this fic is basically a summation of: i don't trust joanne to write the marauders era story we deserve.
this is canon-compliant so if you see anything totally left field it's a mistake on my part. because i'm dumb. also also also this story isn't entirely in chronological order, but it isn't too difficult to tell where each part is set.
i can't remember what else i wanted to say other than that the cover image for this story was made by domenic bahmann!
1. (The first conversation.)
The pub is well-lit and full of cheerful people, and it is the first bit of evidence Lily has seen that not everything on this earth is going to hell. Each table is a site for personal and political discourse, and the air is rich with the smell of fried fish and chips.
She sits in a booth with her mother next to a drafty window. Petunia is nowhere to be seen, but Lily supposes she shouldn't have expected anything more. She hasn't spoken properly to her sister since she married that awful man, but if Petunia's happy, Lily can't say much more.
It's not as if they hate each other – though, with the way Petunia speaks to her, Lily wouldn't rule it out.
"Well," Lily starts, though she's unsure of what else to say. "I bought myself an owl."
"Oh?" Her mother says with interest. "I'm sure that'll make things easier. Trying to work the post was absolutely dreadful, though I'd much prefer if you kept it simple for us. The normal way can't be much slower than yours."
Lily dips her chip into the ketchup with a small smile. "Depends on the weather, I suppose. Mary and I tried to test it out that one time, remember?"
Her mother laughs a little at the memory. "Yes, well, I'd rather not have a repeat of that. Petunia wouldn't shut up about the mess that owl made of the window."
There is a long, heavy pause, though Lily thinks that might just be in her head. Her mother has always been unaware of how deep the jagged scar lies between the two sisters, largely due to the fact that Petunia won't own up to her own longings. It's no secret that she wants so desperately to be able to do the things Lily does, and that wish both scares and fascinates Petunia.
But Lily has always been the bigger man, and asks, "how is she these days?"
"Oh, she's good. She and Vernon are still trying for a baby, but until then it's just furniture decorating and getting to know the neighbours."
Lily nods. "And is Vernon still working at that –"
"Drill company, now."
"Oh. Well. Good for him." Her thumb poises over her lower lip. She is light in nerves and heavy in contemplation. "Listen, mum, there's something I have to tell you."
"Are you pregnant?"
Lily grins despite herself. "No, Merlin, mum. No." She laughs at the bewilderment on her mother's face, and she longs to say something worth keeping that expression there. But she has to say what she has to say while the words are trying to jump up her throat. "Do you remember that thing I've been telling you about – the thing going on in my world?"
She nods.
"We're joining the fight. I – I might not be able to talk to you for a while. It might be too hard."
Whatever Lily had expected, it had not been the look of determination that crosses over her mother's face like a shadow, an acceptance that Lily can tell has been growing for a long, long time.
"Where will you go?"
"Nowhere, I don't think. I don't know. I'm not, er, high-ranking enough to know all the details, and I'm pretty sure it all goes by a daily basis anyway. I'll probably still be here. It's just — it's going to be dangerous."
"Dangerous," her mother echoes.
She hesitates. "They're still killing muggles and muggleborns. You'll be okay," she adds quickly, "I'll cast more protection spells around the house. We can move you if things get worse."
"You'll write when you can, won't you?"
"Of course." Lily smiles a little. "Aren't you going to try talk me out of it?"
"I couldn't talk you out of putting itching powder on Nancy Soper's pants after that time she called you out in the playground. How could I ever expect to talk you out of this?"
2. (The phoenix.)
Lily doesn't know when this war began.
Maybe it was when she had received her Hogwarts letter in the middle of breakfast; because a war began then, when Petunia had decided her little sister was a freak. Or maybe it was in her sixth year of Hogwarts, when Davey Gudgeon's mother went missing, only to be found dead three weeks later. Or perhaps it was when Lily had kissed goodbye to her dreams in the wizarding world, and signed up to make it better.
Maybe it is bigger than her. It could have begun with the first muggle-born, or maybe even the start of time itself. Maybe it began with the first act of love, because without love, there can be no evil.
All she knows is that there is a war around her, a world crumbling at her feet, and she'll be damned if she doesn't try to stop it. That with Mary crying into her hands for her parents beside her, this is the start of war.
3. (First period transfiguration could have gone better, and it could have gone a lot worse.)
James is sitting beside her, leaning back against his chair with insolence. This is the version he prepares for Hogwarts, for his teachers, and sometimes, for Sirius. Except Sirius is not the one he is partnered up with today.
Five minutes earlier, Professor McGonagall had told them to come forward and draw names to partner up with. Lily had known it would be more probable to draw the name of a friend than someone she's supposed to be avoiding, but bad luck has always relied on perfect timing, so of course the name on the slip of parchment should contain a name from the latter category.
Chairs slide against the floor as people move places, books slam against the work-desks, and Lily could close her eyes and still see it in perfect clarity.
"Are we supposed to quiz each other?" James asks, as if Lily's standoffishness is charming.
"Is there any point?" She asks. "Did you even do the reading?"
"Are you trying to become Professor McGonagall or something?"
"Or something. You didn't answer my question, you know."
"Is that question apart of the quiz? Is this 20 questions? What colour is your–"
"James."
"–dress for Hogsmeade?"
Heat colours Lily's cheeks. He flutters his dusty lashes at her.
"You're a prat."
"You're so sweet."
Lily has noticed something about James that has gotten under her skin. A lot of somethings, actually. The curve of his neck, the bones in his wrist, the little flash of his hipbones when he raises his arms and his jeans are hanging just a little too low. But worst of all is the fact that hidden under a thick coating of immaturity, there's a genuinely nice person underneath. It's like there are so many Potters — moody Potter, joking Potter, nice Potter, smart Potter, prat Potter, to name a few — and there's hardly any need for him to make a distinction between them. It's irritating and charming all at once.
"The sake of your class grade is sitting on this question, Evans."
"Oh, come off it. What are you trying to do?"
"Ask you to Hogsmeade, of course."
"You — That's not funny."
He raises his brows, and Lily realises all roads are leading to her humiliation. She sends a desperate glance across the classroom to Marlene, who's too busy chatting to Remus to catch her eye.
"I wasn't joking, you know," he says quite lightly, "but okay. What are we supposed to be quizzing each other on then?"
"You are not serious."
"No, you're right. I'm James."
"Potter," she growls.
He holds up his hands in surrender. "I was under the impression that I was serious – not Sirius. What's your reasoning?"
"You're a jerk!" The words rush out before she can stop them. As if it'll help, she adds, "sorry, but you are. This has to be some kind of joke. You've been godawful to me for years — though lately you've been quite nice, and it's weird and disturbing and actually quite pleasant — and weren't you supposed to be fancying Andrea McCarthy?"
"Are you done word vomiting on my lap?" He grins, and Lily doesn't understand why he looks so happy. "Since when have you cared about who I fancy?"
"I don't." Her burning face says otherwise.
"When you're done deciding whether or not I'm joking, let me know what colour your dress is going to be so I can match appropriately. And if, for whatever reason that reflects entirely on you and not on me, you don't want to go together, let me know via Peter. He always knows how to soften the blow."
"And why would we need to match outfits?"
She watches his throat move as he swallows. "Isn't that what all hopeless romantics do?"
"No. And do I have to wear a dress? What if it's cold?"
"Well, Evans, I'm not here to think for you. What do girls wear when they're cold?"
She covers her laugh with her hand. "You're not doing a very good job at this asking out thing."
"No, I'm really not. If you could keep the details to yourself, that'd be brilliant, and if you are forced to tell people, lie and talk about how suave I was and how impressed you were."
Lily shakes her head, the remnants of laughter still on her lips. "I'll be sure to."
Professor McGonagall chooses this moment to sweep by. "If you would kindly return to discussing Jigger's seven laws on human transfiguration, Miss Evans."
"If you were anyone else, you'd definitely be in trouble," James tuts as Professor McGonagall goes on to explain to Peter Pettigrew that no, you can not transfigure abs onto yourself, and you would be a fool to even try. "Blatant favouritism. That, or we just got McGonagall's blessing."
4. (Dare to be stupid.)
Dorcas Meadowes had gotten reasonable grades in school. She isn't a genius, and she'll never pretend to be, but she is most knowledgable by way of magazine articles, and exceptional at organising and management.
That is why Dorcas stands next to Lily at the meeting, clutching the little pink fluffy pen that is basically an extension of her at this point. Her dark, curly hair – shorter now than it was at school – frames her face nicely.
"Right, well, I know we're a little short on numbers," Dorcas's mild voice says, "but we can make this work. Um, you'll all be staying here until Kingsley comes back from his, er, stake-out. Thing."
No one looks unperturbed by Dorcas's unease. Lily supposes they're all too busy thinking about what they're going to do, which is to say, smuggle people out of Britain. It's a fairly standard operation, but it's not without its risks. It's also the first mission for many of them.
Lily looks around, though not at the other Order members. There are no pictures hanging on the wall, no bumps or scrapes with a story; only emptiness. She thinks she may have gotten to used to the comforts of her own home.
This is war.
"Lily?" Dorcas says quietly. "Are you alright?"
She blinks and turns her head to look at Dorcas. "Yes? Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason that I can think of."
Lily fights the urge to smile. "Nothing to do with the fact that we're about to go and risk our lives for some people we've never met?"
"Nothing to do with that." Dorcas agrees quietly. "Though it's not really a dangerous mission. If the Death Eaters are anything like they were at school, they're about as smart as me."
"You throw a good hex," Lily points out.
"Only when I don't mean to."
"Well, so long as you're pointing your wand at their side..."
Dorcas's lips quirk upwards.
5. (Chasing the dragon.)
"Well, Professor, I know I'd like to become a potions teacher here some day." She flushes. "I'm not saying I'd like to kick Professor Slughorn from the job, just that I know I want to end up back here one day. I don't know what I'd like to do in the mean time. A bit of everything?"
"Well, that's certainly an admirable ambition." Professor Mcgonagall replies, smiling slightly. "I'm sure Horace would be thrilled to hear it. With your grades, you're in a good position, Miss Evans. Take a biscuit."
Lily blinks, but does as she's told.
"There are pamphlets I have to give you running over difference career options and what you have to do to get into each one. You should take a good look at them, though something to do with potions would be the most sensible route." She smooths out her robes, and Lily nods. "Let me know how you get along."
She stands, and so does Lily.
"Thank you, Professor."
Professor McGonagall smiles. "I'm sure I am not the only one who looks forward to seeing you in the staff some day."
6. (There are some secrets you will take to the grave.)
"They Obliviate me, sometimes." Dorcas admits. Her words are so soft that the wind outside almost destroys them, and there is something like melancholy painted on her light brown face. "I told them there's no point letting me keep plans in my head when I don't know what I'd do if I'm tortured. I need the space, anyway. Less clutter."
"I thought too many memory charms could destroy your memory?"
"There's not much left to destroy at this point." Dorcas's laugh is like pitters of rain. "That's mostly if it's used with ill intentions, and used a lot. There are precautions I can take if I know ahead of time. Besides, it's not like they're jumping out from behind bins every three minutes to wipe my memory."
Lily feels horrified, like the feeling's coiled around her stomach. "You're handling this so well, though."
"I'm not. I'm scared shitless."
"That's not very comforting."
She wants Dorcas to laugh, to wipe that expression off her face, but all Dorcas does is hug the jumper she's using as a pillow closer to her chest. "I miss Marlene and Mary."
Lily feels a phantom of that sensation again, that strange grief. "They'll be alright. We'll probably see them in the next rotation."
"I'm sick of rotations," Dorcas whines. "I'm sick of not having my own place. I'm – I'm sick of organising people's deaths. I always feel like it's my fault, like if I had picked someone else, things might've gone okay –"
"Dorcas, it's not your fault." Lily says with conviction. "It's not, okay? It's the Death Eaters', and You-Know-Who's, and anyone who's stupid enough to pick the wrong side. You're not killing anyone."
"Do you think we will?" Dorcas whispers with fear. "Do you think we'll have to kill people?"
"Only those who deserve it."
But the thought makes her sick.
7. (Louder than thunder.)
Lily is a hurricane lurking slightly offshore, and it is only a matter of time before something sets her off.
"Lily. Lily, please, you can't keep ignoring me."
That something comes by the name Severus Snape.
She whirls on her heels, snatching at the chance to blow off some steam and not at all in the slightest sorry that it has to be at Snape — at least not yet, anyway.
"Oh yes I can," she snaps. "What I do is no concern of yours, Severus. You lost that privilege."
"Please, Lily, I had to. They'd do worse to you if I hadn't."
"Oh, bully for you. It serves you right for hanging out with a bunch of blood-purists in the first place. What do you when you all get together to make fun of mudbloods? When they make plans to attack us? Do you join in, or do you just sit in silence?" She doesn't even know which is worse.
"Lily," he says a little bit louder, desperation oozing out of him, "you don't understand—"
"I don't understand? You're kidding, right? Why should I empathise with you, when you've never even tried to do the same with me?"
"The word just slipped out, okay? And I had to hex you — I had to protect you."
"I do not need you to protect me! I can protect myself! And don't you see the problem? You say it around everyone else so much that when you're angry you just default to slurs!" The bell to signal the end of the period rings, but she pays it no mind. "I don't believe you, Severus. You only care about me because no one else does."
"That's not true, Lily, you know it's not." He starts forward, but she takes a step away from him. "I'll talk to them. I'll tell them to leave you alone."
"You're not getting it!" She almost laughs with disbelief. "You refuse to understand! You've made your choice. Let me make mine."
The crowd of students move impassively around them, and Lily is more than happy to fade into it.
8. (Being in love should have been enough. It should have counted for something.)
Hogsmeade in the summer makes Lily feel gauzy and immaterial, like if a wind picked up she could just float away. Add that feeling on top of the butterflies in her stomach, and it makes for a pleasantly twisted sensation.
Potter - James - had told her to meet him at the Three Broomsticks rather than walk into Hogsmeade together, which she is grateful for, because it allows time for a pep talk.
"Boys like it when you laugh at everything they say," says Mary, a short witch with rosy cheeks. They walk side-by-side, the three of them, with their arms linked. "They're too stupid to read emotional energy."
"You don't have to do anything, Lils." Marlene says sensibly, because tall and pretty girls like Marlene can make anything sound sensible. "You've already snatched him just by being an absolute fire-breathing dragon. Just being yourself is sure to trick him into thinking he's made the right decision."
"You two are absolutely useless. How is it that you've both dated before?"
Marlene doesn't miss a beat. "Our good looks, of course."
They all laugh.
"What if he tries to kiss you?" Mary teases, nudging Lily with her shoulder.
"Oh, don't," Lily groans, "I don't - I've never—"
"You so have!" Mary cries. "You snogged Marlene. I was there!"
"That wasn't a proper kiss, though! It only lasted a second."
"And there was no tongue." Marlene says slyly.
"Dorcas should be here to see our little Lily-Flower off." Mary coos before Lily has the chance to say anything more. "Off to get her first proper snog."
Marlene says, "I think it's really unfair that Professor McGonagall gave her that detention. She was just trying to help."
"She only gave Dorcas one to discourage her from trying to help again," Lily points out.
"Yeah, well, I would too if Dorcas's definition of helping involves hexing someone's toenails off." Marlene snorts. "Poor Reginald Cattermole. Serves him right for telling everyone about his little fungal problem at breakfast."
They make it to the line of shops, and Mary tugs at Lily's elbow and breaks away from the arm-chain. "Put this on." She sticks a hand into her own dress's pocket and pulls out a tube of lipgloss.
Lily takes it, flicking Mary a nervous smile.
"Now remember, if you run out of flirting tactics, just flash him your tits and smile prettily."
"Mary Macdonald!" Lily gasps with laughter. "This is the last time I'm taking your advice."
"But not the last time you take her lipgloss." Marlene says wryly. "Who knows where that's been?"
"Oh, ew!" Lily tries to push the lipgloss back towards a laughing Mary.
"Calm down, cootie-police! It's uncontaminated – for now." Her laugh turns wicked, and the three girls grin at each other. Mary, surprisingly, is the first to straighten up, but only because – "Don't look now, but Potter's here!"
Lily doesn't heed Mary's warning, and turns to see James coming towards them with a sheepish grin. He shows off all his brown skin and skinny arms in a nice, red polo shirt, and Lily has half the mind to believe his mother picked it out for him, because Lily has met Euphemia, and to say the woman is stylish would be an understatement.
But that's not the point. The point is that James Potter looks good, and Lily is a little starstruck.
9. (This, at least, is up to me.)
She has been here for several days and several more. The safe houses of the Order are all beginning to blur together. Lily hardly spends enough time in one to remember the floor plan, let alone the differences between them all.
At least this one has a yard. As far as she knows, the last one she was at didn't have one.
She wanders out onto it, feeling the grass beneath her bare feet. There is the yellow glow of an early summer's day, though it doesn't feel like summer at all. Summer should be spent at home, under the trees with Severus or on the swings with Petunia, helping her mother bake or getting soaked while washing her father's car.
It's been a very long time since she'd done all of those things in one succession, though. She hasn't spoken to Severus since she'd graduated. She hasn't held a satisfying conversation with Petunia a long time before that. She hasn't spoken to her father since she was twelve, on account of him dying of lung cancer.
She is scared, though no one knows it.
No one knows what beliefs have taken who anymore – as if people wore their beliefs on their sleeves in the first place. Lily knows her place is here, in the Order, in and out of safe houses, next to James, next to her friends; but it still surprises her to see where the faces she'd grown up with decide their place is too.
So she's been reading a lot. She thinks it might help her adjust. But every now and then she ends up just reading the same paragraph over and over, staring at the lines of black for hours. This new bleak stretch of nothing makes her think of the time before the war, when she knew it was coming, but not fully grasping it.
She's stuck on this one page of These Happy Golden Years, a book Petunia would say Lily's far too old to be reading, but she loves nonetheless, when a voice says, "afternoon, Evans."
"Hello, Sirius," she says cooly without tearing her gaze from her book.
"Oh, playing hard to get, are we?"
She fights a losing battle against the smile straining against her cheeks. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't think I've ever seen you not standing in front of a mirror."
"Well, you'd have to look at me to see me and say that."
She does so with a grin. "Looking as chuffed as always, I see. How have you been?" She moves her legs so that Sirius can take the seat next to her. They are sitting on an old couch that Lily and Gideon Prewett had moved out onto the deck, because it's not like anyone's going to care anymore. She's been alternating between the shade and the sunshine all day.
"You know, fighting Death Eaters by day, making love by night –"
"Ew," Lily interrupts, scrunching her nose. "There are some things I really do not want to know, and that's one of them."
Sirius leans back with his arms folded behind his head. "What are you playing chaste for? Don't think I didn't notice you and James disappearing all through seventh year. It's not like he didn't talk about it, either. He really wanted his comeuppance on Peter."
"I still say good on Peter, if only to put you all in your places. Your heads were getting too big, anyway."
Unbothered, Sirius muses, "I still don't know how he got Agatha Aubrey to sleep with him."
"Don't ask me. She was a right nag about it, though. She kept trying to get us to ask about it."
"And did you?"
"Of course not. The only question any of us had is 'how the fuck did that happen'?"
They both sit in contemplative silence.
Then, "have you heard from James lately?"
Lily bites the insides of her cheeks. "Not since last week. How is he?"
"Pining after you. What else would he be doing?"
"At least he's consistent." Lily laughs. "And how are you really?"
Sirius shrugs with careless ease. "Fine. You?"
"Fine." They both know that's a lie, but Sirius doesn't particularly care for deep meaningful conversations unless he can't help it, so he doesn't press. "You're staying with James still, aren't you? What are you doing here?"
"I'm helping with the patrol tonight, same as you. I thought we'd have more people with us," he looks around the empty room.
"Everyone has their own little hiding places," Lily explains. "We're all a bit sick of each other at this point." They all want their little snatches of peace, because it is the most beautiful thing they have ever known. "I thought I'd take advantage of the fact that they're all hiding in their rooms to sit out here until showtime."
Sirius nods. "Charming."
They sit in silence for the rest of the afternoon.
10. (We're holding onto heaven.)
"Mum and dad want to buy us a house."
"They want to – oh, James, no."
James looks up from his book – one that Lily had said she'd liked, funnily enough – grinning a little. They are in another safe house, though it's not like James doesn't have a home to go back to. Euphemia had insisted that Lily come and stay with them, because graduating hasn't stopped Sirius from having his own room at the Potters still, but Lily hadn't felt ready; both to preserve her so-called 'independence', and because she had been torn between dedicating herself to a growing war and the choice of comfort.
Living with James would have just made going back to the Order all the more harder.
Lily stares at him, slightly horrified. "No, James. That's too much. I can't just –"
"They adore you, Lily. Mum probably loves you more than I do. Scratch that, actually, she definitely loves you more than I do. It's her own personal goal to make you her daughter-in-law. The money's nothing to them, anyway."
James Potter had been born to a woman with a cursed womb, and had been doted on accordingly. He wants for nothing, and on the off-chance that he ever does want something, all he has to do is ask. Lily, on the other hand, had grown up in a poor town that her sister couldn't wait to see in a rearview mirror, and where everyone knows everyone. It is a good place to be if you like gossip that comes in the form of scandalous church sales and the occasional elopement between two village kids.
"But it's everything to me."
"And you say I'm melodramatic." He closes his book, shifting in his seat to face her properly and props his head against the armrest and looks ridiculous doing so. "You can get that kitten you wanted."
"But I can't just accept it out of nowhere. They'll probably buy us an island trying to outdo themselves for a birthday present."
"Well, we'll just say the house is a wedding present."
Lily has two immediate thoughts about this. The first being is James about to do what I think he's about to do? And the other is I think I would quite like that if he were.
"A what?"
"People get bought houses as wedding presents all the time." He says slowly, as if talking to a child.
"I don't know what world you're living in."
James sits up straighter. He looks at her, in her loose pants and her big, messy bun, and all the flyaway, wispy ringlets floating off her forehead. She is beautiful, and he wants to do something dramatic. "Your world, my world, it's the same thing at this point. Aren't you sick of never staying in the same place? Don't you want to call somewhere home again?"
"Well, yes, but are you just saying this so you can live out your sixteen-year-old fantasy of marrying young and passing on our genes as soon as possible?"
James has always lived by the idea that if you can't be a good example, you should be a terrible warning. "Would it be so bad if I were?"
She falters. "I think I'd always imagined this to be more romantic. If you're doing what I think you're doing." She narrows her eyes. "Are you?"
James's hand goes to his hair, and he ruffles the back of it. "I don't have a ring or anything. In my head I did this on a balcony overlooking Paris or something, even though the French would probably purposefully fuck it up, because French people always like to do stuff like that."
Lily sucks in a breath and holds it. Normally she'd have some quip on her tongue – banter with James is like second-nature to her – but she's, understandably, been thrown off her groove. "You – um – what's happening right now?"
James grins, and he is all sunshine and nerves. "I'm asking you to marry me, of course."
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