The sky was so pretty that night, Lily Evans didn't mind feeling like a cliché. A pretty girl lost in her thoughts, leaned against the cold stone of the Astronomy Tower: it was hardly unique, but it was very possible that Lily was the person at Hogwarts who cared the very least about how unique she was.
Maybe she would care in the morning, for it was a considerably cold October night and she definitely didn't need to be losing any sleep, but the way the sky opened up for her right then was much more important than that. It felt bright out despite the late hour, and she suspected it had something to do with the milky white clouds lazing across the grounds.
When she'd first lived at the castle—six years ago now—Lily was convinced that everything about Hogwarts was magic, not just the spells and the ghosts and the paintings that moved: the dew on the grass, the murky water of the lake, the wind moving through the trees. Looking back, she was certain she'd spent the duration of her first month at the school staring into the distance.
Maybe that's where the blasted reputation came from in the first place, she wondered. Quickly, though, she shook her head as if it would launch the thought from her mind.
She could see Venus between the clouds, outshining everything around it.
Sometimes Lily missed muggle science. It was frustrating to only talk about the planets as cogs in some cosmic machine of fate. Particularly, Lily hated the topic of Venus at Hogwarts; it always ended up being about love.
Nothing real at all—just gossip and hopes and wishes hiding behind the stars.
That's why she liked to seek the planet out in the sky. No matter how much meaning and metaphor they tried to cover it with, it was easy to remind herself that it was only a planet suspended among stars, not some mystical force. Not everything needed to be magic.
It wasn't as if magic had been very kind to her lately, anyways.
.
"I see Head Girl's broken curfew again," Marlene Price commented wryly, the top of her head all that was visible from behind the worn couch. Had Lily been more attentive, the sound of the still-crackling fire would've told her that people were still in the common room, but she was far too deep in her own thoughts to notice.
"Why are you still up?" Lily asked her friend in a hushed, confused tone. She saw the head of long brown hair rested against Marlene's shoulder as she walked to the front of the couch and understanding crossed her tired face. "Another one?"
The blonde nodded wearily. "October's been tough for some reason. She was fine last month…" Despite the fact that she was asleep, Mary MacDonald looked more exhausted than the other two girls combined. Marlene dropped the line of thought. "Wanna talk? Quietly, I mean."
Lily laughed softly, turning to sit in front of the orange glow of the fire. "I'm alright."
"Aren't trips to the Astronomy Tower meant to be for troubled thoughts?"
"What makes you think I was at the Astronomy Tower?"
"Oh, sorry, I assumed. Out shagging the boy of the night, then?"
Lily turned to roll her eyes, confident that the room was too dimly lit for her friend to notice the blush on her cheeks. "Spot-on as usual, Sherlock."
"I still haven't read any of those books, you know, despite how often you use that funny little man's name to insult me."
"I think that says more about you than me."
Marlene was silent for a second. "You're probably right."
If it were a different time, and Lily had not been so tired, or Mary had not looked so fragile, she would have been content to sit there for another hour, talking about nothing. As it was, her only retort was a yawn. "I'm heading to bed," she said before it was quite finished, standing up and stretching somewhat obnoxiously. With the fire behind her, she was cast almost entirely in shadow; her hair was the only thing left of her that stood out, cascading almost violently red against the light.
"Sleep well, Evans," Marlene said as the girl walked away. Then, she looked down at Mary's half-obscured face and did her best not to worry.
This couldn't go on forever.
.
James was the hungriest he'd been in seventeen years.
The walk to the Great Hall for breakfast seemed to last ages, even halfway down when he'd challenged Sirius and Peter to a race. Remus probably would have demolished the lot of them—Merlin knew how the boy managed to run so quickly—but he'd gone down to breakfast early today, claiming that he wanted to work on an essay for Ancient Runes that was due after lunch. A table filled with breakfast food seemed like an odd choice of work stations, but James had been too groggy to bother him about it.
As he passed through the large doorways, his stomach grumbled menacingly. A table filled with breakfast food, he thought again with more zeal, overwhelmed by the smell of it. The space and time between the door and the table somehow eluded him then; he didn't think again until he had eaten half of the food on his plate—which in all fairness did not take long.
Once he was better satiated, James slowed down to take in the happenings of the table. Sirius was bothering Remus, who had taken up a sizeable amount of space with his books and parchment, and Peter was stirring something into the former's pudding while he was busy. He noticed James's glance and winked. "It'll only turn his teeth blue for an hour or two."
It would be funnier on another day—and it would certainly be funnier later today, when Sirius realised—but now, James gave him a distracted grin and moved on.
Lily was sat next to Mary, spreading marmalade on a piece of toast and laughing. The pair of them were always unreal next to each other, both so…well…pretty, James thought, but they were off-kilter today. Not worse, exactly, just sort of unsettled. Sort of fragile.
Lily caught his eye and glared at him. James laughed. He might have imagined it, but the light in her green eyes was more joking than angry.
Adam McKinnon was reading the Daily Prophet like he always did. Lowering his spectacles to catch a glimpse, James made out the headline:
SEVEN AURORS DEAD IN TARGETED ATTACK.
His sausage turned to ash in his mouth. Not literally, because of course that could be accomplished with a rather simple spell, but at that moment James couldn't have told the difference.
It wasn't her. He knew that, and it was always the first thing he thought when he saw headlines like this, but it never saved his stomach from a moment of free-fall.
"You alright, Prongsy?" Sirius asked in a girlish tone, apparently done tormenting Remus. "You've hardly touched your food, 'cept for the bacon, the eggs, the scone, the sausages..."
James wasn't sure how convincing his laugh was.
Not that it needed to be that convincing at all; nobody was genuinely concerned. His stomach turned.
"Don't mean to be fussy, Padfoot," he pouted. "Just not too hungry today."
.
Sometimes, Lily regretted the heavy courseload she'd decided to take on for seventh year. She loved everything she was taking—she hadn't done it just to spice up her resume, unlike a lot of students—but after the first week of classes it became apparent that she would never have to worry about having too much free time.
"Thank Merlin this class isn't a NEWT," she said, perhaps not entirely aware of the words as they left her mouth. She liked that Muggle Studies didn't come with an exam tied to its tail; the class was interesting, and Lily had a suspicion that part of the reason she liked it so much was how low-stress it was.
"Thank you, Lily, for this brand-new sentiment," Mary replied, shaking her head. The sarcasm went almost entirely over her head, though, as she noticed that the skin under her friend's eyes was tinged purple. Either she'd forgotten to apply a glamour charm that morning or it was already wearing off.
"One that you absolutely haven't given every day since the school year began," Marlene added, making Lily blushed. They tended to act this way when she talked about class.
"You don't have to be an arse about it."
"I disagree wholeheartedly," she said with a smile, her messy blonde hair falling into her face.
"Somebody's feeling especially bitchy this morning," Mary smiled back.
"Oi, you were on my side a second ago!"
"What, can't a girl change their mind?" She asked. "That is, as long as they're not changing their mind about how glad they are that Muggle Studies isn't a NEWT level class."
"Clever," Lily muttered, but it was hard to hear over the laughter of the other girls.
They were still laughing at her by the time they reached their seats. At some point, Lily had joined in.
"I hope you girls are laughing about Romeo and Juliet," An older witch with long brown hair said as she entered the classroom. Then she frowned. "Actually, no. I hope you were not laughing about Romeo and Juliet."
"Was it not a comedy, professor?" Sirius asked from his seat.
"I'd ask if you read the book at all, Mr. Black, but I've long abandoned silly hopes like that."
Lily glanced behind her just in time to see the affronted look spread across his face. "Matilda Cuffe, I'm insulted that you would even say something so unkind!"
"You can call me Matilda once you've actually read a book I assign you, Sirius."
"Well, Romeo and Juliet was a very interesting read. I felt that it very neatly captured the whirlwind nature of young love, and how easily it turns catastrophic," he said with a mockingly contemplative expression, stopping just short of stroking an imaginary goatee. He grinned as resignation filled her eyes. "Matilda."
The James and Remus dissolved into laughter with him, and Lily couldn't keep in her own laughter for a moment. Sirius had a knack for most timings, be they comedic or dramatic.
Professor Cuffe sat down at her desk, rubbing her temples. "You'll be the death of me, Black."
"It's an honor, professor."
After giving the class a moment to settle down, the professor stood. "We are going to be discussing the play today, so I hope you've all thought about this as much as Mr. Black clearly has."
The students were all silent for a moment. Lily decided it would probably be best if she stayed out of the discussion, settling down in her seat and looking at the backs of her hands. Even without the forest green varnish on her nails, she found her hands quite interesting to stare at; she usually searched her freckles for patterns and constellations.
"I liked it," A Hufflepuff girl said hesitantly, as if she were making a confession. "I thought it was really moving to watch. Like, how everything was against these two kids who just wanted to be together."
Lily bit her lip. She wasn't sure she would give such a sentimental interpretation.
"I agree, Ramona," James added to the quiet room. Everybody turned to look at him. Everybody always looked at James Potter when he decided to speak—which was often—but today was a bit different. "They're perfectly in love, but the world they live in is so filled with hate that they have no way of surviving it."
Lily frowned.
"That's very romantic of you, Potter," Marlene said, slumped down in her seat.
"You don't agree?" He sounded genuinely surprised.
"I think they're bloody idiots."
"Language, Ms. Price," Professor Cuffe interrupted.
"Took the words right out of my mouth," Sirius said, locking eyes with her from across the room. Marlene shook her head as if to deny the connection.
"I'm not agreeing with you on purpose, Black."
"Merlin, of course not! I'm just proud," he said. "You're more reasonable than I thought."
"It's hard to find, but I know there's a reason for me to be insulted somewhere in there," she said warily.
"I'm insulted that you'd think that."
"It's like a dragon eating its own damn tail," Remus muttered, rolling his eyes. "Could we move on?"
Sirius stuck his tongue out at the boy, prompting him to smile, perhaps against his better judgement.
"Well, my reluctance to agree with Black aside," Marlene pressed on, "I do think they're stupid about it. Romeo's just hopping from one girl to the next as fast as they'll line up, and Juliet thinks he's just peachy and has to marry him like, the day they meet."
"It was love at first sight!" Mary complained. Lily winced. In an attempt to divert more of her attention to her hands, she looked at the calluses formed by her wand, trying to imagine how many times she'd held it in the exact same way.
"Juliet would've been what, a third year? How could that possibly be true love?"
"And Romeo would've been a sixth year!" A Ravenclaw boy added quickly. "Any bloke who pulled that here would never hear the end of it—it's downright creepy."
"It was a different time! Age didn't matter as much back then," the Hufflepuff from earlier, Ramona, protested.
"The fact that they're from a couple centuries ago doesn't make the situation any better," Lily said, her hands forgotten on her desk.
She very much disliked the stillness her words brought to the room.
"Really, Lily? You think they're just idiots?" Ramona—who was apparently feeling very outspoken today—asked curiously. Lily wanted to take the words back, despite how much she meant them. It wasn't what the room wanted to hear from her.
Perhaps Professor Cuffe noticed the change in atmosphere, or simply the stress in Lily's expression, because she spoke up before any reply could come. "Well, you lot are certainly more…excited about the play than I expected."
This got everybody to settle down, and made Lily feel unusually grateful. This topic was making her uncomfortable for a reason she didn't quite understand; she was ready to move on.
"I think we're going to have to spend more time on this," she continued, a smile beginning to spread on her face. Her dark eyes sparkled.
Lily was going to have to find a more interesting distraction than her hands.
.
"She's lost her mind if you ask me," Marlene said.
"She's mad," James agreed, falling back onto the couch right in front of the fire.
The Gryffindor common room was empty, given the late hour, but the seventh years felt there was no better time to meet, unhindered by the shouts of first-years and the chaos of third-year magic. The fire kept everything warm and glowing orange and comfortable. They all seemed to have trouble sleeping lately, but nobody ever mentioned it. Some nights they would sit saying absolutely nothing; those nights tended to be Lily's favorites.
"That said, I think this is going to be incredibly fun."
"Talking about the same muggle book for an entire month isn't going to be fun, Prongs, it's going to be a waste of damn time," Sirius complained.
The conversation was turning very quickly. Her instinct was to turn to the fire, let herself get lost in it, but she couldn't do that every time the play came up; especially not if they were going to be talking about it in class.
For an entire bloody month.
Even on a normal night, though, it was hard to resist. She watched a glowing log crumble.
"She's going to make your class do that? Really?" Peter asked in disbelief, eyebrows high, for the first time glad he didn't take Muggle Studies with everybody else.
"Sirius started it, with all of his waxing poetic to 'Matilda'." Evidently, Marlene wasn't in the mood for his theatrics that night.
ARGUE
"It won't be the end of the world," Remus rolled his eyes, turning to snatch Sirius's hand before he stole James's glasses from the top of his head.
"If this is going to be one of your lectures on the wonders of education and our responsibility to be mindful and dedicated students, can I give it a raincheck?" Sirius tilted his head back against the couch, closing his eyes. "I already have a headache."
"I have never given a lecture like that," He protested. "I prefer 'the real magic is knowledge', if I'm going to go down that road."
"Shooting pains behind my eyes, mate."
"You should really stop spiking your own pumpkin juice."
"Wicked joke, Moony," he said dryly. "Could you shut up?"
It was more inflammatory than endearing, in Lily's opinion, but Remus gave a dim smile.
The conversation kicked back up around her, and for a moment there were too many voices. Everything was spinning around her, and everybody was thinking, and everybody wanted to be heard. She wondered, quite absently, if they were all as worried as she was.
They had to be, of course. They were all still awake.
The fire was only looking more inviting. Lily wondered, not for the first time, what spells there were to make things inflammable. She wondered if there were any that worked on people. If she could, she would shower in flames; it would be nice.
"You alright?" Mary asked quietly, jarring Lily out of her head. She nodded slightly.
"Just tired."
"You could go to bed, you know," she commented, rolling her eyes.
"Are you tired of hearing that?" Lily couldn't help but ask.
Mary sighed, her bangs fluttering at the gesture. Her glamour charm and makeup had both worn off entirely for the day. She looked a special sort of tired—the kind that settled into the bones, that never wanted to leave—and it was all wrong on her. Mary MacDonald seemed frail on a good day; under exhaustion it wouldn't have been surprising to see her shatter. "So tired of it."
.
"She's really going all-out on this, isn't she?" A Ravenclaw, Kerry Hawthorne, asked. She was walking the line between amusement and boredom, unsure of which direction her classmates would agree with.
The Muggle Studies classroom was always lively. It hosted a very odd, very intriguing collection of objects both magical and mundane. Enchanted quills furiously revised first-year essays in the back of the room; telephones swung by their chords from receivers, propelled by some invisible wind; unmoving photographs littered the walls; near the front of the professor's desk sat a rubber duck—a great first-year beast, the origin of the famous question always asked but never answered: what, exactly, is the function of a rubber duck?
Today, the classroom was even more off-kilter than usual: dividing the room neatly in half was a great purple curtain. It hadn't been closed when they entered. The students hadn't even noticed it at first, drawn out of the way.
"All right, everybody," she'd smiled suspiciously. "I'm going to ask you, best as you can, to divide the room in two halves: those of you who believe that Romeo and Juliet were fools, go to one side. Everybody else to the other."
Once they'd divvied themselves up, Cuffe had flicked her wand and shut the curtain, separating the groups entirely. She was the only one who could travel between the sides, and a somewhat impressive Muffliato seemed to soundproof the halves entirely.
"She's an impressive witch, you've got to admit," Sirius admitted with a smirk.
"Don't let your obsession with Cuffe distract you from the fact that she's insane." Marlene chose to examine her nails in favor of looking at him.
Lily glanced at her own nails; the new coat of purple varnish nearly matched the curtain. This was by no means an important discovery, but it made the situation a bit more tolerable all the same.
The uncertainty in Kerry's expression grew. She clearly wanted to be part of their group, this odd collection of Gryffindor girls and Marauders that always seemed to burn brighter than anything around them, but she had no idea how to get there.
"Don't talk about Matilda like that!" Sirius exclaimed in mock outrage. "The nerve of you!"
"You're really making sure the silencing charm doesn't go to waste, huh?" Lily asked.
"It's terrible to be wasteful, Lily," said Marlene.
"Shouldn't we, y'know," the Ravenclaw said uncertainly, "talk about the play?"
Sirius gave her a blank look. "Why in the world would we do that?"
Her eyes widened, and Lily heard Marlene cover her laughter with a cough. She picked at the last bit of purple polish on her thumb.
"Well, everybody else is," she pointed out, gesturing vaguely to the other kids on their half, who were speaking quietly. They were all Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, Lily observed. No seventh year Slytherins elected to take Muggle Studies this year.
"Come on, guys," Lily said, not wanting to see Kerry flounder anymore. "Let's talk. Y'know, before Matilda comes over and yells at us?"
"What is there to say, really?" Sirius asked. "Romeo sees Juliet at a party right after that other girl, Rosie or whoever—"
"Rosaline—" Lily suspected that he knew the right name perfectly well.
"—and he decides that she's just too fit, falls in love with her on the spot, and of course she's in love with him too because his eyes are just too pretty and his hair falls in just the right way…"
"Typical third year antics," Marlene adds, and unlike Lily's interruption, this actually slows Sirius's tirade.
"Third years don't get married and kill themselves in the span of a week, though," Lily added quietly. She always found that worse than the initial love-at-first-sight situation.
"I've got to be honest, Lily," Kerry started, "I'm surprised that you're over here with the nay-sayers."
"You and everybody on the bloody planet," said Sirius. He was surprised, too.
Lily sort of wanted to scream, but she gave a small smile and a shrug instead. "The way Shakespeare sets everything up makes it seem like he's making fun of them. Or, if not that, he's constantly highlighting the flaws in their logic that they can't see. How quickly they fall in love, how they get married in a ceremony that's not even technically legal, how they act so impulsively that Juliet doesn't warn Romeo about her plan to fake her death, and then Romeo kills himself the second he thinks things have gone wrong. It's hard to see them as anything but foolish."
"Oh," she said. "Yeah, good point. Good points, I guess."
Lily blushed. She hadn't meant to ramble.
"Remind me to never fall in love with you, Lily," Marlene mumbled. "You'd be such a bloody drag about it."
"You think they're stupid, too," she protested in a hushed tone, looking down and trying to find the Little Dipper on her right hand.
"Don't get me wrong, of course I do. Just not fervently enough to have a twenty-point argument against them."
She fell silent, finding herself without the energy to argue.
Wasn't the point of this to be surrounded by people who agreed with her?
.
"Is she alright?" Lily asked the moment she saw Marlene coming down the girl's dormitory stairs.
She nodded wearily, making her way to settle down on the couch next to Sirius. "She was out in a few minutes after she calmed down. Emmeline said she'd stay up there with her, just for peace of mind."
"That's…good," Lily said, trying to stop worry from inching its way into her expression. Around them, the boys shifted in their seats, presumably doing the same. Remus was noticeably absent. She glanced towards the window, though she already knew it would be too cloudy to catch sight of the moon.
"I don't know why she's been so much worse this month."
Peter gave an uncomfortable cough.
"It's been what, six months now?" Sirius asked.
"Not quite," Dorcas said. The seat next to hers was notably empty. "It'll be six months on the twenty-sixth."
The crackling of the fireplace seemed louder for a moment then. In the corner, the last lingering group of students—some fifth-year boys—picked up their things and retreated upstairs. Adam shook his head. "It's so fucked up."
"Is it bad," Marlene started hesitantly, waiting until the younger boys were out of sight to continue, "that the war didn't feel quite real to me until she was cursed?"
"Of course it isn't, Marlene," said Adam. "That's probably how it felt for a lot of you."
Dorcas nodded. "It was the same way for me, Marlie."
Lily wished she could've been as removed as they used to be. She tried not to feel jealous, or bitter, or anything else dark that crept its way up her throat. Adam met her eye.
It's not their fault, he seemed to say.
She swallowed, nodded, trying to push it all away. As her eyes moved away from Adam's she caught a glance of James; he looked about as unsettled as she felt. The expression was odd on his face, like it didn't quite fit his features.
"It has to be embarrassing," Peter said awkwardly. "This sounds bad, y'know, but it has to be embarrassing to break down like that in front of the whole common room."
"I doubt that embarrassment was her main issue, Peter," Marlene rolled her eyes.
"How should we know?" Sirius asked. Marlene elbowed him in the side, prompting him to jump up in his seat. "Oi! Uncalled for, Price."
"You were being a prat, Black, if you didn't realise."
"That's a matter of opinion," he argued.
"Mary's been having panic attacks for half a year now, so I don't really give a damn about your opinion on the matter, sorry."
The fire roared in the background. Sirius glanced at the window worriedly, but the moon was still obscured.
"So…what did you lot think of Muggle Studies today?" Marlene said after a moment too many passed; she did that sometimes, tried to act like she hadn't blown her lid a second before.
"Right," Dorcas said, tapping her thighs and standing from the couch. "That's my cue, I think."
Peter and Adam, the other two of the group who were not in the class, sheepishly stood alongside her. Lily sort of wished she could leave, too.
"G'night, Marlene." Adam nodded to her. "Lily, Sirius, James."
Marlene always got special attention from Adam, but she refused to acknowledge it.
"I thought it was an interesting idea today, keeping the disagreeing sides apart," James said, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes.
Sirius nodded. "It was nice to talk to sensible people without being bothered by the True Love Brigade."
"I do like that name," James hummed. Lily could almost feel it in her chest.
"Me too, actually," Lily agreed. "It captures their essence very acutely."
"Our essence?" He asked curiously, raising an eyebrow.
James did that a lot. Lily tried not to pay attention to it.
"It's like you're on a crusade, shouting about the importance of love over everything or something like that."
"Is that right," James said, not quite asking. His eyes stayed on her, and Lily could pick out a familiar amusement behind his firelit glasses.
"Is it wrong?" Even as she challenged him she felt like she was drowning. Lily hated all the talk about the play—about love—but she didn't know how to avoid it. In the past couple of days, she'd seen herself falling into the background around it; every time she chose to speak up, it made her want to kick herself.
Maybe it wasn't just Muggle Studies that prompted this change in her behaviour; she tended to fall deeper inside of herself as the weather cooled. Usually the melancholy of fall was a nice contrast to her summer attitude, and it always faded in time for Christmas—Lily loved Christmas—but this year, the world around her was darker. Her autumn haze was a little too heavy.
"Maybe not," he admitted with a smile, "but just wait until Cuffe takes down that curtain, Lily. I'll get you to see the light."
Her throat tightened a bit. She turned to the window again; the clouds were moving fast.
"Once the curtain comes down, you'll be back in the real world," said Marlene. "Then you won't be able to hide from logic behind your Amortentia and poor judgement, and you'll have to face the reality that they're just some stupid kids."
James's smile only grew. "Bit harsh, don't you think?"
"The world's harsh, Prongs," Sirius drawled, all kinds of melodrama in his tone.
"No shit, Padfoot."
Lily stood up suddenly. "I think we can save the discussion for class, yeah? I'm going to bed."
"Night." Marlene stretched out on the sofa as if she had no intentions of leaving any time soon.
"I'll go with you," James said, standing as well, running a hand through his hair. It stood straight up; Lily felt a curious urge to pat it back down. "Wouldn't be gentlemanly to let you walk alone, after all."
"Oh, definitely not. I wouldn't be able to stand the long trek to the heads dorm by myself."
Lily navigated through the various worn couches and beat-up tables, making her way to the back of the room, acting as if James wasn't just behind her. She had to search for a moment once she reached the wall, keeping her eyes open for a small golden mark that should've been about…
James touched his finger to a spot just left of where she'd been searching. "Amabo te," he whispered, so quietly that Lily could just barely hear it, let alone anybody nearby.
The mark expanded suddenly into the shape of a doorway, crimson with a golden handle. James turned the knob and held the door open for her, gesturing dramatically and generally making the whole thing into an event. She wanted to make a joke about it, but the doorway never stayed for long, so she settled for rolling her eyes instead.
After he followed her through the door, it shrunk back down, closing the hallway they now faced into a dead end. The walls inside were the same crimson as the door, with golden sconces holding up candles along the path. Lily was unsure why the head's dormitories needed to be at the end of what was a decently long hallway. Something to do with the layout of the tower, most likely, but that seemed stupidly reasonable for Hogwarts. If only she had a map.
"Bet you're still proud of that one," Lily said to fill the silence. She spoke softly, but her voice seemed to travel all the way down the hall.
"Please is the magic word, you know," James grinned.
"Do you wake up every morning, stare in the mirror and think Merlin, I'm clever?"
"Yes, I do, and I highly recommend you try it sometime," he joked as he ambled along. Walking wasn't exactly difficult for Lily, but watching James made her feel as if she was trying too hard. "Does wonders for the ego."
"Explains a lot," she hummed, opting for the obvious jab. He didn't respond, and Lily grew concerned that the joke was too reminiscent of the way they used to talk to each other. Some days, it felt as if it'd been ages since she'd ever hated James—since he'd tormented he with his constant confessions of love. Other days, it felt as if he hadn't changed at all since fifth year.
"I didn't think you knew Latin. They don't teach it here."
"My father has a very large library. You ever get so bored during the summer, you learn an entire dead language?"
"No. That's the beauty of television; you never have to do anything productive."
"That sounds kind of sad." James frowned. Lily didn't want to get into any discussions about muggle life, so she met his claim with silence.
"I know we'll have plenty of time to discuss this later, but I'm very confused, Lily."
She furrowed her brow. "About the television?"
"About how you could think that Romeo and Juliet is just about two stupid kids who made one too many mistakes."
She was caught off guard by his shift in his tone as well as the subject—enough so to keep her from being annoyed by the inquiry, which was getting old very fast. He'd been typically cavalier moments before, but now James was unnervingly solemn. "I don't know how anybody can read anything else from it," she said carefully. "They're careless. They think that what they're feeling is all that matters."
"Isn't it, though?" It felt like he was interrogating her. The hallway began to feel a bit too narrow. If he wanted to, Lily was sure he could've stretched out his arms and filled the entire space.
"No," she replied, shaking the errant thought from her head and furrowing her brow. "Of course it's not. There was so much violence and chaos all around them, inches from their faces, and all they could be bothered to think about was each other."
She wished she sounded less uncertain, because it really was a good point she was making, but the odd look in James's hazel eyes was making her flounder. That, and the proximity.
"Can you blame them?" His face was serious for a split second before cracking with a smile—one weaker than his usual fare. Lily didn't know how to answer. Yes, she wanted to say, because obviously you could, but that didn't seem right.
Before she could come up with the words to say, they reached the twin doors at the end of their path.
"Sweet dreams," James said, running his hand through his hair once more as he disappeared into his room.
He makes absolutely no sense, Lily thought, but that was really nothing new.
.
James stood still for a moment, staring at nothing specific.
That wasn't to say that nothing in the room was worth looking at; the Head Dormitory was almost too ornate, like the prefect's baths, red and gold everywhere and furniture as nice as what he was used to back home. Unlike the common room, which was comfortably worn from years of Gryffindor antics, the room felt oddly untouched.
Gryffindor boys weren't often Heads, he guessed.
He walked over to an overstuffed velvet chair in the corner, picking up the Daily Prophet he'd tossed there the day before.
SEVEN AURORS DEAD IN TARGETED ATTACK.
James had politely asked Adam if he could borrow his paper and politely forgotten to return it. He'd read it hurriedly, too quickly, waiting for and praying that a specific name wouldn't catch his eye.
His heart fell when it did, but only for a moment.
When asked for her thoughts on the tragic incident, which has been confirmed as a Death Eater attack, head Auror Euphemia Potter claimed to be too busy to comment.
When he was a little kid, having an Auror as a mum was impossibly cool. Not as much lately.
Without his permission, his thoughts wandered to the subject of Lily Evans, as they frequently did. Tonight specifically, they stopped on the way her face looked when Marlene mentioned the war. She went ashen, though her eyes didn't betray anything on their own. Everything about her seemed to shrink in by a fraction. In the past month, she'd been doing that more and more often—closing down on herself, even though last year had been nearly as bad and she only ever raised her voice then.
Lily was terrified of the war, he knew, despite the fact that they'd never discussed it.
James cast another glance at the newspaper. The names of the dead and the name of his mother, inches apart.
He was terrified of the war, too.
.
News travelled fast around Hogwarts, but sometimes not fast enough. There was plenty to go around these days.
Sometimes, Lily felt that being Head Girl kept her separate from all the gossip the school had to offer. Not only because everybody knew who she was—shh, stop talking, that's Lily Evans, she would give us so many detentions if she heard—but also because of her isolated dorm.
Sleeping in a room with four other girls had been weird to her as a first-year. Now, six years later, having a room to herself felt downright lonely. There had already been nights where she'd gone back to her old dorm, sharing a bed with Marlene so that she wouldn't feel so estranged.
Her train of thought had gone askew, she realised as she walked into the Great Hall for breakfast, wondering why everybody seemed more somber than usual. Scanning the Gryffindor table didn't lend her many clues at first:
James and Sirius were stuffing their faces; Remus was absent, and Lily knew he would be until around noon; Mary looked wan, but given her panic attack last night, that was to be expected; Adam was missing and Marlene was tearstained…
Oh, Lily thought. Something was, most likely, incredibly wrong.
She felt oddly guilty as she sat down next to Marlene. It was wrong for her to be normal while everybody else was so grim, she knew, but she didn't think it would be very sensitive of her to immediately start prying.
"Is everything alright?" She asked a moment later, cursing herself inwardly.
Marlene turned to look at her with red-rimmed eyes. "Adam's mum was murdered last night."
Lily's blood froze.
"It was by Death Eaters, apparently. Left their damn mark plastered all over his house." Her face was stoic but pinched, more strained than her typical resting expression. She was trying not to cry again. "Fucking unbelievable."
The words registered faintly in the back of Lily's mind. Adam McKinnon was a Muggleborn. His mum was a muggle. The Death Eaters were targeting muggles now.
Before she could process anymore—she knew that any further thinking would bring forth hysterics, and the Great Hall was not the place for that—Lily stood up and headed for the door. She felt oddly still.
"Lily?" Marlene asked.
"Are you alright, Lily?" Another voice, one of the boys, called.
Lily took a breath, thought about where she was, and turned to face the table. "I," she heard her voice waver and swallowed. "I'm…going, I think. To the bathroom. Okay."
Turning on her heel, she walked out of the hall with small, quick steps that set the morning conversation at an almost frantic tempo.
She needed to write her mum. She needed to write everybody, she needed to go home, she needed to make sure they were all okay. Was everybody okay?
Lily pushed through the door of the second floor's girl's bathroom, wishing it had been closer, and felt the first tears slide down her cheeks as it closed behind her. Her chest heaved, breathing too fast, but she couldn't bring herself to calm down.
She'd been ignoring it. Not really, but well enough to keep her from spending every minute on edge. Lily had just been pretending she didn't know what it meant.
She was a Muggleborn.
Her entire family was at risk.
"Fuck," she said under her breath, hitting a fist against a bathroom stall.
"Lily?" A voice asked. It wouldn't have surprised her—nobody went into this bathroom not expecting to be interrupted by Moaning Myrtle—but the voice was decidedly not that of an eleven-year-old girl.
"Adam?" Lily replied, wiping her eyes quickly as she turned to face him.
"Are…" His hair was disheveled, his eyes were red, and his cheeks were still wet; he rubbed a hand over his face and cleared his throat. "Are you alright, Lily?"
She wanted to laugh. She knew that was wrong, but still. Her tears felt cool against her skin. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
Adam shrugged, leaning against the sink behind him. Lily leaned against the stall facing him. The bathroom felt a bit dingy and grey, but beams of light from high-up windows made the space bright. One was caught right on Adam's cheek. "You are crying in a bathroom."
"So are you, yeah?"
He tried for a laugh. It didn't make it past his throat, much less his lips. "Fair point."
Lily felt something heavy and draining inside her heart, something that made her shrink around it. She had to will herself not to slide down against the stall and onto the floor; Hogwarts's bathrooms were not renowned for their cleanliness. "I am…so sorry about your mum, Adam."
"Me too."
"I guess I'm just…" Her first instinct was to explain herself. "I'm crying because it's—it feels more real now?"
She was sure that her sentence fragments made no sense, but of course Adam nodded. Of course he understood.
Adam nodded. "Last night, when Marlene was talking about Mary's attack being the thing that made the war real to her, I thought it was one of the most ignorant bloody things I'd ever heard. And I love—" His voice caught, but he kept going, "I love Marlene, but it felt so sheltered. Like such a Pureblood thing to say. I thought it was always real to me, y'know, because the war is about me." He gave Lily a meaningful look. "Us."
Mudbloods.
Muggleborns.
She nodded, swallowing hard, wishing the pressure would leave her chest.
"But now my mum is…she's dead, and I don't even remember the last thing I said to her—I think it was Love you, see you in December, but I don't fucking know—and I don't even know where I put the letter she sent me that I hadn't gotten around to replying to yet, and—"
He was crying as he spoke, silent but desperate tears accompanying his distress, and Lily tried to focus on the way his chest heaved instead of his crumpled-up face. She wasn't successful. It was beautiful, the way the light made his cheeks shine.
"—and now it feels like nothing has been real until this exact goddamned moment."
Lily crossed the short distance to the sinks and hugged him. It could've been uncomfortable—they were never very close—but there was no room for that in everything else they felt.
Mudbloods.
Muggleborns.
Neither of them could stop crying for a while. At some point, they stopped minding the grime and sat down on the bathroom floor, both feeling the wrong kind of empty and both unwilling to go to class.
"My dad is dead," Lily said after a long silence, feeling her throat tighten almost instantly. She tried to remember another time she'd said that sentence out loud. None came to mind.
Adam's eyebrows raised involuntarily, but he said nothing; his blue eyes were clear enough to keep her talking.
"Not because of Death Eaters, or Voldemort, or Cornish bloody Pixies." Lily had no idea why she was making a joke. Adam just looked at her, waiting for more. "It was cancer. When I was fourteen. Not magical at all."
She was crying again. His eyes didn't change.
"Do you think wizards care about cancer? Or even know what it is?" She asked absently, not bothering to wipe her face anymore. "Do you think they have the cure, and just keep forgetting to let the muggles know?"
Adam lowered his gaze and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Lily."
Lily dropped her head, too, and cursed the tears that wouldn't stop falling.
.
"Alright," Professor Cuffe announced. The class lacked its normal chaos and clamor, so she didn't need to raise her voice as she usually did when class began. "Yesterday, you all were isolated. In your own worlds, per se.
"Today, we'll be talking one-on-one; a person from each side, just to see where that takes discussion."
Despite the affected air of the class, everybody instinctively searched around, hoping to lock eyes with a prospective partner. The witch gave a friendly sort of sigh. "Go on then, sort yourselves out."
Lily ended up paired with Remus, who had just returned from the Hospital Wing. Or his mother's house. Same difference.
He looked a bit pale, a bit worn-down, but that was far from out-of-place with the rest of the day. Staring at him, Lily tried to imagine what he looked like as a wolf. His face elongating, fingernails shifting into claws, his back arching as the vertebrae stretched until they almost snapped.
It didn't translate at all. The only Remus she could think of was the one in front of her now—messy, blond, wearing a fantastically ugly sweater—even though she'd known about his "furry little secret" for more than a year now.
"It has not been a good morning," she said in a lowered tone.
"For once it's not just me." He was joking, but nothing about his expression or inflection would've given that away.
Lily drummed her fingers against her desk. Her eggplant nails were starting to chip; she'd picked a few clean in the bathroom.
"So," he started. "Romeo and Juliet. You think they're moronic."
Instantly she felt the need to protest, but there was nothing there to deny. "Guess so."
"You've really thrown the class off with that one."
"I'm aware," she replied evenly.
"I can see why you'd think that, though."
Lily perked up somewhat at this. "I mean, it's not as if I'm some heartless bastard. They're kids; the play is about a series of ill-informed, rash decisions that end up taking them to their graves."
I'm just very confused…about how you could think that Romeo and Juliet is just about two stupid kids who made one too many mistakes.
Remus shrugged. "I guess it does seem that way, doesn't it?"
She wasn't sure why he was dragging this out so much, when clearly he had a point to make. "And yet you're a member of the True Love Brigade."
He laughed tiredly. "Clever. I just think that it wasn't their fault."
"They did it to themselves," Lily argued automatically. "I don't understand how you lot can just say it was the world's fault and they get away scot-free."
"I don't know, Lily," Remus said, giving off the impression that he knew very well. "Imagine you're thirteen, and you've just had your first kiss, and you're desperately in love. Puppy love, you know, a crush, but it's not like you can tell the difference."
Her first kiss had been with Terrence Daly in fourth year. She was a late bloomer.
"So you're head over heels for this boy, and when your mum finds out tells you that you can't be with him because she hates his mum. It has nothing to do with you, yeah? But when you keep seeing him, like plenty of thirteen-year-olds would, people start dying. Your parents start talking about marrying you off."
"I get what you're saying," she said, mostly because she did understand but also because she knew this metaphor could carry on for a while.
"I'm saying the same thing as you, really." Something about the literary talk was giving Remus back some life: color in his cheeks and light in his eyes. Lily was glad for it.
.
"She was thirteen, Prongs."
"She was in love, Padfoot."
Sirius laughed. "I'll give you ten galleons if you can find a third-year bird who doesn't think they're in love."
"It doesn't matter if she thinks she's in love or if she is," James said, only partially aware of how irrational he might sound. "She didn't deserve to die because of it."
"Nobody ever deserves to die—" His face darkened. His grey eyes, silver in good light, were stony. "I take that back, actually. Either way, it doesn't mean shite. People die anyways.
"Maybe it was a bit of a rough deal, the way everything turned out for them, but they decided to keep meeting when their parents said no. They decided to get married. Romeo decided to off himself when he saw Juliet's dead body, and she decided to do the same thing when she saw his. It's not fair—neither of them deserved it." Sirius shrugged callously. "But it is their own fault."
He frowned. "You've gotten a lot more negative lately, mate."
"And somehow, you've only grown more bushy-tailed and hopeful," Sirius shot back with an unconvincing smile. "It's impressive, really."
"I don't understand why everybody thinks we need to change the way we act because of this mess," James protested, no longer complaining about his friend, instead setting his sights the whole of Hogwarts's student body. "Just because everything is getting nasty doesn't mean we have to let it beat us down."
Sirius's eyes shone with something unkind. "Bloody inspiring, Prongs."
"When's the last time you talked to Regulus?"
"Good question. When's the last time you wrote to your mum?"
It was a low blow, and they both knew it. Somehow it cleared the air between them.
"I think I know how to turn our frowns upside down, Padfoot," James said, letting a smirk grow slowly, hesitantly on his face, feeling relief as Sirius grew one to match.
"Do go on."
.
"Mulciber really didn't need to get so worked up about it; he looked very lovely in red and gold, didn't he?" Sirius asked with a laugh as he tumbled through the portrait-hole. The common room was empty—unless you counted the trio of fourth-year girls eating around their books, which of course he didn't. The majority of the Gryffindor crowd was still in the Great Hall, trying to finish their lunch in spite of the havoc that had been freshly wreaked.
"Positively radiant! Not quite as breathtaking as Snivellus, but who could possibly compare?" James followed behind him, tripping and just barely catching himself before he fell on his face. This got the girls to look up, but only out of instinct; they were largely desensitised to the pair by this point.
"Certainly not you, Prongsy," his friend continued with a chuckle. James rolled his eyes.
"Don't ruin the moment."
The post-prank light in Sirius's eyes dimmed. "My fault, mate. Let's just focus on the way Avery's eyes nearly popped out of his head when—"
"Are you two kidding me?" Marlene interrupted, storming through the door.
"Well, that is sort of how jokes work, Price, if—"
"What in Merlin's sodding toenail clippings made you think that was even close to a good idea?"
"It was just a prank, Marlene," James said, trying to sound reasonable.
"Oh, was it? I hadn't bloody noticed." Her face was bright red. This was enough out of the ordinary that the fourth-year girls couldn't bring themselves to look away. Folding her arms, Marlene shook her head and turned away from the boys for a moment; her eyes were dangerously bright when she faced them again.
"Adam's mum died last night. Last night. Not even twenty-four hours ago, and you think this is the appropriate time for a fucking prank?"
Their smiles slipped off their faces in an instant.
"That's what I thought." Pushing past them, the witch stormed up to her dormitory, each step upstairs pointedly loud.
"Blimey," Sirius said, eyebrows high on his face. "She's feeling face-bitey today."
"Her boyfriend's mum was murdered last night, Pads."
"McKinnon and Price are not shagging, Prongs, you know that."
"Merlin, he's got to get on that."
The girls on the couch turned back to their books. There was no more excitement to be found here.
.
Lily didn't want to be alone that night.
It wasn't as if she was scared Death Eaters would burst into her dorm and finish her off right there; she simply didn't want to stare at her dorm ceiling all evening, thinking herself sick. The image of Severus—face dyed a brilliant red, his hair shining gold—passed through her mind, and she tried to shake the picture away.
It would've been easier if she could be by the fire, or the Great Lake, or the Astronomy Tower, but none of those options panned out tonight. Too loud. Too late. Too cold.
She thought of the anger in his eyes, the frustration, the embarrassment.
The clouds tonight were slow-moving, from what she could see out her window.
In the glass she saw her old friend at thirteen, his hair hexed to drip some odd black slime. In that moment his eyes had been the same, just as ashamed and angry and helpless. The same way they'd looked when the Levicorpus caught him, when his mouth opened, when such awful words came out.
"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!"
Lily remembered that look, those words, too often.
There was no reason for her to feel bad for him.
No reason at all.
Lily stared up at her ceiling and wished her feelings would make more sense.
.
Hogsmeade was chilly that day, drizzly and grey, but despite the unfortunate weather the village was teeming with students.
Morale was low, generally speaking; everybody was dying for a change.
That's what Lily thought, at least. Instead of spending the afternoon with her friends, she was opting to wander the rainy streets, thinking herself in circles. The trees had all turned their bright shades of red and orange—matching her hair, according to about a dozen passerby at her count—but the grey sky dimmed their vibrancy.
Fall was beautiful, but it always made her sad.
For the past ten minutes she'd debated going into Madam Puddifoot's. A warm cup of tea would have been lovely, just what the weather called for, but she didn't much care for the cloying pink atmosphere and all of the sickly-sweet couples that were bound to be inside. It was the unspoken rule: Puddifoot's was for dates. Going alone would be awkward to explain.
Lily had just made up her mind to go—after all, she was a grown witch who wanted some tea, it was a tea shop. who cared if she went in alone?—when she heard her name across the street.
"Lily!"
She turned to face the voice—and upon finding James as its source, she decided the best course of action was to get out of there.
"Lily! Evans!" He was nothing if not persistent; she should've known that by now. "You, with the face! I know you saw me!"
Unwilling to let the scene carry on, Lily whipped around to face him. "What do you want, James?"
The rain was beginning to make her shiver. She just wanted a cup of sodding tea.
"I wanted to apologise."
This stopped her fuming. It certainly wasn't what she expected him to say. Lily wracked her brain, trying to think of anything he'd done to her in the past couple of days, and came up blank. She'd been avoiding almost everybody since the prank. Oh.
"You don't need to apologise to me, James."
"Yeah," he said awkwardly, ruffling up his hair. Beads of water shook off with the motion and one landed squarely on Lily's cheek. "Only, I think I do, because you haven't said a word to me in two days."
"I've been busy." Even she could hear the tension in her voice. She thought her aversion had been subtler than that. Apparently not.
"We're in all the same classes, Lily, and we're both heads; you've been no more busy than me. Also, I would like to restate that you have somehow not said a word to me in the past two days, despite the fact that we are not only in all of the same classes, the same house, and Head bloody Boy and Girl."
Lily laughed without thinking, and he cracked a less uncomfortable grin.
It unsettled her to see him so easy. "I'm going to get tea."
She was already walking away when she heard him behind her.
"Tea sounds ace right now."
"Wasn't an invitation," Lily sighed. He caught up to her easily, and when they were next to each other again, she saw his glasses were covered in raindrops. As drenched as he was, James sort of reminded her of a wet dog. "But I suppose you can tag along."
"Does this mean I'm forgiven?"
"I never even asked for an apology."
"Doesn't mean I didn't need to give one," James argued as they entered the shop. Her spirits lifted at the scent of a dozen different brewing teas. Even the overload of pink felt more comforting than cloying today.
"Could you please explain why you seem to want me to be mad at you?" She asked, sitting down at the only empty table in the room.
He shook his head. A few more water droplets flew from his hair; somehow, it managed to look even darker wet. "You've got it all wrong. It's not that I want you to be mad at me. You are mad at me, very obviously, but you've got it shoved so deep in one of those dark corners of yours that you won't even accept this perfectly good apology."
A waitress approached, her black hair in a bouncy ponytail and bright pink lipstick coating her smile. It matched her apron exactly, and Lily let herself be distracted by the implications for a moment; was every employee required to wear it, or did she do this on her own?
"One white tea, please." She smiled politely.
"And for you, love?" The waitress asked James.
Lily took a moment to scan the shop. None of the other waitresses were wearing lipstick at all.
"An earl grey would be lovely, thanks," he grinned, turning on his "for strangers" charm in an instant. Lily didn't know if she should laugh or roll her eyes. Instead, she glanced at her hands; she'd painted her nails orange last night, and her ring finger had smudged while she slept.
"So?"
"What do you want from me, James?" Glancing at the other patrons, Lily reminded herself to keep her tone low, no matter how badly her confusion made her want to raise it. "You're apologising, and I'm saying you don't need to, so I don't understand the sodding problem."
James frowned a bit, nodding. "You're really mad, then, aren't you?"
Lily imagined steam spouting out her ears. "What is your problem, James?" She did her best to stay even-tempered. "How is it possible you can do something so insensitive—the bloody day Adam's mum dies—and think nothing of it, but insist on apologising for it to somebody who doesn't care?"
She hated the satisfaction that crept into his expression, however sheepish it may have been. "Really mad."
Her cheeks flushed. "It was a prat thing to do."
"I know."
"And an awful time to do it."
"I know."
"We have enough problems with house relations right now, James, and attacking Se—the Slytherins—definitely doesn't help that—"
"I know, Lily. Sirius and I have both heard plenty about it already. We've talked it out with Adam and Marlene and Mary, even the Fat sodding Lady at this point. It was stupid."
"Oh." Hearing this made her feel better. At least he'd already apologised to the people who deserved it.
"Yep," James nodded, lowering his eyes to the lacy tablecloth. "All sorted."
"Why did you do it?" Lily surprised herself with her own question; from the look in James's eyes, she wasn't the only one.
"One white tea and one earl grey," their waitress announced as she approached table, placing their cups in front of them. The pair jumped and turned to face her like they'd been caught doing something bad.
"Thank you!" She said, a bit too eagerly.
"These look incredible, thanks," James said at the same time.
The waitress didn't particularly care. She was quite used to awkward couples in the shop.
Lily wanted to say something more, but she knew he hadn't forgotten her question; it sat heavy in the air. Lifting her tea cup from her saucer, she intended to take a sip, but the steam itself was hot enough to scare her away from the drink.
James slid down some in his seat, but because of their height difference, the movement just put him directly in Lily's gaze. His hair looked nice wet, she decided. "It seemed like a good idea."
"Your standards for a 'good' idea vary greatly from mine, James. Could you elaborate?"
He shrugged like a scolded child. "I dunno, pranks used to help. Made everybody laugh."
"Somebody died."
"I know that," James said with barely-contained frustration. "I was just trying to lighten the stupid mood."
Very suddenly, and without having fully realised that she was upset with him in the first place, Lily forgave him.
"Things aren't like they were in third year," she started gently. "There's a war happening. We have to…live around it, I guess."
James met her eye, and Lily felt like she'd been caught in headlights. His expression was unsettling on him—guilt, anger, and confusion all rested on top of frustration, something she'd never be able to put into words but something she understood. It was wrong very simply because it was James; any expression save a smile was wrong on his face.
"So we aren't allowed to be happy anymore, then?"
She didn't want to be the one to tell him that the answer was yes—at least partially.
"It means…" Lily bit her lip, trying to find the words, "we have to adjust, is all."
James nodded, slowly, like he didn't believe her. She could see tension in the way he sat, but he lifted up in his chair, ready to move on. "Could you pass me the sugar?"
The world is ending, she couldn't help but think as she handed him the pastel container. There's not much we can do about it.
"James?" Lily didn't meet his eyes anymore. She'd hit her limit, she supposed.
"Yeah?"
"I forgive you, by the way."
"Ace." He grinned, and Lily let herself believe that it meant everything was okay.
.
That night, patrolling the halls, Lily found herself thinking about James Potter. If she'd been more aware of it, she would have changed course on her train of thought, but it was too late for those levels of self-control. Her mind had been very undisciplined lately, leading her to everything she wanted to ignore.
Her footsteps echoed, sounds of stone floors bouncing off stone walls.
She was used to his persistence, but something about it was different in Hogsmeade this afternoon.
He seemed genuinely upset. Repentant, she thought. There was something wrong with the light in his eyes.
"So we aren't allowed to be happy anymore, then?"
Lily's first thought was yes, and she believed that—to a degree. They couldn't be happy in the same way. She couldn't let her thoughts wander without thinking of the war. She couldn't be friends with people she used to love. She couldn't laugh, couldn't smile, couldn't breathe without being reminded that the world that'd adopted her was fighting itself to death.
If she had known all of this would happen when she was eleven, when she received her first letter, would she have gone to Hogwarts at all?
A loud crash sounded a few metres down the hall, and it echoed and echoed.
Her questions would have to wait; they often went unanswered these days.
"Lumos," she whispered, moving wand-first towards the noise.
"Oh, Merlin's saggy left—" A voice, a male voice, stopped itself short, and the boy turned to face her. He might've been a sixth year; he looked familiar, but Lily couldn't put a name on him. His tie was green and silver. A suit of armour lay in pieces around his feet, the helmet in his hands.
"Oi!" She called out. "What are you doing out this late?"
"Sod off, would you?" The boy said distractedly, whirling back around to puzzle with the collapsed armour.
Lily's jaw dropped with indignation. "Excuse me?"
"I don't need some muddy-blooded bitch nosing around in my business." The words rolled off his tongue like they nothing; the delivery was awfully familiar. Dropping the helmet, he took a step towards her, and Lily tightened her grip on her wand. "You're the skirt Severus used to be obsessed with, yeah?"
"I don't know what on earth makes you think you can talk to me like this—"
"For Merlin's sake," he interrupted, shaking his head, "You're exactly what's wrong with the ruddy world. Fucking Mudbloods running around like they own the damn place."
The words hit her straight in the chest.
"Wouldn't know from looking at you, though." He kept walking closer, and Lily was on high alert. "I can see what Severus was talking about, if I'm being honest. If it weren't for your blood…"
Lily was tired of hearing the bile coming from the boy's mouth. She could smell it on his breath. "Shut up."
The light from her wand caught his hand, and she saw it moving towards his pocket. "You don't talk to me like that, you—"
The witch brought her knee up swiftly—god, he had been close—and he was down in an instant.
"Petrificus Totalus," she mumbled, wand level, for good measure. The surprise and pain were frozen on his face, and Lily couldn't help but laugh a little at the sight. In her seven years at Hogwarts, she'd learned quickly that there was one sort of 'wandless' magic that wizards never anticipated.
Lily bent down to take his wand, "Shut. Up."
He grunted angrily in protest.
"You were out past curfew, and about to attempt to attack the Head Girl," she said simply, the tremble mostly undetectable in her voice. "Filch will hold your wand until the morning; you can retrieve it from him. I'll come back to un-petrify you once I've turned it in."
Lily's hands shook as she walked away. It might've been fear, from so narrowly missing whatever curse the boy would've thrown at her; it might've been rage, from the words he had said; it might've been adrenaline, from a fight she didn't expect.
Whatever it was, Lily walked down the halls alone, tremors running through her heart, her anxious footsteps echoing against unyielding stone.
.
Lily looked shaken when she returned to the common room, a few minutes later than usual. Her face was a bit pale, hair a bit disheveled, eyes a bit wild. The firelight was warm and drowsy, but with her in its path it turned violent.
Nobody else acknowledged this as she sat down, though, so James stayed quiet.
"I'm ready for this ruddy week to end," she said tiredly. All her the stressful energy seemed to leave her in a flood.
"I second that," Mary said, the same exhaustion in her voice.
The pair had grown more similar lately. It made sense, he supposed, with them being the only Muggleborn girls, but he didn't like the thought. James didn't want to see Lily beaten down.
"This year has been a fucking drag so far," Sirius added from where he sat. There was empty space on the couch, but his legs took up most of Remus's lap instead.
"You think this is how Romeo and Juliet felt?" Marlene asked drily. Lily looked at her, bewildered.
"What?"
"Two households, both alike in dignity," she started, "In fair Hogwarts, where we lay our scene."
Everybody in the room groaned.
"Can we not talk about class right now, Marlene?" James pleaded.
"Fuck off, I'm onto something." Marlene rolled her eyes, undisturbed by her friend's protest. In the corner of his eye, he thought Lily grew paler—a trick of the light. "From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean."
"Well done, Marlene," Remus said, rubbing his eyes. "This is definitely exactly how Romeo and Juliet felt. Montague and Capulet, Gryffindor and Slytherin, what's the difference?"
"You're definitely gonna get an O in Muggle Studies, Price."
"Too bad it isn't a NEWT," she muttered.
Lily's jaw dropped in mock outrage. "Bugger off, will you? I said it once."
"You've been saying it since the end of sixth year, Lily," Remus said, recoiling as she leveled her stare on him. "Merlin, you don't have to look so mad. I'm only telling the truth."
She looked as if she wanted to argue but couldn't find the words. It made James smile.
"There's a significant problem with your theory, Price," Sirius said, dragging them back on subject, saving the boy below him from the words Lily hadn't yet pieced together.
"I think you'll find that to be bull," Marlene replied smoothly, "because I am absolutely, unceasingly right, and always will be, Black."
"You're perfect, babe, but I digress." He shook his head, allowing for a dramatic pause. "It's not as if there are any star-crossed lovers hidden among us."
The room fell silent, and the crackling fire couldn't do enough to fill the space. James looked at Lily instinctively. Her eyes were already on him, he noticed with a start, but they were gone before he could process.
Was she thinking the same thing he was?
Or was she thinking about a Slytherin who she swore she hated?
Maybe she wasn't thinking about anything of the sort. Maybe James was reading far too much into it; he tended to do that with her. Look for signs that weren't there. Spin every glance, every smile, into an undeserved hope.
"Bugger, you're right," Marlene said after a moment. She didn't sound much too convinced.
Nobody replied.
"You know what'd be a trip?" Mary spoke up quietly. "If we all dressed up as the characters for Halloween."
For a second, nobody could think of an answer, but she didn't seem very worried—which was quite unlike her lately, James thought and promptly regretted thinking.
"That'd be cool," Lily mused.
"Didn't all the blokes wear tights back then?" James asked, hoping for some laughs.
"Well, I'm sold," Sirius laughed.
"I could be the Nurse," Mary continued, emboldened by the support of the group. She'd clearly thought about it before tonight. "Sirius could be Mercutio, Remus could be Benvolio…"
She turned to give James a look. "You and Lily could be Romeo and Juliet!"
He coughed uncomfortably, surprised. "Sorry, what?"
"Why would we…" Lily shook her head, eyebrows high, her blush visible even in the dim light. "That doesn't really make sense, Mary."
She was just as flustered as he was, he realised as she turned to stare at the fire.
Lily did that a lot. James always wondered what she saw in the flames.
"I thought it'd be funny," the witch said, furrowing her brow. "Y'know, since James used to be all obsessed with you and everything. Plus, who else would it be?"
"Remus and Sirius," Marlene suggested wryly. There was a smirk on her lips that she was doing a very poor job of concealing.
"I'm not wearing a dress," Remus argued, flipping her the bird.
"Don't be daft, Moony," James laughed. "Sirius is obviously Juliet."
"Sirius is Mercutio!" Mary objected.
"Sirius is Mercutio," he agreed from Remus's lap.
James groaned. "Please don't refer to yourself in the third person, Pads. It's giving me fifth year flashbacks."
This spurred some laughter from the group. "I thought it was cool," he mumbled under the commotion, embarrassed for a rare instant.
"It's alright, Padfoot." Remus gave him what was supposed to be a comforting squeeze on the shoulder, but it was marred by laughter he couldn't quite hold in.
"See?" Mary interrupted. "It's already fun, and we aren't even dressed up. We should do it."
Everybody agreed—with varying degrees of reluctance—as the last giggles died out. They hadn't laughed together like that in what felt like ages.
"Marlene, can I borrow a pair of your tights?" Sirius asked.
"Not a chance in hell, Black."
Back in his room, James spent far too much of the night thinking about Lily.
And where he was going to find a pair of bloody tights.
you know when you're filtering through marauders fic and you can't find a representation of James and Lily that you think is right? so you just have to go out of your way to write your own story? that's this for me.
(this is also no shade at other marauders writers; i love a lot of things out there, i just want more out there that i like. sometimes the only way to find a story you like is to write it yourself.)
this has been on ao3 for a minute but I figured there's no harm in putting it on here, too. there's two more chapters up over there right now.