Author notes: Another fic (written before the last book came out) for the redandthewolf community on Livejournal. The overall challenge was one about angst and remorse, and these lyrics started the whole thing:

Here's a health to the company and one to my lass
Let's drink and be merry all out of one glass
Let's drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
For we may or might never all meet here again
- Here's a Health to the Company (traditional Irish)
A Last New Year's Eve

It was certainly a strange sort of New Year's Eve party, but probably the best one the Order of the Phoenix could be expected to have. Sirius, Sturgis, Hagrid, and Elphias were all roaring drunk and having the best time of anyone; others, James included, were well on their way there. There was no judgment among the others, not after the past year (or three) which they had experienced together; most of the non-drinkers only looked on wistfully at the happy oblivion the others had managed to achieve.

Remus was one of that group, and as that envy of his inebriated friends, in addition to the effect the few drinks he had consumed, grew keener, he started making his way through the room, determined to find someone else he knew would still be able to hold a coherent conversation.

Moody, whose principles of Constant Vigilance would never allow him these days to take a sip of anything he hadn't personally tested to be non-alcoholic, was gruffly standing on guard by the door. Remus paused before him, as carefully precise as he always was when he drank the smallest quantity.

"Hi Moody. Have you seen Lily anywhere?"

Moody's new, quite fascinating eye spun about in every possible direction. "Aye – she's a little ways down the hall."

"Ah, thank you." Remus turned and made his way carefully in that direction, avoiding Sirius and Elphias' mad dance around the outskirts of the room.

Lily was indeed standing part of the way down the hall, just where the reach of the light ended in shadows. Holding a nearly full glass of some milky-looking drink someone had probably forced on her, she was looking at the portraits spaced down the walls.

"Hope I'm not intruding," Remus said, as he drew closer.

She turned her head and smiled at him, that bright Lily smile he knew so well, though it had changed over the years. "Not at all."

He leaned against the wall beside her, looking at the stately and rather dull portraits of the McKinnon family. "I think James is enjoying himself."

She smiled again, though more distantly. "Yes, he is. It's good for him to let it out like this."

Remus studied her out of the corner of his eye. "What about you, though? Surely James didn't drag you along if you would have rather stayed home with Harry."

Lily shrugged a little. "I wanted to come – it's an Order party, after all, and we have few enough of those. But I think you and I both don't really enjoy it like the rest." She caught his eye, and there was an odd moment where Remus could have sworn he felt the snap of connection. Then she looked back to the opposite wall, continuing, "Neville hasn't been feeling well, so Alice volunteered to stay home and look after both him and Harry. With the usual anti-contagion spells, of course," she added.

Remus knew she would rather be home with her son herself than here in this hallway. He rather wished he could go with her; Harry had a wonderful ability to make him forget unpleasant things. A sort of obliviator-field, as Sirius called it.

Lily sighed and took a sip of her drink.

"What is that?"

She inspected it more closely. "White Russian, I believe it's called. I know I ought to know it, it's a Muggle drink, but I've been out of that world for so long…and I could hardly expect to be well-versed in drinks when I was ten. Dorcas made it, though – apparently she does keep up, somehow. It's actually not bad."

She offered him a sip, and he put his lips to the rim of the glass as she tilted it; whether intentionally or not on her part, he got a little more than he would have taken on his own, and had to take a quick swallow before really savoring it to avoid choking. Nevertheless, he could taste the milk and nothing at all of the vodka, which definitely made it a very good drink. Rubbing his tongue on the roof of his mouth thoughtfully, he thought he detected a hint of chocolate as well. Or maybe because anything good reminded him of chocolate.

"That is pretty good – I'll have to ask for the recipe from Dorcas."

Lily smiled and took another drink, her other hand crossed behind her back, where she was slowly bouncing on it.

"Do you remember," she asked softly, almost dreamily, "our first New Year's Eve out of Hogwarts?"

Remus raised his eyebrows. "It was only three years ago."

"It's been an awfully long three years."

"It has," Remus conceded.

"So, do you remember?"

He had to think hard, and realized by he difficulty how right she was. Then it came back to him: all of them together in James and Sirius' flat, before they had joined the Order and were merely trying to stay alive and happy the best way they knew how. They had been sure everything was in their grasp, anything could be attained.

The unspoken objective of the party was to avoid contemplating the past year, only focusing on the here and now with who was left, but Remus felt himself losing in that endeavor. It was difficult, recalling then and now, and not falling into gloom…but what was there to be optimistic about these days, about next year?

"Yes," he said quietly. "I do."

Lily let out a sigh, and slowly tilted sideways, so she was leaning against his side. Her eyes were still on the wall across from her and looked very distant, from what he could see of her partly-lowered lids. "That's what we do this for, isn't it. So maybe we can live like that again someday, or better."

Despite himself, he smiled. She was right, had gotten to the heart of it. "Exactly."

Warm fingers slipped inside his loose hand, and he looked down in surprise. She looked almost drowsy – certainly very far away – and he wondered vaguely if the White Russian had such a quick effect on her.

"Remus," she murmured. "Oh, Remus. …It's hard, isn't it, when we want so badly to live, and so we endanger ourselves and everyone we love so much for it?"

He didn't answer, but tightened his hand around her fingers. She pressed her head harder against his shoulder.

It was a surreal moment; they both felt themselves alive, like everyone in the room behind them making all the raucous noise, and at the same time felt death, death moving about them, as close as it can ever be. Death that had taken a third of them that had celebrated here a year ago; death that could take any of them that night on their way home, or any day this year. They were so young, so ready to live, and so ready to die. And what does one say, when one feels death so unbearably close?

"I love you, Remus."

He swallowed, and could still taste the hint of milk and chocolate in the back of his mouth. "I love you too, Lily."

The words felt strange – choked, almost forced out, and he squeezed her hand helplessly, in mute plea for her to understand what he felt now.

She sighed and closed her eyes, as the wall behind them trembled from the sound and crashes of the party.