Thank you to my beautiful frequent-reviewers, who actually brighten up my life so much and make me so glad I decided to finally publish all this rubbish that spills out of my brain. I've tried hard to make this right, and not ridiculous. Don't worry, I haven't given up on SBRL, just gone off on a tangent. They shall return to the forefront very very soon. :)

A story set in the brisk early months of 1981. James and Lily Potter will die standing and fighting on October 31st, at midnight.

In front of her will I stand and fight, promises he in his vows, on a scrap taped to the wall, that she sees as she unhooks the back door key and shouts for whoever's outside to shut the fuck up, she's here.

She groggily opens the door and a figure in black flies in and slams her against the wall by her throat.

She tries to scream and can't because the other hand is gripping her mouth. Fingertips dig viciously into the sides of her face. She sobs, scrabbling at his clenched bony wrists and whacking her heels desperately against her kitchen wall. More fingertips are pressing on her neck but after a second or two of crushing panic- she's not choking. The arm that's holding her up is shaking, and it's not trying to choke her, not trying to kill her. He lets her down, but keeps squeezing her mouth. She opens her eyes, still trying to rip the hand from her face because she feels she will suffocate and she still can't see a face and suddenly he leans in and she whimpers pathetically in fear and he hisses, in a voice that sounds more terrified than terrifying:

"Don't shout, Lily, shut up, shut up, please."

"MMCK" she squeals, angry, and digs her nails hard into his bony hand. He gasps in pain, flinching, but doesn't let her go. "MMNNN!" she roars into his hands, kicking.

"Lily, shut up, stop it" he whispers urgently. "It's me. Lily, shut up, please, shut up. I'll let you go. If you don't shout."

She screams angrily into his iron grip but then stops, trying to drag his hand down so she can breathe properly through her nose, and nods, angry tears running down her face.

Severus Snape drops her clumsily but very gently, fingers ghosting damply along her bare arms and dropping them as he steps back, inexplicably shaking. Lily's hands find her throat and face and she touches them, making sure they're still there. She pants, and her heart, which she hasn't realises has sped up, begins to slow slightly.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" she mutters, breathing heavily, and he twitches, like an insect, wrapped up in black, with his hood pushed down. It's slightly missing the point, that question, a better one would be about what how he just assaulted her in her kitchen, but her head is still clouded and James is upstairs asleep, and oh God.

"Lily" mutters Severus. His long, delicate fingers curl around her wrist oh so gently. "Sorry" he stammers. "Sorry. Lily, sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry." She looks at her stomach. "I'll never- I'll never hurt you again. I'm so sorry. Sorry. Sorry, sorry," he mumbles, beginning to sob.

"What do you want" she murmurs expressionlessly. He takes her other hand. She lets him, and he moves his long body closer into her smaller one, and she sighs.

"He's coming" says Severus, softly, but his body is tensed in restless fear. She rests her head against his shoulder, aching and calm. "He's coming so soon, Lily." He moves away and looks fearfully at her face. "Come with me. Come with me right now- I have a car- and brooms, and money. He won't come looking for me- us. Lily, please."

She twists her hands out of his and he quickly moves back into her space. She looks at the floor.

"Severus" she mutters, and he makes a little shaky noise, holding her arms tightly and trying to gather her into his trembling arms. "I'm fucking married" she says quietly, but there's no hiding the edge of fury in her voice. "I'm married to James Potter. We have a child. What is the matter with you?"

"Come with me" is all he can say. "If you don't come with me you're going to-" and his voice cracks "-die. Soon, Lily. There's nothing I can do. I have to protect you. I have to take you away from this place-"

"This place is my fucking home," she grinds out through gritted teeth, beginning to shake with fury. "It's our home."

"It's all of your grave" he mutters as if he's just realising it, holding her wrists so she can't get away. "Except you, if you come with me, Lily, sweetheart-"

"Don't call me that" she cries, struggling violently. He drops her and backs off again.

"They're going to die here, Lily, and so will you, unless you come with me. Now. Come on. Tonight."

"You think I would leave my family?"

"You can't do anything for them." He counters her calmly but still shaking, and she backs away.

"You think I would leave Harry." She mumbles this as if she doesn't quite understand it herself.

"You can't help him" he sobs, clenching his fists.

"So let me ask you this" she mumbles in the same tone. "What if we went together to a safe place like you said and lived there and lived there and made a life there and you loved the people in it, and he found it and what would you do? What would you do for me? Run away like this? Run away and leave me to die if it was me helpless in front of him?"

"I'd stand and fight in front of you." He means every syllable, really means it.

"Me too" she says quietly, and smiles through her tears at the beauty of it.

"No" he whispers. "You don't have to- shouldn't have to. He should protect you. He can't. I could. It shouldn't have to be you protecting him."

She just laughs, mid-weep. "I know, it's funny, isn't it. Of course it's me protecting him. Them. That's my family-" and she can't stop smiling at the thought of them trying to be the ones saving her. She wants to hold them both in her arms so badly. "- and if they're in danger- when they're in danger, I'm going to stand in front of them and fight. And that's really all there is to it."

"But you-" he stops, and looks into her young, young face. "You, you?"

He begins to cry gently. "Thank you for thinking you'd help me. Thank you for caring but I don't want your help and I'm not going to leave and I'll chuck myself in front of my child to protect him a thousand, ten thousand, times over-" and he pulls her in close, "-before I'd leave with you like a coward."

"But I can't let you die" he sobs, weeping into her shoulder. She shoves him away.

"You're in my fucking house, Severus. James is asleep upstairs. Our baby is asleep upstairs."

He says nothing, but doesn't leave.

She doesn't threaten him by asking what he thinks James would do if he found them because he knows anyway. If she wasn't so livid, she might have a little surprised he's braved what might potentially have been his last ever beating from James Potter.

"Please leave me alone, Severus" she says, looking at his face to try and make him understand, because he's like a little boy, still believing she might love him, still convinced he will swoop in and save her. "I love James."

"He can't look after you," Severus says, his white face open and vulnerable, brow twisted, as if she's the only thing in his life that's ever been. "He can't save you."

Lily can't help but smile. "He's saved me."

"I'm serious" says Severus, as if the words pain him.

"You're in good disguise" Lily cackles, her throat dry and crackly, and Severus makes a retch face. "And that's a terrible joke."

He looks physically in pain at the mention of Sirius, and she wants to smack him.

"You're constantly around them- look what it's done to you, taken you away from me," he grits out, teeth clenching in agony, and a hot bubble of rage in her chest threatens to explode because to him she's a child and that'll never change and he'll never accept her decisions. "Always around them."

"You're delusional, Severus. You're the one that needs help. Listen to me- look!"

She grabs his face and points it at hers and he stops struggling and looks at her, defenceless.

"I love James. I'm married to him and I will always love him, and Severus, that will never change. I'll never leave him. We have a child. And his name is Harry and if- when, it comes to it, I will protect him at any cost. I'll-" she stops, and takes his hands, and he moves closer to her. "I'll stand right here," she explains, voice husky because it's the middle of the fucking night and she's so tired. "In front of him." And looks up at him with clear green eyes. "In front of both of them for better or for worse."

He looks as if he doesn't quite believe her.

"You're too good for them, Lily" he says gently. "You're too good for all of them."

"You've got to go," she says back.

His forehead crinkles, and has his face always looked so hollow?

"Anytime" he mumbles, barely making a noise. "You want to escape and save yourself. You can find me."

"I never will" she says, sitting down and laying her head on her hands.

"But you know how to, don't you, Lily," he gabbles. "If you ever wanted to."

"Don't touch me" she mutters.

"You do know?"

"Of course I fucking do, you idiot."

"You can contact me" he says so softly, as if he could never hurt her, taking her chin so gently in his fragile, spidery hands. "Any time you need me. Any time you need out. Or just need to talk. I'll always be waiting for you."

"Yeah. I know," she says, because she does, they both do, whether she likes it or not. He will always be waiting for her, until the day he dies, or more likely, she does first. She doesn't shiver, because she's stronger than that, but this is hard. Because she's scared. She knows he won't give up on hunting them, and she's scared, so very scared. Because it's scary to know the safest place you'll ever know or want to know is about to crumble down.

"You're never trapped, Lily. There's always a way out." He gets up, and opens the door. "When you realise it's the right thing for you, I'll be waiting. I know you don't- I know it's me you love."

"Fuck off, right now" she hisses.

"Lily-"

"Get out of my house. Get out."

"I'll see you soon, Lily."

"I'll never see you again" she cries, pushing him out of the door. "I'm not a fucking coward like you are. Attack women in their fucking homes. You're creepy fucking psycho. You really thought I was going to run away with you- you're fucking delusional, proper headcase."

She follows him out into the garden and holds him close in her arms.

"I try but I can't not love you" he weeps into her neck, choky sobs that won't stay hidden. "I try so hard and still I love you. I do. Lily, I love you, I'm meant to. I love you, I love you, I love you. I won't ever be able to stop."

"I know" she murmurs, because she does, and they're both adults, and there's no denying it really. "I'm sorry."

He knows it, she knows it, they both know it, and it's not nice. But they both know.

He touches her face as if to pull it to his but she shakes her head and he lets go, trembling with hatred for himself. She hugs him close again in the garden. She's only wearing a stringy top and baggy bottoms and it's wet and freezing. He feels her arms, goosebumpy and cold, and struggles to take off his cloak for her.

"No" she says, soothingly. Because she's Lily. Lily who isn't going to abandon her responsibility, ever.

And he's kind of her responsibility, not her first, because that is of course her baby, her family. But there's still a part responsibility for him, because she's known this man since they were five years old and he's hopelessly in love with her and he has to watch her make her life with someone else and he's got nobody who loves him, really loves him, not even himself.

He's the child, so she rocks him until he regains himself and he apologises and she tells him that the world is calm and fine and no, she doesn't hate him, but she is going inside now to her home and he must go to his.

He agrees and he holds her tight and she knows she's loved, but it's a prickly uncomfortable kind of unrequited love that makes her feel like throwing herself off something. Or going with him out of guilt.

But the idea can't creep under her skin. She can't stomach the possibility. It will never happen. She's too in love with James. And her maternal love is too strong. Either would have done to teacher her forever that this is her home. She chose it. and this is her post, and she'll not leave it, not out of fear, out of cowardice, because love is a much stronger tool than anything weak and brittle.

She tells him to throw no more stones at her window and never knock again at her back door. She waves goodbye and locks the door. She shivers, considering tea, but needing James too much, his warmth, his breath, and even though she of course knows it's Lily that's running the show and keeping everyone safe for one more day, she feels ridiculously comforted by his boyishness, his innate ability to be the boy she loves and the boy, the boy, the only boy. She would sell her arm for him right this second to be curled around her, no one else in the world. Her prince.

"You're fucking freezing" grumbles James blearily, arching his back. She curls into his body, weak, and he smiles and puts his arms around her. She snickers and wedges her bare feet into the pit of his stomach and he flinches. They're ice cold. He doesn't push her away, but "Urgh, could you be more uncomfortable please" he mutters affectionately.

"I love you so fucking much" she moans gently, unable to keep herself from kissing his neck. He opens one eye and studies her one-eyed for head injuries. This conversation is usually the opposite way round.

"What happened to you?" he asks apprehensively. "Did you hit your head? Ah- ah."

"Mm" she agrees, kissing his collarbone, relishing the night like each they spend together: as if it's their last and knowing it might be.

He gently pushes her down, pulls off his big t-shirt, and tucks it over her. And he gathers her into his chest, warm with the heat only a body can produce. She dozes, and when he finally falls asleep, she clambers out of bed, and puts on a warmer jumper.

Tucking into bed with James, she cannot drop off until he snuffles in his slumber and feels for her hand, pushing his fingers between the gaps between hers. Lily knows that she's made the right choice, not only tonight, and she falls asleep feeling that everything is present and correct and the right way up, and she's got so much at this moment that whatever happens next is surely all a bonus.

Lily could leave, could save herself, but she won't. Her sanctuary is threatened. For better or for worse, she will not leave her family. She'll protect her own. In front of them will she stand and fight.

Hopefully this was sad, but not too sad, if you get me? How I hate sad things, but they're what I keep writing, ack :| Also, I realised after that the time frame means the attack is still months off, but didn't want to change the dialogue when he tells her it's coming soon and mess with the urgency of the thing. So take it as, Snape's just really paranoid, and feeling guilty.

Anyway, if you fancy it, please drop me a review :)