1,169Chapter Twenty-Eight: Lily Evans Makes a Mistake
Lily had run away to have a crying meltdown in a bathroom. She had never been the girl to have a crying meltdown in the bathroom, though as a seventeen year old girl, she'd seen it enough from her mates, and her enemies. She'd never thought it would happen to her. Not Lily Evans, who was full of fire and quips.
"Oh my god I've become so incredibly pathetic," Lily blubbered in the often abandoned second floor girls' bathroom.
"You're getting out big words though," Moaning Myrtle said, floating over the barrier between stalls and looking happier than Lily had ever seen her, "most people can't when they're crying as hard as you are!"
"Thanks," Lily said. A string of snot slid down her face. That was it. rock bottom. She'd hit it.
"There there," Moaning Myrtle said, holding out a tissue, trying to get rid of her grin and only half succeeding, "you're still pretty, even with snot on you!"
"I am not," Lily said, her tone of a petulant three year old, "I'm freckly and skinny like a little boy." She blew her nose. "Thanks."
"Do you want me to get one of your friends?" Moaning Myrtle asked, "what's her name? The ugly one that makes you look even prettier when you're walking about with her?"
"My friends aren't ugly," Lily said loyally.
"Well her hair is awful," Moaning Myrtle said with relish, "maybe she's not that ugly, but I can't see past that disaster on top of her–"
"No!" Lily practically shrieked, "not–not her."
She could still picture Hermione snogging James Potter. It had been a really sexy kiss. They'd both clearly been really into it. Sev had actually been giggling with glee. It had made Lily want to throw up.
"What did she do?" Moaning Myrtle said knowledgeably, floating over the toilet. Lily wiped at her eyes, thankful she had mastered makeup charms in third year, even if she barely ever wore them. Thank god, when Helena had asked why Lily had taken to wearing them the last few weeks, she'd lied and said she'd been practicing all of her charms for NEWTS. She would die of embarrassment if anyone knew the real reason she'd been wearing them, especially after the display she'd just witnessed.
"This is so humiliating," Lily said through the snot. Moaning Myrtle handled her more tissue.
"I died in a toilet," Moaning Myrtle pointed out.
"Oh," Lily said, "I'm sorry. How awful."
"Don't be," Moaning Myrtle said, "now no one forgets me anymore. I do wish I had a different nickname though." Her eyes welled with tears. "I hardly moan!" she moaned,
"just because I'm sensitive!" Ludicrously, her tears made Lily's own tears worse.
"I can't believe I listened to them," Lily said through her heaving snot filled sobs, "they all said he wasn't trying to woo her, but I saw it! I knew the truth! Why else were they spending all those cozy moments together, and she never liked Sirius Black, and everyone likes him!"
"He's so handsome," Moaning Myrtle said through hiccups, "He said hi to me once! I helped him prank Evan Rosier," she mused, tears falling gently now, "I splashed him with toilet water in front of Genevieve Bletchley. It was so funny."
"Hilarious," Lily agreed. She'd pretended it hadn't been, at the time, since she couldn't stand Black and his arrogance, but it had been extremely amusing to watch Rosier, the prince of Slytherin, embarrass himself in front of Bletchley, who'd gotten covered with toilet water as well in the crossfire.
"I can't believe I'm crying," Lily said, "I didn't even think I liked him."
"Well, he's gorgeous," Moaning Myrtle shrugged, "who doesn't like him?"
"Hermione doesn't" Lily said, "and he likes her too. James I mean. Uh. Potter. I'm not talking about Sirius Black."
"James Potter?" Moaning Myrtle said incredulously, "why, but he likes you! Everyone likes you! You're so popular, didn't you know? Not like me! I was so unpopular, even now!" Moaning Myrtle started to wail again.
"Oh, don't cry," Lily said miserably, "you're wrong! They just snogged right in my face! Hermione and Potter!" She started crying again, almost as loud as Moaning Myrtle. She couldn't believe how stupid she was. She'd known for years Potter didn't like her. He was toying with her, playing a game, or more likely with him, just a long term joke. Potter would do anything for a joke. He knew Lily didn't like him, but it made everyone laugh to have him chase her, so he kept doing it. And how was he to know Lily actually did like him now, and the joke had become cruel? Potter wasn't cruel. Lily had learned that. Sirius Black was cruel on occasion. But not Potter. He was a jester. And now Lily was the punchline. Her friends had been delusional. It had never been real, never.
"How long do you think they've been together?" Lily warbled. It was ten times worse to listen to Sev's glee on top of things. She couldn't even decide if it was better or worse that he hadn't come after her, but it had proved that Sev, too, didn't actually love Lily, no matter what he proclaimed. He was just like Potter. Enjoying a joke at Lily's expense meant more to him than worrying about how Lily actually felt.
"Oh, probably ages," Moaning Myrtle said with relish, "do you think they planned the kiss for you to see it? Tell me everything!"
Lily did. She got the worst advice of her life after she was finished, and instead of coming to her senses, she listened.
"Ah, Sirius?" Remus said tentatively as he watched his mate spear a potato with especial violence.
"What?" Sirius said, "no I don't know where Pete is. Stop asking me."
"Eh?" Remus blinked, looking around. "Pete? I hadn't even noticed–well now that you say it, he has been disappearing an awful lot lately, hasn't he?"
"Yes," Sirius said, "and none of you care. Fine friends you are."
Remus was stunned by the hypocrisy of the statement, even when he knew dramatic hypocrisy was one of Sirius's specialties.
"Well, maybe we should find out what's going on with him," Remus said, seizing on a different subject than the one he'd thought they'd have to discuss, "do you think something's wrong with his mum?"
"His mum?" Sirius said blankly, "like that would upset him? She treats him like a baby. He hates that."
"Does he?" Remus blinked, feeling guilty now. How had he not known that about one of his best mates.
"You're' a terrible friend," Sirius said brutally, but even though he'd just been thinking it himself, it glanced off of Remus. He knew Sirius well enough to know what was going on. The more vicious Sirius got to others, the worse his inner turmoil was.
"You know you should maybe change that character flaw," Remus blurted without thinking about it. Sirius stopped stabbing his potatoes and turned to look at him. Remus shrunk in his seat.
"What character flaw?" Sirius asked coldly, "I have thousands. Narrow it down."
Remus laughed. Sirius didn't. Remus stopped at once.
"Well?" Sirius said, "spit it out. Are you a Gryffindor or not? Tell me my terrible character flaws that make James look better than me."
It was an ironic twist of fate that Remus felt relief that the conversation had moved back to the conversation he'd been trying to avoid.
"Pads," he tried, knowing using the nicknames when Sirius was in a foul mood was a dicey gamble that often ended badly, "about that. I meant to say earlier…but I didn't know if you wanted to talk about it…"
"I don't," Sirius said, but Remus knew it was a lie. He took a deep breath. He was a Gryffindor. He was!
"I think she was trying to help James get with Lily," Remus forced himself to say, "that's why she kissed him. Didn't you see? Lily was right there."
"She doesn't care if he gets with Evans or not," Sirius said, "she's just pretending to care for his money. Why are you lying? I thought you and James were now convinced she's some sort of–" even in his cold rage, the second deadliest kind with Sirius, he glanced around and lowered his voice before stabbing another potato, "time traveling evil wizard vanquisher. Or you think she's evil and murdered James's son. Whatever. So why are you defending her again, and James is–" Sirius broke off and shoved a potato in his mouth.
He pushed back his hair as he angrily chewed, and Remus saw that his ears were bright red. Oh no. God no. The absolute worst kind of Sirius rage was the blinding, reckless rage that consumed him and made him do little things like accidental almost homicide by best friend werewolf, wrecking multiple lives in the process, with little remorse afterwards. The first sign was often red ears.
"It was a really disgusting kiss," Remus rushed on, "didn't you notice?"
Sirius turned to him slowly. Remus stopped himself from shrinking back with some effort. Rose Kensington was watching Sirius with a longing that bordered on horny slavery behind him, mimicking every bite of food he ate with a glassy look in her eyes. Her hair still looked exactly like Grangers'.
"I did notice," Sirius said coldly, "it was the worst kiss of my life. I still have the marks to prove it."
Remus's eyes dropped, against his will, to the torn bottom lip of his mate, the weird mark on his chin that might've been Granger's teeth hitting him before they'd clacked teeth.
"I meant the one with James," Remus said, "it was super gross. I almost vomited in my own mouth."
"You bloody liar," Sirius sneered, "I can't believe you're still so bad at it. Everyone else who witnessed it said it was a good kiss. I didn't know James even had it in him.'
"It's probably the book," Remus sighed, "he's been reading it every night. Then rereading it. Then taking notes. Then practicing his technique on the nearest food item–" "The book she gave him," Sirius said, "so they could snog."
"I didn't know you liked her this much,'' Remus said without thinking. The red traveled from Sirius's ears to his neck. Fuck! "I'll bite if you attack me in a rage," Remus said hastily.
"Join the club," Sirius said, shoving another potato in his mouth, "my mouth's barely functional from her fangs."
His left cheek was bulging and he was chewing disgustingly, a way which his mother would've probably slapped him over, and three girls were still looking at him like they'd mount him in public, witnesses be damned, if only they knew Sirius wouldn't shove them off of him. Again.
"I'm just saying," Remus said carefully, "James has been after Lily for years. Hermione got shoved onto him by Snape. She looked horrified after, didn't you see? She kissed you, didn't she? She grabbed you and all!"
"She looked fucking thrilled about it too," Sirius said.
Remus opened his mouth and closed it. He couldn't argue that Granger hadn't looked like she had done an unbreakable vow with someone to kiss Sirius and was only kissing him so she wouldn't die a horrible death.
"Well?" Sirius said, "go on. Pretend to deny it."
"She's been flirting with you for a month," Remus tried gamely, "in ah. You know. That way some birds do."
Sirius stopped chewing. "What way?" he asked, "are you bloody mad?"
"You said it yourself!" Remus said, outraged, "you've been saying for ages she's playing hard to get, she wants it, she's gagging for it, you'll be kissing her in no time–"
"Who will you be kissing in no time?" Pete asked, sliding next to them, "wow, Pads, you've got potatoes falling out of your mouth, did you know?"
"No," Sirius snapped through a mouth of potato, "and where the hell have you been, Pettigrew?"
"Pettigrew?" Pete squeaked, looking wounded.
"Yeah," Remus seized on the opportunity with obscene gratitude, "you've missed it all!"
"All what?" Pete said, "I've been–busy."
"Doing what?" Sirius snapped. A potato fell out of his mouth onto the table. A nearby Hufflepuff sighed like she'd had a sexual awakening.
"Sometimes James is right," Remus said, shaking his head, "it's beyond my fathoming how we haven't all been driven mad by you."
"What's that mean?" Pete said, "I wasn't doing anything! James said that about me?"
"Not you," Remus said, watching Sirius's disgusting eating and the mad girls who loved him anyway while his stomach turned, "Sirius. He does absolutely nothing and every girl in this school flings himself at them. Even when he's being disgusting, or rude–"
Sirius glared at him through a mouthful of potatoes, and deliberately chewed in the grossest way he could.
"Oh, that," Pete said, there was a faint note of disappointment in his voice that made no sense, if only Remus had noticed, "I thought we all got over that ages ago. It's the only way to be mates with him and retain your sanity, y'know?"
"That it is," Remus said, "still, sometimes, when it just hits you how if I did even a fraction of the awful things that he does–"
"Mhggmhh," Sirius said through the potatoes, glaring harder.
"What?" Remus and Pete said in unison. Sirius swallowed in a way that made Remus's hand twitch toward his wand in case a throat unclogging hex was needed.
"I said, what are on about?" Sirius demanded, "Granger practically bit my face off to get out of kissing me."
"Er, what?" Pete said, dropping his fork, "listen, was she the one to get you all to notice that I've been–"
"Sirius," Remus sighed, pinching his brow, "listen, Pads. Listen to me. I know I don't have the experience with girls that you do–"
"That's because you have zero experience with girls," Sirius said brutally.
Remus went red. That wasn't even true! Just because he had decided at the age of twelve that he'd never get close to a girl for her own sake because of the werewolf thing, didn't mean he'd never–
"So, boys," Dumbledore said from behind them, "I take it the rumors are true?"
"Er, what?" Pete said, "about me? I didn't do anything, you can ask anyone!"
"It wasn't my fault, it was an actual wolf," Remus said in a rush, "you can double check, there are certain signs, and that girl who works at Zonkos–"
Sirius stabbed a piece of chicken and refused to acknowledge their headmaster.
"Hmm," Dumbledore said, "maybe the rumors aren't true? You do seem rather morose, Mr. Black, if what I had heard had happened–"
"So you did put her up to it," Sirius said, flinging down his chicken, "I knew it! She had a look in her eye. Like a wand was being held to her back."
He turned to glare at their headmaster, and Remus and Pete stared at him in terror. They'd both been spilling their guts just from Dumbledore's presence, and here Sirius was acting like he hadn't shouted at the most powerful wizard in the world not a half hour ago, doubling down on his antagonism.
"Oh dear me," Dumbledore said, "you've got it all wrong, Mr. Black. Did I hint that I thought my goddaughter would find herself happy if she decided to pair up with someone different than she's used to? Perhaps. Did I say opposites attract twenty-seven times in the last month? Maybe. Have I attempted to downplay your notorious exploits with other young ladies so she wouldn't be repulsed by your alleged promiscuity? It's a possibility."
"Huh?" Pete said.
"Are you…are you meddling in student gossip?" Remus asked.
"Keep up," Sirius snapped, "it's his favorite past-time."
Dumbledore nodded like Sirius had something flattering about him.
"So you agree she doesn't like James though, right sir?" Remus asked in a rush.
"Does the leopard like stripes?" Dumbledore said sagely.
"What?" Pete said, blinking, "doesn't a leopard have spots?"
"Precisely," Dumbledore nodded, then he sailed away.
Pete turned back to both of them, open mouthed. Remus sighed.
"Granger kissed Sirius and bit him or something on accident, then Snape shoved her on James and they er.."
"Snogged for a lengthy period of time," Sirius supplied, looking murderously after Dumbledore.
"What!" Pete said, "James can't even snog! You should've seen what he was doing to that pickle the other day."
"He practiced on a pickle?" Sirius said loudly, "are you–is that a joke? A pickle, and he still snogged her better than–"
"Anyway now they're all with McGonagall," Remus said, "getting detention, I think."
"Evans didn't see, did she?" Pete said, unexpectedly sage.
"She did," Sirius said, "she looked more–surprised than I was."
The gap had been long enough that Remus knew that "surprised" was not the word Sirius had been intending to use.
"Then she disappeared," Remus said, frowning as he looked down the table, and confirmed Lily Evans wasn't there, though all her mates were, "you know, I wouldn't be too mad at James if I were you, Pads. It looks like he's really blown it with Evans."
"It was already blown," Pete said, "ooh, sausages!"
"Don't," Remus said, "ah god, no. The smell, Worms!"
"Leave him be," Sirius said unexpectedly, "look at what happens to us when he's not around!"
"Eh?" Pete said, "who, James?"
"You, you piss-pot," Sirius said, but it was to be said, with a far more fond tone than he'd used with Remus or James all day, "look at us. You faff off for ages doing god knows what to some innocent sausages and all of a sudden Remus is making snide comments under his breath then the next minute he's too afraid to talk to me without cringing. James is ruining it right when he almost had Evans, and I'm moping over some bird who's not even that cute."
Pete's ears were so red they were the color of an extra rare steak. Moony reared his ugly head out of nowhere and Remus frantically looked away from his mate's delicious looking ears.
"Thanks, Pads," Pete said, "I…thanks."
"Where've you been going, anyway?" Sirius demanded, "if you've got a bird you were supposed to tell me. So I could like, give you tips and all."
Remus chanced a look at Pete, who was thankfully eating more sausage and disgusting him again, "funny story," Pete said, looking more cheerful than he had in ages, now that Remus thought on it, "I was with Granger, earlier."
"Not you too," Sirius said "are you–Remus, are you snogging her too? All three of you, and that Greek bloke with his perfect random hidden mole?"
"All four of us then," Remus said, with a pointed look at Sirius's bitten lip.
"No, I'm not snogging her," Pete said, "she's tutoring me. I've been hiding it from you all. Sorry."
"Why?" Remus said.
"You're getting tutoring from someone else?" Sirius said, "What the bloody hell, Pettigrew, we're your mates, aren't we?"
Remus was about to ask again why Pete had been hiding tutoring sessions with Granger before he'd realized his question had just been answered by Sirius's petulance.
"Sirius, leave off him," Remus said, "he's allowed to talk to other people than us."
"Who said he wasn't," Sirius demanded, "I just said, if he needs tutoring–"
At this horrible moment, Remus noticed Pete's eyes were filling with tears. Oh god. He had to distract Sirius from noticing before he teased Pete and made it worse.
"Kiss her again tonight," Remus blurted, "show her you know better than James. She'll forget all about his pickle mouth."
Sirius snorted. "Pickle mouth?"
Remus chanced a quick look at Pete, and when he did, he realized something quite odd. It hadn't been tears of shame. It had been tears of joy.
"Yeah," Pete said, smiling widely, "what would you all do without me?"
"Wither and die, I suppose," Sirius said, "clearly we fall apart with you gluing us all together, Worms."
"Yeah," Remus agreed, for something had been wrong between them the last month or more, and now that Sirius said it, it made sense, "he's right. We need you around, Worms."
"Okay," Pete said, "if you think I've been gone too much, maybe I'll…drop some of my hobbies."
"Well no one said that," Remus said, "you don't have to–"
"What hobbies?" Sirius said rudely, "scratching your balls and jerking off?"
"Exactly," Pete grinned, "snogging your girlfriend in the library."
"Well who hasn't snogged her now," Sirius said, rolling his eyes.
"Me," Remus said.
"There's still time," Pete said cheerfully, "though I do think she really does like Sirius best. Sorry mate."
Sirius had gone still, the way Padfoot did when spotting a butterfly.
"What makes you say that?" he asked. He made sure to eat his chicken disgustingly to cover, but Remus had caught on all the same to his mate's studied casual coolness.
They'd all grown to spot it over the years, even Pete.
"Oh, I can just tell," Pete said knowledgeably, "it's obvious."
"Ah," Sirius said, "you're right. Definitive proof."
"It is obvious, Pads," Remus backed up Wormtail, "you think we don't know the signs backwards and forwards when a girl likes you? Some of them hide it better, like Hermione–"
"Kiss her again," Wormtail suggested as well, "show her how it's really done. James can't compete with that!"
"I'm not kissing a girl who doesn't want me to kiss her," Sirius said, "er, again. That first time was an accident! She was dressed like a punk rocker!"
"We were all confused," Remus nodded.
"She had blue hair and fish legs and everything," Worms said.
"Fishnets,'' Sirius said, but some of the darkness left his face, just a little.
"Well, I suppose James obsessing over her instead of Evans now would at least dull the monotony of his love life a bit."
"He won't," Remus and Pete said in unison.
"How could he drop Evans?" Pete said, "after all this time?"
"Er," James said, shuffling from foot to foot outside of McGonagall's office, where they'd barely escaped with their lives, even if there had been biscuits at the end of the screaming, "so. A brother, eh?"
Hermione sighed. Her eyes were on Snape, who even though he'd received a twenty point deduction and a week of detention with Filch, just like them, was practically skipping away down the corridor. "Your technique was fine, James. Good even. Except for that one tongue wiggle. Don't do it again."
James reached for the dolphin notebook and made a scribbled note. "But the rest of the tongue…?"
"Fine," Hermione said, looking gloomy, "it's not…that. I just don't think of you that way."
"Nor me," James said, "I get it. I don't think of me that way either. I also think of me as a brother."
"Oh shut up," Hermione said, looking gloomier still, "don't try to make me laugh, when we just ruined everything. Or Snape did. Or you! I don't even know who to blame now."
"Oh, Snivellus," James said, "always, Snivellus. I thought you'd learned that by now? I know you like to stand up for him, but now you see the light, don't you?"
"He pushed me on you, but you're the one that kissed me," Hermione said, "what's wrong with you? You knew Lily was there!"
"I know," James said, "listen, I can't be blamed for what my hormones do! You don't know what it's like! Your mouth was just on my mouth and I'd never kissed a girl, and my brain died and my hormones took over!"
"This is all sounding wildly sexist," Hermione said coldly, "one, this is dangerously close to saying boys can't control themselves and that's why they rape girls in short skirts."
"I would never–"
"Two, teenage girls have hormones too, sometimes just as bad as teenage boys, James Potter!"
"I have actually seen girls interact with Pad-Sirius," James said, wounded, "you're making me sound like–" a thought occurred to him. "Hang on. Are you saying your hormones are as out of control as mine?" He waggled his eyebrows.
"God forbid," Hermione said, "and stop trying to make me laugh!"
"I wasn't," James assured her, "I'm just really, really funny."
"As funny as a heart attack."
"A what?"
"That feeling you're going to get when you see Snape snogging Lily because you bungled everything," Hermione said ominously.
The lighting in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was deliberately atrocious, but Lily had managed to pull herself together enough to attend her afternoon Care of Magical Creatures class with Kettleburn and the Slytherins. If Sev had been taking the class with her, she would've feigned an illness. The more period related the better, so no one male or pure-blood would ask follow up questions. She couldn't take the thought of seeing Sev's smug face, hearing him laugh about being right all along, that Potter was a twat who was using Lily as a joke. It would be even worse what would follow after, the way Sev would use the opportunity to try to get her to date him. He'd backed off lately, seemed to know his friendship with Lily was tentative at best, but if he knew she was vulnerable…Sev had been a good friend to her for many years, but Lily had no illusions about him. He was smart, and he was selfish, and he was kind, and he was calculating. That was Sev.
"Wow," a boy said from the corridor in front of her, "you managed to make yourself look that good while that ghoul is wailing at you?"
Lily's brain short circuited. All she knew was that it wasn't Sev, and that it wasn't Potter.
"You," she said blinking rapidly, wondering how he'd found her here, "I mean..are you following me?" Or, God forbid, had Myrtle decided to 'help' her and go find the boy in front of Lily for her?
"I wouldn't say following," Regulus Black said, "Phineas Nigellus saw me coming out of Transfiguration and told me to come find you here."
"Who?" Lily asked, gripping her books tightly to her. Had she messed up her makeup charms when she'd reapplied them for no reason, a Muggle habit when she'd assumed the sobbing had given her black streaks of mascara? Should she go check? He was mocking her appearance, right? This was Regulus Black, after all.
"My great great–well, an old relative of mine," Regulus said, "the worst Headmaster Hogwarts ever saw, according to Sirius, but it's like he forgot about Hans Smitten, the Headmaster who–"
"Removed all the toilets and replaced them with flowerpots," Lily mused, "that were full of daffodils."
"Imagine having a wee on that," Regulus shuddered.
Lily laughed. Regulus smiled. It was odd, she'd never thought he was anywhere near as handsome as his obnoxious and obnoxiously good looking older brother, but when he smiled, he looked just like him.
"You should smile more," Lily heard herself say, her heart starting to race (had Moaning Myrtle decided their plan should go into action?) "It makes you very handsome."
"I wasn't handsome to begin with?" Regulus asked, "I'm hurt."
"Well, no one likes a scowler," Lily said, trying to remain friendly. He had it coming. He really did. She had to do something Gryffindor and brave right now, and Regulus was here. Opportunity was knocking. Moaning Myrtle was right.
"Speaking of good looking people," Regulus said, "I've got your dress robes for you. I sent them up to your room with my owl. Along with some jewelry. I was tempted to let you wear that dress you wore to Sluggy's party, but–"
"I own dress robes," Lily said, weirdly flattered and offended all at once, "you didn't need to-"
"But I wanted to," Regulus said, "I can't have you showing up to the most exclusive party on my arm, not in the finest robes in the room, can I?" he held out his arm to her like they were in some sort of Victorian romance novel.
Lily's heart pounded faster. It wasn't just immature and reckless retaliation that a wailing ghost had come up with while floating over a toilet. It was part of Dumbledore's plan to save the world! Right? She took Regulus' arm and smiled.
"Where are you off to?" he asked her.
"Care of Magical Creatures," Lily said, wondering who would be most upset by this development, Sev or Sirius Black. Potter wouldn't care. Potter was probably naked in a bed with Hermione Granger somewhere. And Lily didn't care about that, not at all!
"You misspoke," Regulus said, "you're off to the Astronomy tower with me. The first snow started to come in, did you see? The grounds look beautiful from up there."
"Okay,'' Lily said idiotically. Something in her was nauseous, and excited, all at once. Dumbledore at least would be happy with her. And Moaning Myrtle. Sev might never forgive her. But Sev had shoved Granger onto Potter and laughed as he knew Lily was in pain. Sev had called her a Mudblood repeatedly. Fuck Sev.
"Did I ever tell you," Regulus said, "that I've had a crush on you for the past year?"
Author's Note: Thank you as always for your support!