this is a disclaimer.
say you will
As the Potter-Evans Engagement Dinner was Mrs Potter's idea in the first place, it's held at Seaview, and Lily can't quite fathom why she agreed to this - considering that the last time her parents were here she'd been involved in that attack on Diagon Alley and Mum had promptly burst into tears at the sight of her. That is to say, she was sobbing on Mrs Potter's doorstep at five-thirty in the afternoon while Mr Potter shuffled and looked embarrassed and Dad looked stoic. Lily loves her Mum, but - well, Petunia had to get it from somewhere. Not all of it, but just enough.
Initially the guest list was supposed to be the two of them and their parents. Lily sent Tuney an invitation but didn't get a reply of any kind, which she felt was a bit much even for her, and reacted appropriately (James fixed the window without a murmur of complaint), which perhaps was the reason James conned Sirius into showing up, and of course Sirius brought Moony and Peter, and one of them brought Marlene, who as James' favourite cousin felt it her duty to bring both her little brothers and her parents from Edinburgh, and one of them had said something to James' Uncle Charlus and his wife Dorea, who apparently is, biologically speaking, Sirius' Aunt Dorea, and so the guest list expanded exponentially, until the only people left out were Mary McDonald (not in the country), Siobhan Mackey (hates the sight of James, mostly on account of being his ex, although why that should take precedence over being Lily's friend Lily does not know), Alice and Frank (in deepest darkest Wales doing Auror training), the Prewett twins (Order business), Janey from primary school and Lily's Gran.
And then Mrs Potter invited Gran as well.
It's basically pandemonium. James said it would be, and it is. Though it's a much friendlier pandemonium than the one Lily summoned up at Tuney's wedding. There's a lot of milling around aimlessly in garden and ballroom (BALLROOM, her future in-laws have a bloody ballroom), Gran gets into a long and involved conversation with Charlus, Aunt Dorea and Sirius are reminiscing about the bad old times, Remus (bless his heart) is helping carry platters, Mrs Potter is waving her hands and talking to Mum about - oh God - the engagement ring.
The ruddy thing has been in the Potter family for three hundred years, and it is hideous.
Wizarding tradition dictates that the putting-of-the-ring-on-the-future-bride's-finger coincides with the Official Announcement of the engagement itself, all very symbolic, which means that so far Lily has been able to worm her way out - no, so far Lily has not been expected to wear That Ring. Bigger than Petunia's, far far glitzier, worth a fortune etc etc. Thankfully she's been assured that once the wedding ring goes on she will not be required to wear it any longer, but until then!
Oh boy. She won't be able to hold her hand up.
Lily kicks her heels in a corner for a bit, feeling anxious and annoyed at herself. On the one hand: it's a lovely gesture of Mrs Potter, so heart-felt-generous, to want her Muggleborn new daughter-in-law to wear her ring. On the other hand: Lily does not want to be grateful to Joan Potter that she has been permitted to join this family, allowed to fall in love with James.
Maybe she's got her back up for no good reason, except adolescent sulkiness, and after all she and James are barely eighteen.
Maybe she's been condescended to by a pure-blood wizard once too often. Maybe it's making her anxious, and afraid, and wary of those whom she shouldn't be wary of.
Maybe she's just being sensible. (This could be over in months, they could decide they hate me, James and I could decide we hate each other. Don't you dare lecture me about Vernon! How do you delude yourself into thinking you're in love with someone who'll drop you the minute some prettier tart comes along for him to lavish his money on?)
She downs a glass of champagne in two quick chugs when Mr Potter calls for the Annoucement and the Ring-Giving. A circle clears in the middle of the room; Dorea has slid an arm through Gran's and is cheerfully explaining about betrothal contracts and formal acknowledgements of, which apparently are the reason for this business, which Lily would probably have known if she ever stayed awake for History of Magic.
On the other hand, Binns is more interested in goblins than social sciences.
James waits for her in the circle with his hands in his pockets. "So," he says. "I'm supposed to make a speech. There are various versions of it, in increasing degrees of pretentiousness and arrogance."
Someone snorts. It's definitely Sirius. Mr Potter is glaring at his son.
Lily grips the skirt of her dress and puts on a smile. She has practiced this smile. It is lovely. It is gracious. It is fitting and it is perfect.
James quirks an eyebrow, and she knows he knows it is a sublime act of fakery unmatched by any fakery Lily has ever put on before.
She's nervous. She's uncertain, she's afraid, she loves him, she wants to be with him and to stay with him.
Somewhere outside of this room there is a war on and they have pledged themselves to fight it. And yet: Engagement Party.
Ridiculous.
"But I'm not going to make it," says James. "Because, like I said, arrogance, but mostly because I owe you an apology, Evans."
She's supposed to stand here like a doll and smile and curtsy and let him kiss her when the time comes, so she smiles and grips her skirt and tries not to ruin the whole silly show, because he adores his Mum and Dad, and they adore him.
James shuffles his hands through his pockets and draws out a ring box. "We said we'd buy this together. But I remembered about the silver."
Lily opens it, and it is gorgeous. She has to lick her lips twice before she can say so.
"It's lovely, Prongs," she says, but of course she shouldn't have used his nickname - but he called her Evans.
Not for much longer.
He holds it out to her; she takes it from between his fingers, slides it on her own. And it fits.
How symbolic.
It glitters on her finger: relatively plain, relatively inexpensive, somehow all the more promising for that. She looks up, catches his eye.
"So we're engaged."
"If you're having second thoughts, now would be a good time to mention it," he says flippantly. "You and Sirius can be half-way to France by nightfall."
The tension breaks; the whole room laughs, Sirius loudest of all. "Yes, do - come away with me, Lily. I'll love you forever!"
"Is that the same proposal you made to Benjy Fenwick?" Lily calls back, and the Marauders whoop with glee, remembering last year's hysterics on Halloween. Sirius shakes his head at her. Lily isn't looking, though. James has got his hands in his pockets again, and it's plainly up to her to kiss him.
"Look," says Harry, and shifts in his seat. "I know it's - it's a bit much to ask."
Ginny shakes her head at him across the kitchen table. "Of course it's not."
He fumbles in the pocket of his jacket, slung across the back of the chair. The house is dim and quiet in the summer dusk, the kitchen windows wide; she smells broom polish and grass and the pollen in the hedgerows. Harry taps his left hand against the table-top - he's nervous. She leans forwards and lights the candle. They'll have the moths come looking for the light, but that doesn't matter. Ginny likes candle-light and she likes Harry; she likes this house and she likes this engagement and this life that they're planning together. She likes everything in the whole wide world right now, with the obvious and frankly entirely logical, no matter what her mother says, exception of spinach.
"I found it in the vault, you see," he explains, a ring-box emerging at last out of the folds of cloth. Tailored cloth: he should not be wearing such things to run around Britain fighting Dark Wizards, but smart Muggle clothes that fit him are a novelty he's still not over, and he rarely wears robes these days at all.
(And considering who he is and what he does it's also a deliberately political statement, but Ginny doubts he thinks of that aspect of it. Much. Anyway, it's her own fault for taking his measurements to the tailor's for the first time that Christmas.)
"What, with your parents' papers?"
"That's right, in the chest with all the legal stuff. There was a key there for another chest that had a load of jewellery in - necklaces and a tiara and diamond cufflinks and stuff. I mean, obviously heirlooms, though I've got no idea what came from who or when or anything. But there was this ring as well."
Harry holds it out to her across the table, and can't stop a twitch of his mouth, the beginnings of a shy smile. "I thought. I mean, I'd be honoured if. If you'd wear it."
Ginny takes the box out of his hands and gently opens the lid. The words yes of course I will are hovering on her lips, but when the actual sight of the - the thing in the box sinks in on her they pack their bags and turn for home, blocking the back of her throat and leaving her incapable of anything other than a weird sort of strangled urargh.
Harry starts to laugh.
"You wanker," says Ginny when the horror dies down and then throws her head back and laughs as well. "You complete and utter tosspot." Shy? Suppressed anticipation, more like.
"Your face!" he chokes out gleefully, leaning on the table top for support. "Oh, blimey. You looked - I can't even describe it."
"Oh!" Ginny wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands, still laughing, and kicks at him under the table. "You git. There aren't enough insults in the English language to do that justice."
"I knoooow," says Harry, hugely delighted. "Isn't it hideous?"
"Disgusting," Ginny says enthusiastically. "I mean, Gordon Bennett. Harry, your Mum never wore this in a million years. I am absolutely not prepared to believe that sort of thing about Lily Potter."
"Oh, me neither," Harry agrees instantly, pushing his hands through his hair. He's still grinning at her. "At least, she's definitely not wearing it in any of the photographs I have. Not even the wedding ones. It was in a sort of velvet bag, actually, and there was a note pinned to it - look."
He pulls it out of another pocket, and they bend over the yellowed slip of parchment together. In precise and amazingly careful handwriting, the words give to Jamie for his lass are still legible.
"Jamie?" says Ginny, laughing.
"It's funny, it's the obvious nickname, but no one's ever called him anything but James to me," says Harry. "Well, except for Prongs, obviously. But it makes me think one of my grandparents must have written the note. Maybe the ring was my grandmother's engagement ring."
Ginny pushed her hair back, nodding. "And his lass. Sounds Scottish."
"We're in Scotland," Harry points out. "And the house - Seaview - is just over the border in Cumberland, you know."
"That's Border with a capital B then," says Ginny. "Why haven't we been to Seaview yet?"
Harry shrugs.
"Scared?"
"Maybe a bit," he admits. "I mean - why didn't they live there? To be honest with you I keep getting flashbacks to Grimmauld Place before the refurb." He looks rueful, entirely aware of how silly a thought that is, but he's been a bit irrational lately about finding things out about his family. Ginny doesn't blame him. Fancy knowing Snape was in love with your mother.
Of course, that's the thing that bothers Harry the least. He hates the man, even seven years dead, but he feels sorry for him too.
"Same reason we're not going to. Too old, too big, too out of the way, no human interaction. Besides," she grins, "what would the Dread Mrs Packenham do for entertainment without us?"
"We'll see how amusing you find her when Baby in there gets old enough to start running riot through her rhododendrons," Harry says darkly.
"Teddy never did."
"Teddy is Remus' son and a sensible, well-behaved, charming little boy. We're naming Baby after Dad and Sirius."
Ginny pats his hand across the table. "Never mind, love," she says, amused. "If we hurry up the ring-buying we might even manage to get married before I start to show. That'll make Mum look more kindly on the entire enterprise."
"Or it might be a girl," muses Harry, "in which case -"
"In which case she'll be a lily by name - but frankly unlikely to be so by nature," says Ginny.
Harry takes her hands in his and bends his head to kiss them.