"She knows," Ned's voice rang down the hall as he limped forward, walking as quickly as his gait would allow him to, trying to ignore the sharp pains racing up his spine with every step, "She heard us!"

Remus's face paled as the Professor neared and the words sunk in. "But if she knows - she'll tell the whole village. They'll all know what we are. They'll --"

"They'll come for us, yes," Ned limped by, "They'll come for us with all of their superstition and hatred and --"

"But the castle -- the university --" Remus's eyes were pooling as he scrambled, also limping, to catch up to Ned.

Neither of the werewolves were going to keep up with the running girl - but --

"Watch out!" Lily cried, and she ran up behind the pair of them, shooing them out of the way and racing to open the door as out of the library came careening a big shaggy black dog and a stag, the dog far ahead as the stag's hooves slid awkwardly on the floor of the castle. They ran down the hall, past Ned and Remus and out the doors Lily had just finished shoving open, down the stairs... 

The dog barked as he raced ahead. He could see the branches still moving in the brush at the edge of the trees and he ran for it as hard as he could. The stag caught up a moment later, able to catch his footing on the mossy dirt, he sprang along side the dog and then past him, leaping clear over the brush and into the trees of the forest as Remus, Ned, and Lily watched from the stone steps with held breath.

The dog breathed the scent of the woman in the air, from the moss and he leaves, and the stag sprang over logs and ducked under branches, his antlers plowing down the way for him as he shook his head. The dog snuffed the ground and barked and turned, following the scent, and the stag followed the dog, honking quietly in his snout. Birds flew up through the trees, disturbed by the rush, their wings flapping and carrying them up out of the trees, and a fox peered at them from the thick of it as the dog finally stopped running and rustled about the leaves and needles.

The scent was gone.

Pop!

"What the fucking hell?" Sirius said, looking around as another Pop! sounded and James stood where the stag had been, his antlers still sucking back up into his scalp. "I - how --? Where is she?"

"I lost the scent, too," James said, and they spun about - they were in the midst of a thicket, a tiny clearing barely large enough to have held both their animagus forms. The brush around them wasn't thick enough for the woman to be hiding in, and the trees were narrow little things, replanted within the last decade or so, impossible to be hiding behind. Sirius spun and stared off in all directions. "It's like she ruddy disappeared," James said, panting.

Sirius was breathing heavily, too. "Could she be a witch?" he asked, looking at James. "Do you reckon she disapparated?"

James shook his head, "I don't think she is... Remus didn't say she's a witch."

Sirius's eyes searched the trees. "Well what the fuck then?"

"I don't know," James replied.

"MUGGLES DON'T JUST DISAPPEAR!" Sirius shouted.

James looked around, too, but there was no one to be seen.

Back at the castle, they all sat around the one long table in the dining hall. Ned stared blankly at the wall, his features weary and worn. Remus sipped a cup of aconite tea while Sirius leaned against him, his head on Remus's shoulder, and James and Lily sat opposite one another, awkwardly, James biting his lip and studying the tips of his fingers while Lily's eyes traveled over the paintings on the walls - a huge, moving triptych of the aurora borealis, painted on black canvas so that the green and pinks of it shone bright.

It was as though they were all waiting for the repercussions of Elva's flight.

"We should leave," Ned murmured finally. "Board up the castle... and..." He looked at the other four, "Go to the Potter's, that's the safest place for you all, and I'll return to Newt Scamander, and --"

"Well, about my place --" James murmured, turning red and sounding rather sheepish, "My parents... aren't exactly home. And I don't think, exactly, that we ought to be going there right about now."

Ned raised an eyebrow. There was something about the way James was saying it.

Sirius said, "You should write your mum. You know Mrs. P isn't going to say no to it."

"After what I said to her?" James said, he shook his head.

"What you said to her?" Lily spoke up. She looked across at him. Likewise, Ned stared at James, and so did Remus. James hung his head, refusing to meet their eyes, picking at his thumbnail. "Potter?" Lily prodded. "Potter."

James looked up slowly, "We - we had a row."

"What over?"

James hesitated. "Well, remember when I called you and I mentioned I needed to get back to the house?" Lily closed her eyes. James continued, "Well, right after I hung up with you, there was - er - sort of an - an attack on San Jose. Some dark wizards. They blew up this restaurant and were terrorizing muggles and - and of course I helped to save the muggles --"

"Of course," Lily said, nodding with understanding.

"Well mum reckons it was less of an 'of course' and more of a 'what were you thinking, you could've been killed' sort of thing, and we had an argument and..." James paused, "I... may have said I understood how she was once a Slytherin when she was in school."

Ned closed his eyes and Remus shook his head as Sirius sighed. Lily alone looked confused. "Was she?"

"Yeah," James answered.

Lily asked, "Wait, so you reckon she won't want you home because you said what house she was in when she was in Hogwarts?"

"I called her dark!" James said.

"No. You called her Slytherin. Which she was," Lily was pragmatic. "Slytherins aren't all evil anymore than all Gryffindors are good."

"Alright," James said skeptically.

"No, really," Lily snapped, "And you know it. What about Alabaster Jackson? He's good. And Regulus..."

"Depending on the day and his mood," intoned Sirius.

"Yes well, you're often a little dodgy too aren't you?" Lily snapped at Sirius, who stuck out his tongue and went back to laying his head against Remus's shoulder.

James said, "It was more the tone I said it in anyway."

Lily said, "Well your mum loves you very, very much and I don't reckon she's going to hold it against you."

"Well, she is a Slytherin," James said, "They hold grudges rather well."

Lily shrugged.

"Besides, it's technically Moony's house," Sirius pointed out.

"I wasn't going to point it out," Remus murmured, "But... yeah."

There was silence around the table for several long moments. Then Sirius spoke up, "What about the moon? It's in just a couple days. We can't be having the full moon at the Lupin house - so close to that village and --"

"There's the storm cellar," Remus said quietly, loathing the thought even as he spoke the words.

"No," Sirius said firmly. "No, you're not transforming there. You hate that cellar."

Remus shrugged, "If there's no choice --"

"No." Sirius's voice was hard. "Absolutely not."

James spoke up, "Pete's birthday is next week. We could pop by and get him and all of us go camping. I reckon he'd probably like to come along if we were to camp."

"I would, too," Lily spoke up.

Remus, James, and Sirius all three looked around at her. "For an entire week, Evans," James said.

"Yes, I heard you," Lily answered.

James laughed, "I don't know, Evans. Even Sirius barely can stand that much camping - there's no place to primp oneself."

Sirius muttered, "It's a great deal more difficult keeping all of this maintained in the woods," he waved his arm at himself. "It's truly roughing it."

Ned Veigler smirked and shook his head as Remus rolled his eyes.

Lily said, "I don't care. I can rough it."

James's lips quirked at the corners. "Can you now?"

"Yes, I can," Lily said hotly, crossing her arms, now determined. She'd rough it in her own back yard at this rate if she had to, just to prove to him that she could.

James asked, "And how are you getting to Mr. Scamander's, Professor?"

"Oh, Newt and I have our way of getting in touch," Ned replied mysteriously. "He would be here in minutes, if I asked him to be."

James nodded. "Alright, then. I guess that's settled."

Ned looked around the hall wistfully as they all stood up, and as James, Sirius, and Lily went to fetch Sirius's rucksack, and get Remus's packed - Remus himself hung back in the door.  He and Ned stood  there a moment.

"It's never going to come to fruition now," Ned said quietly. "Once word gets out what we are - they'll burn the place down as look at it." He sighed. Then, "I had such grand plans... I suppose they were never going to be anyhow. A werewolf as a headmaster." He scoffed and shook his head, "A ridiculous dream."

"It isn't," Remus replied. "You would've been the greatest headmaster that ever was. Even greater than Dumbledore, I reckon."

Ned half-smiled, "You're generous with that description," he shook his head, "I could never be as great as Dumbledore. None could." He looked down at his feet a long moment, then said, "I should've modified her memory the moment we removed the arrow."

Remus didn't speak.

"I had countless opportunities," Ned murmured.

"No matter when you'd done it, she still would've overheard today," Remus pointed out.

"I should have delivered her to the pub, while she was still unconscious," he murmured.  "I knew where she came from, I knew exactly who she was and where she ought to have been brought. But I kept her here, like a fool, just --" he stopped mid-sentence.

Remus said, "You did what you thought was best."

Ned patted Remus's shoulder. "Sometimes what we think is best, when we are blinded by love, is exactly what we ought never to have done. We give allowances when none should be taken." He stepped around Remus and into the hallway. "I'm going," he said, "The floo upstairs. If you need anything at all, you send an owl - send it via Albus Dumbledore. He'll be able to get in touch with Newt and I, wherever we end up. Alright?"

Remus nodded.

Ned pulled Remus into a hug. "Be careful out there, brother."

"You, too, Professor," Remus said thickly.

Ned pulled away and smiled at him, then turned and limped away.

Remus sighed, turning back to the kitchen. He waved his wand to extinguish the fire in the hearth. "He deserved better than this," he muttered. "She didn't even give him a chance." On the floor, the kneazle peeked up from behind the table. Spotting him, Remus knelt down, "Hey. Why don't you come with me?" he asked, "So you'll be safe." The kneazle stared at Remus resolutely, sitting exactly where he was. Remus took a step forward to collect the kneazle, and the cat turned and ran out of the door at the far end, into the kitchen, his bushy tail raised.

In the library, Remus found James and Lily using the Wingardium Leviosa to move the locket back into the little trinket box it had come from, a wary expression on Lily's face as she hovered it carefully over the box James held aloft for her to drop it into. He snapped it shut the moment the necklace hit the velvet cushion and the latch swung closed.

"Where's Sirius?" Remus asked.

"Upstairs, getting your rucksacks," Lily replied.

Remus turned and left to find him.

James turned the box over in his hands, studying it.

Lily stepped over and from the box she could hear the low, whispered hissing again, and she frowned. "I hate the idea of that stupid thing coming along with us," she said. "I hate it being near me. It makes me feel awful and heavy. I wish we could just... leave it here on the bookshelf or something. Just forget it and pretend it doesn't even exist. That we never saw it in the first place." She scowled at it.

"We can't very well just leave it laying about anywhere unattended," James pointed out. "If it's of value to You Know Who, he's probably searching for it, and I don't reckon I want to know what he'd do with it."

Lily shook her head. "I just don't want it, either."

"We could find a safe place for it," James suggested, "Somewhere safe, where it's protected by charms, where Voldemort can't get it."

"Like where?" Lily asked.

James thought for a long moment, then, looking around, he said, "Hogwarts. We'll bring it to the Lupin house - real quick, there's a couple things there I want to get anyway before mum and dad get back from Costa Rica anyhow - and we'll put it in the storm cellar there for now. It'll be safe - that house is under a fidelus, and the storm cellar's near to invisible and locked and under loads of charms. It's meant to keep a werewolf contained, you know, I'm certain it'll keep a necklace safe for a month. Then, end of August, we'll go back and get it and bring it to Hogwarts and we'll hide it somewhere in the castle. Chuck it down one of the precipices in the bloody Trophy Room Passageway for all I care, and we'll never see it again."

Lily's eyes were wide, "You really think that could work?"

"Yeah, I reckon it could. No way is Voldemort getting it in Hogwarts - not after last year. He'd be a fool to think Dumbledore would fall for that disguise twice. If he truly even fell for it the first time, that is, of course," James said.

Lily nodded. Then, "You know, in order to go back for it, you'll need to make up with your mother and father."

James looked down at his trainers, "Yes. Well. I'll deal with that when the time comes. It's the only plan we've got. And if we get rid of it at the castle, it's done with. You'll never worry about it again." James promised. "It's as good as destroyed."

Lily said, "That would be great not to have to. I hate it."

"So do I," James murmured. "Because you do."

Their eyes met and James was lost in the greenness of Lily's irises and the way they shone so bright against the black pupils that seemed to reach right into her very soul and he found himself leaning toward her ever so slightly, drawn in by her eyes - by her smell - old feelings stirring, new feelings bubbling just below them - a fleeting flash of lavender in his mind and --

"Ready to go, you blithering baboons?" Sirius announced from the door, smirking, saying the last two words in Minerva McGonagall's voice.

Snapping to it, James looked 'round at Sirius. "Are you ready to go, you wanker?"

Remus looked over Sirius's shoulder and he and Lily shared an expression of exasperation at James and Sirius's exchange.

"Oi, Evans and I have a bit of a mission," James announced, "We're going to go and get my things from home and such and we'll meet you lot behind the old Dumbledore house in Godric's Hollow, yeah? Will you two collect Pete?"

"Yeah, we'll get the little pudgeball," Sirius said, smirking, even as Remus elbowed him. "Wormtail," Sirius amended.