Disclaimer: Is there even any point anymore? If so, please see the previous thirty-six chapters. They should more than suffice.

There's an old voice in my head that's holding me back.
Well, tell her that I miss our little talks.
Soon it will be over and buried with our past.

The house rattled under the pressure of the gusting wind. Moonlight flickered in sporadically through the curtains with each shifting of the clouds. It was not quite a storm, just very nearly.

Lily knew all this because she couldn't sleep. In truth, she hadn't really slept since returning from her sister's home the day before. There just wasn't enough time to waste on sleep.

Time. They were running out of time. Dumbledore would come the following day to assist with the Fidelius Charm, and then it would just be a matter of waiting out the unbearable burden of time. The uncertainty was stifling. Lily had wondered several times throughout the week whether Harry would grow up never having left the walls of their house. This wasn't life, it was stasis.

Sirius mumbled in his sleep behind her. More and more often of late he had muttered things from his dreams; Lily couldn't bear to contemplate what they meant. At least he was getting some sleep, though. He needed to be prepared for what was to come.

A particularly strong blast of wind shook the shudders against the side of the house, effectively ruining whatever hope Lily had of dozing off. A glare at the clock told her it was very nearly time to feed Harry. Gently as she could, Lily rolled out of Sirius' arms and puttered down the hall to the nursery at the end of the landing. Apart from the wind, everything was dark and quiet and still. Lily smiled; Harry was such a good baby. He rarely screamed or cried anymore. He usually just sat up in his crib and waited for her. Lily felt her way along the familiar path to his bedside, but no emerald eyes peered up at her from under the blankets.

Panic rippled through her stomach. He couldn't be gone; they wouldn't take him and leave the rest of them alive. She stumbled out of the room and down the stairs. He had to be somewhere in the house. Where was he, where was he….

"Lily?"

She spun around to find James huddled in the armchair, a very content, very much there baby happily nursing a bottle in his lap. A single candle on the coffee table illuminated James' face in a discordantly warm glow. A shuddering breath of relief emerged from deep within Lily as she leaned against the nearest wall. Of course he would be with his father.

"He was awake when I went to check on him," James said quietly as her hand flew to her fluttering heart. "I thought I might as well feed him. I didn't mean to worry you."

"No..." she gasped. "No…my fault. Sorry."

She turned to ascend the stairs, dreading her assuredly fruitless return to bed, when James called out to her. "Lily, we really ought to talk about this."

She halted, her back to him. Oh, how she had hoped to avoid this for as long as humanly possible. Lily knew she wasn't always terribly agreeable, but it wasn't very often that she was filled with the blind fury that had consumed her two days before. She wasn't sure if she was ready to let go of her anger; in a weird way it had given her the strength to keep on going. But she knew the toll a rift with James would take on Harry and Sirius. Tentatively, Lily turned around.

"I realize that I didn't behave very well on Wednesday," she began in a low voice, "but that was a very big thing for you to keep from us, James."

"I understand that," he said, shifting Harry, "but you have to understand that she was already gone by the time I found out. Nothing could have come out of my telling you."

"Except that I would have known she was my sister."

"What difference does it make now? She'll never know."

"James, you have to understand," Lily stepped forward to grip the back of the sofa. "She may have died before any of us knew who she was, but Vanessa was still my sister. Had you told me sooner I could have mourned her as such. But I didn't know then, so I have to do it now."

They were quiet for a time. Harry finished his bottled and fell into the deep sleep of babes. The wind howled and the candle burned low.

"I'm sorry," James finally, softly said. "I just didn't want there to be anymore grief. I'm so tired of grief, Lily."

How was she to do anything but mollify? All James had ever really done was look after her, after all. And hadn't she kept Vanessa a secret from Petunia the day before, just as James had kept her from Lily? But even given that, there were still matters that had to be settled between them.

"What I still don't get," she whispered, "is why you and Sirius have been so determined that I be Harry's mother. Sirius I can understand; he had no more knowledge of Vanessa than I did, and he's been trying for so long to make up for…well, what happened." She had to pause and swallow. Would the pain never cease? "But why were you so adamant when you knew I was his aunt? Why wasn't that enough?"

James straightened his glasses and sighed. "Why are you asking me this, Lily? You already know. He's yours, too."

"Not really. Not in the right way."

"Maybe not." He readjusted the sleeping infant and leaned forward ever so slightly. "But Lily, I am a selfish man, and I want my son to have everything. He deserves everything, especially a mother. He needed you, Lily, needs you, and I was prepared to pressure you into it no matter what it took. The two of you were made for each other, Lily. Maybe this makes me a bad person, but I really just don't care anymore. I have to do what needs to be done."

They were silent again after that. So many thoughts started and stopped in Lily's mind, she couldn't bear to focus on one. She simply stood there gripping the sofa, trying to think of what to say.

Then James suddenly, helplessly whispered, "I'm sorry."

Lily's heart broke. She skirted around the furniture to lean over him and wrap her arms around his neck. Harry sleeping on his lap meant that she couldn't hug James properly, so Lily simply pressed her cheek against his.

"Oh, James, I'm sorry. I've been so hard on you, I always have. I haven't been acting very grown up lately."

"You're doing just fine, Lily."

"Please forgive me," she whispered.

James pulled an arm out from under Harry to squeeze her waist. "Always."

Lily closed her eyes very tightly. She knew she didn't deserve his pardon; she never had appreciated him like she ought to have. She kissed his cheek and straightened up, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. Suddenly she felt so cold and tired.

"Well, that's enough soul-bearing for the night, I think," she said, trying her best to end on a bright note. James granted her a consolatory chuckle in return. "And as you've got Harry squared away, I think I'll go back to bed. Are you coming up, too?"

James shook his head. "No, I think I'll stay down here with him for a bit longer." He returned his arm to where it had been under Harry and cradled his son closer. Lily suddenly felt that she was intruding on something very private.

As she climbed the stairs to return to her and Sirius' room, each step seemed to exhaust her more than the last so that she all but stumbled into the bedroom once she reached the end of the hall. Her heart was the most tired of all. The house shook once again under the strain of another powerful gust of wind as she closed the door.

Sirius was lying exactly where she had left him, but he was staring up at her when she turned around. His eyes gleamed where the streaks of moonlight passed across his face.

She wound her arms around herself. "How much of that did you hear?"

He untangled an arm from under the sheets and held it out to her. "Come here."

Lily crawled into bed beside him, pressing herself flat against his body and burying her face in the curve of his neck. His breathing was slow and rhythmic, as though he could fall asleep at any moment. Sirius wrapped his arm firmly around her. "I'm proud of you," he murmured, the vibrations from his throat tickling her nose.

"I'm sorry to you, too," Lily whispered. "I haven't been very good to you either."

His hand rubbed up and down her back. "I was never upset with you, love. Believe me, I understand. It's just that I also realize that we haven't the time to quarrel like this. We've got to be on each other's sides."

Lily looked up at him, studying the hard lines of his face. She really was very lucky, she decided, to have such wonderful men in her life. They made up for whatever failings her family had had.

Sirius, she realized, had fallen asleep once again. She pressed a feather-light kiss to the underside of his chin and brought her hands up to rest against his chest. Lily closed her eyes and breathed in and out once, twice, and then fell into a deep sleep.

First off, please allow me to make my utmost apologies. Eight months is an atrociously long time to wait to update. I have a plethora of excuses as to why this happened, but I really don't think any of you would care to read of them. I certainly wouldn't care to relive all of them. Suffice it to say I am terribly embarrassed and would like to thank those of you who have held on for so long. I am so grateful for all of you. I wish I could promise that a gap like this will never happen again, but as maddenly frazzled as my life has been these last months I don't think I can say in good conscience that a new chapter will be coming soon. Sorry. But the chapters will definitely keep coming. I said it before and I'll say it again: I will never abandon this fic.

Also, I'm sorry that you all waited so long for what is essentially a filler chapter. This wasn't even in the outline; I just suddenly thought there ought to be a better conclusion to the Lily-James-Vanessa issue. Regardless, I hope you all enjoyed it. The next chapter will really carry the plot along though, I swear.

This chapter's title is Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men. Did you know they're Icelandic?

As I said before, I am terribly sorry for make all you lovely readers wait so long for this chapter, and as such I would like to give you all a gift. It's a bit of a non-spoiler; even though there are only three chapters left, I'm going to pull a Jo and reveal the last word of the last chapter. And unlike Jo, I'm not going to change it in editing. Are you ready...The last word will be,"Lily." Not too much of a giveaway, but I would like you all to bear it in mind as you read what's to come.

'Til Next Time!