"Wolf!" Edon screamed from the door of Honeydukes.

"Ha!" Rowan laughed, "They actually think I'm a wolf."

"Hate to break it to you," Sirius said, "But you are a very convincing carnivore."

"Gee, thanks."

"Not a problem."

If they'd been in human form, she would've punched him gently on the arm. Instead, she rammed her shoulder into his side playfully.

Something in the pit of her stomach told her she shouldn't have done that.

"Hey, you okay?" Sirius asked, his tone sounding worried.

"Yeah, fine," she replied.

She wasn't fine.

But how could she tell him?

The night prior...

"Lily, I don't know what to do!" Rowan mumbled. The two were sitting under Lily's covers in the middle of the night, only the light coming from their wands to illuminate the darkness.

"How long has it been?" Lily asked, "How late are you?"

"Almost two months," Rowan replied.

"And how long ago did you...?"

"Two months."

"That doesn't technically mean that you are-"

"Don't say it!"

"Sorry," Lily whispered after hearing someone's sheets rustle, "That technically doesn't mean anything. You could get it any day now."

"But everyday I don't is another reason to get worried," Rowan said, "How am I going to tell Sirius?"

"I don't know!" Lily responded, "How do you tell a seventeen-year old guy that in seven months time he might or might not be a father?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't ask you!" Rowan murmured, "Oh my God... I feel nauseous."

"Morning sickness?" Lily asked.

"I don't know..." Rowan whispered, "Probably."

Lily was silent for a moment. Then, she sat up and suggested, "Maybe, if you even are...you know, you should, I don't know, abort?"

Rowan shook her head frantically, saying, "Definitely not. I...I knew the consequences of doing what I did, and I did it anyway. It's my fault, and now I have to deal with it."

"You're a saint," Lily said, leaning over and hugging her hard, "I wish I knew what to say to help you."

"There's nothing you can say," Rowan muttered, "And I'm not a saint. I'm too stupid to be one."

"You're not-" Lily began, but stopped when Rowan pulled away and glared at her. "You made a mistake," she said, "Everybody does."

"I made an incredibly stupid mistake," Rowan countered, "And, in seven months time, both Sirius and I are going to have to pay for it."

"What?" a small voice whispered, and suddenly the sheets were lifted off of the two girls on the bed.

The girl standing there had olive-toned skin, pale blue eyes, and pure white hair. She was rubbing her eyes sleepily with one small hand and holding square-framed glasses in the other.

"What are you two talking about?" she yawned.

"Marigold!" Lily exclaimed out of shock, and then waited for a stir, heard nothing, and whispered, "It's nothing."

Marigold looked at Rowan, then, her eyes wide with shock, said, "You're bloated!"

"Marigold!" Rowan gasped, then put her index finger to her lips.

Quieter, she said, "And your waist has increased in size by an inch..."

"Seriously, Marigold," Lily said, "Shut up."

"You and your boyfriend spent practically all your time together over break," she continued, ignoring them, "The two of you are unusually close for teenagers, and since you've come back, he's almost never left your side if he could help it."

"And you know this because?" Rowan demanded.

"I know things," she replied simply, "That's what I get for being a Seer."

"You're a Seer?" Lily whispered.

Marigold nodded. "The gift always skips a generation in my family. My grandma is teaching me everything she knows. I can see what's going to happen in the future due to the path a particular person is on."

Rowan and Lily stared at each other for a moment.

"So, what do you see for me?" Rowan asked, "In, say, seven months time?"

"I see you with a huge belly," she replied stiffly.

Rowan's eyes widened and Lily turned her gaze back and forth between her and Marigold.

"Well," she croaked, "That's that, then."

"Marigold, can you see when she...um, has the baby?" Lily asked hopefully.

"I can try," Marigold replied, then closed her eyes. A bit dreamily, she started to speak.

"I can see you, Rowan, sitting in a bed-in a Muggle hospital-and you look God awful. Incredibly pale and exhausted, and your hair is sticking to your face...but you look happy. Really, irrevocably happy. And in your arms is a beautiful baby...girl."

She opened her eyes. "She's got his eyes."

Rowan let out a squeak, and put her head in her hands. When she looked back up at them, tears were streaking slowly down her cheeks. "I...I'm going to have a daughter?"

Marigold smiled weakly and nodded. She closed her eyes again. "He just walked in-Sirius, I mean. He looks extremely tired, he must've just gotten off the train or something. And...he just saw the baby. Oh, if only you could see the look on his face. It's not exactly happy, or bad, but sort of shocked. And he's walking towards you now, and you're holding out the girl to him...he's sort of unsure about taking her. Now you're insisting he holds her, and he takes her...you know in the movies, how the fathers look down at the new babies with that special, indescribable look on their face?"

Rowan and Lily both nodded.

"Well, he's got that look on his face right now."

Rowan beamed and put a hand to cover her mouth.

And then she started to cry.

"I thought wolves weren't supposed to come out of the Forbidden Forest until June!"

"It is June."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

The sound of the different voices had snapped her out of her reverie. Sirius had stopped and moved in front of her, looking at her as if she were a child who'd fallen off the jungle-gym.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, "You look a little out-of-it."

"Yeah," she insisted, "Sorry... I didn't get much sleep last night, that's all."

She stepped toward him and bumped her nose into his.

"Come on," Sirius muttered, "We'd better get out of here before they start chasing you with a net."

"Yeah," Rowan agreed. He turned around and they continued on down the street of Hogsmeade.

As they passed them, student were flattening themselves against the walls, trying not to be noticed by the "dangerous" wolf and the huge black dog she was with.

"Oh, my," Rowan said sarcastically, "Now that you have put yourself against a wall, I can no longer see you. Whatever am I to do?"

Sirius barked his laughter, forcing several of the flattened students to flinch convulsively, then freeze as if they'd blown their cover.

Rowan shook her head and looked to the heavens while Sirius just picked random students to stare at.

"Follow me," she muttered, trotting off down the road, then turning towards the Forbidden Forest.

He followed obediently.

"What are you-?" he began, but stopped when she suddenly burst into a sprint, running hard through the trees. He barked and went up on his hind legs. As he fell, he pushed off the ground and started after her.

He quickly caught up to her, and they ran together over roots and fallen trees and around bushes.

Sirius was running as fast as his legs could carry him. The trees were zooming past him in green and brown blurs, and Rowan wasn't far ahead of him. If he picked up his pace a little bit, he could easily pass her...

He sped up and in seconds was running beside her.

She shook her head playfully and rammed her shoulder into him again. He repeated the act and slammed into her as well. He barked, and, if it were possible, she laughed.

Suddenly, something caught his eye.

A little farther to the left, something huge was running along side them. He stopped abruptly, lifted a paw in the air, stuck his tail (it was so weird having a tail) straight out, and raised his head high, his ears perked up. Rowan kept on running.

He could see the huge creature clearly. There was more than one of them, possibly several dozens. At first all he saw were the large hooves pounding against the ground and digging up dirt. His first thought was that they were unicorns. But then he realized that unicorns were white, and few of these creatures were white.

They were brown, black, white, red, gray, and mixtures of them all. Their hooves were the color of coal, and the more he focused on them, the more like horses they looked. But where the neck and head of a normal horse should've been began the torso of a human-being. Some had dark skin, most were pale. The males were muscular, with hair down to their chins. The color of their hair was the same of their tails. The females were the same, with hair thick and long and blowing in the wind. They had ridiculously skinny waists, and while some had cloth covering their chests, some didn't. They were moving too fast for Sirius to really get a good glimpse of any of them, but he knew by the way they gracefully ran together they were possibly some of the most beautiful creatures in the entire forest, aside from unicorns.

Suddenly Rowan appeared beside him again. "What's going on?" she asked, then saw the centaurs. "Whoa..."

"I've never seen so many of them running together," Sirius said.

"I've never seen one ever," Rowan said dazedly, "They're so beautiful."

He looked over at her, and she looked back at him, and then, simultaneously, they started to run alongside the herd.

It seemed like they could run on for miles and never get tired, never get bored. As long as they were with that herd, they could just keep going and going, until the stars in the sky were the only way of escaping the thickness of the Forbidden Forest.

When the herd cut off in a direction so sharply that Rowan didn't dare follow, Sirius couldn't stop from behind her in time, and rammed into her.

Somehow, they were rolling.

Still in Animagus-form, they were rolling together down a steep hill. Stray sticks and pinecones and other items on the ground dug into their backs the entire way, and yet they were both laughing too hard to care. By the time they'd stopped at the bottom, both were shaking with laughter. Sirius morphed back into a human, and Rowan, still in her wolf-form, placed her paws on his chest to balance herself. Then she changed back, too, and rolled onto her back beside him.

They stared up at the sky, bordered by tree branches and clouds.

"Sirius," Rowan said, "There's something I have to tell you."

"Yeah?" he grunted, "What's up?"

"Well-" she began, but stopped abruptly as she heard a strange noise like shouting, and then an explosion. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Sirius asked, sitting up, "I don't hear anything."

A moment later, the noise came again, and she was sure he heard it.

"There it is again," she muttered, and stood up, "What was that?"

He stood up, too. "I didn't hear anything," he lied, "We should get out of here... it'll be dark soon."

"You go ahead, I'll meet up with you later," she said, "I'm going to figure out what that noise is coming from..."

Sirius was getting anxious. He recognized the sound of dueling, and that was definitely it. But who would be dueling in the middle of the Forbidden Forest in the late afternoon?

"It's probably just a few animals messing around or something," he insisted, "Let's go."

"What's life without a little risk?" she asked, looking at him mischievously. "If you don't want to come, then I'll meet up with you later."

"I don't think this is a good idea, Rowan," Sirius said, "There's something not right about this place."

She started to walk toward the noise. "You can either come along or leave," she called, not looking back, "It's your choice."

He rolled his eyes and cursed the heavens, and then went after her.

"Why are you so worried about this?" she asked, ducking under a low tree branch.

"I'm not worried about myself or anything," he replied, "In fact, if it were me and James, I'd be all for it. But considering it's you, I don't want anything bad to happen."

"Don't be such a jellyfish," she said.

He stopped dead. "Did you just call me a jellyfish?"

"Yup."

"I'm debating whether I should take offense to that or not."

"You should."

"Of course."

She was so far ahead, he could barely see her anymore through the thick trees. Her voice was becoming quieter and quieter, and his only way of knowing she was still there was from the sound of sticks and leaves cracking under her feet.

And soon, even that was gone.

Marigold and Lily were seated with a few other friends at a table in the corner of the Three Broomsticks. In another corner of the room were three boys, one tall, skinny, and exhausted-looking, another tall and skinny with glasses, and the last short and stout. They were toasting butterbeers and joking and laughing.

Suddenly Marigold went completely stiff, her face went blank, her eyes widened, and the mug in her hand started to shake.

"Mary?" Lily asked, "Something wrong?"

"The path has changed," she replied emotionlessly.

"Path?" Lily asked just as another girl, Kim Pickler, said, "What the hell is she talking about, Lil?" Kim had dark skin and blonde hair, eyes such a light shade of brown, they were almost yellow. Her face was heart-shaped, and she had a hooked nose and perfect lips.

"The path on which they lead to get to a certain point in time," Marigold replied just as emotionlessly, "It has changed."

"Who's path?" Lily asked, but she had a feeling she knew already.

"Mother and Father will go to a place surrounded by trees," she explained in a voice that wasn't hers, "He will call to her but she will not come. She, who knows what could happen and doesn't care, will keep going until she reaches a clearing which holds the key to her death."

"What's in the clearing, Marigold?" Lily demanded.

"She will be struck by claws that meant her no harm, and he-who-must-not-be-named will laugh at them as they fight and scream until she has lost."

"Lost what?" Kim asked.

"Blood?" Lily asked.

"The will to live," Marigold whispered, and suddenly she gasped. In her own voice, she said, "You have to help them, Lily!"

"How?" she demanded, "I don't know where they are!"

"In the Forbidden Forest," Marigold said quickly, "Turn off the road into the trees, and keep running straight until you hit a hill. Run down the hill and take a left. From there, if you keep running, you should eventually hit a clearing. That's where they will be."

"How will I know when I'm close?" Lily queried.

"There will be these weird things on the ground," Marigold replied, "The monster in the clearing is using them for something. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see them."

"I'll go as fast as I can," she insisted, and stood up, heading straight for the door. Then, suddenly, she thought of something. The creatures in the forest, the monster in the clearing, and all the other obstacles in there would be too much for her to handle. She couldn't go in there alone.

She turned around just in front of the door and eyed the boys in the corner.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," she muttered to herself, then rushed over to the table. They looked up as she approached, and Potter, who had his feet up on the seat across from him, sat up straight and ruffled his hair.

As she reached the table, she slammed her hands down onto its surface and looked straight into Potter's eyes. "If you care about Rowan and Sirius Black then you will not ask me any questions and just go along with it. They're in trouble, and I can't help them by myself."

"What do you mean they're in trouble?" Remus asked seriously, placing his mug on the table.

"Something's about to happen to them in the forest," she replied, "And I thought I told you not to ask any questions."

"What's about to happen to them in the forest?" Peter asked, ignoring her, "And how do you know?"

"I don't know exactly what's going to happen but something is going to happen that will inevitably end Rowan's life, and possibly Black's. I just know, okay?"

Potter was the first one to stand up. "Are you sure about this?" he demanded.

She nodded. "I wouldn't come to you if I wasn't."

"True that," Remus said, and stood up as well. "Where are they?"

"The forest," Lily replied, turning around, "And don't ask anymore questions."

The boys followed her out the door. She hurried to the edge of the Forbidden Forest and turned to them.

"Peter," she said, "I want you to go to the castle as fast as you can and get help; Dumbledore, if that's possible. Tell them that more than one life is in danger and that if they don't come right now very bad things will happen. It'll probably be dark by the time you come back with help, so we'll send up red sparks when we find them. You got that?"

"Get help, fast as I can, bad things will happen, red sparks," Peter repeated quickly, "Got it."

"Go," Lily commanded. When he didn't move, she yelled, "Go! Go now Peter!"

He turned on his heel so fast that a cloud of dirt erupted from the ground and started sprinting up the path. In seconds, he'd cleared the corner and they couldn't see him anymore.

The sky was completely pink and the lampposts were beginning to light up.

"We'd better get in there before it's too dark to save them," Lily said, and they stepped into the forest.

Then they broke into a run.

It was getting harder and harder for Rowan to see where she was going. But the little voice in her head kept telling her to go on and ignore Sirius's cries for her.

The sky was pink and merging into deep blue above her, and the ground was getting softer and softer under her feet.

Crack.

The sound was louder than any of the sticks she'd stepped on. She jumped at the noise and lifted her foot off of its source. In the growing darkness, she leaned over picked it up, unable to see what it was.

It was an arm.

She gasped and just barely managed to stop herself from screaming. But she didn't drop it. The more she looked at it, the more fake it looked.

And then she realized that it was fake.

Stuffing was oozing out of one end, and the fingers were just stubs tied together with thread at the tips. There was a thin cloth covering it like a sleeve, and it felt like a stuffed animal would. But it had a hard core, like bone, and it had obviously cracked when she stepped on it.

"What the hell?" she muttered to herself, dropping the arm on the ground. She pulled her wand out of her pocket and whispered, "Lumos." She looked up to the sky and saw that it was mostly blue again, and bright stars were shining. Then she turned her gaze back to the ground.

Immediately she wished she hadn't.

"They're not going to make it," Marigold muttered frantically, walking with the other girls up the path to the castle, "It's getting too dark for them to see, even with their wands lighting the way."

"They'll make it in time," Kim insisted, "They always do. Rowan and Sirius-" some of the other girls swooned "-are going to make it out of this alright. Rowan's strong, and she's got Sirius to look after her. If anything, she'll make it out of there with a few scratches."

"I can see the future, Kim," Marigold said, "And right now it isn't looking too bright."

Another girl, a Hufflepuff friend of theirs, Georgia Araya, stepped out in front of them carelessly and turned around, walking backwards. Her short brown hair was up in bushy pigtails. She had square glasses, and her earrings looked like they were made of Golden Snitches. She had a black vest with a yellow neckline over a pale yellow shirt with darker yellow stripes, a black tie with small yellow dots, and a yellow and black plaid skirt. She smiled goofily and said, "That's because in the near future it's going to be dark. You know, nighttime." She motioned towards the sky and giggled.

Marigold rolled her eyes while some of the other girls laughed along with her. She stopped in the middle of the dirt path and exclaimed, "You don't get it!"

They all stopped. Frita Gringe, a Ravenclaw girl with almost-white blonde hair and electric blue eyes, wearing pretty much the same thing as Georgia, only in blue and brown instead of yellow and black, asked, "Don't get what? That you think Rowan and Sirius-" Georgia giggled uncontrollably "-are in trouble just because you have a strange feeling?"

Marigold flushed furiously. "I know they're in trouble because I can see what's going to happen!" she screamed.

"And what exactly is going to happen?" Georgia asked, taking the end of her skirt in between her fingertips and spinning around.

Marigold stared at them darkly and replied, "Something is going to attack Rowan. It's going to be dark and she won't even see it coming. Sirius will be so mad at whatever it was that hurt her, he'll attack it instead of helping her. She'll die before he has the satisfaction of murdering whatever hurt her."

They all stared at her like she was insane, then burst into hysterical laughter. "Don't scare us like that, Mary!" Kim said, "I know that Rowan and Sirius are out there, but there is nothing in that forest that will hurt them. It's not even full moon tonight, so no werewolves will be out. The centaurs wouldn't hurt them, the unicorns wouldn't hurt them, and there's nothing else besides spiders. They'll be found, get in trouble for going into the Forbidden Forest, and that'll be the end of it."

"Kim, this isn't a joke!" Mary insisted. She looked at the other girls, still laughing uncontrollably. "George, Frita, Harry listen to me!"

Harriet, another Gryffindor girl with them, said, "Then prove that you can actually see the future, and we'll believe you."

Marigold crossed her arms and said, "There will be a terrible noise in three...two..."

As she was about to say one, a bloodcurdling, spine chilling, heart stopping scream filled the air.

It came from the Forbidden Forest.

"Get it off me!" Lily screamed, "Get it off me, get it off me, get it off me!"

"Stand still!" James commanded, holding out his wand, prepared to cast if only he could aim without worrying about hitting Evans in between the eyes.

"I will when it does!" she cried, but she stopped moving. On top of her head was a giant spider, bigger than any spider any of them had ever seen.

"Stupefy!" James yelled, and a red jet of light shot out from the end of his wand and hit the squirming spider, knocking it off her head and flying into a tree behind her.

"Acromantulas," Remus said, "There's bound to be even more of them around here."

"They're repulsive," Lily said, shivering and holding her wand out again, muttering, "Lumos," under her breath. "We're not going to run into anymore of those without seeing it coming."

Remus's wand was already lit up, and James lit his.

"Which way are we supposed to go?" Remus asked, pointing his wand out in front of him.

"Mary said we have to go straight from where we entered the forest until we hit a hill," Lily replied.

"Okay," James said, "So, which way did we enter the forest from?"

Lily took a breath to respond, but then stopped as she realized she didn't know.

"Oh, great," she muttered, "Now we'll never find them."

Rowan was surrounded by trees and bushes dripping with different dummy parts. Hands, feet, fingers, legs, arms, heads, everything. They were all oozing stuffing and looked like they'd been torn to shreds by something with sharp claws.

"Oh my God," she muttered, "What is this?"

In the distance, she could hear Sirius calling for her again. She hadn't heard him in a long time, and was thinking about waiting for him to reach her.

No, kid, the voice said, You have to keep going. Don't stop and wait for him, he'll catch up eventually. In fact, he's not that far back at all, really.

"Then why can't I wait for him?" she asked, "If he's not that far back, why can't we just figure this out together?"

Because he can meet up with you later, the voice insisted, You just keep going until he does.

She crossed her arms. "Why should I listen to you?" she demanded, "It was your stupid decisions that got me pregnant."

Everything will turn out okay in the end, the voice said, Trust me. It may seem bad right now, but everything is going to be alright.

She sighed. "Fine. What do you want me to do?"

Walk straight ahead.

"Okay. Whatever you want, because I'm apparently incapable of making my own decisions anymore. Hell, I made it fifteen years before you came along and I turned out alright."

Oh, sure. Being sucked into a deep depression that was almost suicidal is alright.

She groaned and continued forward.

And suddenly, all the trees disappeared behind her and she was in a clearing.

She wasn't alone.

"Big spider!" James cried, shooting red sparks out of his wand in every random direction possible, sprinting as fast as he could over roots and around trees and under low branches. "Big, big spider!"

"God, they're everywhere!" Evans screamed, her arms covering her head as she raced a little farther behind him.

In the little light their three wands provided, thousands of small spiders crawled out of holes in the trees' bark. Bigger spiders hung in midair by their webs off of tree branches. Even bigger spiders crawled on the ground. They just seemed to come from everywhere and everything.

Moony wasn't far ahead, but he was yelling for them to hurry. "The spiders haven't gotten here yet, maybe we can outrun them!"

Try as they might, they couldn't rid of the filthy creatures until, somewhere far off amongst the thickness of the trees, there was the sound of thumping and cracking, getting closer and closer.

The spiders started to recede. Some of them were making strange noises that closely resembled screaming, and they were all desperately trying to escape whatever was coming.

In seconds, everything had went from chaotic and terrifying to completely silent and peaceful.

And in seconds, whatever it was they had heard, that had scared off the spiders, burst through the trees.

Sirius held his wand out as far as he could. It was only lighting a small amount of space and he wanted to see as much as possible.

Crack.

He'd heard sticks crack under his feet before, but nothing as loud as that one. It didn't even sound like a stick. It sounded like something long and strong and all his weight on top of it was too much.

Sirius grinned darkly to himself. Maybe it was a bone picked clean by the spiders or something insane like that.

But his curiosity won him over and he pointed his wand down, towards whatever he'd stepped on.

He recoiled from it as if it was covered in some sort of gross, unidentifiable ooze.

"Ugh," he muttered, "That's messed up."

He stepped over the fake arm and continued through the trees.

"Professor, I'm not joking!" Peter insisted, "Evans told me to bring you there because Rowan and Sirius are in trouble!"

"I'm not going to bring you to the headmaster because you have a feeling fellow classmates are in trouble," Professor Slughorn said, "I need proof."

"Professor, I don't have any proof!" he groaned, "Can't you just trust me?"

Slughorn looked sort of worried but shook his head. "I can't do that, Peter. Admittedly, you are a fair student. But since you have entered this school, you and your friends have gotten into constant trouble, which means I can't trust you."

"But they are in trouble!"

"When someone I can trust comes along and tells me they're in trouble, than I will help you, but until then I can't," Slughorn said, running a hand through his hair.

"But there isn't anybody else!" Peter exclaimed just as five girls, all looking extremely distressed, burst through the door of the Potions classroom.

"Professor!" one of them, Marigold, gasped, "Professor, we need your help! Rowan and Sirius are in trouble!"

Peter turned his gaze back to the baffled professor and crossed his arms. "Do you believe me now?"

Slughorn, his eyebrows high, nodded and muttered, "Follow me, children, and I'll take you to the headmaster..."

"Minerva, I want you to get Madam Pomfrey," Dumbledore said calmly, "If Ms. Mulciber and Mr. Black really are in danger, her services may be needed."

"Yes, Headmaster," Professor McGonagall said, and she turned and hurried out of his office.

"Now," Dumbledore murmured, "How is it you know these things again?"

Marigold stepped up, her white hair messy. "I'm a Seer, Professor. I saw it."

"Really?" he wondered aloud, "What do you see now?"

"The same thing, over and over again," she replied, "Something is telling her-Rowan, I mean-to keep moving and it'll take her into a clearing. And something is going to attack her there."

"Do you see what?"

"No," she replied, sounding a bit ashamed, "I can't. It's too dark and it happened too fast. But the more I see it the clearer it gets."

"Can you tell me when this is going to happen?"

"No sir," she whispered, "Only that we might already be too late."

He looked up at her, brushing his fingertips on the surface of his desk. "Then we have no time to lose, do we?"

Rowan walked out into the middle of the clearing, stepping over the fake body parts, and eyed the dark figure at the other end. She could tell it was a gangly boy, particularly young. Whoever he was, he had his back turned to her.

He had shoulder-length, greasy black hair.

Sirius had reached a small clearing.

From the small amount of light his wand provided, he could see that the ground there was also covered in...parts.

He could also see another light in the middle of the clearing illuminating waves of red hair.

"Whatever you do," the centaur with the white-blonde hair, blue eyes, and palomino body said, looking back at Lily, who was hugging his torso tightly, "Don't let go. Although, I think you've got that covered."

"I won't be letting go anytime soon," she said, tightening her grip.

"Me neither," Remus muttered shakily. He was holding onto the neck of a large stag that had one been James Potter.

Lily still couldn't believe that James, Sirius, Peter, and Rowan were all unregistered Animagi.

"What did you say your name was?" Remus asked.

"Firenze," the centaur responded, "Now, follow me, young Animagus. I'll take you to the clearing you seek."

"You're not going to go too fast, right?" Lily asked. She felt Firenze laugh, and she whimpered.

He reared up onto his hind legs and raced forward, dodging trees and going faster than they'd hoped. James-the-stag was following closely behind.

In less than two minutes, Firenze stopped, and Lily looked up from his back and saw that they were no longer surrounded by trees.

Severus Snape raised his wand to a dummy propped up on a stick. He must've had dozens of them to produce that many pieces.

Rowan saw him take a deep breath, and she made the mistake of calling out, "Severus?"

He swung around at the sound of her voice just as he was screaming, "Sectumsempra!"

She felt as if she'd been scratched across the front by a monster with three huge claws with such force that she'd been knocked into the air and thrown to the side like a useless rag doll.

And then came the pain, starting from the wounds, and growing until it reached every inch of her body, and she couldn't even work up the strength to scream.

Sirius heard the spell being cast, saw the boy spin around, saw Rowan fly into the air as if she were weightless, and land on the ground as if she weighed a ton.

She didn't move... she didn't cry... she didn't do anything.

And Snivellus just stood there, looking shocked and terrified, as she died on the ground in front of him.

"Oh my God," Lily whispered, jumping off of Firenze and taking a step closer. Everything had happened so fast, she hadn't even seen what had happened.

"No way," James murmured. She looked behind her and saw that he and Remus were just standing there, staring expressionlessly. "Nah, he wouldn't go that far."

"I think he just did," Remus whispered.

Lily cupped her hands over her mouth and was prepared to yell for Severus, but James saw this and stepped toward her, covering her mouth with one hand and wrapping the other around her waist so she couldn't run away.

Immediately she began jumping around, attempting to break his iron grip. He merely tightened it and held her close to him. When she started to whimper, he whispered in her ear, "Please calm down, Evans. Everything's going to be okay, just wait until we...figure something out."

But they didn't have time to figure anything out. Sirius, who they'd been completely oblivious of, screamed in rage, his wand held high, and ran at the quivering boy.

Things happened in slow motion for Lily then. James let go of her and ran around her, straight at Sirius. Remus took her arm and told her to take care of Rowan. Firenze reared up and ran back into the forest.

Severus stood there and stared at Rowan's quivering body, which they'd all momentarily forgotten about as they were caught up in their own agendas.

Lily sprinted for Rowan's body, collapsed beside it, and put her wand to the wounds. She knew a few healing spells that might be able to help small cuts and bruises...

But these were huge gashes in her stomach and chest. They were deep and bleeding profusely. Blood was everywhere.

Lily thought she was going to be sick.

She looked up to the sky and hoped to God that Peter was outside the forest with help. She pointed her wand upward and red sparks emitted from the tip and shot straight up in the air, above the treetops, and exploded like fireworks. For seconds, the sparks lit up the entire clearing, and Lily could see everything that everyone was doing.

James was holding Sirius's arms behind his back while Sirius lunged toward Severus, who Remus was trying to pull away from any immediate danger. But he refused to move, and, frankly, Remus wasn't trying that hard.

Rowan was soaked in blood. Her white camisole was a deep red, almost purple. Bright red blood was spurting from a deep gash almost directly over her heart. A smaller gash on her cheek was leaking purple all over her face. Her clothes were torn and her jeans were wet to the touch.

Lily prayed that help would come.

And then Rowan gasped, her eyes flashed open, and her chest started to rapidly move up and down with her frantic, panicked breathing. Her lips were forming words Lily couldn't understand, and small, airy noises were protruding from her throat.

"S...s...s..." she whispered.

"Rowan, Rowan," Lily muttered, and she realized she was crying. "Rowan, please, please hold on."

"S...s...s...s..." she repeated.

"What is it, Rowan?" Lily croaked, grasping Rowan's blood-soaked hand.

"S...s...s...Sirius..." she said, "Wh...wh...where is Sirius?"

"James is holding him back," Lily replied, "He was just about ready to murder Snivelly."

"No!" she gasped, "No, Sirius! Sirius, I need to tell him something!" Then she cried out in pain.

Lily was getting impatient. She pointed her wand into the air again and shot green sparks out of its tip. She saw the scene again, only this time it seemed worse.

Remus had given up on Severus and went to Sirius. He was holding him back the way James had been, only now Sirius had fallen to his knees. James's hands were on Sirius's shoulders, and he was practically yelling things at him; things Lily would rather not have heard.

Severus was sitting on the ground, his scrawny arms wrapped around his jean-clad legs. His chin was resting on his knees, and his eyes were wide with surprise. His wand had dropped to the dirt beside him.

And then the light went out again, and, without anyone's wand to light the way, they were all plunged into a chaotic darkness.

"That second spark was very close," Dumbledore noted, "Straight ahead. We're almost there."

"Headmaster," Madam Pomfrey called from behind him, "Do you hear yelling?"

"I do, but I have very selective hearing, and whoever is yelling is saying things I'd rather not hear," he replied, glancing at her from over his shoulder.

"I found them!" Peter cried from a few yards ahead of them, "They're here! Come quickly!"

Madam Pomfrey was the first to react. She pulled out her wand and lifted her skirts with one hand and raced ahead of them all.

She practically screamed when she saw Rowan lying on the ground, Lily leaning over her.

Professor McGonagall gasped, "Oh, my," when she saw the scene next. Her first instinct was to move towards Severus and comfort him, since he seemed like the one who needed it most at the time.

Slughorn opted to go figure out what happened from someone who wasn't crying, shocked into silence, gasping for air, or screaming swears at everybody. So he pulled Remus aside, telling James to hold Sirius down, and asked for the story, which the boy told him very quickly and anxiously.

But Dumbledore was the only calm person in the entire clearing. Amongst the chaos, he lifted his wand and sent red sparks into the air and yelled, "Quiet! Attention, please! If we are to save Ms. Mulciber's life, you are going to have to be quiet!"

They all were immediately silent, the only sounds being Sirius's deep breathing in an attempt to calm himself down and Rowan's constant gasping.

"We have no time to waste," Dumbledore announced, then pointed to the forest. "Firenze, would you please be so kind as to pick the girl up and carry her back to the castle as fast as you can? Poppy, you can ride on his back... if, of course, he doesn't mind."

The centaur stepped out of the shadows and said, "Of course, Headmaster. Anything to prevent the death of an innocent life, sir."

He walked to Rowan and bent over to pick her up, but Sirius yelled, "Don't touch her! Don't you dare touch her!"

Dumbledore raised a hand to silence him. "Mr. Black, you will walk along with the rest of us back to the castle."

He didn't argue. He just shuddered as he watched Firenze pick Rowan up, allow Madam Pomfrey on his back, and run away.