Eighteen Again

by scriibble

After Hogwarts, things fell apart for Lily Evans and James Potter. Three years later, when she shows up in his life to work for the Order, James finds himself pushed back towards her in a situation that's not only dangerous for his life, but also his heart. [First Wizarding War; Second Chances AU]

20. Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

Week Seven (cont.)

James couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so bone-tired. He wanted nothing more than to take Lily upstairs and forget the whole night had ever happened—at least for as long as he could. Yet Dumbledore waited, and he knew that the headmaster probably still sat in the same squashy purple armchair in the den where they'd left him, probably sipping tea and quietly reading. Whatever. He could deal with Dumbledore, because he had to.

He couldn't deal with a full fucking house, and that was what he found that he faced.

The den was full enough that it looked like a mini Order meeting, but the mood of the room was somehow darker than most meetings, save for those where they discussed the most truly awful of things.

Sirius, Remus, and Peter were there, of course. In hindsight, James should have expected it. Sirius and Peter had a chessboard in between them, one they'd pulled from Fleamont's study. Their game looked half over, but mutually ignored. Sirius wore an expression of the deepest brooding as he turned a white rook between his fingers, and when James locked eyes with him—

He and Sirius had been through terrible shit together. How many missions had they gone on where one of them ended up bloodied or bruised, or one of them managed to save the other from ending up that way or worse? How often had Sirius laughed his way through those times, because he always laughed while he dueled, acting as if nothing seriously bad could possibly happen to them? Save for the night of Remus' blood curse, he'd treated each Death Eater interaction almost as a lark.

When James locked eyes with him, he realized that things had gotten real for Sirius, real and horrifying and almost paralyzingly scary.

It had only taken him eighteen months.

The chessboard went flying when Sirius shot up out of his chair. Even though carpet covered the floor, the marble set still made the sound of a small explosion when it came crashing down. Dumbledore—indeed sipping tea in a purple armchair—had his wand out in a flash, but when he caught sight of James and Lily, it looked like he let out a breath he'd held since he'd bid them goodbye. As Sirius launched himself across the room, James heard the rest of them—Gideon and Fabian and Dorcas and Benjy and Remus and Peter—all shout almost at once, and then Sirius was on him, hugging him as he hadn't since Euphemia and Fleamont had died. They had clung to each other then, the only two surviving members of their family, and although neither of them had put that thought to words, James knew it was something they'd both considered more than once in the horrible days and weeks and months that had followed.

Sirius had worried he'd end up all alone, the last surviving member of the Potter family. He hadn't said that when he'd bid James goodbye that evening, although he'd worn an expression of considerable strain, probably both from fear and from words kept carefully locked away.

"You're invincible," Sirius announced, absolute certainty mingling with relief. "You're invincible, mate. That's the only explanation."

Dorcas had launched herself at Lily, and she held her with a grip that looked almost painful. "Of course you look better than I do in my robes, you bitch," James heard her say, tears thick in her voice even through her almost hysterical laughter. "Could you not have come home sooner? Really, Lil? Do you even know how long we sat here, expecting the worst?"

It continued like that for a while. James couldn't remember ever seeing such a joyous reunion between Order members, let alone taking part in one. Even Benjy, who he knew probably the least well of all, beamed at James like they were the best of mates as he thumped him on the back. For once, neither Gideon or Fabian had any joke to toss out to make light of the situation. The closest Gideon got was, "Do you know how bored I'd be without you?" when he picked Lily up in a hug, but he sounded like he meant it. Remus had nothing to say at all, but pure joy all but radiated from him. The same joy radiated from Peter, but it meant more coming from Remus. With the full moon only a few nights away, he'd looked a little grey when James had seen him hours earlier, no doubt due to both his condition and stress. Happiness had wiped any trace of his coming transition from his face, and he looked his age, not so tired and worn down that he could have passed for several years older.

When James thought on it, the sheer intensity of the moment made sense. Had anyone in the Order ever gone to meet Voldemort before? Had any of them even faced him, in battle or otherwise? He had no idea, but he thought not. He and Lily had not only done that, but survived.

"I am unendingly proud of you both," Dumbledore said quietly once the room had settled down. "Nothing about what you've just done was easy. Most would have failed. You succeeded. I never doubted that you would."

Really, James hoped he meant it, because otherwise he'd just sent them off to perhaps face their deaths. Hell, he had sent them off to perhaps face their deaths, but it felt less horrible to think that Dumbledore had known they'd be alright.

"Tell me everything," Dumbledore said as James joined Lily on the settee.

James would do it, he decided before he could even get comfortable. He could give Lily that, and she needed it. She looked on the brink of something, and not something good.

She still helped him. As he began, she leaned up against him, and he put his arm around her automatically. Just holding her made reliving the entire thing somehow more tolerable.

No one looked surprised by the affection, even though they'd rarely acted that way in front of Gideon or Fabian or Dorcas or Dumbledore. The prior three knew, of course—or at least knew that they were shagging, and they'd all seen some affection at different times—but Dumbledore presumably had no idea.

Well, Dumbledore probably had bigger things on his mind than Lily and James' uncertain romantic future. James should have too—he did too—but that had never stopped him from obsessing over her before.

He told the story start to finish, offering up every detail he could think of, save for a few things.

He didn't mention how he and Lily had bantered before meeting Voldemort, of course. No one needed to know about that, although he did kind of want to repeat it all just to see Gideon and Fabian's reactions.

Further, they didn't need to know that, afterwards, he'd seriously contemplated opening all the doors in the Malfoys' manor until he found a room where they could shag.

Aside from those obviously personal things, he also didn't mention that he'd recognized Malfoy Manor as the place where Lily had been tortured. For starters, he had no idea what most of them knew about that event in her life. Beyond that, it wasn't his story to tell. He'd let her say it, if she wanted. Otherwise, he didn't plan to push her on it. Really, nothing could have incentivized him to push her on anything for days.

No one interrupted him, save for a noise here or there. Gideon let out a low whistle when James revealed that Voldemort wanted him as their "poster boy." Fabian echoed that horror with a clear, quiet, "Fuck," when James did his best to repeat verbatim exactly what Voldemort had said about James inspiring the masses.

Apparently they could all say "fuck" in front of Dumbledore. Sirius would be thrilled, once he got over the shock all over his face.

Most of Sirius' shock disappeared in an instant when James got to Snape's entrance. James had expected as much, and had also expected Sirius to cut in, but he hadn't anticipated Remus' reaction.

"No—" Sirius began fiercely, eyes locked on Lily, who looked pointedly away. "Lil, come on—"

"He knows you," Remus cut in. How did he manage to somehow sound scarier than Sirius, despite lacking all of the anger that colored Sirius' tone? He spoke with raw intensity, the sort of emotion that came out from under the surface of his mild manner only rarely. Maybe that was it. When had Remus last looked that absolutely deadly? "He's going to know it's you right away, and he's going to go straight to Voldemort. They'll kill you both. It's not—"

"He already knows it's me."

James had suspected as much—knew as much, really—but it still sent his pulse racing to hear Lily confirm it.

"He knew right away, as soon as I started talking," she said. "I could tell instantly. He could have outed me right then. He didn't, and he won't."

Sirius scoffed, anger mounting. "Are you for real? He hates James. Mate, how did he react once he realized that Lily was the bird beside you? How much does he fucking hate you now?"

Yes, they could all say "fuck," but Sirius didn't look like he enjoyed it.

"He's not thrilled," James admitted. "Thomas Avery tried to make us clear the air. That's what you came up on," he added to Lily, whose back had gone a little rigid under his hand. He stroked between her shoulder blades, willing that tension away, although it didn't drop. "I told him again that I had no problem with him, but—well, you saw his face, love."

"See?" Sirius wore a look of savage triumph, but when he spoke next, James recognized that he'd taken it on to mask his anxiety. "You can't go back. They'll—"

"They'll kill you both," Remus repeated. "You can't trust him, Lily. You can't."

"You know who he is," Dorcas said. She'd scooted to the edge of her armchair, elbows on her knees, body leaned so much forward that it looked like she could topple out at any moment. "You've known for years, Lily. He showed you that, remember? He showed you what he thought of you."

Lily looked like she wanted to scream, or maybe to cry, or both. James would have put his money on both.

But she didn't address any of them. "Professor—" she said, staring at Dumbledore, who met her eyes behind his half-moon glasses. "You know he won't say anything. You know he can't."

Dumbledore lifted a hand in Sirius' direction without even looking that way, as if he knew that Sirius intended to throw out a snarky comment. Said comment died on Sirius' lips even as it formed, halted entirely with that single gesture. "Don't drop your guard around him," Dumbledore instructed Lily. "Not for a second. We can't modify his memory to alter that he recognized you—he'd just recognize you again and again and again if we did—but he needs to believe that at least James is truly in this. As for you—what can we come up with to explain your presence to him?"

Lily thought for a moment, silence thick in the room. "I'm an unwilling participant because I got in over my head." Her posture mirrored Dorcas' as she leaned forward, but she rested her head in her hands, fingers dug into her hair. "Let's say—James and I broke up, like we did."

James stared at her, confused, but Dumbledore picked up what she meant immediately. "Part of that came from his changing beliefs on blood status," he said, and James understood then. They built a narrative together, much in the same way that he and the other Marauders often had back at Hogwarts in order to avoid trouble after getting caught in some snafu or another. "It would be best to create memories of him saying those sorts of things, so you can pull on them if you ever need to."

"Right." Lily continued speaking towards the carpet. "Right, that makes sense. So we broke up because of his changing views, but he still thought I was—I don't know, 'one of the good ones,' like Sev always did." She sounded increasingly bitter, a strange change from the almost listless way she'd spoken before. James caught Sirius' eyes on him the second he heard 'Sev' fall from her mouth. His expression—mouth pulled tight in a sour grimace, eyes glittering mockingly—said everything James felt when she called him that. "But whatever. We broke up, but then we ran into each other and—what, Professor? How do we explain this? He'd never believe I'd actually be okay with dating someone with those views."

"You were disguised as Diana but nearly got caught out. James was there. He helped you somehow, because he recognized your voice, just as Severus did. Maybe—" Dumbledore looked at James suddenly. His eyes looked painfully bright, and James could almost see the wheels moving in his mind. They spun from moving so quickly. "Declan Avery saw you in Borgin and Burkes, didn't he?"

James nodded, and he felt himself catch up all at once, as if a piece finally clicked into place in his brain. "Yes. So maybe Declan was there when I stepped in, and he invited Lily to the Rosiers' like he actually did, and it snowballed from there."

"He'll ask why we don't just stage a breakup." Lily's voice came out muffled. She'd put her face in her hands.

"Because you're key to me getting my Wizengamot seat. Abraxas Malfoy actually saidthat. He said knowing that I'd taken up with you, since people know you around Knockturn, had helped them trust me." Abraxas had given Lucius a particularly steely stare as he'd said it, as if he'd had personal issues with Lucius' lack of trust in James—or perhaps just with the fact that he'd voiced those views aloud to James' face. "I asked you to help me. You owed me, so you're doing it."

That meant that Snape could never, ever catch them snogging in some random corridor. Noted. Hopefully Future James would remember that note, and have the maturity to resist setting Snape up to catch them going at it. Oh, he'd revel in Snape's misery, even while knowing that it potentially put their lives at risk.

"But I'm thinking about leaving." Even though Lily said it as they mapped out a narrative, and James knew that, just hearing her say the words still cut. "I'm thinking about leaving, but I'm waiting around for—what?"

"Rue's estate to close up," Fabian said. Lily looked up at the sound of his voice, as she hadn't for anyone else. James tried not to take that too personally. "Because you are. I know it's not been easy. You can say that without telling him much."

Remus drew them back to the crux of the matter. "You can't trust Snape, Lily. No matter what lies you plan to feed him—do you really think that will be enough? He's built his life around being a Death Eater. You might have been important to him once, but now nothing is more important to him than Voldemort. He's even worse now than he was at Hogwarts. He has to be, since he's that far in. You know that."

It kept coming back to that, to what she knew, and James saw why. If she hadn't shown him her memory of her last time at the Malfoys' manor, he would have thought the same, because she did know all the things they said. Years before, she'd sacked off Snape as a friend for a reason. They'd all seen it happen, save for Gideon and Fabian, because he and his friends and Dorcas had all been present at that unforgettable day by the Great Lake at Hogwarts that had served for the final nail in the coffin of their friendship. Even after that, she might have never blamed Snape for his blood purity beliefs quite as she did the other Slytherins, but she'd certainly never trusted him again.

After Remus spoke, silence fell over the room for the first time. For the first time, they all mutually agreed to hear what Lily had to say.

"He can't out us," she said finally. She sat up straight, shoulders squared as if ready for a fight. "I'm not going to say anything more on this, but—if he told anyone who I was, I could get him killed right along with us. I have something on him. I don't have it in me to use it, which I'm sure he knows, but I still don't think he'd take that chance. At the same time, even if he hates James, I do trust that he wouldn't want to see anything happen to me. You all don't need to know why I think that, or to trust him. You just need to trust me. Trust that I know what I'm talking about, because I do. Professor, tell them you agree with me."

Dumbledore didn't hesitate. "I agree with you," he said, and Sirius sighed, the most disrespectful behavior James could ever remember him exhibiting towards Dumbledore. "But I meant it. You still can't drop your guard for a second."

Remus wasn't ready to give it up either. "Professor—"

James cut him off. "I think she's right," he said. If the situation weren't so serious, he would have taken a moment to appreciate the identical looks of shock on Remus, Sirius, and Peter's faces. Dorcas mirrored their expressions. Hell, Gideon and Fabian did too, and they hadn't ever even seen James interact with Snape before. "He would have done it tonight if he was going to, but beyond that—he won't sacrifice her to get to me." Out of the terrifying viper's nest of Malfoy Manor, James could see that clearly. Snape had fucking attacked his allies to get her out of Malfoy Manor two years prior, even killing at least one. Maybe they'd even been friends, Snape and the bearded man James had seen lying dead on the drawing room floor in Lily's memory. It hadn't mattered to Snape. He obviously hadn't cared who stood close enough to the fireplace to potentially die, not when it meant getting Lily out alive.

Fuck, Voldemort himself had sat within that range, and he'd gotten thrown halfway across the room thanks to Snape. If that didn't speak volumes about Snape's intent to protect Lily at all costs, James didn't know what did.

"I'll convince him." Lily's mouth had taken on a grim, determined shape. "He'll believe me, because I'll be telling him things he wants to hear. He'll want to hear that James and I aren't really together. He'll want to hear that I'd never go back there. People typically believe what they want to hear."

"I'm sure you'll have no difficulty playing that part," Sirius said dryly. He still looked angry at it all, but he'd stopped arguing. James had expected as much. Unfair or not, Sirius would push back at anyone else—even Dumbledore—far more than he'd push back at James. "You have years of practice at hating James, don't you?"

She smiled at him, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "And you. I have years of practice at hating you. I might throw some of that in there too, just for good measure."

A little of the irritation lifted off of Sirius' brow. He returned her smile with a ghost of his own. "Good. Make sure it's really brutal, and tell me what he says."

"Can I access one of your memories?" Dumbledore asked, cutting the banter short. It didn't matter much. Under James' hand, Lily's back had relaxed a little, presumably because she knew that the disagreements had at least temporarily passed. For someone who could argue and fight with the best of them, she'd always hated doing it. "I know it's invasive, and it's something I'll only ask when you face Voldemort directly. I trust your recollections—truly—but it's important for me to see your interactions with him as closely as I can."

James volunteered immediately, before Lily could even open her mouth. Again, he'd give that to her. Unfortunately, giving that to her meant reliving the entire conversation in the Malfoys' drawing room, and just when he'd never wanted to forget it more.

He got to relive the horror that he'd just entered the place where Lily's torture had taken place, although his thoughts fortunately didn't reveal that. He'd worked hard to tamp down that thought in his head the second it had occurred. All that remained was heart-palpitating anxiety that focused inexplicably more on the fireplace than it did on Voldemort himself, at least at first.

He had to relive his realization that Voldemort was handsome and likable and charming, and that he'd found himself craving his approval almost immediately.

He had to relive every glance he'd given to the twirling of Voldemort's wand, which looked as hypnotic as he remembered.

He had to relive Voldemort listing his positive attributes to him, and ruminating over exactly how he planned to exploit them in order to make chaos and death and destruction more palatable to the masses.

He had to relive Severus fucking Snape stepping into the drawing room, and watch his face shift to hatred the second he caught sight of James.

He had to relive Lily smoothing over the tense moment when Snape looked almost as if he might refuse Voldemort's orders to have her help him, and James could again almost pinpoint the moment that Snape figured out her identity.

Once he and Lily had left the drawing room and started down the corridor, James pushed Dumbledore from his memory. He found it came fairly easily, although he also doubted Dumbledore tried too hard to remain in his mind, thank Merlin. He absolutely didn't need the headmaster seeing and feeling everything that had passed between him and Lily in those minutes afterwards. After all, Dumbledore had probably already accidentally seen his thoughts on shagging her once before. He didn't need it to go down a second time.

When reality righted itself behind his glasses, James found Lily absent from his side. She'd gone to one of the den's dark windows, which she'd thrown open. A barn owl had flown inside and perched on a bookshelf, and she untied the letter from its leg.

It was from Snape, of course. James knew that immediately without any outside confirmation.

She read the letter's contents aloud. "'Tomorrow at 3:00. The park.' That's it." But that wasn't it. She also held a green, fan-shaped leaf, which she lifted to her nose with a strange sort of smile. "Lady's Mantle," she added, almost more to herself than anyone else, and when she caught the others looking at her, her smile dropped. "It's a thing we used to do with potions ingredients," she explained, shifting her weight. "He means the park near where we grew up. Professor, I'm assuming someone has to go with me?"

Dumbledore inclined his head. "I'd appreciate that, yes."

James found Lily's eyes on him. "You're not to make yourself known unless I specifically call for you, and if you can't do that, I'll bring Remus."

"Remus is next on your list?" Sirius asked, sounding more than a little insulted, but James ignored both his words and the grin Remus shot Sirius' way.

"Whatever you say, love." He watched her visibly relax a little, as if she'd expected him to start in with counterpoints, but he knew she'd offered him a pretty great deal. He had no terms to improve. It also helped that she'd looked immediately to him to accompany her, not anyone else, and he had to assume she knew that.

Dumbledore left not long after, with promises to return the moment he could the next day. On his way out, he clasped James' shoulder, which hit James with a sudden, intense memory of his dad. He hadn't expected it, and that made the lump in his throat hurt even worse than if he could have prepared himself.

Lily had one last thing to say. "Professor." She hadn't returned to sit by James, but remained by the window after she'd closed it, her arms crossed over her chest in a way that made it look like she hugged herself. Her teeth caught her brilliant red lip for a moment as Dumbledore paused by the den's exit. "I don't know if you recognized it from James' memory, but—that's the place they took me."

Everything about Dumbledore sharpened, from his expression to his posture. "You're quite certain?" he asked quietly.

"Yes. I'll never forget it."

"Of course." Dumbledore sighed, and James couldn't remember him ever sounding wearier. Despite looking like he'd lived several lifetimes, he had more energy than anyone else James knew. For the first time, he briefly sounded his age. "That's important to know. Thank you for telling me, and…thank you for staying once you realized it. I can't imagine that that was easily done."

"It wasn't."

"You make Gryffindor proud."

That coaxed a little smile out of her, and Dumbledore swept away, long robes trailing behind him.

The room fell uncomfortably silent after he left.

"What do you need?" Fabian asked finally, dark eyes on Lily. He made it sound like the most serious question he'd ever asked—although, given his typical outlook on life, maybe it was. "A laugh? A cry? Whiskey? Dory to hold your hair back while you throw up? Whatever you need, it's yours." He very clearly meant it.

She smiled at him, her eyes soft. "I'm alright. I just need to go to bed."

"There's no way you're okay. I wish you'd just get mad or cry or something, because it's not—"

"Please don't tell me how I should feel or what I should do. Not tonight. Not ever, but especially not tonight. I know you mean well, but I can't deal with any of that tonight, Fabian. If you want to come back tomorrow and try to pry it out of me, great. I just really don't want to feel or think more tonight. Let me have that."

Yelling wouldn't have been more effective. She just sounded done.

Dorcas intervened. "James, take her to bed already."

James wanted absolutely nothing more.

Sirius quashed those plans. "Mate, will you stay for a second?" he asked, and it only took a single look at his face for James to entirely set aside his own selfish desire to get Lily to himself. "I won't hold you back, Lil—I'm honestly afraid of you most of the time, let alone right now—"

A little of the tension left her shoulders. Sirius just did that.

"See, this is why I've always done my best to scare you. It's for nights like tonight." Yet she smiled a little as she said it, and she spread hugs around before she left. It started with Dorcas coming at her again, and ballooned out from there. Even Peter hugged her, something James wasn't sure they'd ever done before that night. It looked a little strange to see, and she lacked the ease with him that she had in embracing everyone else, but she looked perhaps the most touched at the gesture from him.

The group broke up after that. James heard talk of returning in the morning, although he really hoped they didn't mean it. He loved his friends—and he considered them all his friends—but he very much just wanted to stay in bed with Lily until the late morning, crawl out of bed to help her cook, and then maybe do some work in the greenhouse or fly.

Things had gone insanely domestic, hadn't they?

Sirius hung back, hands in his pockets, and followed James to the bottom of the stairs. "Was Reg there?" he asked. In front of anyone else—even Remus or Peter—James knew Sirius would have tried to hide the note of longing in his voice.

He might make jokes about taunting Regulus, and he might swear up and down that he hated him along with his parents, but he didn't. He never had, even though James knew that he'd tried. Sirius had never once looked back with regret on leaving Walburga and Orion behind. But Regulus? He'd never said as much, but James knew he had.

"Yeah." James shrugged off the jacket of his dress robes. "Your parents too."

Sirius waved that away. "Do you think Reg—" His voice faltered for a second. "Do you think he's in it?" he asked, and it sounded like he struggled with the words. "Do you think he's a Death Eater?"

James knew very well what Sirius wanted him to say.

He really wished he could say it.

"Yes," he said instead, and Sirius closed his eyes briefly. "I'm sorry, mate. The way he hangs around the rest of them—he's in." He paused, uncertain. "He mentioned you tonight. He said they couldn't trust me because I hang around blood traitors, and I told him that he didn't know what you believed anymore, since he hadn't spoken to you in years. I don't think he'll think much on that, but I've been trying to make it seem like you have more of an issue with Walburga and Orion than the Dark Arts. That's probably shit, and I'm sorry, but—I just can't think of any other way to explain why you're my best mate even though you've openly defected from your family. Not when I'm trying to act like I'm all-in with the Dark Arts."

He really had no idea how Sirius would react.

He laughed, of course.

It wasn't a real laugh, but more of a snort under his breath, one caught somewhere between genuine and humorless. "Don't tell Dumbledore that. Can't you just see him asking me to make some public attempt at reconciliation so I can go pal around with Voldemort too?"

Honestly? James could. If Dumbledore thought it would work, he wouldn't hesitate to ask Sirius to do that. Sirius would hesitate to say yes, of course, but James knew without question that he'd agree in the end, even though it would mean more emotional pain than he could imagine.

"Will you keep an eye on Reg?" Sirius asked. He pulled a face, handsome features twisted, and for one wild moment James saw Regulus looking back at him, as he had when hatred had read in his expression. "Don't do or say anything, obviously, but—he still seems like such a kid."

He was twenty. They were twenty-two. They were all kids.

James gave him his word, of course. After all, had he ever told Sirius no?

Sirius hugged him again before he left, and James felt better for it.

He felt better for seeing Lily too, even though she looked the definition of dejected when he found her in her room.

She sat at the chair of her desk, heels removed from her feet and set beside her, the fragment of parchment from Snape in one hand and the leaf of Lady's Mantle in the other. He didn't think she looked at either, although he couldn't tell. Her hair had fallen in front of her face, and she made no move to push it back.

"Alright, Evans?" he asked after stepping inside and shutting the door. She'd left it open, presumably for him, and even though it was the smallest of gestures, it still touched him a little.

She looked up at him and emptied her hands quickly, setting the parchment and leaf on her desk almost as if he'd caught her doing something shameful. Even though the rest of her face remained passive, almost blank, sadness had taken over her eyes entirely. "No. Are you?"

"No."

He watched her, waiting for a response.

In return, she watched him back, and with the silence came a tension that he hadn't felt with her in recent days, a tension that grew and grew with each second that passed.

"Do you want me to stay?" he asked finally, a question he also hadn't even contemplated since he'd first started staying over consistently. He hated the uncertain waver to his voice.

"Yes." She offered nothing else.

He tossed his dress robe jacket onto the floor. Under normal circumstances, she would have reprimanded him for wrecking the perfect, neurotic neatness of her room, but she didn't say a word. More than the tension between them—more than anything, really—that concerned him most of all.

"Tell me what to do," he said, almost just as Fabian had in the living room within the hour. "Tell me what—"

That time, he knew for certain that she pushed him up against the wall. She had to stand to do it, but she moved so quickly that he almost didn't see her coming. He did at the last moment, and he had his hands on her face immediately, drawing her up so he could return her kiss with everything she gave him.

She gave him a lot.

Her fingers immediately went to unbutton his shirt, and she worked efficiently, so much so that he hardly realized what she'd done before she had his shirt open and then off him. After that, she ran her hands everywhere—up his arms and across his shoulders, back down over his chest, around his back to drag her nails across his skin in a way that made him shiver. Everything about her touch screamed that she couldn't get enough of him and couldn't get it quickly enough, and her kiss matched that exactly. Her tongue moved cleverly, teasing his mouth as they fell into the perfect rhythm of snogging as he only ever had with her. His breath hitched against her mouth when her fingers played along the waistband of his trousers, and although he'd felt his desire—no, need—for her growing before that, that broke him.

He wrenched her dress robes apart, one hand on either side of the zipper that ran up her spine. The fabric—a soft, almost silky weave—gave way immediately, and the ruined robes fell to the ground and pooled around her feet.

"I've wanted to do that with every stupid set of robes you've worn," he told her, grabbing hold of her hip to drag her closer. "You have no idea how you look when you're all done up, do you? You really don't get it. It makes me want to just—just tear you apart. You look so fucking pretty and pristine, and all I can think about is how I want to rip off your robes and mess up your hair and fuck you until you lose your head."

She stood bare aside from her knickers, breasts pressed flush against his chest, fingers plucking at his belt. "I wanted to watch you lose your head tonight," she said, and he closed his eyes unwillingly when she slipped a hand inside his pants to wrap around his cock. "When we were snogging at the Malfoys' I kept thinking—god, this is so bad, James—"

There was absolutely nothing bad about anything she said or did, especially as she began to stroke him and trailed soft, promising kisses along his chest.

"Tell me," he said, and his breath came in sharply as she stepped back and bent to tug his trousers and pants down. Her face hovered near his cock, so close he could feel her breath, and he had his hands in her hair with the intention to push her down before he thought it through. He held off on the pushing, but only just. He kicked off his shoes and socks impatiently, and then stepped out of his clothes, able to press every part of him against almost all of her. "Tell me, love."

She'd turned a little pink before she even began to talk, but once she started, he felt the heat in her face grow as she brought her mouth near his nipple. Hands still in her hair, he held her there, and she went to kissing and licking and biting and sucking exactly like he wanted. "I kept thinking about what they'd think, the whole lot of them, if they knew that their pureblood golden boy fucking worships my body. What would they think if they knew that you can't get enough of the way I taste, or if they heard how intense you are the second I get anywhere near your cock? And—like I said, it's so bad, but I started thinking about how hot that was and I couldn't stop, because—"

Because they were flouting that pureblood superiority and because it gave her some measure of control over it all. He didn't need to hear her try to explain her way through it all for him to get it. If anything, he got it a little too well, because his body moved without any conscious decision on his own, intent on worshipping her exactly as she'd said.

In seconds, he had her on her back on the bed, had her knickers wrenched down and thrown somewhere carelessly aside, and had his fingers between her legs. He intended to worship her, he really did, and to take his time slowly making her fall apart, but the second he found her wet without any effort on his part at all, his desires changed immediately.

No one said worship had to be gentle, right?

He hoped so, because he didn't have it in him to be gentle. He waited to claim her, to show her that she was every inch his, no matter the preaching of the pureblood fuckers they'd spent hours with that night.

As it turned out, she very much wanted that, and thank Merlin for it, because the second he started stroking her with rough, impatient fingers, he didn't have it in him to dial it back. He would have tried if she'd asked, but—

But could he?

"I was about ten minutes away from fucking you in the hallway tonight," he said, bending to suck at her breast. She made a soft, frantic noise in response, although at his words or his fingers or his mouth, he didn't know. Her skin was smooth under his mouth, and flushed with heat. "I stopped because I didn't want to just—I don't know, forget why we were there—"

"I'd already forgotten," she said, bending one of her legs up so she could hook it over his mid-back, as if desperate to get as close to him as possible. "The second you kissed me—"

"I know. I know." He did know, because it felt that way with her too. The rest of the world just melted away.

But, at the beginning, hadn't she provided the words of wisdom and insisted on professionalism? When the hell had their dynamic flipped so entirely, to where his touch turned off her entire world and sense of reasoning, leaving him to think for them? How had that happened?

Unsurprisingly, he loved it—at least out of the pressures of the night's situation. He'd always wanted to own her, after all, and it felt like he'd gotten closer to seeing her lose herself just as intensely in him as he did in her.

"We need to be more careful," he said, nipping at the underside of her breast, and her fingernails pressed into his shoulders in response. "We can't—"

"I know," she said, echoing his own words back to him. "I know, baby. I'm sorry. You just—fuck, I feel like you're the only thing keeping me sane sometimes, and I just need you—"

Thank Merlin again, because if she'd put it that way to him in the Malfoys' hallway, he would have lost it.

He did lose it, because he hadn't exaggerated earlier in the night. Sometimes it felt like he literally lived to give her what she wanted, let alone what she said she needed.

As he wrenched his mouth from her breast to join his hand between her legs, she said his name over and over in a soft, desperate series. "James," she said, at first almost a sigh of relief, as he ran his tongue over her slowly, intent on dragging every last quickened breath and tiny sound of pleasure from her. "James," she said a second time, more insistently than before, as he set the pace of his tongue to an immediate, unyielding speed, tapping and rolling and stroking and caressing her clit, each passed at random patterns against her. Her leg went up over his shoulder, opening to him further, and he instantly picked up speed with his fingers. He'd started at a relentless rate, not bothering with any level of teasing, slow buildup as he normally might have, but he curled his fingers for the first time the second she'd opened her legs wider, tugged his hair harder, and said his name a third time, a breathless, pleased, "Fuck, James." Her body tensed abruptly—all of her, every bit of her he could feel, from the sudden snap of tension in her thighs, to her hands in his hair, to the muscles inside her, which clenched hard around his fingers. "Baby," she said—no, nearly cried, the endearment pretty and pleading and exactly what he'd unknowingly sought the entire time. Warmth flooded his chest, borne from pleasure and pride so thick that his head swam a little, and he groaned against her, his hips rolling against the mattress. She'd tipped her head back, her pale throat exquisitely exposed in the faint yellow lamp light. When he glanced up at her, he could see little more of her than the rosy peaks of her breasts and the smooth length of her neck and the mussed cloud of her brilliant hair. "I've wanted this—fuck, I've wanted this since the second you kissed me tonight," she said, the words spoken towards the canopy of the four-poster bed and her tone more than a little wild. "I swear to god, James—I don't think there's anything your mouth can't fix."

If he was going to get 'I like you better than Quidditch' engraved on a plaque for her for Christmas? He wanted 'there's nothing your mouth can't fix' engraved in return. Hell, he wanted it tattooed on his forehead, followed by her name and the date, because he wanted the world to know that he'd inspired that feeling in Lily Evans, and as fiercely as he would have if she'd said those same words to him at eighteen.

"Don't ever say that to me when we're out," he said sharply, mouth just removed from her. She whimpered a little from even the brief lack of his tongue, and he swore in response, quiet and low and brushed against her clit. "Holy shit, Evans—if you'd said that to me tonight, do you have any idea what I would have done?" He replaced his mouth with his thumb, painting slow, smooth strokes to her clit so he could watch her with greater ease. "I would have ended up fucking you right there. No question. Do you have any idea—any idea—how hot you are? Saying shit like that—you're my dream, love. My actual dream. Say it again. Say it again, so I—"

Her hips lifted, twisted, and fell again, frustration present in each movement. "Baby, please—please shut up."

He couldn't help it. He laughed, chuckles pressed against her as he acquiesced and fell silent so that his mouth could resume its work. She whimpered again, which cut his amusement instantly short, laughter dying in his throat and replaced by longing so thick that he briefly forgot how to breathe.

"James—oh, do that again." Her hips lifted again, but with greater purpose than before, as if determined to press into him fully as he gave a long, teasing suck to her clit. "I'll come if you do that again," she said, and he didn't need to hear anything else.

He immediately set all teasing aside with single-minded determination. In a matter of a seconds, he increased it all—the pressure of his mouth and the speed of his fingers and the pace of his own breath—and that was all it took. As promised, she came quickly—within a matter of minutes from when he'd first thrown her onto the bed, almost like she'd already gotten close at some point throughout the night and had never come down from it.

"Baby," she said again, but with even greater force than before, the endearment raw and hoarse and all but crackling with need when he finally tipped her over the edge into release. "Yes, yes, yes—oh, James—"

He sat up the instant she contracted around his fingers, and before the tension could even fall from her limbs. For one solid heartbeat, he took in the sight of her underneath him—face screwed up with pleasure and eyes clamped shut, hands clutching the bedclothes with such a grip that her knuckles had turned white, legs splayed open with his fingers still working between them—before he sprung to action. The muscles in her legs felt taut under his hands as he knelt between her thighs, and he dragged her hips up to replace his fingers with his cock.

The world vanished immediately, as it always did the second he got inside her.

"Lily," he said, unable to even think anything else. The tail-end of her orgasm squeezed his cock at random intervals, and for a second he couldn't even move, each faint flutter and heavy contraction so wonderfully overwhelming that his entire body completely shut down. She made a sound in response, something he just heard past the rush of blood pounding in his ears, and then he felt her hand rest delicately upon his own, the gentlest caress atop where he held onto her hips. Only at her touch did he realize that he'd shut his eyes on pure instinct, and when he opened them, he found her looking up at him with the faintest of smiles, her cheeks flushed and her mouth sinfully red and her gaze longing, like sex personified. "Holy fucking shit, love," he managed, that same familiar swear, as he rocked against her with a brief, experimental thrust. Even that sent his whole body quaking, shivering with pleasure so great that it knocked the air right out of him all over again.

"Please," she said, a single, broken plea, as her forehead wrinkled with unspoken need. "Please."

"Yes." He had no idea what he agreed to, but he agreed anyway—and he gave her what she wanted, clearly, because the second he set the rhythm of his hips to something past experimental, first slow but with increasing speed, and then increasing pressure, she broke. Her head tipped back again, and her mouth fell open in a series of endless, constant cries, each given on the exhale of a heavy breath, and each the greatest stroke to his ego that he could imagine. "You're so fucking incredible," he told her, reaching a hand to clutch the headboard for leverage so he could thrust harder. If shifted the angle of his cock, and his brain broke down further when her legs went around his waist, as if to draw him impossibly further inside her. "I can't get enough of you, Evans. Fuck. Fuck."

The second 'fuck,' even more heated than the first, came from the sudden flutter of her muscles around his cock, as if the shift had hit something new and promising inside her that guaranteed that he'd get her to a second orgasm, and swiftly—if he didn't come first. Just as her climax had come easily from the tension of the night, his own body craved release more furiously than he could remember in recent days—a true feat, considering how badly he'd wanted her for weeks before he'd gotten her to bed. He lifted her hips higher, more determined than before, and her free hand flew to where he clutched the headboard with an iron grip. Her fingers closed around his wrist, like she needed to hold him however she possibly could, as if he anchored her to the present moment as pleasure threatened to cause her to fly away—

"Look at me," he demanded, because her eyes had flickered closed. She fluttered around him, as if the mere sound of his voice brought her pleasure beyond measure, and he bent to kiss her moments after she followed through with his command. Her hands atop his immediately went to his hair, her fingers twisting and winding into the curls at the back of his head, and she pulled him down to her fully with surprising strength. Suddenly all of her was pressed to all of him—mouths and tongues and chests and arms and stomachs and everything, and he shifted a hand under the smooth curve of her arse to tilt her higher, still wanting just more of her in a way he couldn't describe.

She rewarded his efforts with a breathy cry, a sound that sent a shockwave through his system, because he knew that sound. He would get her to come, without question. "Turn me over." Her voice broke with the request. "Fuck, please turn me over and—"

He didn't need her to finish. He had her flipped onto her stomach and had his cock back inside her within a couple of breaths. His screaming need for closeness quelled a little at the shift in positions. She'd known somehow that he needed something he couldn't explain, and he got it in the way he molded his body over hers. Almost every part of him touched almost every part of her, the damp skin of her back sliding smoothly against the damp skin of his chest, her legs tangled in his, her neck and shoulders bare and available for the attention of his mouth. Her skin tasted just like she smelled, soft and warm and sweet, and he worked across every millimeter of skin there, hunting for the spots that made her gasp.

"Christ," she breathed when he found one of those places and latched on. "How—how, James?"

Had a simple, vague question ever flooded his body with such raw, intense pride? Ever? She sounded almost bewildered, as if he'd done things to her body she hadn't known could happen, just as she had when they were eighteen. Nothing felt better than hearing her sound that way. Nothing.

He wanted to respond, but he didn't have the words to offer her anything in return. She'd squeezed her thighs together the second he'd gotten inside her, as if she'd crossed her ankles to further the pressure on his cock, and it shut off the part of his brain that formed words, whatever part that was. He could press affirmations and uses of her name into the back of her neck, but nothing more. "Yes, love," he managed roughly as she clenched encouragingly around his cock. "Yes, yes, yes—Evans, yes, come on, please—" The pressure built into an almost constant, fierce and hot and tight around his cock for what seemed like a lifetime. As she held off her climax, it was all the sweetest torture he could imagine.

She literally held off her climax. She was so close, so fucking close, that he swore that each thrust would finally tip her over the edge. Yet while each thrust made her whimper a little bit louder or plead a little bit more, that release didn't come.

"Let go and come," he demanded eventually, forcing the words out through a jaw clenched from the way he held himself back. "I know you're close, Evans. I can feel it. Come. Come so I can come, because I'm right there with you, love, and—"

"No." Despite her words, she gripped the pillow beneath her in a very promising way. "No, I want—I don't want it to end. I want you to fuck me like this for hours—"

His patience snapped.

He sat up and pulled her with him, hands grasping her hips tightly to keep himself inside her. His thrusts only faltered for a second before he had her on her knees, and after that he could really fuck her like he wanted, with the same leverage he could get when he'd had her on her back, which he couldn't quite match when spread atop her.

He could also watch himself fuck her and grip her arse while he slammed into her, and just watching his cock thrust into her over and over and over again sent him nearly over the edge.

He fell the rest of the way when she came in seconds, certainly not more than a minute. "Fuck," she said immediately, the second it all changed, and so suddenly that she sounded almost surprised—as surprised as he felt, because he hadn't planned a damn thing. It had just happened, his body making moves his mind hadn't thought through, but it all came together instinctually. He instantly had his hips angled in just the way she liked, and he could feel the second he brushed the bundle of nerves deep inside her that so often had her begging for him to get behind her. "James—baby—baby—"

She'd apparently lost the ability to form words too, something he only faintly recognized in the back of his brain as he gripped her shoulder for better leverage, holding her up so she wouldn't fall into the pillow beneath her. "Come, Evans," he said, and he swore he could pinpoint the exact moment when she nearly lost it and reached that finale she held back. "Fuck, yes—come, there, there—"

She cried out as she came, a wordless exclamation perhaps louder than anything he'd coaxed out of her in the weeks since he'd first started making her come again. It certainly felt louder, because he felt her cry down to the depth of his very soul, as he brought her body to the brink and pushed it into climax even while she still tried to hold herself back. That she couldn't stop herself—that he'd won, really—made it all the better.

The tension in her body broke, and he let go as she relaxed, almost limp underneath him. It allowed him to use his final few thrusts to really move her like he wanted, each thrust resulting in the faint smack of skin-on-skin, before he fell apart right along with her, his own strangled sound euphoric.

Afterwards, he doubted he'd ever move again.

She slid back onto her stomach and he went with her, once again covering her body with his. After releasing his hold on her arse, he pushed her long hair aside so he could kiss along her hairline, her skin salty on his tongue. For a while, he contented himself with just that, every bit of him tingling.

"James?" Her voice jerked him out of his blank, contented state after he'd spent at least a few minutes there, and the tone with which she spoke instantly raised his guard. She sounded anxious, far more anxious than she should have after two orgasms. Fuck, he hardly had the energy to conjure worry at her tone, and he'd only come once.

"Hmmm?" The prompting noise almost got lost against her neck, but he knew she felt it even if she could hardly hear it.

"I love you."

He hadn't known what he'd expected, but he never, ever would have expected that, so much so that he immediately assumed he'd misheard.

"What?" he asked, pulling his head back to look down at her, but he couldn't see her face. She'd buried it in her pillow. "Love, you—what?"

"I love you," she repeated, and she turned her head sideways so she could speak more clearly. The cheek he could see had gone almost feverishly flushed. From exertion or from emotion? He couldn't tell. "I know that we're not—there's so much still uncertain with us. I know that. But I don't know what will happen with Sev tomorrow, or what will happen at all the day after that—or the day after that or the day after that—and…I just needed you to know. Just in case."

Just in case anything happens to me, her words implied. Somehow, without a shred of evidence, he felt very certain that she didn't expect anything to happen to him.

He'd never pulled out of her so quickly in his life.

She refused to meet his eyes when he rolled her back over, moving her as easily as he had just moments before, and he saw that the brilliant pink of both cheeks matched. "Evans, look at me."

She did, just as she had when he'd made the identical request within the hour, and, yet again, he saw the fucking world in her eyes.

"I love you too." The words flew from his mouth in a rush, unable to come out fast enough. "I wanted to tell you. I would have in a few days, I expect, because I think it all the time. I never stop thinking it. All you have to do is look at me and it's just immediately in my mind, let alone when you laugh at something I say or tease me or kiss me or—or, fuck, anything you do. I would have slipped up sooner or later, or just come out with it, but I didn't—I wasn't sure how you'd respond. I was scared, and—with you maybe leaving—probably leaving—"

"Honestly?"

It didn't escape his attention that she needed him to reconfirm his words to her, her tone probing and almost skeptical. At eighteen, she hadn't once questioned his first declaration of love. At twenty-two, it sounded like she did, and enough that she'd cut off his rambling to ask for it. Still, he couldn't exactly blame her. No matter how she made him feel sometimes, he wasn't eighteen anymore. She wasn't either. Life had changed them in too many ways, and nothing seemed simple or easy like it once had.

"I swear to god, love." The muggle phrase got a hint of a smile from her. "I swear on—I don't know, name something. It doesn't matter what. I'll swear on anything, because I love you. I don't think I ever stopped."

Her lipstick had stayed magically, perfectly in place, which meant that the corner of her lip that she pulled in between her teeth was a brilliant, cherry red. "Same." The word came out as almost more of a sigh, and she touched his face, her fingers gentle. "Same."

He ran out of things to say then and there. What else was there to put to words?

Instead of talking, he kissed her again, and he knew for certain that he could have fought off hundreds of dementors with his patronus at that moment.

xxx

He still rode the high the next morning, when he awoke to find Lily absent from bed. Her departure didn't bother him. How could anything bother him when she loved him?

He found her in the spare bedroom, examining a clear vial of dull green potion that she'd presumably just pulled from the cauldron before her, which bubbled noisily. Significant displeasure read even in her posture, and, before his eyes, she vanished the cauldron's contents with a wave of her wand.

Two cauldrons down. Two to go.

"It can't be done," she said when he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She sounded entirely dejected, but even so, she still tipped her head so he could kiss a column down the side of her neck. "I swear. It can't be done. Immortality comes from the Philosopher's Stone or not at all, and no one can convince me otherwise."

"That's good news, isn't it? That means Voldemort can't gain immortality—at least not this way."

"Right, but—maybe he can. Maybe I just can't figure it out. Maybe Sev will."

"Don't say stupid things. If you can't crack it, no one can."

He didn't have to see her face to know she smiled. He heard it in her voice. "You're incredibly biased, so forgive me, but I don't set much stock by anything you think about me."

That was probably smart. He'd never managed to see her objectively, and he knew he wasn't about to start just then. If anything, he'd somehow fallen more in love with her than ever—truly a feat—which had to cloud his judgment.

"You have two more tries," he reminded her, and her shoulders lifted gently in a shrug.

"I know. We'll know soon, one way or another." Her hand drifted to where he'd secured his arms around her, and she stroked him there absently, the movement all muscle memory and no thought. The automatic nature of her affection appealed to his ego more than ever. "Are you ready for today?"

"I'm ready for anything if you'll say that you love me again. That's all I need to face the world, Evans."

She laughed, but he really kind of meant it.

"I love you," she said, fulfilling his wish willingly.

Somehow, it felt ten times more significant in the early morning light. He would never take hearing that for granted again. Never. Ever. He would cherish each time she said it as if she offered him some sort of miracle, because, in a way, she did.

"Please stay under the cloak today unless I call for you," she went on before he could eagerly return her declaration. "Promise me."

She could have asked him for a kidney just then and he probably would have agreed. He would give her anything she asked for after the night they'd passed together less than twelve hours before. But she didn't ask him for a kidney, and so—

"I promise," he said, and he hoped it meant it.

xxx

Staying silent and observing Lily and Snape's reunion turned out rather harder than James had anticipated, and he'd expected it to be hard.

In preparation, she charmed her appearance differently than she did as Diana. That afternoon, he left her in her bedroom to dress, and came back to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman with a complexion full of freckles. "I don't think anyone will see us there, but—why take the chance?" she asked, sounding all reason. "I can't look like me, and I don't want to seem too outwardly friendly to him as Diana, so here I am, acting as some sort of third person. Hopefully this one won't require a name."

She spoke with levity, but he knew she did so to try to inject some humor into the situation. He appreciated the attempt, even though it fell flat.

She made a better redhead or brunette than a blonde. Snape put as much to words almost the second he saw her.

James had never visited the small park near the Evans' old house before, but she'd told him about it more than once. She'd met Snape there as a child, she'd explained, and she'd described the entire fateful encounter to him: her harnessing her early magic to show off to Petunia, catching Snape out at observing the whole thing, his revelation of her powers, Petunia's sneering condemnation towards him. It was the sole tiny patch of green in an otherwise crowded urban space, but when she Apparated them there, him already under his invisibility cloak, they found the place almost deserted.

Were those rusty swings, a set that had clearly seen better days, the same ones she'd jumped out of time and time again in order to float magically to the ground?

Was a nearby bit of grass near a large, shady tree a place where she and Snape had once stretched out, side by side, while he had described the magical world to her?

Was that tree the one that Petunia had stood under when Snape had sent a branch crashing down upon her, his payback for her vicious words?

They'd arrived before three, but Snape still waited, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders slumped, weight shifting restlessly as he stood by the tree.

"Were you trying to look like Petunia with that coloring?" he said by way of greeting, and he didn't sound or look like the Snape James knew. He'd tried to pepper some sort of sardonic jest into his voice, and that showed on his face as well. His dark eyes held a look of almost…hope, weirdly, something the joke couldn't mask. Maybe he didn't even try to mask it.

"Absolutely," Lily said. Her lips trembled as she smiled. "I'd hoped it would intimidate you. Is it working?"

"Entirely."

A silence fell.

Then, Lily hugged him.

James hadn't expected it, and his stomach lurched, sweat already forming on his brow in the muggy summer air under the invisibility cloak. It shouldn't have surprised him—it shouldn't—but he still had to fight the familiar urge to hex Snape, once again battling that feeling that had never fully gone away.

Snape hadn't expected it either. He froze under her touch for the first few seconds, hands still crammed in his pockets, but then he lifted his arms to hug her back, and—

And he cradled her in his arms like she was the most delicate of flowers, the most precious of gemstones, the most important thing in the world.

Lily couldn't see his face, but James could. Snape closed his eyes—squeezed them shut, really—and James had the distinct feeling that he did so in order to commit every last bit of the hug to memory.

How—how—could Snape look like that and hold her like that and still want to eradicate all muggleborns? How?

"I never got to thank you for getting me out of there," she said, and her voice shook a little. "I know what that could have cost you. Thank you, Sev. Thank you."

Hopefully she only laid it on thick in order to get Snape where she wanted him. Hopefully. Yet, somehow, James doubted it.

"I should have done it sooner," Snape said, and there he sounded more like himself—bitter, angry, dour. "I didn't—I kept trying to figure out how to do it without making it obvious, but—I should have just done it immediately. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She pulled back. Snape didn't want to let her go—James could see as much in the flash of longing that ran across his face before he wiped his expression clean—but he did. "It's okay. It is, Sev. Honestly." She'd added the latter when Snape made a clear noise of disagreement, something furious and lodged in the base of his throat. "You saved me. They would have killed me otherwise."

Something changed in Snape, although James couldn't place what. It wasn't his face or his body language—or maybe it was both, but just too subtle for James to see. "They would have," he said shortly. "Slowly. Over days. Weeks, maybe. I don't think you understand."

"I would have died from the blood curse Dolohov cast on me. It wouldn't have taken long."

"He would have healed you so he could torture you longer. They would have found a place to stash you so he could do it."

Thoughts of Matilda Truman and Theresa Spencer reemerged in James' brain, and he once again felt so ill that he had to swallow several times as bile rose in his throat.

"I hate this. I hate this, Sev." Lily raked her hands through her hair, which, along with charming blonde, she had also shortened to fall just above her shoulders. She clearly wasn't used to the length, as her hands faltered when she reached the ends all too soon. "You're in so deep. You're in so deep and you've become everything I ever hated."

"And Potter? What, he hasn't?"

Well, that shifted things.

"It's not that easy," Lily insisted. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"So tell me."

She did.

They ended up sitting under the tree, Snape with his back rested against the rough bark, Lily turned to face him, legs tucked up by her side. She plucked at the grass as she spoke, fingers moving incessantly. Snape sat immobile, eyes locked on her face as she told her tale.

She and James had broken up after his views had slowly changed. His thoughts on blood supremacy had never gotten terrible while they were together, she said, but he'd certainly become someone she hadn't known. The transition had happened slowly but steadily, to the point that he'd made it clear that he didn't hate muggleborns, but he certainly thought them inferior. She'd left him eventually, after one too many comments that had rubbed her the wrong way—insisting that she couldn't understand something because she'd grown up outside the wizarding world, some derisive comment about his muggleborn Quidditch coach's idiocy—and hadn't seen him in years.

Snape's eyes blazed with pleasure at that, and James had to yet again resist the urge to reach for his wand. Fuck, he hated that look, hated that it meant that Snape thought that he'd somehow won because James had lost. Even more, he hated that, although Lily had made up a false set of circumstances as to how they'd parted, they'd still parted all the same.

She'd only run into him again in Borgin and Burkes not long before, and thank god she had, because she'd slipped up in her Diana backstory—one carefully crafted to work for Madam Rue—and had raised Borgin's suspicions. James had entered the shop without her noticing, and he'd heard her voice and swooped in to come to her aid.

"I'm sure Borgin fell all over himself to suck up to Potter," Snape said bitterly. Just hearing his name from Snape's lips once again sent James back in time to eighteen—and seventeen, and sixteen, and fifteen, and earlier still—when he'd often hexed Snape just to keep from hearing him talk. He'd hated him down to the sound of his voice, and found that he still did.

"He did," Lily said. "But if James hadn't been there—I don't know what would have happened. After that, things just kind of…got out of hand. Declan Avery found out that James apparently had a girlfriend, and he insisted James start bringing me around—"

"He would. He thinks the world revolves around Potter, which I'm sure Potter loves."

"He hasn't said one way or another." A small pile of grass had formed under Lily's hand, each blade carefully pulled from the earth as she spoke. "But Declan did say that I'm important to James' chances at joining the Wizengamot, so—I've helped him when I can. I owe him."

"No, you don't." Snape looked mad enough to spit. "You don't owe him shit, Lily, especially not—especially not enough to meet with the Dark Lord. Are you mad? You—that was where they tortured you. The Dark Lord wants you to work for him. How? How can you do that, when you know how dangerous it is? Just—you need to get out. Leave. Leave the country, and leave soon. If you don't—"

He'd stopped himself abruptly, jaw slamming shut, as if he stood at the precipice of saying something he couldn't take back.

"What, Sev?" Lily's voice sounded caring, a soft and gentle caress, and it broke him.

"You won't be able to leave soon," he said, the words halting. "There's—things will change at the Ministry sooner or later. You see that, don't you? Portkeys—they won't be as easily accessible."

Hot, horrible anxiety flooded James' veins.

Lily sounded as if she felt similarly. "Meaning what?"

"Nothing. I can't say anything else. But get out while you can. Please. Please. If you stay—"

The silence that followed those words was deafening.

"I've thought about it," she said, head ducked down, speaking into her lap. "I've thought about leaving the country or going muggle, but it—"

"Don't go muggle."

"Why? Because it's beneath me?"

She'd asked the questions with a trace of frustration, something hidden beneath the surface that threatened to break out, but Snape just shook his head furiously. His greasy hair didn't move at all. "No. I mean, it is, but—you must see it. You must see that we won't stop at the wizarding world."

We.

The bile in James' throat felt thicker than ever. What—

Lily's head snapped up. "Sev. Look at me."

It was the same command that James gave her so often in bed. Hell, he'd just said it to her the night before.

What a weird fucking thought to have right then.

When Snape did, whatever he saw on her face made his expression fucking shatter.

"Don't ask me anything else," he said—no, he pleaded, and he sounded almost like an entirely different person from the git James knew. "I don't even really know that much—just what I've heard second-hand from people who also heard it second-hand—so I couldn't tell you anything specific even if I wanted to. But you need to leave. You need to take care of yourself, and I need to know that you're safe."

"How do I know you're not trying to get me to leave as a ploy to keep me away from James?"

It was a valid question, really.

The vulnerable nature in Snape's eyes vanished in an instant, replaced with a guardedness apparent to James even at a distance. "I thought you weren't anything besides his little assistant."

"I'm not, but that doesn't mean that you like seeing it."

"You're right. I don't."

Silence fell.

"I'm sorry about your parents," Snape said quietly after a minute or so, time he passed by watching as Lily's pile of grass grew larger. "My parents are also gone now, but I hated hearing about yours more. Having your house as a kid saved my life." He sounded like he meant it literally. "I went to their funeral. I couldn't go as me, but I was there."

"I thought you were. There were loads of people I didn't recognize, but I recognized you. I know the way you walk."

"Like I have a stick up my arse?"

"I only said that once."

The guardedness had left Snape's face by then, replaced by a small smile, and he relaxed a little. He drew his legs up to his chest, and something about the way he sat made James look at him a little differently.

He looked like a child.

They were all children, really.

"Should I worry for Petunia?" Lily asked. Her hands had stilled, and James couldn't see her face, but he knew she stared at Snape. He could imagine the intensity in her eyes. "If your lot won't stop at the magical world—should I worry for her?"

"She'd never worry for you."

Snape hadn't said the words coldly, or as if he meant them to cut, but Lily flinched all the same. He'd spoken too openly, too honestly, and she recognized his words as truth, a truth that hurt. Badly.

"I'm not her," Lily said. "I'll always care for her. And you must have seen her at the funeral. She was pregnant. A boy, she'd told Mum and Dad. Her baby would be almost two at this point. No matter what's passed between us—that's my nephew."

"You've never even met him." It wasn't a question.

"That doesn't mean I don't care."

"You care too much."

"You don't seem to mind when it comes to you."

Snape had nothing to say in return to that.

"You never heard when she had the baby?" he asked instead, and when Lily shook her head, he sighed. "Of course not. Why would she tell you? She's your sister, but you're not hers. You haven't been for a while. Let her go, Lily."

"Can you let me go, Sev? You were as good as a brother, and closer to me than Petunia ever was. Can you let me go?"

Snape didn't want to be her brother. He never had. Any idiot just had to glance at the pining expression on his face to see that. He'd worn it ever since they were kids, and he wore it still, even then.

"It's different," he insisted, his voice dropping to almost a mutter, and she didn't respond. She reached out a hand and set it on his, and James watched Snape's eyes flicker between her hand on his and her face, and he sat up a little straighter. "I can let you go if it means that you're safe. That means getting you out of here, and I'll do whatever it takes. What's the alternative? Potter protects you forever? You keep living this lie? Or—" He hesitated, clearly only just holding something back. "If you stay, you're always welcome with me. I've still got the house on Spinner's End. You'll have to come there to brew, so you'll see it, and—I'd figure it out, Lilsy. I'd figure out how to make sure you were safe. I want to do that for you."

Lilsy.

Her mum and dad had called her that.

James could almost hear her mum's warm, loving tone exclaiming, "Lilsy!" when they'd pop by the Evans' house unannounced. He could just imagine the way her dad would grin, all ruddy face and emerald eyes, when he'd tease Lily over something—her choice in football teams, her pick on the telly, her decision to have another glass of wine—calling her 'Lilsy' all the while. He'd never heard anyone else call her that. Ever.

"I'll be okay," she told Snape, and she pulled her hand off his to rest motionlessly in her lap. He looked a little stricken by the move. "I'm waiting to see Rue's estate finished up, which is taking time. She left me her company, and that's meant—"

What the fuck.

She hadn't told James that, but then again, he'd never asked what Madam Rue had left her.

"I'm not destitute," she'd told James more than once, and it became clear then that she absolutely wasn't. Hell, she might have had the gold to outweigh his own. Madam Rue had invented the Blood-Replenishing Potion and they were in the middle of a war. Talk about filling a need in the marketplace. Her profits probably put his dad's business to shame.

Snape interrupted her. "Never tell them that," he said, his voice as sharp as the blade of a knife. "Ever. Have you told anyone?"

"No."

He visibly relaxed. "Good. Never say a word. They'd use it. They'd ask you to do things that—they're things you wouldn't like."

James could almost picture it. He knew from Lily's stories that Madam Rue had operated a very successful potions business by mail. What chaos could Voldemort wreak if he got ahold of that? They could send anything through the mail—bombs, mind-altering potions, poisons, darker things still—and anyone awaiting an order would open and trust it without pause.

"Do they ask you to do things you don't like?" Lily asked, and Snape didn't answer. "Sev—what have they had you do?"

"It's not important." For the first time, Snape looked a little shamefaced. He couldn't seem to look at her anymore, and turned his head to stare off towards the empty street. "I chose what I chose. This is my life."

"Would you do it differently? If you could?"

Snape sat silently for a long while. When he finally spoke, James spied a faint red flush crawling up the sallow skin of his neck. "I would for you," he said, and it might have been the most honest thing James had ever heard him say.

"Not for yourself?"

"No."

James could almost feel her disappointment, which hung over the park like a thick cloud.

"Promise me something."

Snape looked back to her, eyes rapt. "Anything."

She hesitated before plunging on, words passing through her lips quickly. "If I stay or if I leave, either way, promise me you won't tell anyone who I really am and that James helped me. Even if I'm out of the way and telling Voldemort won't hurt me at all—promise me you won't do it to get back at James. I know you hate him, but he's saved me, Sev, just like you did."

"Not like I did." Quicker than James could blink, Snape's face contorted into a mask of rage. "I stopped them from killing you, while he, what, gets to put his hands all over you while he goes to fancy dinners with all the highest-ranking people? It's not the same. It's not the same at all."

Jealousy leaked through his tone at something more than James' hands on her. It confirmed what James had already suspected: whatever his place amongst the Death Eaters, Snape hadn't yet proved his worth beyond his half-blood status. He wasn't truly accepted among them.

"Things would have ended very badly for me without his help," Lily shot back. "I know it's not exactly the same, but you've both helped me when I needed it most. Don't punish him for that because you hate him. If you can't promise me that you'll do this for me, I'll have to tell him what you did, so you can't ever use what he's doing now against him."

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

Fuck, James loved her.

"Why?" Snape's voice came out so sharp that James actually jumped a little, although Lily didn't so much as flinch. "If there's nothing between you two—"

"There's not."

"—why do you care? What does it matter if—"

"I care about him, no matter what happened or how he changed. I care about you too, even though I hate everything you've become. It's the same."

"It's not." It sounded like Snape felt about James like James felt about the lot of them: like identifying with him at all made him physically ill. "He's not even—how far do you think he'll get in this before he balks? The Dark Lord will use him in whatever way he plans—as some sort of mouthpiece or something, according to Thomas—and the second Potter won't go along with something he wants, that'll be the end of him. I bet it'll be quick, too. When has Potter ever thought things through or followed orders? The Dark Lord will make short work of him, so there's no reason to even protect him. He's dead already; he just doesn't know it yet."

He spoke with such conviction that James almost believed him, and his heart fucking hurt from how fast it beat.

"Lilsy—" There it was again, her family nickname. "Just leave. Get out while you can. Stop worrying about him. He made his choice, just like I did."

"If I leave now—" Lily drew in a deep, unsteady breath. "Voldemort will wonder why, won't he? What would he do to James then?"

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Why hadn't that occurred to James before? Twenty-four hours earlier, Lily could have still easily broken things off between them—whatever they were—and disappeared from his life. He could have found a way to explain it away, and played up a heartbroken or angry or happy reaction depending on how he felt, although he very much suspected that he would have felt the prior.

The night before had changed that entirely.

If she didn't want to raise Voldemort's anger towards him, she would stay. She'd have no choice.

Fuck everything else that had happened, all the horrors of the night before and the uncomfortable, brutally honest nature of her conversation with Snape. She would stay. She'd have to stay. While it would have been better to have her make that choice herself—fuck it. James had stopped caring why she stayed, as long as she did.

She loved him.

She would stay.

He'd make her want to stay before too long. He absolutely would. He'd never been more determined to do anything in his life.

"That's not your problem," Snape insisted, and that confirmed everything even further.

Lily changed the subject, shifting the conversation to potion-making. It was safer ground than what they traversed before, although James found himself tuning most of it out. Just the words "viscosity" and "boiling point" and "ingredient purity" sent him straight back to Slughorn's class, where he'd spent more time mucking around out of boredom—or watching Lily—than actually paying attention.

No, instead he watched Snape's face, examining him more closely than he ever had before. At Hogwarts, he had hardly ever looked at Snape without immediately hurling some spell or insult his way, or feeling some sense of overwhelming jealousy when he saw him with Lily. He'd never stopped to really look at Snape and think about him objectively as a person.

Objectively, as a person, Snape made Lily laugh. He had a dry sense of humor that James hadn't expected.

Objectively, as a person, Snape spoke Lily's language of potions better than anyone else James had ever met, save his dad or Horace Slughorn. As she carefully picked his brain, asking vague questions that turned more specific as he came out with exactly what he brewed, Snape spoke of many of the things Lily had tried to explain to James in recent days, when he'd laid on the bed in the spare room and watched her work. James hadn't truly listened to her then, not really, but had kept her talking mostly because he liked hearing her passion and loved the sound of her voice and the excitement on her face. If he could, he would have listened to her read a dictionary, and done so happily.

Objectively, as a person, Snape cared about Lily in some twisted way that conflicted directly with his views on blood status—really cared, more than he cared about himself. It made absolutely no sense, but it was true just the same.

Objectively, as a person, Snape trusted Lily. It took her perhaps ten minutes of conversation for Snape to tell her about the task Voldemort had set for him: exploring the realm of possibilities for an immortality potion.

"It can't be done," she said immediately, although she offered up nothing about her own attempts. "There's just no way. People have tried for centuries without success."

"I'm still trying." Snape sounded determined, and not just because his very life probably hinged on his success. He sounded not unlike Lily when she came across some academically-challenging problem that she intended to break. "I started with the Aging Potion and set about trying to reverse it—"

Lily had done the same. James remembered that well enough, because he'd very much wanted to dose his mates with the Aging Potion for a laugh, and she'd talked him out of it, fighting a smile off her face at his enthusiasm. Of the two cauldrons left, he knew one of them contained the potion she'd crafted around that theory, the lilac potion that thickened slowly with each day. He remembered because lilac was her favorite color, and the tone almost exactly matched the off-the-shoulder sundress she sometimes wore that he very much liked.

"That wouldn't work," Lily said, all confidence. "It's too unstable. De-aging someone wouldn't stop the process altogether. Think about it. It's not—"

And so she set to talking Snape out of something that James knew she might have very well have made work, and she sounded unendingly convincing.

"Come by tomorrow," Snape said. He'd started smiling midway through their conversation and hadn't stopped, excited by the work and her combined. "Tomorrow afternoon. At three again? I'll show you. My house is warded, so Apparate down the street. Remember where we used to climb up the side of that old warehouse to explore people's roofs? I've set up a little place to Apparate in there so the muggles can't see."

James could just picture them as children—tiny, hook-nosed Snape clambering up the side of some building, all skinny and underfed, while Lily followed him, a mass of brilliant hair and shining, excited smiles. The thought did strange things to his chest.

"Why didn't you want to meet there today?" she asked, and a little of the smile faded from Snape's face.

"I wanted to make sure I could trust you."

"And can you?"

He didn't hesitate. "Yes."

Lily would feel that shit about that, even though she shouldn't. James knew that immediately and without question.

She extracted one last thing from him before they parted.

"Promise me you'll never tell anyone my real identity," she said, hand once again on his. "No matter what happens. Promise me, Sev."

Snape stared at her, his almost-black eyes flickering between each of hers at a rapid pace. Whatever he saw there decided things for him. "Okay," he said finally. "I promise."

He had no choice, really, but he made it sound like he did her a favor, and she reacted as if he did, presumably beaming in response. James couldn't see her face, but he could see the way Snape smiled back.

"But—please think about leaving," Snape added, his smile fading rapidly. "Please. You're not safe. If they ever found you—I couldn't stop what they'd do. I'd try, but it's beyond even what it was before. They haven't forgotten you. I don't think they ever will."

Had James ever heard such an ominous warning?

Lily left not long after that, promising to see him the next day before she Disapparated.

Snape stayed behind longer, which meant that James stayed too, unable to Disapparate until he left. As he watched, Snape drew his legs back up to his chest, that childlike pose he'd taken on before, and rested his forehead on his knees. He sat like that for a long while as James sweated underneath his invisibility cloak, and if he wasn't Severus fucking Snape, James might have felt sorry for him.

But he was, so he didn't.

xxx

A/N:Happy Fic Friday!

I loved writing the entirety of this scene with Snape. (Truly, I loved writing this entire chapter—it's another in the midst of that "sweet spot" of writing where several chapters in a row just flowed, and it was awesome to experience.) I'm not a Snape fan, but he's one of my favorite characters to write, especially through James' POV. Here, having James come to terms with the fact that Snape is human, as simple as that sounds, was really interesting to write—especially because James could do nothing but stay hidden and listen and observe as he came to that realization. Having that take place in such an emotionally-significant location for Lily and Snape really made their friendship feel…not full circle, truly, but something like it. They're at the start of something new, in the place where it all began. It's something even James is aware of through her stories, even though he can't know exactly precisely deeply both of them associate that park—and that tree—with each other.

If you're interested in more obnoxiously deep-dives into my thoughts on writing, come join me at Tumblr at scriibble-fics! I'm there way too often, mucking around with photo edits and talking about what I'm working on in regards to this fic and others.

As always, thank you to everyone who took the time to review. Your feedback is what makes all of this worth it.