I hope everyone had a happy, safe, merry xmas!

I don't want anyone to think I'm anti-journalist. I'm really not, I just know Harry had problems with The Prophet specifically, so, GUESS WHAT, Lily's not a fan either.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter. Art work by the awesome Meg (tumblr: anxiouspineapples)

Fallout

Day After Christmas, 6th Year

The air in Lily's room was sombre when James knocked on her door that night, finding a blanket-wrapped Lily in a chair by her window. Lily had been sitting in that very spot for a few hours, watching the snow and mulling over her fate. It pained her to know that if the attack hadn't happened, if she and James had still been blissfully unaware of dumb things like prophecies and plots for world domination, they would probably be outside right now: pelting Sirius and Marlene with snowballs in an all-out snow war or maybe building snowmen and igloos. (She knew with near certainty that James would then have tried to persuade her to shag in said igloo — and he wouldn't have had to try very hard.) But alas, that was no longer their reality.

"May I come in?" Lily knew he must have been festering in the same uneasy feeling considering he hadn't just used the wall to enter her room. "Course."

James walked up to her more hesitantly than she'd ever seen him do before, sitting at the very edge of her bed, facing her. "How are you?"

She let out a small huff. "Probably as good as you."

"So bloody brilliantly," he replied sarcastically.

"Yep." Lily held her knees to her chest tightly. This sucks.

"Can I do anything?" James asked earnestly, hazel eyes looking at her hopefully.

"James, don't." Lily's voice was chipped.

He looked genuinely confused. "Don't what?"

Fuck, he's gonna make me fully fucking say it. Come on, James… "You know what."

His eyes widened dramatically. "Actually, I really don't. Tell me."

She studied him critically. How was he going to pretend like everything hadn't just shattered around them?

He clearly didn't like her loaded look. "What?" he asked her, frustratedly running a hand through his hair. The action seemed jerky and awkward as he clearly wasn't used to doing things with his left arm. Her silence stretched on, not knowing how to start. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"James." One word. One syllable. One sound of heartbreaking finality.

His features started twitching, shifting, fighting emotions that were clearly threatening to overwhelm him. His eyes shut tightly as he took a deep breath. "What, Lily?"

So he wasn't going to let her take the easy route out of this. There was a good bout of silence as two stubborn people on the opposite ends of a spectrum waited each other out. Surprisingly (to her at least), James broke first. "Don't do this." Lily hated just how vulnerable he sounded.

"Do what?"

"Pull back. Shut me out. All of it." James was daring her to hold his eye contact with the intensity of his words. "Don't put that wall back up, Lils. Let me in."

Lily scoffed. "I think I've let you in plenty of times."

"No," James spoke vehemently. "No, you don't get to deflect right now; you don't get to banter away the seriousness of this because you're afraid."

Lily felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. How did he always do this? How did he get so good at reading her? It wasn't fair. "What, and you're not?" she spat.

"Not what?"

"You're not scared shitless right now?" Lily heard her pitch rising.

James leaned into her over his knees. "Of course I am, Lily. But I'm not going to use it as an excuse to run away—"

"It's not an excuse!" she nearly yelled. "James. He's going to kill me. You understand that right?!"

"Yeah, I heard—"

"But did you understand it, James?"

He snorted. "Yes, I speak English, Lily—"

"Okay, so then you get it," Lily clasped her hands and tapped them anxiously against her chin.

"No," James replied defiantly. "Actually I don't. Explain it to me."

Why is he being so fucking difficult right now? Lily drew in a deep breath. "You get why this," she couldn't look at him while she pointed between them, "can't happen anymore."

"Because?"

Well, at least if he's being a dick, it makes it a little easier to break both of our hearts. "Because there's no point." The roughness of her words left a metallic tinge in the room, cutting them both deeply. "I'm sorry James," she was looking at the ceiling now, "but I can't drag someone down with me. It isn't right."

"Bullshit."

Her eyes finally snapped back to his face. He looked torn between anger and resistance. "It's not bullshit, you've already gotten hurt because of me! They nearly destroyed your goddamn wand arm!"

"So you're the one stealing my say in things now?"

"What?" Lily asked sincerely confused.

"This whole time you made such a big deal about me worrying about your safety, and respecting your independence, and the first time, the literal first time, something might negatively affect me, and you say I don't get to decide for myself what I want to do?"

Lily's jaw opened and closed uselessly, at a complete loss at how to respond. This is so different, isn't it? "That's not true. I've been putting you in danger before this even happened. I'm a Muggle-born, and you're a Pureblood—"

"So? I don't care!"

"That doesn't mean other people don't! And fine, that was one thing, but—"

"Wait," James interrupted incredulously, "were you seriously worried about that? About our blood statuses?" He spoke the final words like it was the dumbest, most archaic concept in the world.

Lily's face contorted in what felt like a million little ways. "Yes! How can I not? Being associated with me has always been a risk!" But now it's gotten a thousand times worse. "James." Her tone had turned pleading. She needed him to understand this; she couldn't follow through on her decision alone, she knew that. "I've just been given a death sentence." Her breathing rattled. "It sucks, but it is the way it's apparently got to be—" he made like he was going to interrupt her, so she powered on faster, "but you? You don't have to die!" She pushed her hair back, making her body into an even tighter ball on the armchair. "This is so stupid. We're not together. It's okay. You can just move on—"

Something in James got triggered and he slid off the bed, moving to his knees in front of her. "Hey. Look at me," he demanded, holding onto her chair with his good hand. "Look at me."

She reluctantly did so. He looked so serious.

"You can tell when I'm lying, yeah?" She nodded. Don't. She could see in his eyes where he was about to go and her heart jumped to her throat. "I love you," he whispered ardently, and Lily felt the words hitting every corner of her soul. Holy shit… he said it… Like not while we're having sex. He loves me. He gave a small sad smile as Lily felt tears welling in her eyes. "I love you, Lily Evans, and you know that." His hand migrated to her knees. "So you know why I have to say, fuck your logic and your noble attempts to keep me out of danger, because I don't care. I choose you. I'll choose you every goddamn time too; I'd like to see Voldemort try to stop me from being with you." He gave her knee a squeeze. "We're gonna fight this. And we're gonna win." She wondered how he sounded so damn confident.

Lily let out a little chuckle, despite her nose getting all snotty with his silly little love declaration. Lily had to see it that way, because she didn't know if she could currently handle taking it any other way. "You've got to make this super hard for me, don't you?" she joked.

He gave her a somehow even more melancholy smile as he rested his chin on her knees. "It's what I'm best at."

Lily ran her hand through his hair, relishing in its silky, messy goodness that she'd grown obsessed with. You ruin everything you touch, Evans. You're only going to take him down with you. You're going to ruin his life… "I don't want you to get hurt, James," she confessed softly.

"Then don't dump me."

She laughed despite herself. He really was something else.

Sensing they weren't going to get anywhere on this topic tonight, Lily brought him back to his room for his wound's nightly treatment. James seemed surprised she was willing to still do it, but Lily scolded him, pointing out that she'd never let a disagreement get in the way of her caring for him. James had shifted uncomfortably at that, and seemed to be flexing harder than usual while she applied the paste. She wasn't meeting his eye, too lost in her own spiraling thoughts.

After she'd taken care of his injury, she turned to the wall to retreat to her bed for the night.

"Pineapple," James said faintly behind her, and she watched as the wall glowed purple in front of her face.

"James," she reprimanded, not turning to face him. "That's wrong, you can't do that."

The ache in his voice nearly broke her. "I wanted you to stop what you were doing because I hated it. Isn't that what a safe word's for?" She stood there frozen so he added, "Don't leave."

Against her better judgement, Lily lay down by his side and let him pull her in close.

When Lily woke up the next morning, she knew something was wrong. She didn't know how to describe it other than just a feeling that permeated all the way to her bones.

Not wanting to wake James, she slipped out of his bed as stealthily as possible, grabbed a warm dressing robe from her room, and padded down the stairs, ready to read The Prophet in the early dawn light. When she finally settled on the couch in front of the fire she'd just lit, a fresh tea in her hands, she unfurled the paper — and screamed.

Either her voice or the shattering of glass must have alerted Sirius to trouble, because five seconds later, there was a popping noise and her friend was standing there in just his boxers, eyes puffy, looking around the room frantically. He must have just woken up and Apparated down, first thing. He lowered his wand when he saw Lily sitting there, in front of a puddle of tea, staring at the paper shellshocked.

"Evans, what's wrong?"

Lily didn't say anything, only handed him the front page. Sirius' eyes widened as he read. "Is this…?" he trailed off awkwardly.

Lily nodded. Oh poor, pure Adam. "Adam's family. He's the only one who survived."

An hour later, Marlene, Lily, James, and Sirius were all sitting at a thoroughly depressing breakfast, none of them really knowing what to say. They all had been aware that there was a war brewing, but to have almost an entire family, and one they actually knew, murdered? It made everything feel so much more real.

Lily's first priority after finding out the news had been writing to Adam. She hadn't even known what the hell to say other than she was here if he needed her. She tried to put herself back in his headspace, as horrible as that felt, because she'd been there (minus a sibling), but there really was nothing to say. All she could do was remind him she was someone he could reach out to… if that helped him.

"It's just so terrible," Marlene said, clutching her mug tightly. "Like, why them?"

The article had been awful. "PROMINENT WIZARDING FAMILY SLAIN" it had been titled with a large moving picture of the Dark Mark in the sky over an otherwise lovely looking home. It wasn't until Lily had gotten to the third paragraph that she'd even know that Adam was the 'sole-surviving Paxton' because he'd been out of the house during the attack. Fuck these Prophet reporters for putting sensationalism over journalism. Lily's heart had soared in relief right before it had plummeted through the crust of the earth for her friend. Adam must have come home to find his whole family slaughtered. How could you ever truly recover from that?

Lily had discovered through the article that both of Adam's parents were Ministry officials and had both been Head Students while at Hogwarts, just like his brother Paxton. Lily couldn't look at the family photo they'd included below the fold for more than a couple seconds. At first, she noticed just how warm and happy Adam's parents appeared. They were radiating sunshine out of every pore, just like she'd seen Adam do that one time in Herbology. But the longer she looked, the more her gaze was drawn to Paxton's smile lighting up the frame with his unnaturally bright teeth. He literally just wanted to fucking 'get his groove on,' and you voted down his proposal of a winter formal that he petitioned so hard for. It was probably the last chance that boy had to just fucking dance and you shot it down. She couldn't believe he was dead. A boy who had asked her out, who she'd rejected, who she'd seen in the halls of Hogwarts for 6 years now, gone. And for what? They were supposed to be children.

Lily hadn't felt like a child in a long time.

"I don't think these psychos have any rhyme or reason, Mar," Sirius said darkly. "They just want chaos."

James' hand unexpectedly landed on Lily's shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked gently.

"Yeah," she muttered. "I'm just worried about Adam."

James didn't say anything, which she figured was for the best. She knew at the very least that James understood the pain of losing a parent. Even Lily had no idea just how devastated Adam must be though. Because, yes, she still had Petunia, but also, her parents hadn't been bloody murdered.

Eros arrived soon after, dropping off a letter into Lily's lap. It was short.

Lily. I'm at Hogwarts. Please come, Adam.

She didn't know how, but somehow her heart broke for him all over again.

Without skipping a beat, or letting Eros leave (poor guy), she ripped Adam's parchment in half and used the blank piece to scribble a quick note to Dumbledore alerting him that she was coming back shortly via his fireplace. Eros flew right back out the window and all three of her friends were looking at her in varying states of worry.

"I have to go," she said, rising from her seat.

"Where?" James stood with her, looking nervous for her answer.

"To Hogwarts, Adam asked me to come back."

Sirius stood up across the table. "Lily, you have to think about your own safety. Dumbledore said—"

"Having me at Hogwarts was Dumbledore's first choice," she cut him off. "Besides, Adam needs me."

Marlene stayed in her chair, eyes darting between her three friends.

James looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn't, so Lily turned to him. "It's the right thing to do. You know it. I'm one of his only friends, and I know a little bit of what he's going through." She didn't have to explain it to James, but she wanted to.

James grimaced. There was a long beat. Finally he swallowed, and spoke, "Can I help you pack?"

Lily leaned in to kiss his cheek gratefully. "No, I got it." She slunk out the door, and to her room.

Less than an hour later, she spun into Dumbledore's office, luggage in hand. Her goodbyes hadn't been too grandiose of an affair considering she'd see them all in a week and a half, but still. Sirius had assured her, with a whole bunch of winking, that he'd make sure that James' injuries were properly cared for. Marlene had hugged her tightly and told her she'd see her very soon. And James — it had actually been quite hard saying bye to James. She thought he was going in for a cheek kiss as she stood next to the fireplace, his hand on her hip, but he angled her face to him last second, and let his lips linger against hers for a drawn out moment. He was saying so much to her through that kiss. When Lily pulled back, brows furrowed, she noticed both Marlene and Sirius had turned away. (Bless them.)

"Be careful," James whispered, giving her one last kiss to the forehead. As she watched their faces twirl away while in the green fire, she couldn't help but feel her own pang of (relatively tiny compared to others') loss. This holiday had changed everything for her. She felt like she'd gained James, only to be forced to let him go. It didn't help that they'd left things on such shaky ground. He'd been so sweet, and perfect, and she wanted to hold on to those feelings — but no. She had to shift to Adam now. Now was not the time to be a shite friend.

"Miss Evans," Dumbledore said sadly. "Welcome back."

"Thank you, Professor," she respond quickly, wiping the ash off of her new cloak. "Is he in the Hufflepuff common room?"

Dumbledore nodded his head gravely. "I'll send one of the portraits over to alert him of your imminent arrival."

Lily thanked him and rushed her trunk back to her dorm before she raced down to the basement to find him. He was already there, outside of the Hufflepuff entrance, icy eyes glowing with tears as he turned to face her.

"Lily," was all he managed to croak out before sobs racked his body, and Lily engulfed him in her arms.

The next few days passed painfully. Adam didn't cry any more, but got angrier and angrier, not that Lily could blame him. Everyone grieved differently. She didn't even find it that odd that he didn't want to attend his family's group funeral. If she'd been at all coherent at the time of her parents', she may have skipped out herself, not wanting to confront that grave reality. The misery at his whole family's funeral was sure to be near unbearable. Lily had taken great care to make sure that he didn't see The Prophet the following day. They'd run a near full page picture of three coffins laying side by side with the title "ARE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY NEXT?"

On one of the many days they spent in the Hufflepuff common room, Adam told her the entire gruesome story. It had been the night after Christmas and Paxton and him had gotten into a huge row about something dumb that he couldn't even remember, so he'd left his home in a huff, yelling out to his parents that he was 'going on a booze run so I can deal with this idiot!' Those were the last words he'd ever said to his family.

"So, Firewhiskey saved my life," he said darkly. When he'd come back to his house a couple hours later, the Mark had been over his roof and he'd found his family strewn across his home with glassy-eyes and horrified expressions — dead. "I can't explain it Lily. It was like…"

"You don't have to," she responded, pulling him into another hug.

Adam wanted to go back to the special spot by the lake on the edge of the forest, where the rock jutted out — the very same spot where they'd harped on about their crappy siblings — but every time they left the castle, Aurors tailed them. Adam would get pissed, saying there was no way Death Eaters would just show up to Hogwarts to finish off the last Paxton. Lily never mentioned that the heightened security may just be for her sake as well.

"Have they got any leads?" Lily asked gently one day in the Great Hall as they ate a leisurely brunch, away from the prying eyes of Aurors.

"No," Adam replied sharply. "My family was just as anti-th—" he stopped abruptly looking overwhelmed. "Sorry, it just makes no sense to me."

Lily reached for his hand, not at all put off by his cutting tone. "Wanna do something fun today?" They'd been distracting themselves with holiday homework, but even that could only last for so long.

"Yeah." He shot her a small smile. "What did you have in mind?"

"Whatever you want," she sang back.

Whatever he wanted ended up being getting plastered, and you know what? Lily wasn't judging. Was his coping mechanism healthy? Most certainly not, but at the end of the day, they were 16 years old and needed an outlet for this unbearable pain that had just been dumped on their shoulders. Lily didn't know if it was right, but focusing on Adam's problems kept her from having to delve too deeply into her own. Besides, she knew all her worries would still be there come January when her classmates returned to Hogwarts.

"What's the point you think?" Adam asked thickly from the floor where he was sprawled on his back. He passed her back the bottle of Firewhiskey they were sharing. "Of life I mean."

Lily took a hefty gulp on the couch. Well, there's a big question. "I dunno. Just live the best life you can. Make people happy. Leave a positive impact."

Adam rolled onto his stomach. "Make people happy? Really?"

"Sure." Lily suddenly felt a little self-conscious at his reaction, so she took another swig, "Why not? No point being an ass in life."

Adam snorted. "Speaking of asses, how was your holiday at Potter's?"

Lily pushed herself more upright in the cushions threatening to swallow her whole. "Did you really just make that segue?"

Adam grinned as he stole his bottle back. "Yes, I did, Lily. It was too perfect to pass up."

Lily scrunched her nose. "I didn't know you disliked James."

"Ooh no! He's James now!" Adam slapped a hand over his eyes. "You're in deep then."

Lily was at a complete loss for words. She knew she was in fact 'in deep,' but… she didn't think it was a topic she wanted to broach with Adam of all people.

"I'm surprised, honestly," Adam continued, more to the alcohol in his hand than to her. "I didn't peg you as someone who fell for arseholes."

"James isn't an arsehole." As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She sounded so defensive. She just couldn't help it; how James had made her feel that holiday was worth sticking up for.

"Yeah, okay," Adam said rolling his eyes. "Sure he's not." When Lily didn't respond to him, he turned to her incredulously. "Oh come on! He's always hounding you, and embarrassing you, and trying to scare off other guys away from you. That's what we normal people call an arse."

Lily knew Adam would never be saying these things if he were sober. She pushed away the déjà vu feeling in her gut that was screaming this was just how she'd felt at the end of her friendship with Snape. She wasn't going to let this deteriorate in the same way. She liked Adam far too much for that. He's going through hell, don't make it about you. Lily took the bottle from him. "All right, I think we've had enough for one night."

Adam chuckled. "Okay, doesn't make what I said any less true." He unsteadily got up to his knees, leaning into her couch cushions. "I just thought you might fancy a nice bloke, s'all."

Well, this was fast turning awkward. It wasn't like Lily could admit that she would fancy just about anything James turned out to be at any given moment — it sounded far too pathetic. No one needed that level of honesty. "All right. Let's get you tucked into bed," she said, thoroughly ignoring his last comment, getting to her feet, and holding her hands out to pull Adam up.

"I got it, I got it," he replied stubbornly, pushing himself up to standing, even if he was swaying. "Night Lily," he said giving her a half-assed salute before he turned to the boys staircase.

"See you at brunch?" she called after him hopefully.

"I'll be there," he slurred before she heard his door snap shut.

She figured it was the first and last time she'd be drinking with this friend; she didn't particularly like the vibe he gave off when he was drunk.

Next Chapter: We Shouldn't