A/N – First I would like to thank all of my reviewers: Hpluver222, Lucente, Love-of-all-Anime, Beckylovex, jacks-peapod, lovefrog159, -Scp-, Akt5us, and nessyness90210. You guys rock my world.

A Day in the Sun

Chapter Thirty-three

The letter was addressed in green ink. If that hadn't been strange enough the letter was also sealed in wax. The crest imprinted on the wax contained a picture of a lion, a badger, a snake, and an eagle. "Hogwarts!" came Lily's excited whisper. Before she could open the letter; however, she heard her father lumbering down the staircase. She shoved the letter down her shirt into the bra she and Petunia had purchased last week. She was almost twelve and was beginning to worry about becoming pregnant. She wanted to ask Petunia about getting on birth control, but if she did so she would have to have a reasonable explanation of why she needed it. She could not tell Petunia the truth.

Lily walked into the kitchen and quickly served the breakfast she had made to her father. He grunted in what Lily assumed was his version of hungover approval. While he was occupied with his breakfast Lily left the house and headed next door. She knew by now not to knock, Severus' father was just as much a bear as her own. He certainly didn't like Lily much, nor did he care for Sev's attention to her. Instead she climbed the tree that she and Sev had agreed to share those many years ago. She gently rapped her knuckles on the glass of his window pane to gain Sev's attention. He looked up from his summer homework and smiled when he saw Lily. He quickly opened his window to allow Lily to crawl through.

"Severus! She exclaimed breathlessly. "I've got something to show you!" She reached into her bra and pulled out the letter. "Look! I'm going to Hogwarts!"

"Lily that's awesome." Severus responded in somewhat less than the enthused tone Lily had expected.

"You sound disappointed." Lily's smile had been reduced to a frown. Why was her friend not excited that they could spend the whole year together. Then it dawned on her. "You're worried about what your friends at Hogwarts would think. I'm eleven and you're seventeen and you think that they would tease you for spending time with someone my age. You must wish now that we'd never become friends. I'll just go. You don't ever have to speak to me again. Not here, not at school." Her voice had traveled easily from confusement to anger to disappointment. "I'll just go." She moved to climb out of his window.

Severus reached out quickly and grabbed Lily's arm. "You have never been more wrong about me in your life."

"Why aren't you happy then?"

He pressed his fingers to his temples, "Please sit down, Lily."

She complied.

"Please let me just say this before you ask questions." At her nod he continued. "At school I'm different than I am here. I've had to be in order to survive. There are certain things that people in the wizarding world value that people in the muggle world do not have to deal with. You see there are people in the wizarding world who believe that the only thing that matters about a person is his parentage. There are people who are considered pure blooded. They are the elite. Their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all wizards. Then there are people like me who had one pure blooded parent we're somewhere in the middle. And finally there are people like you who have no magical background in their family. You are called muggleborns by some and by others, the people who think these things matter, you are called mudbloods. I don't care about these things, but the people in my house are legendary for it, so at school they think I do. We can be friends at Hogwarts, and I want us to be, but no one can know."

"The other people I meet at school won't like me because I'm a mudblood?" Lily had thought that school would be a way for her to find acceptance. Here she couldn't because of the wall it was necessary for her to have, but there she'd hoped that she could escape the madness of her home life and actually make friends aside from Sev.

"Lily, you are a muggleborn. Mudblood is a bad word for your kind. It's something that people might call you in a derogatory fashion. And no, not everyone is this way. Mostly just the people in Slytherin. There are a few elsewhere, but you should be safe in any other house from overt prejudice. I have to deal with the prejudice though. No one knows that I live in a muggle neighborhood. No one knows that my mother married a muggle and no one can know. No one can know that we are friends. This is my secret."

"You always said that Hogwarts was such a good place."

"It is, Lily. Hogwarts is great, but there are people there just like anywhere else and people aren't perfect."

Lily wasn't sure what to think about all of this. "What if I'm not put in another house. What if I'm put in Slytherin with you?"

"Then we lie." Severus answered.

"He spent the rest of the night explaining the gravity of the war to me. How horrible Voldemort," She ignored James' flinch, "was and what exactly I would face in school and how to avoid the worst of it."

"So you and Snape were friends all through that year, spoke and everything, and no one found out?"

"Sev had already started spying by then, of course I didn't know yet, so he knew how to avoid unwanted eyes. I just went along with what he said."

James continued his questioning, "How did you get around being pregnant during school without anyone knowing? It had to have been that year, and I think I would have heard about a pregnant first year. That doesn't happen that often."

"Well, that was just luck on my part. I happened to get pregnant over Christmas break and gave birth to Ariel prematurely over the summer. I never really got that big at school."

"How did you handle being that young and pregnant?"

"Severus. He kept me up on all of the potions and everything." A small smile spread across her face, "He even made a couple harried trips to the kitchen to get me peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. When I went into labor he took me to a muggle hospital. Twenty-seven hours later Ariel was born. I called him unspeakable names while I was in labor. I felt bad about it afterwards, but I really couldn't control what I was saying. Something for you to look forward to." The smile became larger.

James smiled wanly in return.

"Are you getting tired?" Lily asked following it up with a yawn.

James gave a slight chuckle. "let's head up to bed. You are supposed to be there anyway."

BREAK

Two nights later...2am

Where was he? Sure James came home late, but he had never been this late before. Lily was pacing the floor of her bedroom. Spending the entire day in bed was bad enough. She required James' presence to break up the boredom of her days. Ariel was good at that too, but she had gone to bed hours ago.

There was a war going on these days! What if he'd been hurt? Lily couldn't believe that James was making her worry like this. Wait a minute, what if he had been hurt? His job was certainly not what one would consider safe. She couldn't just stay here anymore. She grabbed her robe and threw it over her shoulders. She would floo Reggie to watch Ariel and then she would find him.

Lily was half way down the staircase when she heard the front door open. She felt the hair on the back of her neck raise. Something wasn't right. When she heard the door close she sat on the staircase in the shadows and listened. She heard cupboards opening and closing. A glass clanking against the countertop. Her hand clenched the railing on the staircase as she fought the instinct to run and hide. Her instinct to protect Ariel needed to be stronger in this case.

Lily stood and made her way down the stairs. She had to know exactly what was going on. The sounds had been coming from the kitchen so she headed there. She opened the door slowly to see James. His tie was loosened, but still around his neck and the top button of his shirt was undone. He was holding a crystal glass with an amber liquid inside.

"Lily, I thought you'd be asleep."

Lily went to the oven and turned it on. "I saved a plate for you from supper."

"Thanks, but I already ate." James lied. He couldn't eat now. Then he got up and went to the cabinet. He removed another glass that matched his own. He poured something out of a bottle that read Macallan Fine and Rare Burbon, 1926 and handed the glass to her.

Lily turned the oven off and stared at his outstretched hand for a moment before speaking, "I'm still seventeen."

"Lily you are married with a child. I think you're responsible enough to have a drink every once in a while. Besides, the most alcohol I've ever seen was a Hogwarts. You expect me to believe that you haven't ever had any before?"

"I've tried it." She remembered the bitter taste and how terrible she'd felt the day after. "I'm not a fan."

James placed the new glass next to his old one, "Let me know if you change your mind." He sat down.

"Thanks, but I won't." Lily didn't smile, she just watched James. They sat in silence as he drank. Her anxiety increased with every sip James took.

Seeing his wife's discomfort James quickly gulped down the rest of the drink he'd poured for Lily. He calmly rinsed out the dishes, dried them and put them away so that the kitchen looked just as it had when he'd entered. "You ready for bed?"

"Uh, yeah." Was her somewhat less than eloquent answer.

James led Lily upstairs. She went straight to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She saw that she was a bit pale so she pinched her cheeks. She took off her robe. Her neglige was a pale green and showed off her shoulders. She was far from beautiful, but she figured she would be good enough to keep James interested in her. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she owed him so much. She exited the bathroom to find their bedroom empty.

Lily walked out of the bedroom and headed toward Ariel's room. She had a terrible feeling in her stomach. She opened the door to her daughter's room to find James sitting on a chair watching Ariel. "What are you doing?" She whispered.

James turned around and squinted at the light coming from the hallway that was only partially blocked by Lily's body. "I just..." He stopped when he realized that he was unable to describe the peace that came to him just by being around his daughter. "What are you wearing?" He watched her face fill with color.

"Come out of there so you don't wake her up."

James waited until they were both back in their bedroom and then he asked again.

Lily could feel her face heating up. In spite of her embarrassment she answered in her best sultry voice, "You don't like it?" She then proceeded to take it off and stand naked before her husband.

James gulped. "I never said I didn't like it, but I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that I like this look for you more." He'd had a terrible time at work. This was one of those nights that he would usually have called an old girlfriend over to...you know. It was how he handled stress before, but it couldn't be how he handled stress now. He figured that Lily wouldn't be able to handle the rough, animalistic sex he usually had when he felt like this. For him sex was a way to forget, for her it was a way to gain his approval. He needed to stay away from her so that she knew that he loved her whether or not she put out for him. But this temptation would be difficult to overcome.

Lily walked closer to James and kissed him.

He kissed her back, but kept his hands to himself until she grabbed his hands and placed them on her waist. Lily then pulled off his tie and finished unbuttoning his shirt. When her hands went to his belt James broke the kiss. "I'm...really...tired." He said between ragged breaths. "We should...just go to...bed."

Lily's face became red with embarrassment. "I'm sorry." She whispered.

"Don't be sorry." He said softly then kissed her lightly on the forehead. While Lily crawled naked into bed, he changed into some pajama pants. He was glad when he turned to get into bed that Lily was faced away from him. He didn't want her to see the obvious tent in his pants.

He laid down on his back. After a few moments Lily readjusted herself so that her head rested on his chest. "I'm sorry." she said again.

"Lily, you have nothing to be sorry about." He said while running his fingers through her hair.

"I do too!" She said. "I wish I'd come to you clean! I wish that I was someone you wanted! I'm so sorry that I'm not those things for you. And I'm sorry that I'm crying!" There were tears rolling down her face.

"Stop...Shhh." James was still running his fingers through her hair trying to calm her down. This really was the day from hell. "Do you have any idea how much I love you, Lily? And I love you just the way you are."

Lily looked up to see his face. He looked dead serious. "Th-thank you."

James pulled Lily back so that she was resting on his chest again. He wrapped his arms around her until her breathing became slow and even.

Lily was almost asleep. She would have been deep under in a few moments if she hadn't heard James speak her name.

"Lily, are you awake?"

She was just opening her mouth to answer when he spoke again.

"Good. Best of both worlds. I get to tell you, but you don't have to know. You see today really wasn't about you. It was about me being afraid. You see I got a case today. It was gruesome. There was the man he'd obviously died first, taken by surprise. Then there was his wife who seemed to have put up some kind of fight. If that had been all it would have been okay, but that wasn't it, Lil. They walked through the entire house, searching it, ransacking it. They found a girl. She was no older than Ariel. She'd been hiding under her bed. They took turns raping her and left her for dead. Luckily there was someone home next door and they entered the house after they saw the death eaters leave. They found the girl and saved her life.

"But as I was interviewing her the thought kept running through my head that it could have been us. That it could have been Ariel shivering under a blanket with tear stained cheeks. That it could have been you who's body was lying in the middle of the kitchen. I couldn't stand that thought, Lil."

Lily couldn't believe what she was hearing. She didn't think that they would actually commit those unspeakable acts. Death Eaters were just like her father. She lifted her head and looked James in the eye and saw his surprise that she'd been awake. "Don't not tell me about things like this ever again, okay? I live in this world too. I want to know the extent of the situation with Voldemort at all times."

"Alright."

Lily kissed James lightly on the lips. "I love that you care about Ariel that much." She wiped a tear from her eyes and curled up on his chest again.

James smiled. He couldn't help but think that that was much better than for managing his stress than any meaningless sexual encounter he'd ever had.

A/N- Thanks for sticking with me for this amount of time. I'm sorry that the update is so short. I'll do my best to update again soon. Please review! Reviews motivate me!