Disclaimer: Not JKR. Not making any money.

Lily crashed into cold damp sand. It flew up into her face and coated her palms. Her head throbbed and her stomach twisted and ached. She tasted salt on her tongue.

A few paces away, her trunk appeared in a distortion of space and landed with a thump, kicking up more sand. Lily stretched out, giving herself time to recover. It was colder here; the wind blowing off the ocean was damp and chilly, a shock after the spring thaw in Dorny. The scent of the sea made her dizzy.

She pushed herself up to sitting. Slughorn flickered across the side of her trunk as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn't just been wrenched away from her flat, from Sev -

Lily put her hand on her stomach, wishing she could feel the baby moving inside of her.

The waves rolled in, crashing against the shore, flecks of sea foam glittering in the sun.

Lily stood up, her legs wobbling. She leaned against the trunk for support and looked past the swell of dunes and seagrass - there. A house, white stone walls and a modernized shingled roof. Pale green wisps of ivy were already creeping up from underneath the front porch and reaching for the windows. Smoke trickled out of the chimney, a line of grey against the thin early-spring sky.

It seemed safe, that house, with its ivy vines and its friendly chimney. A safe house.

Lily cast a charm to levitate her trunk alongside her as she trudged through the seagrass. Her head was full of cotton, her stomach roiled like the sea.

Up at the house, someone stepped out onto the porch.

"You Lily?" the someone asked. A woman, her voice deep-throated and raspy, like some actress Lily's mother liked - Jean Harlowe or Lauren Bacall or someone - although her accent was Irish, not American. "'Cause I'm gonna tell you now, if you're not Lily Evans, I'm obligated to blast you out into the ocean."

Lily wanted to laugh. "What would stop me from just claiming to be Lily?" she said. God, even Sev's paranoia was rubbing off on her - the thought made her heart hurt.

She missed him.

"Oh. This." The woman pulled her wand out of her robe - she wore an elaborately brocaded robe of the sort favored by wealthy pure-blood women, but she wore it open over a Muggle slip dress, like it was a coat - and swished it back and forth three times. A faint tickle of enchantment fell around Lily's shoulders.

"Well," the woman said. "That's settled."

"Am I who I say to be?"

"Magic never lies." The woman stepped off the porch, pointed her wand at Lily's trunk, and set it flying through the door. Lily appreciated that; portkeys always drained her. She didn't like having to maintain the levitation spell.

"You tell 'em you made it here safely yet?" the woman asked, cutting across the dunes. She only looked a few older than Lily, and she had a thick white scar tracing a curve from beside her left eye to underneath her cheekbone.

"What?"

"You ought to send your Patronus to Dumbledore."

"Oh, right." Lily lifted her wand, then stopped. "Wait. I promised -" She shook her head, laughed. "I promised someone I would check for traps."

She expected the woman to laugh with her, but she just nodded and said, "Well, get on with it."

Sev had shown her the spells; they were simple, and not Dark, although Lily wasn't familiar with them. For a few moments streams of golden light arced out of her wand, threading over and around and through the house. Everything came back clean.

"Satisified?" the woman asked.

"He will be." She couldn't bring herself to say his name. Not yet. She should still picture his face with ease, his nose and sharp cheekbones, his black hair and dark eyes. She wondered how long until that image started to fade. Then, maybe, she would say his name out loud, as if it could bring him back to her.

The woman watched her, the wind blowing her brown hair across her face. Lily turned toward the sea, toward England and Dorny and Sev, and cast her Patronus. She wished she could speak to Sev herself, wished she could look at him as she told him she was safe.

But that wasn't an option anymore.

Lily dropped her wand to her side and turned away from the sea. The woman stared at her.

"Let's get you settled, then," she said. "I'm sick of doing all the work around here. They couldn't even spare a house elf."

The healer, Lily thought. She couldn't quite remember the name. Albus had told her -

"I'm Adelia, by the way," the woman said. She was up on the porch, one hand on the doorknob, watching Lily as she picked her way across the seagrass. "Adelia Prince. I'm a healer."

"Yes," said Lily. "I know."

"We don't have anyone here at the moment, though that's liable to change faster than you would think. They always seem to come in at the dead of night, too."

Lily stepped into the house's foyer. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, illuminating swirls of transparent dust. The floors were polished wood, the furniture was sparse and threadbare. It almost reminded Lily of her flat.

"Your room's upstairs," Adelia said. "That's where I put your trunk. Let me show you the office."

"The office?"

"Yes, that's where all the administrative nonsense takes place. Mostly arranging transportation and refining the wards. Keeping track of the Death Eaters. They don't bother much with Ireland, but you'll get reports now and then." Adelia shrugged.

I have to do all that? Lily thought, although she was not so dazed from her separation with Sev that she said it out loud. Adelia led her down a dark hallway.

"There," Adelia said. "Your office."

Lily peeked in. The walls were lined with shelves, some containing books, some containing Muggle knicknacks - portkeys, Lily guessed, or future portkeys. There was a desk in the center of the room stacked with newspapers, the Daily Prophet and another one Lily didn't recognize, Sorcerer's Star.

"You'll be in charge of food preparation, too," Adelia said. "Once we have residents. I can cook for myself until then."

"I don't mind cooking," Lily said.

Adelia shrugged and stepped out of the office, closing the door behind her. "We get food deliveries from the grocer in Angua Beach once a week, although it's only about a ten minute broom ride from here if you need anything more. You can't Apparate on or off the property - the wards extend for about five kilometers. They tend to bring us children, that's why those type of wards are installed here. It's the same charm they use at Hogwarts. You went there, didn't you?"

Lily nodded.

"I did too, for a few years, before my parents - well, before they decided to take my education into their own hands." Adelia's face darkened. Her scar looked pinkish in the light of the house. Lily tried not to stare at it.

"What - what year?" Lily asked, because she didn't remember anyone named Adelia Prince.

"Before your time," Adelia said. "How old are you, anyway, eighteen? You look like a student."

"I'm twenty."

Adelia smiled. "You seem more mature than I was at that age." She traced a finger down the length of her scar. "I had a tendency to pick fights with the wrong sort of person."

"I don't like fighting," Lily said stupidly.

"I don't either. Not anymore." Adelia smiled again, more ruefully this time, and led Lily back down the hallway, to the back of the house. The kitchen was a room that had obviously been added on after the house had been built, because its walls were wood and plaster, and the floor was linoleum and sounded hollow when Lily walked across it.

"The dining room's through that door there." Adelia pointed. "I don't bother with it when we don't have residents."

Lily stepped into the middle of the kitchen, feeling as if she were walking through a dream. The light seemed different here, gauzier. Maybe it was because of the salt in the air or maybe it was because of the wards. Lily couldn't tell.

"The greenhouses are back here," Adelia went on, pushing open a door that led to the outside. Lily stood in the doorway and looked. There were two greenhouses, small and tidy, a garden nestled between them, the soil dark and tilled but empty of plants.

"What do you grow?" Lily asked.

"Oh, healing plants mostly. Some herbs and vegetables." Adelia shut the door. "You'll need to help me with them, unless you're one of those types who kills every plant she touches."

"I did well in Herbology."

Adelia gave her a strange, steely look. "You aren't in Hogwarts anymore."

Lily glared back. "I know that better than anyone." And her hand dropped to her stomach without her meaning to.

"Another war baby," Adelia said, her voice tired, as if she had seen more than her share the past few years.

"They told me you were a midwife."

"They told you right. I even work with Muggles sometimes."

Lily blinked. "Really? You can do that?"

"I can do whatever I want. But I mean, I don't use magic on them. Well, not obvious magic anyway." She grinned, showing a hint of teeth. "I'll sometimes bring in plants and things. I don't like the idea of letting someone die just because the Brits want to keep everything a bloody secret."

Suddenly, Lily liked this woman. She wondered if Sev would approve of her, if he would consider her an acceptable replacement for Madame Tring.

She decided that he probably would.

"You should go unpack," Adelia said. "And savor the peace while you've got it. Because it's not going to last."