A/N: Hi!

Thank you for your patience and for being here. This story is becoming a labor of love—and I want to make sure I give it the attention it deserves! Chapters might be a little longer from here on out. I have so much I want to include! Thanks for sticking with it/reading/reviewing. I have the sweetest readers—I really appreciate you all :)

8

These are the hands of fate
You're my Achilles heel
This is the golden age of something good
And right and real

—Taylor Swift, "State of Grace"

James

"—just that it's entirely a load of rubbish!"

"Rubbish? Don't be absurd. It's real and true as either of us."

Lily's shoulder digs into mine briefly as a pack of reckless Slytherins beelines through the hall, forcing the mass of breakfast-goers aside in their unsanctioned passing.

"Oi!" Lily shouts, voice seeming too loud for her stature, defying the crowded hallway against all laws of physics—and, for that matter, laws of magic. "Some composure, perhaps?"

A head turns in the pack and does her the quick decency of responding by way of middle finger.

"Don't they have anything better to do than try and get detention on a Monday morning?"

I hike my bag closer on my shoulder and grin. "In their DNA, Evans."

She shakes her head and returns her attention to me. "Anyway—that passage is so obviously a rumor made up so first-years don't do anything stupid and dangerous in the lower-levels."

"You're not often wrong, so I realize this is difficult for you to process," I say. "But I really wouldn't speak too quickly on subjects you've no experience in."

"No exp—" Lily whips her gaze to me. "So you've been in it, is what you're telling me? In this incredibly roundabout, condescending way?"

"I'm not being condescending," I am still grinning, perhaps against my best interests. "I would never condescend to you."

Her eye roll is a force of nature in itself. "Are you going to tell me about how or when or why you accessed this legendary, treacherous tunnel underneath the school or are you going to keep being a real prick about it?"

We're at the lip of the great hall, now, descending on Gryffindor table. "Maybe I'll tell you, someday, if you're nice to me, how about that?"

"How about I practice my non-verbal Tongue-Twist jinx on you?"

"How about we skip class and practice that in a broom closet?"

She wheels on me. "No broom closets!"

"Woah, Lils, second year, ten o'clock," I catch her about the waist, making sure there's no second-year fatalities in the sudden turn.

She twists; apologizes to the rattled Hufflepuff—"Gods, sorry, not looking where I'm going"—then turns back to me, rueful.

"Aversion to broom closets?"

A shudder passes over her. "Reminds me of Owen."

Oh. "In a...good way?"

She gives me a withering look. Sighs. "Bad way."

I duck my head in a short nod. "I see."

"Don't look so pleased with yourself."

"I'm not pleased with—"

"Breakfast, Potter."

"Right. Sure. Breakfast."

We continue into the hall till Lily spots her cohort, settling in next to Mary. Down the way are the Marauders, including Remus. He shoots me a healthy-looking smile. "I've—gotta—Remus is—"

"Go on, I'll see you in Charms." Lily says, turning toward me from the table—and before I've had even a millisecond to contemplate what sort of goodbye is allowed here, in the crowded noise of breakfast, she's slipped a hand up my neck, and I'm stooping down as she pulls my lips to hers.

The kiss is quick and undramatic. A peck, really. But in its wake: This foolish smile. Her face telling me this is a surprise to her, too.

"Oh, so you two are like dating, dating," Marlene says, her expression of delighted disbelief mirrored all around the group, as well as with a good majority of the surrounding crowd, who have ceased their breakfast-eating to gape at this Lily Evans Kissing James Potter in the Great Hall.

"Charms, then." I straighten my back, Lily's hand slips away. She's looking at me like did I really just do that?

When I slide in next to Peter down the table, Sirius is practically folding himself across the table to clap me raucously on the cheek. "Jamesie!"

"Hell, Padfoot—geroff—" I jostle against the touch, wrenching his hand off me till he's flailed back across the table.

"Look at him! He's flushed! Look at him!" Sirius jostles Remus' shoulder now, pointing recklessly at my face.

"Good gods, Sirius, yes, I see him."

I ask Remus, "How're you?"

"Sensational." He bites into a toast. "Ruined just only a bit by Herbology make-up."

Clipped laugh. "You can have my notes. Not sure Padfoot was fully present in those periods, if at all."

Sirius is indignant, despite now having half a muffin stuffed in his mouth. "Hey, I was there!"

"Was I there?" Peter asks, more to his bowl of oats than any of us.

I ignore them both. "Listen, Moony, I—we need to talk about—well, with Lily, and with—"

"James. You can tell her."

"You're—really?"

He nods. His dusty blonde hair is parted very particularly, very neatly, into a soft wave brushing over his forehead. For all the time I've known him, Remus has never acted without this exact sort of measured certainty. He's a man of deliberate, precise action. What he can control—he does. "Yes. I've had time to think about this—and there's just no question, she should know. You trust her. I trust her." Small shrug. "That's all that matters to me."

"Remus—" I swallow past an unexpected lump in my throat, the din of the great hall hollowing out around me. His trust—immense, unyielding—is astounding. After all he's been through. "Thank you."

He wrinkles his nose, ducks his head. As if to say, no big deal.

"Wait but—" Sirius is onto the second half of his muffin, talking around it. "Can I be there when you tell her about the—oof—illegal part?"

"Yeah, actually. That part I think we should all be present for."

The Arithmancy classroom is empty save Lily, leaned against a table, regarding a chalkboard sprawled in two complicated half-filled charts. I watch as she glances to a notebook on the table, back to the board. She considers; tucks a strand of hair behind her ear; teeters a piece of chalk between fingers—then stands, approaches the first chart, scribbles something down. With the edge of her sleeve, she erases a whole row.

"What's the future looking like?"

She turns. Her face is a story of tunneled absorption. "Haven't a single clue."

"What are these?" I ask, walking over to take a closer look at the charts, their jumble of letters and numbers. I have little recall of my own experience with Arithmancy—it might as well be another language.

"Fate-maps." She sighs in a suffering, labored way. "And they're killing me."

"Fate maps?"

"Yeah." She's rifling through a textbook now, scouring some index. Her hair is braided down her back, long, red, beautiful. "We're assigned two, each, and meant to divine the individual meanings as a pair—and each fate-integer—that's the code with the—you know, every sixth and fourteenth star mean x or y vowel, then the consonants are fourth and eighteenth—"

She catches my losing battle with understanding any small bit of her explanation. "Okay, never mind. Regardless—the two maps—charts, I know, they look like charts—are meant to point to one fluctuating forecast. Prediction. You know." She vaguely indicates a half-written sentence, next to the charts:

_ blood _ bone, the long _. Tasked, _. Evermore: _

The words and blank spaces are marked below with numbered code, which I assume corresponds somehow to the fate-maps and their unique divining combinations. Above the incomplete sentence is a rough sketch of a constellation, tiny dots connected by barely-reaching lines. I brush a knuckle against the chalky formation. "Aquarius."

Lily appraises me approvingly, nods. "That's the star system I'm assigned, to find the meaning. It's being absolutely impossible, for me, now." There's a schism of exasperation crinkling her eyes. She's been at this a while, and to little avail. Stress rolls off of her in waves.

I point to a part in the second fate-map where three squares are labeled AD1-AD2-AD3. "Albus Dumbledore related?"

A flash of bemusement. She retreats to the table to set down the textbook and resumes her worried leaning. "I wish. Any small slice of clarity is welcome."

I tuck my hands into my pockets, join her against the table. I run my eyes over her work, the shadowed white clouds of erased work, her deft, clear chalk-writing. On the far side of the board a scribbled note reads: Wind further west has no impact on the east? Another, below it, in parentheses: Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.

"If anyone can figure it out, it's you," I reason. "You're the smartest person I know."

I glance over, find her looking at me. The tug of worry over the chalkboard momentarily shed, replaced by a look I can't quite crack—one that encourages my face to tilt, meet the shallow breath between her lips. Goosebumps flare up and down my spine. Her kiss speaks of adoration; a soft and benevolent calm. I am spun through with it.

When she leans back, I exhale slowly. She says, "Practice tonight?"

"Practice tonight." I affirm, regretfully. I miss the way time worked in the summer, those sun-buttered days free of responsibility. "Charms session with Alexander after. Charms session with myself, after."

"Sometime this week, will you—" A pause. She swallows something down. "Read my ethics in the Dark Arts essay?"

Swallowed pride. "Sure."

Lily shuts her eyes briefly. "And be easy on me."

"Can't expect there'll be much for me to help with, honestly, Lils."

"Well, I think it's rather awful, and I'm stuck."

I put my hand on hers. "Then I'll help any way I can." Slide my fingers through the spaces between hers.

She looks down at our collected bones. "I had the weirdest day."

"Weird?"

"Got a lot of feedback on a relationship I recently entered into."

"Christ, did I, too," I laugh. "All good feedback?"

"All unsolicited feedback."

"No, really, c'mon, tell me."

"Awful lot of Gryffindors claiming they won the pool!"

Oh, shit.

"And I have to say, I don't love the idea of people betting on my romantic ventures." She eyes me closely. "Please, for the love of Merlin, tell me you are not responsible for said gambling."

Unpardonably melodramatic hand-to-the-chest. "Who, me?"

"Don't be an asshole."

"I'm not being—oh, come on, Lily, I might have done something so immature like, two years ago, but I promise you that this wasn't me, in the least."

Piercing stare. "Black, then, isn't it?"

I'm silent.

She bursts from the table, throws up her arms.

"He's incorrigible, alright? But harmless! He does it out of love, honest."

She crosses her arms, juts her jaw, shakes her head. "Unbelievable."

"I'll tell him off about it, if that's what you want."

"Oh, I'm quite capable of telling him off about it on my own."

I bite my lip. "Yes, I know."

She paces a second, turns on her heel. Rejoins me against the table. "Please tell me your day was equally as weird, so ignore how badly I want to punch your best mate."

I admire her ability to restrain herself from finding Sirius immediately, making him pay for her irritation. Can't say I've always had that restraint myself. "Okay, well, I did get an incredibly weird reading from Isla this morning."

Quirks a brow. "Isla?'"

"Fornmoss."

Exasperated eyes. "You are so lucky you're charming, and that professors like you, you are so—"

"—charming, oh, wow—"

"Whatever. Whatever!" Her fingers tighten at her forearms. She breathes in deeply. Exhales. "What kind of weird reading?"

I tuck my ankles around each other. "Okay, well we were in the middle of silent readings—meaning we're paired off and drink amplifying tea—"

"Amplifying tea?"

"Rose petals and thyme and yarrow root and cinnamon and clove. Quite delicious, actually. It's meant to, er, enhance spiritual power. Open your senses to the divine."

"Alright. Suspending my disbelief."

"Kind of you." I smile. "Anyway, so we drink that, and then we're meant to touch the other person on the neck, here," I demonstrate by pressing my hand on the back of my own neck. "And close our eyes and see whatever comes to us based on that touch."

I watch Lily's skepticism unravel. "And how, exactly, does that work?"

"Not sure, really. I don't think it works, on everyone—and I think more or less everyone's making something grand out of nothing." I shrug. "I didn't see anything profound, myself. When I touched Remus' neck, I saw someone's fingers through a dog's fur."

Lily's brows concave. "And that's significant, to Remus?"

I wish I could tell her just how significant. "Er, yeah. Lupin's had a family dog, while back, died, and Remus was rather attached."

I watch her arms slide away from themselves, onto her legs. "And you really saw that?"

"Yeah. Briefly, like a poorly-tuned telly." I card a hand back through my hair. "But—I felt it, too, a bit. Er, the feelings the image evoked for him. And I knew the memory, or the thought, or whatever it was, was complicated, and hard, though I couldn't say exactly why or how."

"Hm." I can see her working through this, searching for a logical way to consume information she's usually so eager to write-off as whimsy. "And Professor Fornmoss did one for you?"

"Sort of—she's always divining things off of me in pair situations, because she thinks Remus has a particularly spiritual aura about him." I laugh. "She calls him her oracle, sometimes. Makes him wicked uncomfortable."

Lily's turned toward me now, to watch my face. "What did he see, when he touched your neck?"

"Well, he didn't really see anything, at first." I find myself back in the room, Fornmosses' intense grip on Remus' shoulder as he gripped my neck—with a gentler touch—and my body flooded, momentarily, with a flash of yellow, a current of gold. Gone just as soon as it arrived. Remus looking up into my face, with an uninhibited smile—him feeling what I'm feeling—and Fornmoss, her gleeful screech.

"But when Isl—Fornmoss touched him, lending him her energy, her own sight, as it were, he said there was just light. Like a pure, yellow light. A flash of it. And Fornmoss was beside herself, she put her on top of Remus'—awkward for him, I'm sure—and she said it was filling her, too, 'some frightening, unfathomable light.'" I add, quickly, "Her words, not mine."

"Oh." The syllable falls from Lily's mouth like that same light—quietly, brightly. Her face is set free of its previous cynicism, loosened now by something I could swear is reverence. "That's very...visceral." She stands up from the table, faces me, a sprawl of fingers touched to her mouth, like she can't quite figure out what she's feeling. "No—I mean, ethereal."

"That's the wonderful thing about Divination, right? It's both." I'm astounded she hit on it so closely, considering her alleged incredulity. "Gut-level reactions—true, real sensation—and the earth, and magic—and the intersection of all three." My awareness of her is heightened by the intense angle of her body, its strange arc toward mine—the touch without touch. "It's like learning to swim through all the connections between humans and meaning and fate, etc, etc—and these guesses, or prophecies, or what have you, yes they're elastic, a little off-kilter, confusing, cloudy—but if you swim far enough, there's usually a place where the water clears. And that's where you find the little bit of truth."

Lily releases a breath; one I didn't realize she was holding. She drags her thumb over her lip, as though in distress. "I wish I had that kind of faith in the unknown."

"Don't you?" I invite her hand into mine; and this, I hold against my beating heart. "Started dating me, didn't you?"

"But I...knowyou."

"Yes," I trail my hand down her arm, three fingers down to her elbow. And though I've only ever known her, I say, "But certainly nothing about...this...has been known, really—and maybe it's, I dunno, nihilistic to say, but—life is a real mess of the unknown, and fear, and grief, and anger—and I imagine it's all we can do to swim until the water clears, and find—" Three fingers slide up her forearm; hand slides under hers, entwines. "A little bit of truth."

Lily is leaned forward, against me, arm hooking round my shoulder till my weight supports her in the effort to be close. "That's not nihilism." When she blinks, her eyelashes brush my cheek. "That's awfully romantic." And then her mouth on mine, like the current of gold pouring through, over and over, unchanged.

Lily

I'm swimming in the clearest water. I can see all the way to the other side, to the sharp slope of sand that leads to shore. My body moves through greenblue; hair a squiggly red line that follows. When I reach the slope, it rises, as if to meet me. I reach out for it—

—and I'm tugged from sleep by a dip in the mattress, covers lifting, inviting in an unwelcome cold breeze. My reach for shore is a reach for a body.

"Didn't mean to wake you," James murmurs. He shifts closer and returns the covers to their sheltering warm.

I mold to him, his chest bare and chilled and familiar. "Cold," I sing through half-sleep, eyes closed, the only guide his breath in the dark, his fingers at my waist. I cocoon myself to the chill, prick hands over a map of shoulders and back.

"You're warm," he returns, voice muffled in my hair. Fingers tighten at the dip of my neck. "You're wearing my shirt."

"Mmm,' I hitch a leg over his hip. "Couldn't find...my own."

He likes this. He smiles into my forehead.

I am sliding down to the water, dipping toes to the shelf of sand. I tell him, "As blood braids bone, the long gilded spilling bright. Tasked, perishing. Evermore: Anima. Cervus."

"Are you talking in your sleep? Is that a riddle?"

"Mmm." I kiss his chest. The middle of his chest. "Solved the fate-maps." Air rushes through him. He shudders underneath. I push close against him, to protect him from this wind. "James?"

"What's anima cervus?"

Another kiss. Protection. My feet are buried in sand, sinking fast. "Anima is soul, cervus is...mmm...deer."

He is quiet for a long time. Maybe asleep. Maybe I will find him in the clear water, swimming alongside. I am almost submerged. Someone—maybe the water—whispering. Gilded spilling bright.

James

Between afternoon classes, me en route to Astronomy, her en route to Alchemy, I ask Lily, "So you know Latin?"

"What?"

"Anima? Cervus?"

"Oh—that? No, I just—I looked it up. When I solved the—wait—that wasn't a dream?"

I pinch my lips between my thumb and forefinger. I just barely avoiding running straight into a tall alabaster column; Lily grabs my hand and yanks from its path at the last second.

"What's this glassy-eyed look?"

I stare down at her, her expression of incredulity the only thing between me and the ether. "Just thinking."

"Okay, well how about less thinking, more walking?"

Soul. Deer. Tasked—perishing.

I must still have a glassy-eyed look. "Potter! Are you on drugs? You are proper unnerving me."

I shake my head. Shake out Latin and fate and magical maths. I blink. Clear it from my eyes. "Alright. Sorry." Breathe in deep. Refocus: On her. "Er, okay, onto less unnerving things—like you're stealing my clothes now, apparently."

"Not clothes, plural, don't be dramatic."

"Clothing."

She can avoid my eyes in favor of the hallway, but she can't hide the smile. "I was lonely." Cuts her eyes sideways. "I missed you." Shrug. "It smelled like you."

This affects me too much—and far too quick. "Okay, and you realize now this will haunt me for the rest of the day?"

I expect chiding. Instead, she slides a smirk against my shoulder. "Maybe I want it to."

"Evans. Be gentle with me."

"Suppose you wouldn't like to hear about how when I was lying there, waiting for you, I was doing an awful lot of thinking about places I wanted to feel your lips—"

"Evans, for the love of all things magical, we're in the bloody corridor—"

She grips my arm and leans to my ear, the rush of air like a wind to my pulse, my heated skin. "Best quit calling me that or I'm going to get all turned on in the bloody corridor."

I bite the inside of my cheek to discourage any sort of sound unsuitable for a corridor. Her nails dig into my arm as she squeezes, releases. She kisses my cheek. Uses an unnecessary flare of tongue. "Good luck with those stars, love."

And then she leaves me on my wayward path to the Astronomy tower. There's nothing among planetary systems that could leave me so aflame. No mythology, no divination, no mapping of constellations. There's only her, and the feeling thereafter.

The roof of the greenhouse is spangled in ice. I stare intently at its patterns, wondering what—if anything—I'm to glean from the design. Is this the universe, reaching out long arms of fate, brushing against me, making a myth of me?

As blood braids bone, the long gilded spilling bright. Tasked, perishing. Evermore: Anima. Cervus.

Peter says, "You're being creepy."

"I know, Pete, thanks." A bird lands on the roof of the greenhouse. Talons scrape at the white sheen of ice.

The lack of contribution from Sirius and/or Remus piques my attention away from the roof, the ice, the bird. "Lads?"

Remus peeks up from under a furrowed brow. "Yeah."

I try to discern his expression—which, just at first glance, feels distinctly Sirius-related. "I've missed the row, haven't I?"

"Not a row." Sirius intones, not looking up from his work.

Remus shakes his head briefly. Don't.

I don't. I spare a glance at my watch. 4:03. "Shit. Late for pre-meeting meeting." I scramble to collect my items, shove them into my bag.

Sirius asks, "That a euphemism?"

"Ha," I bark. Glad he's not too upset to provide obligatory innuendo.

"I'll walk that way, with you," Remus decides. "Byron's looking to collaborate on Transfiguration."

"Collaborate." Sirius echoes callously.

Remus opens his mouth, then closes it. He rises to follow me as I make for the greenhouse door.

"Dinner, lads. See you."

Peter salutes us on our way out. Nothing from Sirius Black.

"What's with him?" I ask as soon as we're decently far from our friends, weaving through the outer greenhouses toward the castle.

Remus doesn't answer right away. He trails a hand through harmless-enough-looking ivy that trickles down from the ceiling. "Think he's having a bit of an identity crisis."

We emerge into occupied greenhouses, crowded with clumps of students, studying, laughing, shoving each other teasingly. "I tried to have a mature conversation about...what's between us, and he sort of, er, spiraled. I think he's scared of what putting words to it might mean. You know. For him, and for his—for his family."

The heaviness settles over me slowly. Sirius has never done anything quietly, especially when it comes to sticking to principles. This includes, notably, a true and unyielding disdain for his family line and their inclination toward pureblood supremacy; a brand of pride that has eaten Sirius to the core and spit him right back out.

"Since when does he care what they think?" I ask as we push through heavy oak doors back into the castle.

"He's so hyper-aware of what they think of him—regardless of caring what they think of him. And whatever this means for him, it's a change. Or—would be a change. And fear of that might be holding him back. Or the fear of being with—"

"You." I finish. "You think you're the problem."

"Well, he hasn't given much evidence to the contrary."

Sirius' Fling-Me-Off-The-Edge-And-I'll-Figure-Out-A-Plan-From-There mentality rarely includes considering repercussions for those around him—and sometimes, in the face of such consequences, he can be unintentionally unfeeling. This I know first-hand, having been on the receiving end. There's no worse feeling.

"It's stupid, really, that I got my hopes up so high." Remus scuffs his shoe against the floor. His shoulders are slumped forward. Defeated. "I told myself not to, but it was—well. I got swept up."

"Remus—"

"I know, I know. He's new to it, and I've got to be delicate, and I'm trying, I really am."

"It's okay to feel shitty about it." I say quietly. "It's not your job to coach him through it, if he's being a prick. He needs to consider your feelings, as well, you're not—" I motion aimlessly, looking for a word. "You're not just someone."

There's a beat of quiet. "He could've just said no—he could've just said, no I don't feel that way about you—and it would've been easier, it would've hurt less." There's a roughness to his voice now, caught on something deep, and it makes me stop him mid-hall with a hand to his arm, and find shame and tears, and eyes—blue, kind, helpless.

"Shit, Moony," I murmur, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

He falls against me, roughly. "I'm so dumb. He's so—"

"I know." I feel the frantic knock of his heart against my shoulder. His arm is shaking. This is vital, earthbound feeling. This is real pain.

I hate it. And I hate more that I can't fix it. A flare of anger at Sirius consumes me. How could he let this happen?

After a quiet minute, Remus dashes a hand over red eyes. I withdraw my arm. He inclines his head down the hall. "Okay." Inhales. "Onward."

Lily

James ducks into the Heads office twenty minutes late, and he's not alone—Remus pokes his head in the doorway briefly to wave at me.

I smile. "Remus!"

"See you at dinner, Lily." He slumps away, gone the next second.

I turn to James. "Everything alright?"

He collects my face between his palms. "Sorry I'm late."

"It's—Remus?" I touch his wrists.

Searching golden eyes. "I have to tell you something about him."

"Okay."

"Kiss me first?" He asks so nicely, so softly, like he's asking to be excused from the dinner table so he can run to the upstairs window, watch the sun set behind the trees.

I kiss him. Beyond the trees, bleeding light. Tangerine and peach.

He comes away sweet and bright, caught between. "Okay. Remus." He lets go of me, backs into the room. Retucks his sweater into his pants. Adjusts his belt. Settles into a seat in the Prefect audience.

"Is this about him and Sirius?"

James looks up, alarmed. "Wh—how did you know about that?"

"Um," I shift to lean on the desk behind me. "I've got eyes, that's how."

"Well, that's not—" he shakes his head at me. "How come you haven't asked me about that?"

"I don't know, hasn't come up? And, I mean, before, it wasn't exactly my place to ask." I shrug. "Three days ago I was just a friend to you."

"That's reductive. You were never just a friend."

"Sweet of you, but what is it about Remus? We've got meeting here soon."

"Right. Right." James stands, appearing too antsy to remain seated. Shakes out his hands. "Okay, well, you recall my recent, er, late nights?"

"Yes. Well."

He flicks his eyes to mine, then away; focuses on the tops of his hands, spread one over the other. "Well, it's because of Remus. He's—" A chasm of quiet. "He's sick."

A yarn of unease unravels in my abdomen. Discordant parts of Remus' behavior throughout all the years I've been in school with him—especially the past year—line up in my mind, waiting for something to link them together, make a clear picture.

I open my mouth, close it quickly.

James is watching me. "You know this, too?"

I haven't, not exactly—though maybe it's just my desire to be incorrect that's holding me back from quantifying the hypothesis. A word would make it real. And I want—more than anything—for it not to be real. For everything to just be normal, for Remus to have a normal sort of sickness, something curable, like a cold.

"Maybe," I whisper. "But I really want to be wrong."

James rubs a hand over his face. "Then you're probably right."

I shut my eyes. If only shutting things out were that easy.

"How did it happen?"

"He was attacked." His voice is a low and sweeping draft. "His father...was privy to certain information about a murder trial, and when the defendant got off, wrongfully, Mr. Lupin was very vocal about his opposition. And the man—" He swallows deftly. I stare at the agitated workings of his throat. "Wanted to punish him for telling the truth. So he attacked Remus, and...he was infected."

Quick, hard nausea. I stretch an arm out over my stomach. "How old was he?"

He pauses long enough for me to know the answer will be upsetting. "Five."

"Oh, god."

"Yeah."

"And you—when did you find out?"

"Second year."

He's lived with this for a long time. Remus has lived with this for a long time. I'm sick thinking of all the hiding he's had to do, the secret-keeping—and not to mention the disease, its violent origin, having to live in a society actively seeking to ostracize anyone inflicted—and the terrible pain of transformation, against will. That lack of autonomy. That gross, unnecessary injustice.

"Jesus." I repeat, looking up at James.

"I'm sorry, I should've picked a better—"

"No, it's okay, I'm really glad you told me, and I've a million questions, but—"

"Meeting."

I sigh. "Meeting."

He steps forward and grips my upper arms. "He's okay, now, though, you don't need to be worried about him. I—I know it sounds grim, but he's learned to deal with it. He's strong."

I bite my lip. "Alright."

"Alright?"

I push off the table and wrap my arms around him firmly. "Alright."

"Psst. Evans."

I don't look up. "Still bothering me?"

"Still." A beat of silence. From a table next to ours, someone snickering. The soft thump of parchment being thrown at a forehead or arm. "How did you know about Sirius and Remus? You said I've got eyes, but what does that mean?"

Still don't look up. "If I tell you, will you quit bothering me?"

"Solemnly swear."

I exhale. Cross one leg over the other. "Remus looks at Sirius like...you look at me."

His mouth parts into two halves of a whole.

"And," I continue. "I saw them holding hands under the table once."

"Huh."

"Satisfied?"

"Huh."

His quill is scratching a rhythm different than writing. I look at his parchment. He's drawing the outline of an animal, antlered and noble. "Deer?"

His eyes are dark gold, now, like wheat harvested in the shade of nighttime. "Stag."

I remember a summer afternoon when we paused on a forest path to watch a doe and her fawn, hidden in tall yellow grass. He has their eyes, now: Unblinking, unafraid. Beckoning approach.

"You're still thinking of the fate-maps."

He nods. "What does it mean, to you?"

I think of the fortune—which felt, upon solving, like just another thing that needed decoding. As blood braids bone, the long gilded spilling bright. Tasked, perishing. Evermore: Anima. Cervus.

"It feels like it could apply to anyone, really," I answer truthfully. "Blood and bone being fairly universal concepts, as well as light, and dying, being tasked with living—and, well, souls, deers, etc. Not sure on the last note."

James touches his sketch with a slow finger. I swallow. There is something else: A tiny pressure, pressing me forward. "I see myself in there, a bit. My Patronus charm takes the form of a doe—so, deer, soul, etc."

He looks up at me slowly. Something new in his eyes.

"What?"

The parchment turns, slides toward me. He points at the stag. "My Patronus."

I feel a cleft form between What I Thought I Knew and What I Have Yet To Learn. I feel washed in something cold.

"Little eerie, no?" I can tell James is straining to hide his enthusiasm. I envy him his easy belief, like the bright rush of using magic; faith in the invisible.

This is hard for me—but I want to feel what he feels. I reach out. Knot his fingers between my knuckles; skin pulled tight over bone. If I squint close enough, I can almost see the roar of blood beneath.

James

She is warm. Saying my name like something to forgive. Threading fingers through my hair. I lift my shirt from her hips; kiss each slope. Her breath leaves in waves. I want to tell her I love her. I tell her I love your sweet thighs. Trace the map of her legs with gentle palms. She flushes under pressing fingers, pressing tongue, body restless, yearning. I taste her center, and she gasps, I feel the flight of my own pulse, and the myth that is always remaking itself, so bright in its retellings: bodies aren't just bodies, bodies are stars—bodies will heat until they explode. I want to tell her I love her. I tell her You taste so good. I am no poet. I have only my hands and her trust. Her soft calling. The pleasure and quaking and cry. I want to tell her I love her. I want to tell her I love her. I hold her till the spinning stops and the stars still and the ceiling is dark overhead. Not a sky—just a ceiling.