A/N if it wasn't clear in the summary, this is a Lily and James fic. Set while they're off fighting Voldemort for the Order. REVIEW PLEASE.

It's dark, it's cramped here, it smells like fish, but were it not for the sense of fear that is so overwhelming you're afraid you may break down any minute--were it not for the fear, this situation might have been a little familiar.

Even though it's pitch black in the closet, you close your eyes, you think back to last year. How could it only have been a year ago? It felt like an eternity separated this feeling and that feeling, an eternity of time, and aging. An eternity of fear. And yet that situation was so similar. So similar and so very, very different.

He holds you in his arms in the cramped space of a broom closet.

Your heart beats wildly. More so than it ever has.

Both of your breathing is heavy, and it's the only noise for miles around, it seems, so it sounds much louder than it is.

You're paranoid it's too loud. That someone will hear.

You're paranoid because you're in danger of being caught.

It was so similar, but it was so different. How could it be so different?

Then, he held you of love. He held you because he was so happy that he had you finally , and he never ever wanted to let you go. Now, he holds you because he is so afraid he might lose you any minute, and he never ever wants to let you go.

Then, your heart beat of love: of pounding, relentless love, like you'd never felt before. Now, your heart beats of pure and unadulterated fear, like you've never felt before.

Then, your breath was heavy having finished a broom-closet tryst. It filled your ears and the damp, stale air around you. Now, your breath is heavy from war, weighed down by fear and pride and so much running and dueling. It fills your ears, and the damp, stale air around you.

Then, you were paranoid that a teacher, or, worse, Professor Dumbledore might catch you. How mortifying that would be! But still, the feeling thrilled you, and you think you wouldn't want to be anywhere but there. No where. Now, you're paranoid because you're hiding from death, because you're a flung open door and two muttered words away from hitting the floor, never to rise again. The feeling was a sinking one, and you think you'd give anything to be anywhere else but here. Anywhere.

Then, you were on top of the world.

Now, you are a cockroach under an descending boot.

Then, you couldn't keep that stupid grin off your face.

Now, you can't keep the tears from rolling out of your eyes and down your cheeks.

That night, the closet smelt of fish.

That night you closed your eyes as tight as you could, and concentrated on engraving the memory in your mind forever.

That night he whispered, "I love you more than life itself".

And tonight, even if those words have entirely new meaning, that fishy smell is so familiar. And you think that, if you close your eyes tight enough, you might open them with that stupid grin on your face again.