So this schapter had been reposted as I realised I never actually included Snape's Death and Lily's reaction to it.

If you ship Snily, then your're not going to like this.


"So this is definitely different to last time." Marlene said into the silence that ensued the group. Everyone was frozen, staring with wide, terrified eyes at the scene below. The castle was destroyed, walls crumbling amongst the shouts and lights of the battle that waged within its walls.

"Time and a place, Marls," James said shakily, his arms wrapped around Lily. They'd been frantically searching the ruins of what they once called home for their son the second he stepped foot in the room of requirement.

"Can you see him?" Lily called, green eye wide, her hand covering her mouth.

"He'll be fine, Lils," Sirius said, standing behind Marlene. He wasn't touching her, he was just there, like a ghost, the way she had been for him all those years. "Harry's a fighter."

"I don't want him to be fighter!" Lily half screeched, pulling out of James's arms and retracting her free hand from where Dorcas was squeezing it painfully tight. "He' supposed be to be young and happy and have awkward crushes and pass all his classes!" Sirius and James had both moved back a step the moment 'Hysteric Lily' had shown herself. They'd learnt long ago that that Hysteric Lily was not to be messed with. A Particular event of Fall 1977 came to mind when Lily had found out James had slept with Hestia just a day after kissing her. It was a dark day for all the marauders.

Marlene, however, had learnt how to deal with Lily for years. Reaching out, she grabbed a hold of the red heads shoulder, affectively drawing the daggered stare away from the two skittish boys and onto her. Lily Evans had always been born to be a mother – everyone knew it. She was the one who sat by Mary's bedside after her attack, she's calmed even the wildest side of Marlene and comforted and accepted Remus when she found out the truth of who he was. Now was no different. Her green eyes were wide and rimmed red, tears still flowing freely, her chest was rising and falling deeply, heaving her shoulders up and down. She was heartbroken that she couldn't protect her only son.

Dragging her over, Marlene wrapped her arms around the frantic girl's shoulders, feeling as she half-collapsed instantly, the weight of her pain lifting slightly at the comfort. James may be Lily's soul mate, but Marlene was her best friend, and there were times where a lover just wouldn't do.

"Lily, calm down," Marlene said strongly, feeling her own eyes stinging as she held the redhead in her arms. She could still see the battle over Lily's shoulder - the coloured flashes of hexes and curses blazing her eyelids. This was definitely different to last time. These people weren't fighters, they were children, and they were showing no mercy. Marlene wasn't a paragon of virtue, she never claimed to be, but even she knew this wasn't right.

"He's just a boy," Lily sobbed against Marlene's shoulder and Marlene had to bite her lip from sobbing alongside her. Marlene had never had the chance to be a mother, but she knew it would destroy her to not be able to save her own child.

"I can see him!" Dorcas shouted, breaking the two girls apart as they ran back to the edge, their eyes following where Dorcas was pointing,

"He's okay!" Lily beamed, jumping back into James' arms. He was just as ecstatic as she was, wrapping his arms around her and spinning her like they were teenagers again. "He's with Ron and Hermione. He's going to be okay!"

That was when the air exploded. The group watched in stunned silence, Marlene gripping a hold of Sirius' hand as they watched the wall of the castle as it blew, rubble flying in every direction, dust clouds booming into the air like a nuclear explosion. They couldn't see him. They couldn't see anyone.

"Holy shit," Marlene breathed, watching as the battle continued to rage, the dust barely even settling. No one even bothered to scold her for her language, they were all tensed, staring blankly at the disaster before them.

"No – no – no!" someone was shouting and everyone held their breaths. Lily held onto James like a lifeline, like he was the only thing stopping her jumping from the platform to save her son. Marlene gripped Sirius' hand with a white-knuckled grip. If it hurt, he didn't say. He never did.

"D'you think-" Dorcas began, taking a deep breath as she watched the scene before her. She was saved finishing by the sound of a voice behind them.

"Where the hell am I?" said the voice and everyone span on their heels to see the new face. Marlene cocked her eyebrow at the new addition. James and Lily were too busy clutching one another to truly take in the situation. Sirius looked visibly pained.

"Hello, Fred," he said as the red headed man finished buttoning his shirt, his blue eyes scouring the arched ceiling of King cross station like he's never seen before.

"I'm dead aren't I?" Fred said, his voice strong but void of its usual joking nature.

"'Fraid so, mate," James said with a sympathetic smile. Fred didn't speak, just took in the faces of everyone around him and he stood up. Naturally his eyes lingered on Marlene longer than necessary – they often did with guys – but the ones who really got his attention were the couple stood so tightly in one another's embrace that it looked like one of them was going to snap in half. Probably James.

"You're Harry's parents." Was all Fred said before Lily had her arms wrapped around the young man's neck, her sobs echoing around the station as the others watched with helpless and pained expressions.

"I'm so sorry this happened to you!" Lily sobbed as Fred patted her back awkwardly, looking to James and Sirius for help. James came to the rescue, prying his sobbing wife from the ginger man's arms.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you." James said, giving Fred and understanding look as he looked at lily with a frankly scared expression, like at any moment she'd throw herself back at him and cry until she couldn't even breath. "Big fan of your work – that thing with the Slytherin and the vanishing cabinet genius!"

"Time and a place." Sirius said with a slight chuckle, placing his hand on James shoulder.

"I'm Dorcas," Dorcas said introducing herself as the others moved back to the platform to watch as the battle continued to rage on. "There's someone else here." She said, turning to look around the platform. She was saved the time by a voice cracking as it whispered a single word.

"Lily." The red-head froze, her pale face freezing in shock before she turned, looking at the man not ten feet away in his long black robes with his greasy hair and dark eyes.

"You son-of-a –" James began, moving to lunge at the man standing before them, but Lily stopped him, holding out an arm while Marlene fought to hold Sirius back, resisting the urge to go for the sleazy man herself.

"No," Lily said calmly, a thinly veiled anger in her voice like none the other Marauders had ever heard. "You leave him to me." She said, moving her arm away, but James stayed in place, a knowing look passing between them before the young woman turned, walking towards her once best friend.

"Lily, I –" Snape began, looking at the woman he loved as she walked towards him, a million thoughts filling his mind, a million wishes nearly tumbling from his lips. He was cut off, however, by the sharp crack that echoed around the station from where Lily's palm had collided with his pale cheek.

No one spoke, Marlene fought the urge to cheer her on but bit her tongue. She knew Lily had some things to say.

"He was my son." Lily said, her voice cold and insulted as she looked up into the face of a man she could have perhaps, one day, have grown to love.

"Lily –"

"No!" Lily shouted and Snape had the decency to wince at the sharpness in her voice. "He was my son, and you made it your goal to make his life at that school a living hell. I don't care if you were protecting him, he had plenty of people to do that. What you did was spiteful and petty. I was ready to forgive you, to accept you back into my life as my friend and you manage to show me why that would have been a great mistake."

"You don't understand," Snape pleaded, ignoring the scoffs of Lily's friends and the angry glances that were being cast his way. All he could see was her, his Lily, before, breathing heavily as she scolded him for a lifetime of pain.

"You made my son miserable. If you cared at all for me then you would have cared for him." She said sharply and Snape recoiled as if slapped.

"I do care for you, I lo –"

"Don't say it!" Lily cut him off, pointing at him with a slim finger. "I don't want to hear you say those words. You've tainted them. You may have been on the side of good and fought for the light, but that does not make you honourable. You are a coward, Severus. You've been lurking in the shadows, bullying children, outing Remus." She said harshly, the others nodding in ascent. "You don't know love. Love it about compassion, something you clearly lack."

They stood in silence after that, no one wanting to say a word. Lily spent hours ranting about Snape and how she would give him a piece of her mind the second he arrived here, the same way Marlene had punched Wormtail the second he'd sat up. He's not even been dressed yet, just sat cowering naked and afraid like the rat he was. As much as she wanted to clock Snape in the chin right now she held herself back. This was Lily's battle, Lily's unfinished business. She was like a mother bear protecting her child with every ounce of fire in her veins.

"Go," Lily said into the silence, her voice was so harsh, so unforgiving and so not like her that it made Dorcas shiver slightly, Fred widening his eyes at her fury. "I want you gone. Pass over. May the other side have mercy on your wretched soul."

Snape didn't argue – not that it would have done any good. Lily would have dragged him onto that train by his ear if that was all it took to not see him again. He gave Lily one last longing glance before boarding his train, disappearing into the world beyond this one, hopefully never to be a part of Lily's life (or afterlife) again.

"Well, that went well." James said, enveloping his wife in a tight hug as she collapsed against him slightly. She's waited too long to say those words, far too long. The weight was lifted and once again she could go back to worrying with the others about her child.

"Can you see him?" Lily asked, changing the subject, craning her neck as though she could take in the entirety of the Hogwarts grounds and spot her son amongst the throng of people fighting for their lives. But no one was fighting anymore.

"He's there," Marlene said, pointing towards the entrance hall that Harry, Hermione and Ron had just entered. They all watched, bemused as bodies were moved to and fro, people were crying like they'd never be happy again and amongst it all was a family, all of them huddled around a single fallen soldier, all of them with red hair. "Don't let him see this." Marlene continued, anger boiling in her veins.

Fred was just a boy, the same age as herself – it was bad enough that she died young and alone in an age where everyone was falling in love at seventeen. Now here was this boy, dead like herself and just as alone. She'd been the last of her family to die – she didn't have to see her mother and father crying at her bloody corpse's side – didn't have to watch as her sister clung onto the closest person they could because her legs could no longer hold her – she didn't have to watch as her brothers, younger and older, had to bite their lips just to keep from screaming out her name like it was the last time they'd ever get to say it again.

"Too late." Fred said as he stood beside Marlene, biting his lip as he watched his twin gripping his body like a lifeline. "What's he going to do without me," Fred said, tears falling from his eyes as he watched the scene below him. "We were team. He'll probably never laugh again."

"He'll mourn," Marlene said, reaching out and griping Fred's hand, expecting him to ignore it, to not respond at all. She was wrong. She felt as Fred's hand gripped around hers, holding onto her tighter than she expected. "He'll be heartbroken for a while – probably for years, and no maybe he won't laugh again. But he'll smile."

"You can't know that." He said, watching as the rest of the room moved around them, covering bodies, tending to the wounded, while his family wrapped each other in their arms and clung on for dear life.

"Because I'm the same age as you and I'm dead." Marlene said bluntly, something Fred clearly wasn't used to since his eyes widened. "I watched as people mourned for me and I watched as they moved on and made lives for themselves. Except that sorry excuse for a man." She said with a half-hearted laugh, pointing at Sirius over her shoulder. Fred didn't laugh along.

"You see that girl there," Fred said, dropping Marlene's hand and pointing towards the only brunette amongst the redheads, Harry having already left, Lily and James following his every step.

"The bushy haired one? You can't miss her." Marlene said and pretended she didn't notice the dirty look Dorcas shot her from where she stood at the other end of the platform with Sirius.

"I think she was the love of my life." He said, blinking away his tears.

"Wasn't she just tongue dancing with your brother?" Marlene asked, crossing her arms over her chest and raising her eyebrow at the red head.

"Which is why I never told her," Fred finished, strangely he even smiled afterwards. "Hermione and Ron were just meant to be."

"Pfft," Marlene scoffed harshly, causing Lily to glare over from the scene she as watching between her and Snape as children in the park. Marlene didn't even look apologetic. "No one is 'meant to be', relationships aren't written in the stars, if they happen, they happen. They don't happen by chance, you need to man up and move in before someone else does."

"You're a little bit bitter, aren't you?" Fred asked, eyeing Marlene appreciatively and she shrugged.

"She's also like a hundred years too old for you," Sirius said as he sidled in beside the two of them, wrapping his arm around Marlene's waist the way he used to when another Hogwarts student would look at her the wrong way.

"First off, I've only been dead for nineteen years-"

"And I can see how pained you are by your short life-"

"And second of all, I'm not bitter, I'm a realist." She said, slapping Sirius' arm, missing how Fred eyed to two knowingly. "People live and people die, it's life. I'm pretty sure I lived more in my twenty years than Sirius did in all – fifty, is it now?" she said, smirking over her shoulder at him.

"Funny, McKinnon."

"She has a point."

Everybody froze. No one had even noticed the new arrivals, they'd been too busy watching Harry through the pensive and helping Fred and fighting the urge to scream at the horror of the world that they hadn't even noticed.

"No," Sirius breathed, his eyes wide and staring.

"This isn't happening." Marlene breathed, looking up at Sirius, watching the anger and the horror flashing across his still pale face. No one else would have noticed, but Marlene had worn her mask flawlessly for the best part of her life, if anyone could read Sirius like a book, it was her.

"Moony," James said as he collided with his old friend, gripping onto the weathered man tight enough to bruise.

"It's been too long, James," Remus said with a smile. He only had a second of respite from James' hug before a familiar curtain of red hair came barrelling towards him, near enough knocking him off of his feet as the two collided, lily's legs wrapping around Remus and squeezing like she needed proof he was real. "Merlin, Lily, I'm not as young as I once was." He said as he set her back down, trying to cover the strain in his voice from his protesting body.

"I knew you couldn't stay away for long." Sirius said as he broke away from Marlene, joining his two best friends in a long overdue reunion.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," James said, looking between the two greatest friends he'd had in his short life with a sad, but ultimately happy smile on his face. "But Sirius was right. You did get old!"

"Shame the same can't be said for all of us." Marlene said, joining the group gathered around Remus, Fred by her side.

"Marlene," Remus said with a polite nod. The two had never been that close. Marlene had always thought Remus was playing around with the girls – Dorcas and Mary especially by never telling them his secret - and Remus had always disapproved of Marlene's lifestyle of trailing Sirius along by a lead. But none of that mattered anymore, they'd practically grown up together, he was as much of a part of Marlene's family just like everyone else at this station.

"I've missed you, Wolf-boy," she said with a soft smile, one Remus returned before accepting one of Marlene's rare but comforting hugs. They were always a lot tighter than expected, but Remus was relieved the ache had left his body after so many years.

"Fred?"

"Tonks!" Fred shouted, half running to embrace the bubblegum haired girl. "Holy shit, you shouldn't be here!"

"Same for you, Fred," Remus said sadly, moving to stand beside his wife. "You're so young."

"But you've just had a son." Fred added and Tonk's face fell painfully as she stared up at Remus.

"Harry will take care of him, Moony," Sirius said, his hand landing on Remus' shoulder.

"That he will, Padfoot." The two friends sharing a knowing glance. They'd both had a chance to see the man Harry had become, they knew he'd never leave his godson to grow up alone.

"Hold on!" Fred said, looking between Remus and Sirius like he was seeing them for the first time, his eyes wide. "Moony-" he said pointing to Remus, "Padfoot-" pointing at Sirius who stood with the air of a proud teenager. "Prongs?"

"In the flesh!" James said proudly, beaming like he was just seen as a celebrity. "Sort of."

"You're the Marauders, the ones who made the map!" Fred exclaimed, seeming half bemused by the revelation. "Harry knew, didn't he?"

"From the beginning," Remus said, remembering the time in his office when Harry had first brought him the map and the memories that had come flooding back.

"That little rat." Fred breathed, still amazed by the people who stood before, the boys whos legacy he had carried with his twin for years.

"Speaking of rats!" James said loudly as James and Sirius shared an angry glance. "We're in need of a fourth member."

"And you'd be perfect." Remus added with a bright smile, Tonk's was busy standing beside Lily and Dorcas, comforting her in the ways her son had grown. She knew Remus needed this reunion, he'd been lonely for so long.

"But, Wormtail-" Fred began with a confused glance between the faces of men, their ages so ranged, and yet they all looked like the teenagers they used to be.

"Is where he belongs, no doubt," Remus said, looking between James and Sirius.

"Not before Marlene had a go at him," Sirius said proudly, scuffing her blonde curls until she slapped his hand away. Sirius just beamed.

"You should have seen what she did you your brother!" James said with a booming laugh, wrapping his arm around Marlene's shoulder while Sirius baked a laugh. Marlene barely reacted. "Half chased him over to the other side, fist shaking and all!"

"That's my girl." Sirius said with a wink, kissing Marlene's head. She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by the voice from the end of the platform.

"James!" Lily's desperate cry knocked any smile from James face as he rushed towards his wife. What's happening?" she asked, looking down at herself. It was the same sensation that followed the Triwizard tournament. Lily was slowly fading, her body turning grey before drifting out of existence.

"What the-" Sirius voice said, James turned and saw the same thing was happening to both Remus and Sirius, Marlene looking at them like they were sprouting wings, stepping away from them as they disappeared. James didn't need to look down to know he was slowly disappearing too, he reached out a hand toward Lily, only to see his fingers slowly drifting away like smoke.

"I'll see you there!" he called to Lily and she nodded, but the fear on her face told him she wasn't so sure. Shutting his eyes, James let the lightness wash over him, plunging him into darkness, following his wife to wherever they might be going.