A/N:
We're back, everyone! Without further ado:
Part One Summary: Lily learns about Severus' run-in with Remus in werewolf form during a fight and prompts Dumbledore into teaching Severus the Patronus Charm in an attempt to help him with his emotional issues and win him to the side of Light. After a vicious attack by Severus' group on four seventh-years, Severus conjures Lily's doe Patronus and sides with Dumbledore. However, his relationship with Lily still deteriorates over the semester, culminating in the 'Mudblood' incident during O.W.L. exams. To save their relationship, Severus reveals his spywork for Dumbledore, and in their subsequent emotional conversation, Lily breaks down over treating her friend(s) horribly and not being the person she thought she was. Meanwhile, Lily agrees to join a secret society within Hogwarts; Severus makes some new friends outside his group; Lily and Remus become good friends; and Remus gets ostracised by the rest of the Marauders after standing up to them over their bullying of others.
Part Two Summary: Lily spends the summer working on her relationships, primarily with Severus and Petunia, but also with Remus. During Remus' visit to Cokeworth, Lily's parents reveal the deterioration of their marriage. This drives her to the seaside with Severus and Remus in tow, prompting the two boys to a détente and Remus to offer assistance with their war plans, including the deception of the school populace as to their continuing friendship. After Occlumency training with Dumbledore, Severus reveals his part in the attack on the seventh-years to Lily, leaving her hurt by his lies as they return to Hogwarts. Meanwhile, Remus develops a crush on Lily he knows is hopeless; Sirius runs away from home and gets disowned; Regulus is forced to take over as the Heir; Peter tries to control his mother's drug addiction; and James falls in love with Athenora, an American witch, who turns out to already be in a relationship.
Part Three Summary: Lily and Severus adjust to keeping their friendship a secret at Hogwarts, which is tough as Lily isn't comfortable with constantly lying to her friends. Remus works to put a stop to any Marauder bullying of Severus, while at the same time, James decides he wants Remus as a friend again and mounts a campaign on two fronts, to win Remus back and to win a resistant Sirius over to the idea. The two choices collide when Lily suggests she and Remus befriend the Marauders so as to rein them in and confiscate the Marauder's Map in order to protect Lily and Severus' secret. As a result, the male and female Gryffindor groups begin merging, and Lily gradually becomes genuine friends with a reformed James. The weight of secrecy and Severus' refusal to teach Lily the Patronus Charm, for fear of revealing his feelings, drive a wedge between them; Severus grows jealous of Lily's friendship with James, which begins taking a prominent role in her life. The tension culminates by Severus accusing Lily of being in love with James and in a moment of lapsed control showing her his doe Patronus. While at home for the hols, Lily's father helps her realise that her feelings for James have taken a turn towards the romantic, but that she also has romantic feelings for Severus. In order to resolve her dilemma, she conjures her own doe Patronus for the first time, in the process finally fully understanding Severus' love for her. Taking the time to evaluate the difference between choosing Severus or James, she comes to the conclusion that not only are her feelings for Severus much stronger than those for James, choosing Severus will potentially be a much more rewarding long-term life path. She professes her feelings for Severus by having them both conjure their Patronuses in an emotionally charged moment that gets interrupted by a Junior Death Eater. As a consequence, Severus is forced to perform a dangerous Mind magic on himself to temporarily erase the memory of the event and replace it with a false memory of brewing alone, and later gets the memory back by dropping his Occlumency shields.
Meanwhile, Lily's struggle with pretence prompts Dumbledore to offer her Occlumency training, but her trust in the old wizard is shaken when she realises he wants Severus to take the Dark Mark. In the ensuing argument, she exacts a promise Dumbledore won't let Severus take it. She also gets more involved with Hogwarts' secret society and begins combat training with the Marauders. Severus sets up a growing business with Thistletwaithe among the student populace as a brewer and magical researcher to serve as a front for his intelligence work for Dumbledore, and gets close with the Junior Death Eaters. He also becomes part of Mickey, Stacie and Ash's hustle gang, and is forced to choose between rescuing Ash and his DE induction mission when their long con goes awry. His choice to save Ash causes a setback for his mission, greatly disappointing Dumbledore. Remus deals with reforging his friendship with the Marauders on his terms and puzzles through his romantic feelings for Lily, which he knows are hopeless. James is convinced by Remus that his bullying actions are wrong and works to change himself, much to Sirius' displeasure. He also convinces Remus to start using marijuana for medical purposes related to the full moon. Sirius chafes against his friends' insistence on altering their behaviour, struggles with being rejected by his parents, and steals a bag of heroin that Peter mistakenly left in his jeans pocket from the summer, using it to blackmail Peter into getting him more drugs. Sirius and Regulus stay secretly in touch in spite of Sirius' disownment, though their relationship is bumpy. Regulus begins working with Severus on a sleeping potion to combat nightmares, gets his first girlfriend, and reconnects with the Malfoys over his position as the Black Heir.
PART IV - TRUTH
Chapter 47: Hidden in Lies
Slytherin House was a very cohesive unit from the outside. They stood beside one another, protected each other, gave each other a leg up against anyone from another House. It was a consequence of being shunned for centuries by the other Houses, forcing the Snakes to appear unbreakable and impregnable from outside.
Inside, however, was a completely different matter.
By nature or nurture – Severus, whenever he thought about it, could never quite tell which had been the ash and which the phoenix: whether internal Slytherin politics were the way they were because the kids who got sorted into Slytherin already thought in these patterns, or whether the newly sorted children learned to assimilate into a pre-existing system and thus perpetuated it further – Slytherins had an internal hierarchy of influence, power and politics, with alliances constantly shifting and rearranging, with those embroiled in it always thinking on multiple tracks, evaluating opportunities, ruthlessly cutting their fellows at the knees when better options presented themselves, and those who chose not to involve themselves with it usually ending as pariahs or targets for the rest of the House.
Whether they participated or not, however, every Slytherin who passed through the House was forever aware of its internal climate, and knew not to disregard it. Especially when they had something to hide.
Severus had never had anything bigger to hide than in January 1977, and that included his covert work with Headmaster Albus Dumbledore against Lord Voldemort and his followers in the Slytherin House. No matter the scope, importance and danger of that work, hearing Lily Evans tell him she was choosing him over James Potter or any other boy – getting together with Lily Evans – was by far the most emotionally encompassing event of his seventeen-year-old existence.
And he had to act as if none of it had happened just minutes after he'd lived through it. Even worse, he had to continue acting like that for the foreseeable future.
To say that twenty-fourth of January, Monday morning, was nerve-racking would be an understatement of the century.
Severus woke up after only a couple of hours to the early morning darkness, too keyed up to sleep, too full with disbelief and bubbling happiness to care, and too damn worried about it to fully enjoy it. Using Mutamency and Cogimency techniques to temporarily erase the momentous event from his mind, as he'd done last night, was hardly any kind of solution, not with the way it had emotionally unbalanced him and forced him to tear down all of his Occlumency shields. He was already relying far more heavily on them than he'd believed until last night in order to keep his emotions partitioned away from the surface of his mind and thus not showing to the outside world; adding anything else to the mix was a disaster waiting to happen.
Which meant that he had to construct far stronger and, more importantly, smarter Occlumency shields if he was to prevent any of his fellow Slytherins from figuring him out.
There were many Occlumency techniques and shields that were taught to students of this Mind Art. There were defensive shields, meant to keep others out; there were partitioning shields, to help with compartmentalisation of emotion and better memorisation; there were shields meant to dampen or suppress emotions and thoughts, which always took a heavy toll once they came down; there were shields constructed of robust thoughts and meaningful symbols and false memories and woven emotions and all sorts of other things a mind could conjure up, and truly good Occlumens knew how to use most of these techniques.
The best Occlumens, though, they knew how to combine all of these into shields that were truly unique to them, and this was what Severus spent the early hours of the morning doing.
There were several things the shield he was constructing for his relationship with Lily needed to accomplish – firstly, it needed to allow him clear-minded thinking on the fly, which meant that any and all stray thoughts about Lily had to be very rigorously contained; secondly, it needed to prevent any of the residual emotional leakage from appearing in his facial expressions, mannerisms and unconscious little tics, because he was going to be corresponding with Lily more through the journals and he needed to be able to do it without giving himself away while he was doing it; thirdly, it needed to be both long-lasting and malleable to adjustments and changes, not only because he couldn't even begin to predict how their new relationship would evolve in the future, but also because eventually, he would find himself in the presence of a Legilimens intent on discovering his secrets, and preventing this part of his life from interfering with all the rest was a very different endeavour from protecting it from outside influences.
He decided to use the journal as a symbol for his relationship with Lily, and started from there, treating it as a mental album and diary that could contain all his memories and all his thoughts on the topic. The emotions were far harder to contain, but the associations between them and the other two aspects of his mind were strong enough that he could box them in by encasing the journal in a shield rather similar to the one he'd first erected last summer, the one meant to keep the memory of the night Lupin almost attacked him and the anger that accompanied the werewolf boy's role in the Marauders' attack on him: a slippery, convex piece of construction built out of loneliness and remembered pain, and tempered like glass by his love for Lily until it was strong enough to withstand the pressure from within. Then he added another layer, of concealment this time, made of mundane memories that branched out like a maze, designed to guide any stray thoughts away from the whole subject and back towards safer topics.
By the time he was finished, the dormitory had begun gaining the greenish light of the winter sun breaking through the water of the Black Lake, and Severus felt exhausted, but at last far more settled than he'd been last night.
There wasn't much he could do to be certain in that moment whether these new shields would hold, but there was one thing. Reaching for the nightstand, Severus pulled the enchanted journal into his lap and opened it, heart beating faster at the thought of the words contained therein. It was not nearly as bad as last night, though he could feel the strain of emotions wanting to be unleashed deep in his own mind. That they stayed put was a rather encouraging sign, all told.
What he found in the journal was several pages full of foreign text that made him completely forget about his Occlumency endeavour in his panicky, nervous haste to read Lily's words.
Three in the morning, and I can't sleep. I tried, but when I close my eyes, you're there in my every thought, and sleep eludes me. I already miss you. So I'm writing, because it makes me feel closer to you.
How do you do it, Sev? I can't wait to see you tomorrow, but I dread it too. I know you'll be able to fool everyone, but I'm terrified my friends will take one look at me and know. What Occlumency I know hasn't helped me at all tonight. The only thing I feel might protect me is that I've been acting strangely for the last month. It's a lot like the beginning of the school year, except I'm far more determined to get it right this time. So I don't despair.
I've spent time over the last few weeks considering who I am, what I want to be, to have in the future. My 'woe is me' attitude of the last months has made me self-centred and shallow towards people important to me. I have failed you, on so many levels. Facing that isn't easy, but it is the least you deserve from me. I will step up and take responsibility for my actions, I promise you this.
Going home helped me see it. My parents are both moving on, and I am happy for them, though it hurts. It hurts Petunia more than me, though, and when I went back, she reached for me. I've done all I can to reach back. It reminded me of the decisions and convictions I made six months ago, that I forgot once the summer ended and real life intruded again. I won't forget them again. I know my mind now, and I'm not hiding from what I feel any longer, however hard the future will be for embracing it.
It's getting to four-thirty now. If I don't catch at least some sleep, I will end up ogling you at breakfast and everyone will see how much I'm wishing I'd gotten a chance to kiss you properly last night. If I'd known Montague would interrupt, I'd have aimed for your mouth instead of your cheek. Something to look forward to, I suppose, though thinking of it will probably drive me around the bend a bit. Would you hold it against me if I said I hope you feel the same way?
Severus' hand shook lightly where he was pressing his finger so tightly to the corner of the page it'd turned white under the nail. His newly erected shields strained under their first true test; Lily's words were blows far more powerful than he'd anticipated they could be, and he didn't know if they were so because of their meaning, or because they carried with them validation of all his quiet pining and yearning of long years. Her absence from his arms was a physical ache, strong enough he almost let himself sink into the memory of last night, of what it had felt like to do so.
He quashed that impulse ruthlessly, forced his hands to steady. If Lily's words were a siren's song, then he had to be Odysseus and his sailors for himself too, all in one; he had no one else to bind him to the mast and let him listen without the fear of leaping to his doom. But then, there was a reason why Odysseus had always appealed to him far above Achilles when he'd first heard the Greek myths – cunning was the quality that had gotten Odysseus home, when strength had left Achilles dead before Troy.
Distant surprise registering at his own rather strange train of thought, Severus refocused on the journal in his hands, remembering the end of the Odyssey – how Penelope had waited for twenty years for Odysseus, and in that waiting had proven herself to be his equal in cunning, for thwarting all the suitors who'd beset her home and life for decades. He wondered if Lily would be his Penelope, then, if she'd be as steadfast and faithful and strong of conviction as Odysseus' wife, who'd sometimes been far more than he'd deserved, too.
"Oh for bloody Merlin's balls, would you shut that thing off, Philes!"
Flinching, Severus recognised the shrill sounds of Philes' morning alarm clanging beyond his drapes, the sound having not registered at all until now, and yet now it was so penetrant as to completely chase away his lyrical thoughts, allowing him to finally recognise what had happened – his shields had worked as he'd intended them to, diverting his overly emotional thoughts of Lily into the first topic close by association to them. However, they seemed to have worked a bit too well, trapping him in that topic even once he'd realised the strangeness of it. His shields clearly needed some more work, and at the moment he hardly had time for it.
Pushing away the journal and the temptation it carried, he took a moment to tear down the concealing layer to his shield – better that he be distracted by thoughts of Lily than to get tangled in daydreams about irrelevant things like classical literature; at least thoughts of Lily, he had practice patrolling, and could yank himself away from with relative certainty so long as his emotions weren't too strong in the moment.
Once that was done, he took a deep breath and tugged the bed curtain open; it was time to face the new day, and if he hurried to the bathroom before the rest of his dormmates, he'd have a bit of time to write at least some response to Lily before it was time for breakfast.
Lily spent most of Monday on tenterhooks.
She woke at the crack of dawn, her eyes crusted but her heart aflutter in her chest, refusing to settle properly until she'd opened the journal and seen, to her disappointment, that there was no text. Knowing that there'd be no more sleep for her, she instead snuck out to the bathroom for a cold shower; energised though she felt right now, it didn't mean her restless night wouldn't be readable on her face. She knew that she'd end up flagging and crashing within a couple of days at most if she couldn't settle herself, and tired people made mistakes. She couldn't afford to make mistakes, now more than ever.
While towelling vigorously, she forced herself to empty her mind the way she'd been practicing for the last couple of months. Though she was still far from creating any true mental shields with her abysmal Occlumency skills, this much she could do, and it helped more than she'd expected... at least until she got back to her room and indulged herself in checking the journal once again, only for Mary to start fussing over Lily's wan appearance just as the redhead noticed Severus' newest message. The last week had gone a long way towards calming Mary's mother hen tendencies of the past month, but she was ever watchful – it was a habit she'd developed early in their friendship largely due to Bettina's periods of anxiety, and by now, she'd honed it into almost an art form.
So Lily did her best to shrug it all off, giving the honest answer that she'd not slept well, and let herself get pulled into their morning routine, while just underneath, she was almost fit to bursting from the need to open the journal and read the message, her heart yearning for Severus' nearness, whatever little she could get of it.
But she didn't dare read the message anywhere that anyone could see her. Instead, she sat next to Bettina and across from Remus at breakfast as she'd done in the past week, and pretended to be looking at Remus when in fact she was peeking over his shoulder, her heart beating wildly in her chest at the very thought of seeing Severus.
That he seated himself exactly in her line of sight when he did arrive, she just knew, was absolutely no coincidence, nor was Stacie seating herself in a mirrored position to Remus. Lily's face felt on fire when their eyes met for a second, and she busied herself with reshuffling her morning newspaper to hide the flush, thinking almost desperately of the fire in the Common Room hearth to block the tactile memory of the previous evening, Severus' arms around her, his slightly stubbled cheek against her lips, his scent, smoky and headily familiar, filling her nostrils.
When she was a bit more in control of herself, she risked a second glance over her cup of coffee; Severus was in the process of putting food on his plate, and was not looking at her, which made things somewhat easier, though the desire to insinuate herself next to him on the bench and press her lips to his cheek again was startlingly strong.
It wouldn't do; she couldn't continue going on like this indefinitely, or she'd drop dead of exhaustion, and like as not get Severus harmed in the process too.
So, for the rest of the day, she bent her mind to quashing all these fluttery romantic thoughts with grim, ruthless determination. It resulted, more often than not, in her completely missing chunks of the day's lectures, not that she cared very much for that. She finally managed to disentangle herself from her group of friends near lunchtime (she had never before quite realised just how much of her daily routine was shared with the other Gryffindors, and how much into a pride of lions she and Remus had turned them over the past months), sneaking off to the bathroom to read Severus' message, significantly shorter than her own, and yet still setting her heart racing and her head swimming.
Talent isn't worth nearly as much as will and practice. You have plenty of both, Lily, and so you will manage to fool everyone, too, just as I intend to continue doing. But don't think that it is any easier for me than it is for you, when you've given me what I've wished for the most for years.
When it gets difficult, I remind myself that if I did not have to do all that I must, concealing my feelings for you included, then I would not even have a reason to do it in the first place, because you would not have chosen me. It is all the motivation I will ever need.
Sniffing and yet smiling through her tears, Lily read and reread his words over and over, the thought that she was what Severus had wished for the most for years squeezing her lungs until it was almost painful to draw breath.
And for all its shortness, for all the lack of open flirtation or affection, she wasn't bothered in the least, because Severus had even in this relatively brief message given her exactly what she'd needed – the reassurance that he believed in her and the focus for her thoughts she'd been struggling to find for her Occlumency.
Severus is motivation enough to get this right, and I would not have him at all if things were not this messy and complicated.
That was the conviction she held to firmly as she let her magic wash through her mind, trying to work off of the experience of the last few months so as to direct it in shoring her psyche up against the constant fluttering nervousness and anxiety about the future and the almost frustrating want that she nonetheless hoped would never, ever go away. And to her utter surprise, when she let instinct take over, it actually worked.
Splashing cold water over her face to wash away the tear tracks and the redness of her eyes, Lily felt centred for the first time in months – not in the emotional way that she'd already achieved when she'd finally chosen Severus and the hard path, but in a more practical in-the-moment way of everyday state of mind.
Her nervousness and anxiety and want were all still there, but whatever she'd magically done to her own mind – she suspected she'd managed to build an Occlumency shield, but she'd have to talk to Dumbledore about it in their next session to be certain – it was enough to keep them in the background, bringing the world around her back into focus from the uncomfortable underwater feel it had had for the past week. And when she returned to her Gryffindor group and caught onto James' rather obvious attempt to engage her in conversation, his hazel eyes projecting sincere worry and a hint of hurt for being cold-shouldered, all Lily had to do to re-centre herself against the feelings that again threatened to overwhelm her was to think about that one truth, that if things weren't this hard, she would not have Severus.
It was only a day since they'd come together in this new, terrifyingly exciting way, only a week since she'd managed to accept how her own feelings for her best friend had changed over the last months, and already he was at the very core of her motivations, her desires, her determination.
Then again, she decided that night as she sat in bed and wrote to him, feeling overwhelmingly comforted by the normality of it at the same time as she was comfortably overwhelmed by the newness of the romance between them, perhaps it was more that she'd not known that he'd been there all along.
Met Stacie the other night. Very protective of you. Not a very comfortable conversation, but makes me happy you've got her and others for true friends. Asked her to help out with your thing where possible, she had some good ideas.
Ideas? Sounds ominous.
I trust her to know what she's talking about. Really looking forward to seeing the results!
Now I'm truly worried.
"Mind if I come in?" Stacie asked, with her head cocked to the side and a small smirk on her lips, when Severus opened the door to his laboratory on Friday afternoon. She didn't really wait for the invitation, slipping past him inside faster than he'd expected. Having realised quite early on in their acquaintance that Stacie liked catching people off guard, he didn't let himself be surprised by her move, simply closing the door, crossing his arms over his chest and giving her an expectant look.
"Something I can do for you, Stacie?"
"Actually, I believe there's something I can do for you," she replied, coming close enough to make Severus' skin suddenly itch. "Been in touch with your Gryffindor princess recently?"
"Ah," he answered. "She mentioned you two had a chat, yes."
Stacie grinned in pleased satisfaction, and Severus had a feeling that Lily had just earned herself some actual points with the Slytherin girl. With a flourish, she pulled a plastic bottle out of the bag slung over her shoulder and presented it to him.
"Works wonders for oily hair," she said as he took the bottle off her and inspected it. There was no label on it, and when he unscrewed the cap and sniffed, he could tell that it was homemade – magical, too.
"And you felt the need to give me this why, exactly?"
"Because, my young and naïve friend, if you want your con to work, you need a bit of an upgrade in the looks department."
"I do, do I?" he said sourly, glaring at her. She caught onto his displeasure, because the joviality left her for a serious, penetrating look.
"Severus, who of the two of us has actual, proper experience running long cons?"
"I've done quite well so far, thank you for your concern."
"Among teenagers, in a school, certainly," Stacie agreed. "Would you make a bet with me on how far you'd get once we're out of here?"
Severus opened his mouth, then closed it – it was a turn of phrase, perhaps, but Stacie had a head for numbers, and more importantly, the prudence not to bet just for the fun of it. If she placed bets on something, usually she was relatively secure in her belief that she'd win those bets.
And much as he hated to admit it, once he gave it two seconds of thought, he realised that she was right.
"What would this upgrade entail? Exactly."
The girl took a step back and pointedly studied him head to toe; Severus felt his cheeks heat up and quashed the self-consciousness as best he could before his ugly splotched blush gave him away.
"Hair for certain," she said, rubbing her fingers against her lips in thought. "Teeth, skin. Clothing, definitely. Posture. You're rather good with language and table manners, but there are a few tips and tricks that are worth incorporating into your repertoire. I assume you're up to date on who's who in those circles; I'll share everything I've picked up so far that might not be easily gleaned from the outside."
His annoyance bubbling up like a potion on a fire just that bit too hot, Severus scoffed at her. "Right. Now the actual list, Stacie. If you'd be so kind."
"Well, I was going to wait with the rectal douching, but since you're so convinced they'll be kissing it in no time at all, we might as well lump that in with the rest. Only the best for that particular crowd of arse-lickers. Come to think of it, we might need to wax your arse, too, just to be sure they'd not grumble behind your back."
Severus found his mouth popping open in sheer surprise at her vulgarity. Stacie was sharp when she wanted to be, but he'd never heard her be so crass. She gave him an unimpressed look in return.
"Long con isn't a joke, Severus, and your belligerence will get you stonewalled faster than you can blink. If you can't blend in, you stand out like a sore thumb, and unless that's purposeful and you have a very clear plan on how to use it, you'll never get to the actual payoff. Your business scheme will get you plenty of results with the plebs, but those who've got more money than they know what to do with, they don't surround themselves with greasy-haired, hunched, scowling boys who don't know the difference between a salad fork, an oyster fork and a dinner fork, not where they'll be seen in such company. It doesn't matter how good you are, because they can pay to find something equally good elsewhere. If you're happy to skulk about Knockturn Alley, then just say so, and I'll happily be on my way, but if you want a place at the big-boys table, you need an in with the Blacks, Malfoys, and Notts of the world, not with the Mulcibers and Bullstrodes."
Severus ground his teeth for a bit, trying to force himself to accept the sheer misery that the next few weeks were going to be, because damn it, the girl was exactly right and she had him in a corner over it, too. And for all that he'd spent years wanting an in with exactly those people, he'd never really considered what that would mean on a personal level.
A large part of his resistance to this 'upgrade' that Stacie was offering was the fact he despised the pretentiousness and insipidness of people who were obsessed with their looks – he wanted people to judge him for his brains, his skills, not for his teeth being so straight and white that he looked like he had a dozen more in his mouth than he should. Then there was the fact that he already felt overwhelmed with his current responsibilities, and adding daily personal grooming to the tune of an hour every morning and evening felt like such an absolute waste of time and energy which he already didn't have to spare.
But needs must it was, Stacie had put it as bluntly as she'd ever said anything to him, and Severus knew he'd acquiesce.
"Look, think of it this way," the fifth-year said, stepping closer until her voice was barely a whisper and Severus had to lean closer to hear her, his hair curtaining in lanky strands around his face, "every girl likes her bloke to look good. Why do you think so many like to prostrate themselves before Potter and the Black brothers? You'll see what difference a bit of effort can make, on many more levels than just the one you're aiming for, trust me."
The reference to Lily suddenly gave completely new meaning to the whole conversation, that cryptic message she'd sent him a few days ago – Really looking forward to seeing the results! – suddenly unveiling its full meaning, and he felt himself turn beet red in the same moment as his remaining resistance crumbled to dust. He'd seen the way that Lily's eyes had followed Potter around over the last couple of months, and much as it wasn't actually safe, he wanted, viscerally, for her eyes to follow him like that instead, like she couldn't help herself, the way that his eyes had followed her for years now, like a scoop of crystal-clear water in a desert, like the sun after months of clouds. That she'd practically promised that would be the end result was making it a bit hard to breathe for a moment.
"All right," he agreed once he'd managed to clear his throat. "All right, Stacie, I'll let you primp me up some. But I warn you, my funds are limited."
Stacie gave him a delighted grin. "In that case, what do you say I teach you how to fleece people for a few quid, first?"
Any special birthday wishes?
Just to kiss you.
I'll do everything I possibly can to make that happen, I promise.
I've spent quite a bit of time trying to imagine it, you know. I've decided that it will most certainly be by far the best kiss I've ever gotten, however it turns out. I assume you know, but I've gotten others before, and good ones. Except none of them were yours, so they hardly count, except as practice. And then after I get the best birthday present I could ever want for my seventeenth, then I'll put all that practice to proper use and return the favour, and we'll get to snogging like proper hormonal teenagers we can't actually be, because of the stupid war and stupid Dark wizards and stupid kids who think what said Dark wizard does is actually acceptable instead of the biggest load of bollo
Sorry, I didn't mean to send quite all of that. Still working on not letting my anxiety and frustration get the best of me. Do something for me? Erase everything from 'return the favour' onwards, and reread the message.
Hope it's given you some pleasant dreams! Because thinking of kissing you always gives me some.
I do, too.
Want to kiss you.
I've wanted to kiss you since we were thirteen, that summer when we snuck out to Manchester on our own. You had a yellow sundress and your hair was a red halo around your face, and you had me chase you around the park until your cheeks were ruddy.
That was the memory I used to summon my corporeal Patronus for the first time.
God, I just manage to stop my blushing and dreamy smiling and generally acting like a silly girl with a crush big enough to be visible from the Moon, and then you go and write this and destroy all my progress.
Don't stop. Your words made my rather distressing day suddenly almost perfect.
The first time I conjured my corporeal Patronus, a couple of weeks ago, I thought of last June, when you held me together while I broke apart because of my own carelessness towards you and what that said about who I really am.
Afterwards, when I was making my decision, having the doe by my side felt like you were next to me, too, holding me together for all the same reasons all over again. I know she's mine, truly, and she fits me so well I can't imagine her being any other shape, but I will never be able to think of her completely as such. She was yours first, and knowing it means that so long as I have her, I will have you near me, too. And it also gives me so much comfort to know she was there for you when I failed you, that you'll always have her to guard your way, no matter how far from me you must go.
I assume your irritating housemates will throw you a birthday party. Will you be able to sneak out around eleven-thirty and come to the old man's?
They can have that party without me for all I care. I would rather just be with you. I'll be there on the dot.
Lily was perfectly aware that there was a secret party being thrown for her birthday in the Gryffindor Common Room on Sunday afternoon – it was her big seventeen, after all, and even if it hadn't been, most of her friends liked any excuse to party, so they'd have thrown it regardless.
Even so, when she'd woken up that morning to a pile of birthday cards almost raining down on her head during breakfast, she hadn't been quite expecting... this.
The Common Room was decked out in true wizarding style decorations, all of them floating on various levels all the way to the ceiling, prevalently red and gold, though quite a bit of pink thrown in the mix too. A long table was pushed against the far wall, laden with snacks and sandwiches and drinks and sweets, and a big chocolate-and-strawberry cake had the position of honour in the middle. The sofas and tables and chairs were pushed in a rough circle against the other walls so as to allow for a large free space in the middle of the room, making the already very large space suddenly seem almost enormous and clearly designed with the idea of dancing in mind.
And on a smaller table right next to the fireplace, where the seating was set up to resemble a place where someone might hold court, was a pile of presents, bigger than any Lily had ever gotten before.
She barely managed to properly register any of it, because cool hands clapped over her eyes, startling her into a violent jerk that almost resulted in her elbow being planted into her friend's side in fright. Her back began crawling with familiar discomfort even though the hands were removed from her face in an instant, and she closed her eyes with a wince as she ruthlessly regulated her own momentarily laboured breathing.
"Sorry, I'm sorry, slipped my mind," Clotilde said quickly. "You keep your eyes closed, though, since this was supposed to be a surprise," (that emphasis clearly being directed at someone not-Lily) "and I'll walk you up so you can get ready. Then you can pretend to be shocked when you come down, that okay?"
"Sure," Lily agreed, letting Clotilde take her hand and gently guide her towards the stairs as she flexed her back to get rid of the uncomfortable sensation, annoyed with herself for feeling it. She'd thought she'd gotten over that ages ago.
The dorm room was filled with flowers, bouquets big and small, no doubt most of them conjured rather than picked but no less real for all that. There were lots and lots of lilies in pinks and reds and whites, as well as one gorgeous orchid in a pot, and even one very tasteful bouquet of dark pink roses which she didn't quite dare check the card of, because she had a sneaking suspicion it was from James.
She spent the next half-hour letting her girlfriends make their opinions on her nicer clothing known, until they'd all finally settled on her wearing one of her new Muggle dresses that Petunia had convinced her to buy last summer, deep blue bodice and green skirt down to her knees in three diagonal shades for three layers, with a boat neckline and billowy sleeves – nicer a notch than regular clothing she wore, but not overly formal for all that, especially when she put on her calf-high dragon-hide boots. Clotilde insisted on doing something with her hair, pinning it partially back to keep it from her face but letting it still fall down her back, and Mary selected a lovely pair of dangling earrings to go with. Lily rarely actually wore jewellery in everyday life, but she did like having it paired with her outfits and thus possessed a decent quantity of earrings, hair pins, bracelets and necklaces.
The party turned out to be practically everything that Lily could've imagined for herself – her closest friends around her, her House merry and having fun, the Common Room fit to bursting, with Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws intermingling throughout. The presents were thoughtful and fun, cheeky and genuine: from her family, she received a lovely hat, scarf and gloves, while Mary and Bettina got her a cashmere sweater softer than anything else she owned; from Remus, she received a notebook filled with all the spells and research that'd gone into making his baby, the Marauder's Map; Clotilde gifted her with a book of charms in Old French and a short letter in which her friend wrote 'it was a great relief and pleasure to be able to provide you with a sanctuary during your family storm last summer; my cottage is always at your disposal if you ever need such a sanctuary again, or even if you simply wish to spend a few days in peace with your sister, your closest friends or one day your significant other' – it made Lily hug Clotilde tight in gratitude; from James, she received a magnificent writing set consisting of a beautiful brown-spotted quill and an elegant fountain pen; and there was even a present from Sirius and Peter, a set of colourful inks. There were, too, presents from some of her newly made acquaintances and friends at the Dracones Dormientes Society, chocolate boxes and journals, a couple of mugs and even a few silly toys, a slinkie that she charmed to go up and down the stairs by itself and a wooden plane clearly from a fellow Muggle-born that she enchanted to fly around the room, both of these to the delight of the youngest students, whose presence at the party was primarily for the food but whose honest fascination made everything feel genuinely communal.
There was music from a magical gramophone, and Muggle records playing Bee Gees and ABBA, David Bowie and The Beatles, intermingled with Cheshire Kats and The Pentagram, the hottest wizarding bands at the moment. There was good food and sweet drinks, and when the littlest were sent off to bed, beer and wine too.
And for all that she enjoyed herself tremendously, Lily was still counting the minutes in her mind until eleven, when she fully intended to sneak out of her own party and see the one person whom she wished the most could be by her side through all this, but whose absence she'd known would always be part of this revelry.
A few minutes before eleven, she snuck up the stairs under the pretence of going to the loo; her plan was to Disillusion herself and sneak past everyone on the way out after she'd grabbed her warm outer robes. It was Archimedes who derailed her plan, sitting patiently at the window and demanding her attention by insistent pecking on the glass. Frowning, Lily let her little owl in; he hopped in with flapping wings and gently deposited a small package wrapped in nondescript brown paper on the windowsill cushion before Lily, then released a little hoot and flew up to settle on her shoulder, his sharp talons pinching like needles through her dress.
When she unwrapped the package, it was to find a small bouquet of deep blue African violets, and nestled in its very centre, a glass phial, with a small amount of pearlescent, smoking liquid contained within.
It took her a few moments, and those only because she refused to understand what the present meant. Only when the dread finally overpowered her denial did she place the flowers and the phial gently down and then almost knocked her chair over in her haste to dig the journal out of her bag.
I am so, so sorry, Lily. Words cannot describe how sorry I am, but I have no choice. I cannot meet you tonight. If I do not attend tonight's meeting, all that we have worked for is lost, and any attempt to reschedule or change it would lead to suspicion I cannot afford.
I know you said that you would be content with a kiss for your birthday present; I will save that one and as many others as you wish for the very first moment we see each other. But that is not all I had to give you tonight, and so I am sending Archimedes with the remainder of your birthday present. Know that you are ever in my thoughts, and that my heart weeps for not being able to be with you this day of all days.
It was gentle fingers smoothing through her hair that eventually pulled Lily out of her blind grief, quieting her sobs and coaxing her to uncurl from her little ball on the windowsill, where she sat leaning with her side against the freezing window, clutching her flowers and her potion to her chest. She had no clue what time it was, nor if the party was still ongoing. She didn't care. All she cared about was that the one thing, one thing that she had wanted for her birthday – to spend it with her best friend, with her boyfriend – she was not going to get.
Her girlfriends were around her, looking at her with alarmed faces. It was Clotilde who was petting her gently, kneeling on the floor by the windowsill; Bettina was the one sitting on the windowsill in front of Lily, her hands on Lily's knees; Mary was crouching next to Clotilde, one hand helping her keep her balance, the other encircling Lily's ankle.
Another wave of grief overtook her at the thought that she couldn't even tell them what was wrong, because it was a secret, it would have to stay a secret for who knew until when, and there was absolutely nothing that Lily could do to change that.
"What's wrong, Lis?" Clotilde asked gently. "What's happened?"
Lily shook her head mutely, stifling another sob.
"Why won't you tell us, Lils?" Mary said, squeezing her ankle a little.
"What have you got there?" Bettina asked, extending her arm to tap against Lily's curled hands.
Swallowing her tears back, Lily opened her hand and had to choke another sob when it threatened to rise at what she'd done to her precious violets. She placed them gently on her lap, tracing one of the small flowers with her fingers.
With the other hand, she slipped the phial into the folds of her dress, where the girls wouldn't be able to see; even if none of them were able to recognise the Amortentia potion, they'd still know it for what it was in general, and connect the dots. Even in her misery and pain, she knew that she had to protect Severus.
"Those are African violets," Mary, their resident herbologist, noted. "They aren't used for bouquets normally; I've only ever seen them in pots."
"They're my favourite flowers," Lily whispered, biting her lip almost raw. Her whole face felt swollen and tingly, and her eyes stung.
"Who is he?" Clotilde questioned, tucking a strand of Lily's hair behind her ear. Blinking in surprise at her, Lily felt her cheeks pale.
"It's not–"
"You're weeping over a bouquet of your favourite flowers, Lis. And you've been completely out of sorts since you came back from Christmas hols."
"That's putting it mildly," Mary agreed. "You've been tearing yourself apart for the last month, and it has to stop, Lily."
"I'm not, I'm fine–"
"You're not," Bettina agreed. "First you spent from sunup to sundown on the journal, then you were sick and not sleeping well. This last couple of weeks, you were getting better, but now you're back to crying. What's going on, Lily?"
"It's nothing, it's just some personal stuff."
"I think that's enough of that, too," Mary said firmly, though her voice was not in the least harsh. "You need to speak of this, and we're your friends, Lily. We want to help you."
"It's hurting us to watch it, too," Clotilde agreed. "We deserve a bit of your trust, don't we?"
"You felt better last summer when you spoke with us about your family," Bettina reminded her.
She was cornered, Lily realised. She knew her girlfriends, and they'd not let her escape until she'd confided in them. In part she'd almost been expecting something of this sort, given the emotional rollercoaster of the last month, and she would've even appreciated it if she could only tell them. As it was, she'd been hoping to avoid it.
"My mum's getting married," she blurted out the first issue that came to mind; a good way of getting them off the right scent, too, given the timing. "She's selling our house and she's getting married, and she and Dad haven't even divorced yet."
That left a momentary silence as her friends wrapped their minds around that particular bombshell.
"Oh, Lils, why didn't you say?" Bettina whispered compassionately.
"I... I don't know. I have to be happy for her, and I am, I am, she should move on with her life. But it's just–"
"Very soon," Clotilde agreed, frowning lightly. "To whom is she getting married, have you met him?"
"A family friend. A widower with two daughters, the older is Petunia's best friend."
Clotilde and Mary exchanged meaningful glances, and even though Lily knew exactly what they were thinking, she was thankful they didn't say anything. She didn't want to think about the timing of it, not when she'd managed to push it to the side during her whole stay at home and since.
"I don't want to talk about it," she admitted with a shake of her head. "That's why I didn't say anything; I didn't... I didn't want to even think about any of it for a while."
"And the flowers?" Mary persisted.
"It doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters, if it's making you cry like this," Clotilde replied, gently but insistently. "He's clearly important to you. Or is it a she? Because we're fine with that, too."
Lily shook her head; never mind the blatant falsity of that statement, at least when it came to Mary and Bettina, it was becoming very clear that she would need to give them something, and any second thinking up a story was worth stalling for.
"It's not James, is it? I thought not, you've been keeping some distance from him since the hols, but..." Mary asked.
"James brought her those roses," Bettina spoke up with a nod towards said flowers.
"Why would you think–"
"It's because of this mysterious boy that nothing came of you and James, isn't it?" Clotilde said shrewdly, and Lily almost gaped at her like a fish. Idiot, she was such an idiot – of course Clotilde had noticed, she always noticed far more than she gave hints to.
Swallowing past her extremely dry throat, Lily nodded and looked back down at her poor, half crushed violets. Taking a big mental breath and keeping her eyes down, where the girls wouldn't easily see the falsehoods, she reminded herself of what Severus had coached her about telling lies, on the best lies being rooted in truth.
Here goes nothing.
"He's... he's one of Dad's uni students. Dad started a new job this fall, and I wanted to see where he was working now, and he was... he wanted to ask Dad something about the course, that's how I met him. He asked me out, and I... I liked him, I wanted to get to know him a bit, and it was only a week, it wasn't like anything would happen anyway. Except then it did, and... I had Alice's letter in my bag and it fell out, and he noticed that it's parchment, not paper–"
"Archimedes brought you the flowers," Mary spoke up, straightening in surprise. "He's not a Muggle, is he?"
"No, he's a Squib. I... I panicked," Lily invented, thinking of that moment on her dad's couch when she'd realized that she fancied James, to give authenticity to the lie. "I panicked and I didn't see him afterwards until I had to come back here. I thought it'd pass, but I... I've never felt like this before, I didn't... I didn't expect it to be like this. I tried to keep my mind off the whole trip home, with the journal, and it worked for a bit."
"Is it that he's a Squib, is that the problem?" Bettina asked, and the soft tremor to her voice reminded Lily sharply that this was a sensitive topic for her friend, whose younger brother was a Squib, as well.
"No. No, it's not at all," she hurried to assure the other girl, with complete honesty in her dishonesty. "It's the long distance and me being stuck here for months, and it's... it was just too fast and right when this thing with my mum was happening, too, and I just... it was the right decision, I know it was."
"Except he's clearly still trying to woo you, and he's making you second-guess yourself."
"I don't want a fling," Lily said firmly. "I want a proper relationship, and if the only way we can communicate for months on end is through letters... maybe if we'd been able to actually spend some time together properly before, but we only just met a few weeks ago, and it's not enough. It's not enough."
"None of which changes how you feel, though," Mary concluded for her.
"You can still be friends with him, though, can't you?" Bettina asked. "Get to know him, give it time until the summer, and then see what you want to do about it."
Sighing, Lily shrugged, feeling just a little bit as if some heavy load had dropped off her shoulders, to be replaced by another one just as heavy. She wanted to simply say she'd made up her mind not to contact this imaginary boy and be done with the lie, but the reality of the situation was that she couldn't predict how many more times something like this would happen, how many more times hers and Severus' situation would cause her to go from incandescent joy to the depths of despair. Keeping the lie alive would be beneficial for those occasions, even though it meant that she'd have to actively lie to her friends, and perhaps even go further than simple words in order to maintain the deception.
Merlin, but she hated their damned situation.
Mary's blunt-nailed hand came up to wrap around Lily's, gently prying the flowers from her grip.
"Let's put these in water until the morning, and then after breakfast we'll go to the greenhouses and get some proper pots and earth to root them in. Then you'll be able to keep them, and they deserve to be treated properly, the poor things."
Her friend's blue eyes were compassionate and warm when Lily met them, and she felt such a wave of gratitude for her friend that she threw her arms around Mary's shoulders and hugged her tightly in thanks. When she pulled back, Mary did as she'd said, standing up to hunt for something to transfigure into a vase, her handling of the violets careful and sure, Bettina at her heels with questions about plant rooting. Lily watched them for a bit, something tightly wound loosening in her chest at the sight as she surreptitiously wrapped her fingers around the hidden phial, the second half of her present and possibly the most precious thing she'd ever been gifted. She couldn't have Severus tonight, but he'd given her the only thing that could in any way lessen that loss – the scent of snow-covered forest, of aromatic, herbs, of tangy smoke perfused into dark fabric. If she curled up in her bed tonight, tucked her duvet very, very tightly around herself and uncorked the bottle, she thought that maybe she could lull herself to sleep imagining he was holding her instead.
"What's his name?" Clotilde asked, moving to stand up from her kneeling position.
"...John. If it'd been a girl, you truly wouldn't have minded?"
Her friend licked her lips, holding her gaze for a long moment. "Would you mind?"
"No," Lily promised, taking Clotilde's offered hand as she stood up, wincing at the needles passing all through her chilled, stiff body, feeling like a wrung-out rag, even as some questions and momentary confusions slotted into their proper place in her mind. "No, I can't say why I would."
"Just like we don't mind you keeping your silence, Lis. But not at the cost of your emotional wellbeing. You don't have to carry the whole world on your shoulders, you know."
"I know. But sometimes, Clo, I don't feel like I've any other choice."
Sleeping, almost smothered in the white hospital sheets, Remus looked half-dead, and James' stomach churned and churned as he sat and stared at his friend. Stared and thought.
February full moon had peaked at a bit before four in the morning; this far north, the sun didn't come out until eight this time of year. That had meant a split moon, and two consecutive transformations, one of them four hours long – barely enough for the wolf to shake off the pain and run around a bit before going through it again – a day sleeping it off, followed by yet another transformation at around five in the afternoon and almost a full night of the wolf again.
In a way, of course, this was nothing particularly special or new to Remus; he'd been transforming since he was four years old, and even discounting those first seven years before Hogwarts, this was who-knew-which split moon he'd had to go through in five and a half years of schooling, since the rest of them were present to witness such things. It wasn't even the first split moon that Remus had had to go through shut away in that damnable shack since last year's excursions had given the wolf a brief taste of freedom. But for some reason, it ate at James so much more than all of the previous ones he'd been a part of.
He didn't know why. Perhaps it was because it had hit Remus harder than the last one in October – that one had been barely a transformation to the wolf and back, a bit more than an hour between the moon reaching its peak illumination and the first lightening of the horizon that usually heralded the actual sunrise and started about an hour before it; this one had given the wolf a good three hours to settle into its skin, and the wolf in turn had fought the transformation back all the way. Maybe it was because Lily had returned from her hols struggling with something and Sirius had backslid into nightmares and restlessness more common for the end of the school year, neither of them willing to confide in anyone, both of them affecting the rest of the Gryffindor Pride (as they'd been dubbed in the school gossip) with their moods.
Whyever it was, weathering this full moon with Remus had been hard, harder than usual certainly, and James felt that itch under his skin, to do something, to fix things, to take action. And so, when he could do nothing else for the moment, he sat and thought while he kept vigil over his friend, looking for the best solution he could come up with.
Remus woke sometime around noon; it was Saturday, so James had no particular place to be other than here, and having come up with a course of action, he'd even managed to play some catch-up for the classes he'd slept through on Friday due to the early morning excursion to the Shrieking Shack. His eyes were stinging with exhaustion, and if Lily had come to take over like she'd done since learning Remus' secret, he'd have probably gone for a kip. But strangely, she was still nowhere to be found, and it was yet another thing that showed there was something off with her – something that James was beginning to think had to do with him specifically, rather than whatever family troubles she was having and was refusing to talk about.
While he gave Remus time to blink the crustiness out of his eyes, James rolled him up a spliff – apparently, 'joint' was an Americanism, and no self-respecting Brit would ever call it that (at least according to a fifth-year Muggle-born from James' Quidditch team; James had his doubts) – and handed it over to his friend, who wrinkled his nose at it.
"Muggles like to bake this into biscuits," Remus croaked, clearing his throat as James helped him sit up and lit the spliff for him. Remus took a deep inhale, held it in for a few seconds, then let it out, seemingly breathing out the weight of his aches with it. "We should get the house-elves to make some for next time; I hate smoking."
"Oh, I'm sure that won't be a problem; we're the Marauders, after all," James retorted with a slight smile which vanished when he got surprised with a yawn.
"Have you slept at all?" Remus asked, frowning at him blearily.
"Not yet; I was waiting for you to wake up first."
"Prongs," Remus chided, groaning when he tried to shift in bed. "Merlin, last night wasn't much fun."
"That's one word for it," James agreed. The wolf had been really quite unhappy to be locked in, and the three of them had had a hell of a time stopping it from fruitlessly ramming itself against walls and windows. No doubt Remus' bruises had bruises from it. "I've been thinking, actually."
"Hope you haven't hurt yourself in the process."
James pinched his friend through the blankets in retaliation, earning himself a kick that was barely a touch at all.
"We need to let it out again, Moony," he said softly.
"James–"
"No, wait, hear me out. What it did last night, you can't go through that every full moon, you'll end up broken up into pieces before you're twenty."
"I'm not going to risk other people again, James," Remus replied sharply. "I thought you understood that. I thought you at least–"
"I know. I'm not suggesting what we did last spring, okay? I'm just saying that you need to be able to get out during the full moon."
"You realise the inherent contradiction in those two statements, don't you? Or have you forgotten that the wolf cannot be controlled?"
Huffing, James rubbed at his eyes. He should've gotten at least a couple hours of sleep before having this conversation.
"I'm not suggesting we let it roam free, Remus. I'm suggesting that we expand its cage. Preferably to include a decent chunk of the Forbidden Forest."
"And how do you intend to pull that off?" his friend asked him, scepticism oozing from his every pore.
"The American friend who told me about the weed, she's doing her specialisation in warding. She's mentioned that she'd perhaps like to visit Hogwarts for a few months, do some independent study here under some of our professors if she got a chance. I thought to talk to Babbling, and I'm sure Dumbles won't mind once she's on board. Then when Athenora comes, we can figure out what sort of wards would be best to fence off some piece of the forest where the wolf could run without feeling trapped."
Remus, who'd opened his mouth to argue, now had a more thoughtful look on his face.
"Would she be able to make them strong enough?"
"Pretty sure she would, but we won't do it until she confirms it."
A large yawn interrupted Remus' reply, and he almost dropped the burnt up spliff clumsily in an attempt to cover his mouth – his eyes were already starting to droop, and it seemed that his argumentative outburst had taken a good chunk of his energy with it.
"Make sure she knows I'm not on board if there's risk," he murmured as James stubbed out the spliff and vanished it with a wave of his wand, then helped Remus lie down flat on the bed again.
"I promise," the bespectacled boy said gently, pushing his friend's bangs out of his face and tucking him in, even as he failed to stifle a yawn of his own. "Mind if I crash here for a bit?"
That made Remus smile, green eyes peeking through slitted eyelids. Tapping the bed with his wand, James murmured the spell to expand it some, and wiggled in next to his friend, determinedly not letting his mind ruminate on the idea of writing to Athenora. The very thought of not just getting back in touch with her, but actually seeing her again, spending time with her again, was almost nausea-inducing. And yet, he couldn't think of anyone else who'd be able to help him in this little project. He couldn't appeal to Dumbledore, since the whole thing stemmed from James, Sirius and Peter doing something extremely illegal in order to help Remus, and he had no clue how he might otherwise explain knowing that for Remus' physical and mental health, the werewolf needed to not be cooped up, never mind that half of this plan hinged on them being there to corral the wolf, same as they'd done last spring.
But he'd been willing to contact Athenora months ago already, if it had been the only way to get Remus some weed, and this wasn't much different, really. It was, in that it wouldn't be just a couple of letter exchanges, but he could do it. For Remus, James would do it.
And anyway, for all his infatuation with Athenora last summer, somehow the memory of those feelings felt like nothing in comparison to what he felt for Lily now. He was sure that would be as good a shield as any, against whatever hurt seeing Athenora again might cause him.
Welcome back, oh ye faithful readers old and new! Firstly, the usual publication rhythm applies (chapter/fortnight). Secondly, a huge shout-out to my co-author SilenceoftheSolitude, who actually read Part IV twice (all 175k words of it). We continue to collaborate quite happily together on this, I'm very very pleased to say. With that all out of the way, I want to let you guys know that Part IV is fully written, and that it should take us into the new year if my publication schedule holds true. In addition, there are some companion one-shots and pieces that I'm hoping to get out in a timely manner (I've said this before and then failed to deliver for about two years, so I'm not going to promise anything this time around); I'll in let you know when I do so.
Note on this chapter regarding the 'journal' entries: If the entry is part of a POV scene, then bolded means received and italicized means sent. If the entry is stand-alone, then bolded is Severus and italicized is Lily. In addition, any paragraph break between text means separate messages; if there's only a line break, this was Severus or Lily putting in a break within their message themselves.
Lastly, if you've not caught onto it, last summer, Silence and I published our first truly collaborative effort, a novella depicting the events that James, Sirius and Peter discuss in Chapter III,38 (Of Secrets and Silences) of PNT, namely Voldemort's attempted (and foiled) coup against the Wizengamot. If you're in the mood for some political intrigue and thriller, check it out - it's published in Ch 3-7 of my side-story collection 'How Doth the World Perish', which you can find on my profile, under the name Cunning Passages, Contrived Corridors (and Issues).