dizzy_land | Lily Evans: The Unduckening

"'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,/If your Snark be a Boojum! For then/You will softly and suddenly...'" the Cheshire Cat recites, breaking off when it notices it has company. It's sunning itself, draped belly-up over a parapet of the castle, but with an unsettling upside down smile it vanishes and then reappears on the bridge, just to one side of where the transformation took place.

"What?" Lily asks it, even though she's not expecting a real response that makes any sense. How did she get here? The last thing she remembers is going to sleep in the ice cream shop, although she's wearing her school uniform again, not pajamas, and she doesn't suspect herself of sleepwalking... even though she does have the odd feeling of just waking up from a dream.

"Well, h-hi there!" says a squeaky voice. Mickey, beaming, is coming up the bridge from the direction of the central plaza. "It's great to see you again! And isn't it a beautiful day!" He draws in a breath and seems to be a millisecond from zipadee-doo-dahing when the castle's portcullis rattles slightly and drops half an inch. He glances over his shoulder. "Cut it out, fellas! Just a minute..." He pats his newly appeared pockets.

"It's, er, nice to see you too," Lily tells him. She looks around, trying to regain her bearings. What the bloody hell is going on here?

"If you were a book," asks the Cheshire Cat, apparently apropos nothing, "what book would you be?"

A book? "I guess I'd be a A Little Princess," says Lily. "I mean, it was my favorite when I was a little girl. And I still like it a lot."

Mickey has extracted his notebook, and clears his throat. "'Boxers or briefs?'" he reads aloud, and promptly blushes redder than a fire truck.

Lily's eyes widen and then narrow. "What?!" he screeches. Were they really asking her that? Oh, for crying out loud! How dare they! Of course, she was a girl and thus wore neither, but still! It was the principle of the thing! "If you think I'm actually going to tell you that, you're out of your mind."

"Here's another," says Mickey. "List three things you'd do if you ruled the world."

"Rule the world?" Lily repeats. She shakes her head. "I'm sorry. That's another question I can't answer. I don't think that kind of responsbility or power should ever be given to just one person. Especially not someone my age."

The Cat's eyes seem to be wandering in opposite directions. It says, "Is reality best described as (a) an absolute, not reducible to the sum of its parts, (b) the material or phenomenal world, as presented to us through our experiences, (c) fundamentally unknowable, (d) all of the above - please elaborate - or (e) fish?"

Lily blinks. "Um, all of the above, I guess," she says alowly. "I mean, there's the physical component of the world, the stuff you see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears and you know it's real because you experience it physically... and then there's the stuff that we don't experience on physical level, maybe, but still there, just as real. Things like love, hope, dreams..." She wasn't sure what that fish comment was all about. "And I don't think anyone can really know everything about what life is all about. That's just not possible. I don't think even Dumbledore knows everything." And really, Dumbledore was the epitome of wisdom in Lily's eyes.

Mickey raises one white-gloved hand as though measuring his own height. "Are you tall enough to go on this ride?"

Lily isn't sure what ride he's talking about, but she dutifully measures her own height against his hand anyway. "Um, I think so," she concludes.

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Sirius shrugged.

"That's the gist of it. You know how people just drop off the face of the earth here? You did that about a year ago. And he's right, we did look everywhere. You weren't in the park. But a few people have come back and got requestioned recently, and it looks like your number is up."

"I see..."

Well, that was disturbing. Lily wasn't sure how to take that. "A year ago? How do you know it's been that long?" But she didn't really sound like she disblieved him. It's just that a year feels like a long time to a seventeen-year-old, and the fact that she had no memory of the time between her disappearance and now didn't help.

"Moon," he explained. "It's been nearly twelve lunar cycles, so if they match up to any sort of real time...But I wouldn't worry too much about it, I don't think you'll wind up back home any later than you came." He gave her a kind smile that would probably have been odd on a seventeen year old Sirius. "I don't remember that happening."

"That, and you disappeared not long after Valentine's Day, and Valentine's Day just rolled around again a month or two ago," James said.

"That too," Sirius agreed, grinning. "We got cute cards. You missed out."

"Cards?" Lily asked, smiling a little. Sirius's smile had reassured her, and James for once not acting like a dolt did too.

"They had little pictures of us on them," Sirius said. "If I still have one, I'll give it to you, how about that?" he added.

And now he had to decide whether to let her see the "From me and your wife" one (http://community.livejournal.com/dizzy_land/256056.html#cutid1), or be nice and show her one of the others.

At the mention of the cards, James remembered in the back of his head the one that was made for Kara. Still, that didn't matter. He hadn't sent it, so it wasn't important.

"I'm sure that I've still got some hanging around at my place if you want to see them, too." Beat. "Move in with me."

Okay, probably not a conversation they should have with Sirius around, since he did feel bad for Sirius not having Remus around. And he probably should let all this sink in with Lily a little more before he sprung it on her, but he had been wanting to say it as soon as he had heard her. In fact, he thought he had remarkable self control for being able to hold it in for as long as he had.

It was many years practice of being around James that kept him from rolling his eyes. That was a really stupid move, but his problem with Lily had always been coming on way too strong.

Instead, he frowned, as though considering a sensible proposal. "He has a point," he said. "What with all the disappearances we've had recently. It might be safer if you stayed with someone."

He grinned. "I'd offer myself, but well, you're a bit young and also I snore."

"Move in with you?" Lily said, sounding shocked but not outraged, as she might have when she first arrived. The truth was, she had warmed to James since coming here.

But that didn't mean she was ready to move in with him.

Still, what Sirius was saying made sense. If she'd disappeared once, she might be at an increased risk of doing it again. Then again, maybe those who had already disappeared once had immunity now or something. It was hard to say.

"You're probably right," she admitted to Sirius. "But I still don't know, James. I'm not sure I'm ready for something like that."

James nodded, messing up his hair again. "Well, listen, you should stay with someone at least. Do you have any other friends who you could stay with?"

"I... Well..." Lily hesitated. She had a few people she was on relatively friendly terms with -- Dean and Adam and a few others -- but no one she felt close enough to ask to move in with.

"I guess not," she admitted. "At least, not here."

"Lily," he said, somewhat uncharacteristically gently. "You're probably not in any danger, really, but it really does make sense to stay with James or at least near him. Why don't you find a good spot nearby, and the second he starts to bother you, I give my solemn vow to hold him down while you hex him for it?"

He really didn't want to do that, but he figured Lily would probably not want to hex James, and if she did, she wouldn't hurt him. Besides, if she got good and mad, it wasn't as though she'd actually need Sirius' help.

Lily Evans: The Unduckening

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