Surprise

The first class after the Christmas holidays was Care of Fantastic Beasts. They had to wrap themselves up tightly before heading to the outdoor area, where Professor Kettleburn had built a fire beside the old pile of stones and had them sit in a circle to look after Fire Crabs.

The little creatures kept shooting fire from their backsides, and Mary nearly had a great hole burned in her robes, but the upside was that, by the end of the lesson, no one was shivering from the cold anymore.

That evening in the common room, Alan came over to tell Rose that Quidditch practice would resume on Wednesday. They had already lost to Slytherin, and they absolutely could not lose their next match against Hufflepuff.

Rose decided to finish her Divination homework in the common room that night—it was the easiest of all her classes.

She sat in a chair beside the fireplace, hunched over the table as she racked her brains to make up a dream. She was just writing that she had dreamed of falling into the Black Lake and accidentally being swallowed whole by the Giant Squid when James climbed through the portrait hole.

"How strange," Rose said without looking up. "James Potter isn't in detention or out roaming at night!"

James sat down in the chair beside her, glancing in Lily's direction as he tried to appear calm and mature. "We just got back from the library," he said in a deep voice, but perhaps because his voice was changing, deliberately lowering it only made it sound raspier.

Rose burst out laughing, and Lily's expression was very odd too.

"Who's got the radio on?" A younger boy peered over the sofa. "Please, turn it off. It sounds awful!"

James's face turned pink. He walked over to the boy and gave him a hard smack on the head.

"Don't bully the younger students, Potter!" Lily snapped, stopping him. But this seemed to make James feel much better. He shrugged, sauntered over to Rose, and said excitedly in a low voice, "Sirius succeeded over the holidays, but he isn't sure whether bringing it here in a trunk counts as disturbing it—we need to find a few more Death's-head Hawkmoth Pupae now!"

"Maybe try your luck with Professor Slughorn?" Rose suggested. James's eyes lit up, and he gave her a thumbs-up.

"Besides that, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about," Rose said hesitantly. She glanced at Lily, who had her head down and was writing furiously, then stood up and pulled James farther away to whisper to him.

Lily understood that Rose was a person in her own right. She was kind and good-tempered, and everyone liked her, but friendship, like love, was possessive. Lily glanced out of the corner of her eye at the two people standing so close together and found Potter's great big head more irritating than ever.

Whenever this happened, she reminded herself again and again that Rose had never interfered with her friendship with Severus. Rose respected her choices, and she must never meddle in Rose's affairs either!

Potter seemed very interested in the subject. He excitedly tried to keep his voice down, but it was so raspy that Lily could still faintly hear her own name. Rose gave her an awkward glance and tugged hard on Potter's robe sleeve, signaling for him to control himself.

When the conversation was over, Rose returned to her seat as though nothing had happened. James patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, leave it to us." Finally, he pretended to glance at Lily casually before heading back to the boys' dormitory with a spring in his step.

"What were you talking about?" Lily tried to make her voice sound less strained, but she might have failed.

Rose was clearly distracted. She picked up her quill again. "Oh, nothing—we were discussing Quidditch tactics."

She was lying. Lily felt as though a stone had been lodged in her heart, and a tremendous sense of disappointment overwhelmed her.

"Oh," Lily heard herself say. "The kind I'm not allowed to know about?"

Rose's hand stiffened around her quill. She hesitated over whether to explain, but her reaction clearly deepened Lily's misunderstanding. Lily turned and went back to the girls' dormitory.

Lily was hurt. Rose realized that clearly.

Lily still stuck close to her and Marlene as she always had, and still smiled and talked to her, as though nothing had happened that night.

But Rose knew that wasn't true. Lily always avoided meeting her eyes, and it was as though something invisible had come between them. She had hurt Lily.

Rose felt at a loss. She began to wonder whether she should tell Lily what they had planned ahead of time.

Marlene had noticed something was wrong too, and secretly asked her about it several times. After Rose told Marlene everything, she reassured Rose that Lily would certainly make up with her once it was all over!

But before that day came, Lily suddenly went back to treating her as she always had. This left Rose even more bewildered. She couldn't make sense of it no matter how hard she thought, so in the end she put it all out of her mind and threw herself into the preparations—they were going to celebrate Lily's birthday in an empty classroom.

That was what she had gone to James to discuss that day. They wanted to give Lily a surprise.

On Friday afternoon, the last day of January, James pulled Sirius quickly out the door after Potions Class, taking a moment to look back and wink his amber eyes at Rose.

"Let's go to the Great Hall for dinner. I'm starving!" Lily suggested.

"Er, I have something else to do. You go ahead," Rose said, giving Marlene a meaningful look.

Lily sighed and turned to Marlene. "You don't have something else to do too, do you?"

Marlene took Lily's arm, rested her head on her shoulder, and pleaded with her in a cloyingly sweet voice to go to the library with her first.

"I left my Transfiguration homework there!" Marlene said.

After the two of them left the classroom together, Rose went to the desk in the front row and stood before Snape, who had his head down as he packed up his Potions ingredients.

Snape didn't spare her a glance. He silently continued what he was doing, waiting for her to explain why she had come.

"Today is Lily's birthday." Rose cleared her throat. "We've prepared a party for her. Would you... like to come too?"

He paused for a moment as he put away his cauldron, then looked up and met Rose's eyes. He saw no trace of teasing or joking in them. Snape narrowed his eyes and repeated, "A party—you're inviting a Slytherin to a party in that stupid lion's den of yours?"

His attitude irritated Rose. She fought to suppress a sarcastic remark and said pleasantly, "You're Lily's best friend-" One of them, she added to herself. "She'll definitely want to see you there!"

Seemingly pleased by her words, the muscles in Snape's face twitched slightly, and he seemed unable to stop himself from smiling. "Where?"

Rose was so annoyed by his lofty attitude and his reluctance to waste a word that she laughed. She took a deep breath and forced a smile. "The abandoned classroom on the fifth floor, at seven tonight."

Snape gave a restrained nod and left the classroom without looking back.

She swore this was the last time in her life she would ever speak to that little bat of her own accord!