It has been what must be considered a perfectly lovely weekend. And even the prospect of having to return to classes in the morning can't dim anyone's good mood this evening.

It's time for the annual Hallowe'en feast.

The Great Hall is, of course, decorated fantastically, with great swooping clouds of fluttering bats, flaming orange streamers that twist and wind their way around the ceiling in ever-changing patterns, and jack-o-lanterns. Dozens and dozens of jack-o-lanterns, bobbing above the four House tables, candles flickering atmospherically.

The first years sitting just down the table from them stare around, wide-eyed and gaping, nudging each other to point out this detail or that. Lily smiles, remembering when the Great Hall was not only impressive but new, and things like Hallowe'en were times to be wonderstruck.

She turns to Mary, sitting next to her, the only other Muggleborn Gryffindor girl in their year. "That used to be us, you know," she says, nodding towards the younger students.

Mary doesn't answer. She's busy staring, wide-eyed and gaping, at the carved pumpkin bobbing in front of them.

"Mary?" Lily says. "Everything all right?"

"Look," Mary says. "Look at the pumpkin."

Lily looks up, briefly, and turns back to Mary, "Yes, I know, it's ... "

And then her brain catches up with her eyes, and she looks back up at the glowing, candle-illuminated face that is unmistakeably Professor McGonagall, carved into an orange squash.

"Oh ... my ... "

Lily turns quickly to look at the other pumpkins. From where she's sitting, she can make out Flitwick (slowly revolving, a few yards away and just above Cliona and Fenton), and Slughorn (slightly off-kilter, floating above the Hufflepuff behind her), and even Grindstaff (scowling down on the first years, looking not at all amused about having been rendered in squash).

"It's the professors," Lily says. "They're all ... they're all the professors."

"I know," Mary says.

A pumpkin carved to look like Dumbledore goes careening cheerfully down the length of the table, and the other pumpkins move respectfully out of the headmaster's way.

Mary and Lily look at each other for a moment, and then they start to laugh.

Maybe Hallowe'en still has a little wonder to strike after all.

Lily has not done well in Defense Against the Dark Arts this week.

The room is bright with the silver light of her classmates' attempts at the Patronus charm. It's mostly silver wisps and vague shapes, though a few have managed clear physical forms – Potter and Black get told off when their deer and dog go racing from one end of the classroom to the other.

And Lily?

Lily has not managed to produce so much as the faintest flicker of light, or slightest curl of silvery smoke.

And the harder she tries, the worse it seems to go.

She just can't quite seem to get her brain in the right place – she can't even decide on a 'happy memory' to focus on, and when she does manage to try one, her mind goes slipping off in other directions.

It doesn't help that so many of her memories are tied to people like Severus and Petunia, and 'happy' isn't quite the word any more. Nor does it help that she keeps looking up to find Professor Grindstaff watching her like he's administering some kind of test that she's failing miserably. Grindstaff is quite the most intimidating teacher they've ever had, though he obviously knows his subject well. But she hasn't heard him say a single unnecessary word and he actually threw Mulciber out of his class in the second week because Mulciber did not "seem to understand the basic aim of the course." Not just out of the classroom for the day but out of the class for the rest of the year. More than half the Slytherins in the class had quit the following day in some kind of protest even though Grindstaff was a Slytherin himself, which of course, these days makes him all the more intimidating, if Lily's being honest. And, of course, Severus was not one of the Slytherins who left, and across the room she can see that he's managing some faint wisps of silver smoke and she wonders what memory he's using and this is exactly the kind of thing her brain is doing instead of the what it's supposed to be doing.

"You're just overthinking it, Lily," Cliona says, a silvery osprey flying lazy circles around her head.

Which, as advice goes, is about as useless as it could possibly be.

All in all, it's an utter relief when class ends.

Until …

"Evans, a word."

Lily gets sympathetic glances from her friends, as she stops and turns to face Professor Grindstaff. She somehow suspects that whatever word he has for her, it's not going to be complimentary.

"Yes, sir?"

"Your work in this class is hardly what I expect from a NEWT-level student, Evans," Professor Grindstaff says.

"I'm sorry, Professor, I just – "

"I don't want apologies or excuses. I want improvement. And if I don't see it, then you and Professor McGonagall and I will have to talk about whether or not you should continue with my class."

"Yes, Professor Grindstaff," Lily says, though it takes an effort to keep from either crying or apologizing to him again.

(She doesn't know it, but the fact that she clearly wants to do either or both and doesn't makes Grindstaff raise his estimation of her a bit.)

"All right, Evans. You can go."

"Thank you, sir," Lily says.

The hallway is empty when she leaves the Grindstaff's classroom, though she hears other students, on their way to dinner, echoing down the corridor. For one moment she considers joining them, and then changes her mind and heads back to Gryffindor tower instead.

If she wants dinner later, she can always head for the end of the universe, right?