was on me, hands exploring as mine copied his ways. My heart was thumping with thrill and fear of the unknown. I let him, though; I let him take what Liam never wanted to take.