Months passed.

Months that felt like years.

Because Mary was muggleborn, the Wizarding world had not cared. Yes, her death had made the headline of the Daily Prophet the next morning -'Muggleborn killed in gruesome attack in Hogsmeade'- but after two days both the papers and the Ministry seemed to have forgotten all about her.

They didn't even mention her name.

There hadn't even been an inquiry.

None of the articles had mentioned how bright she was, how vivacious. They didn't talk about the fact that she was sixteen and had her whole life ahead of her, they didn't say any of those cliché things you say when someone dies too young. Even in her death, she had been reduced to her blood status. And there was a lot of that going around these days.

Lily still smiled and sometimes she even laughed but it never felt sincere. The light of happiness had been sucked out of her.

As much as he hated it, James understood. It was hard everyday, still. When the portrait slid open and Lily walked in the common room behind Marlene, it always took James a second to look away, realising he was expecting to see someone that would never come.

And if it was hard for him, he couldn't imagine how it must have been for the girls. How empty their dorm must feel. How each second of everyday, they would be reminded, in the little things, of a cruel absence.

Marlene had stepped down from her role as Quidditch captain, and out of respect for her and everyone involved, the Inter-house Quidditch Cup had been cancelled.

It was hard for Remus too. He was skin and bones, more scared of himself than he ever was. Sirius had told James what had happened that night, how the wolf had heard the others and fought harder than ever to join them. By a miracle, Sirius had been able to drag him back down the tunnel to the Shack and they had stayed there all night, fighting, bleeding, howling.

But most of all, it was hard for Peter. These days, he disappeared for hours at a time, taking the Map so his friends wouldn't try to find him. No one knew where he went and he wouldn't talk about it. James had never seen him so defeated.

Perhaps it would never get easier.

But he could try to make it better.

It was the end of the year, almost a week before the summer holidays, and James simply couldn't leave Hogwarts like this. They couldn't keep living this way, each of them alone in their bubbles of anger, resentment and sadness. And if James had to take matters into his own hands and confront each of his friends, one by one, to get them to open up and talk, just talk, then maybe they wouldn't have to grieve alone.

He needed comfort, the reassurance that they were all going through the same thing, all at different levels maybe, but that they stood together and not apart. He needed that warmth and if he had to burn in that fire, so be it.

"What do you want, James?" Lily sighed, visibly unable to ignore James staring at her from the other side of the desk. She was monitoring his detention again, and he was determined to use this opportunity to talk to her.

"I want a conversation. A real one. No lies and no tears. And no arguing." Lily huffed and James smiled. They both knew that a conversation between the two of them was bound to end with at least one of them yelling. "Well, as little arguing as we can manage."

"Why?" She looked up at him defiantly. Her eyes were red but there was strength in the way she held herself, like an old house resisting a storm.

"I just want to talk to you, Lily. I feel like we haven't talked in ages."

"Yeah, well, maybe there's a reason for that," she said sharply, before going back to the homework spread on her desk. James got up and sat on the table in front of her, watching her hide behind a curtain of her hair.

"What do you mean?"

"You make me do stupid things." Visibly irritated, she put down her quill and looked back at him, her voice already rising. "Do you know what happened, the last time we properly talked? Mary died. Because you were with me and I was stupid, and, and... because I didn't think!"

Her voice broke at the last word and she closed her eyes, and the pain, the oh so familiar pain could be read all over her face.

"Lily... it's not your fault."

"No," she interrupted him coldly. "It's ours."

She was right. She was right and it hurt but James was used to it. For months, he had laid awake at night, replaying everything that had happened in his head. For months, he had blamed himself, because it was their fault, truly. For months, the guilt had consumed him but not any more. He wouldn't let it.

"Yeah," he said, and Lily lifted her head in surprise. "Yeah, it's our fault. It's also Peter's in a way. And it's also Mary's. A lot of people are at fault, a lot of people made stupid decisions and we are no exception, but we didn't kill her."

"It's as if we had."

"No. We tried to help our friend, because we wanted to see her happy, and because she asked us to. Sure, we were dumb, we were so dumb, but there's nothing we can do about it now. And avoiding each other, avoiding having a conversation isn't gonna change what happened. It's only gonna make us both miserable."

The muscles in Lily's jaw tightened, and she opened her eyes, looking straight at James.

"I can't see how talking about it is going to solve anything," she said, and her voice was shaking but her eyes were dry. "Mary isn't coming back, and I... I don't think I'll ever be the same again."

James nodded. Lily didn't look so angry any more, and she was talking to him, really talking to him, for the first time in months. He felt his heart swell, for the first time in a long time, in a sign of life. Or perhaps of hope.

"Life is gonna suck for a while," he answered. "But I've never stopped believing that one day, eventually, we'll be okay."

"We?"

"Everyone. You and Marlene. Sirius, Remus, Peter and me. We'll be fine eventually. It's gonna take a while, but we will."

Lily looked away.

"I think that's precisely what I'm afraid of. Being okay. It doesn't feel fair, without her. How am I supposed to be happy, to be really, genuinely happy, knowing she won't get to any more?"

Truth was, he simply didn't know. He had tried to answer that question many times, had thought about it for hours on end. He had come back with nothing but the usual platitudes he knew wouldn't satisfy Lily: 'Mary would have wanted you to be happy' and 'she isn't dead as long as you keep her spirit alive'. But you can't fill an empty space with meaningless words. So he stayed quiet.

"I miss her, James."

"I know."

Lily tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and went back to her homework. James looked at her for a few more seconds before going back to his table and grabbing his quill. Silence fell on the already quiet room, a long, comfortable silence, and James used that opportunity to think.

He wanted to make things better. For him, for Lily, for everyone. He refused to admit that this power was out of his hands. He had to believe that even those simple words he had exchanged with Lily had made an impact.

"Do you really believe what you said?"

James looked up. Lily had silently moved from the desk and was standing at the window, looking out to the raging storm outside. Her fingers were tracing the path of raindrops on the glass. Her attitude had shifted. Drastically so.

There was no sadness in the way she stood, only determination. Her jaw was clenched and she looked tall. Strong.

"Believe what?"

"That we'll be okay."

James put down his quill. He wouldn't get any writing done tonight, and if he was honest with himself he didn't want to. He crossed his ankles under his chair and took the time to find the proper words. They needed to be perfect.

"I think... I think right now it's hard for all of us to imagine a future in which we can grow old. But it doesn't mean it's not there. We'll need to fight for it and some of us may even have to die for it. We... We're gonna get through a couple of difficult months. Years even. But at the end of the day, peace, happiness and love are the things we fight for, and the things that will be waiting for us when this is all over."

"But is it worth dying for?" retorted Lily, turning to James. "Love?"

"I would." The silence that filled the room was only disturbed by the slight tapping of the rain against the windows. "I would. In a heartbeat."

Lily's eyes darkened and she looked down, shaking her head softly.

"So why do we need to wait to get to it?" she said after a while, so low the words were barely perceptible. "You said happiness and love are waiting for us when all of this is over but don't we deserve to be happy even at war? Can't we know love now?"

She looked up at James and leaned back on the window. He expected to see tears on her face but there were none. She simply looked determined, and there was something new in the way she was looking at him. He couldn't quite put his fingers on it, couldn't quite understand what it was, but it sent his heart fluttering against his ribcage, a sensation he had almost forgotten.

"I like to believe we can," he answered, in the same low tone, his deep voice filling the space between them. He looked into her eyes and she looked into his before turning away. She bit the inside of her cheek before nodding slowly, as if in deep thought.

Her fingers left the window to run on the edge of a table near her, and she looked at the patterns she was tracing in silence for a while.

"So what do you think your future holds?"

You, he thought.

"The war," he said. "For now at least." She dismissed his answer with a wave of the hand and walked closer to him, watching him.

"A hypothetical future. One where the war doesn't exist. What do you want to do? Who do you want to be?"

James opened his mouth, ready for the words to roll out of his tongue, but nothing came. He didn't know, he realized. No matter how much he wanted to believe in a perfect future, the one he was always talking about, he didn't know who he was without the war, and that single thought was terrifying. He closed his mouth and once again took the time to think.

"I think... I would want to be a father," he said finally.

"You?" Lily smiled, the most sincere smile in months. Her eyes lit up with amusement and James felt everything melt away, the stress, the sadness, the grief, everything lifted off his shoulder for one quick second. Because when Lily Evans smiled like that, nothing else existed.

"Don't laugh!" he protested weakly.

"I'm not!" said Lily, biting the inside of her cheek to repress an even wider smile. "I just didn't take you for someone who wants a family."

"Guess you just don't know me that well."

"Guess not." She bit her lip and walked around James' table, sitting on the edge of it so that she was facing him. He was still sitting down and he enjoyed looking up at her. It didn't happen often, and he relished that sight.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on his chair. They said nothing for a while and just looked at each other in comfortable silence. Her eyes were moving over him, slowly, carefully, as if she was taking in every detail of him.

It was dark outside, and in the dim lit room. But Lily was sunlight and everything brightened at her touch. It was reinvigorating, simply watching her.

They were so close and the room was so quiet. So empty.

It would only take a second for everything to change, for their bodies to crash together to the sound of the thunder, for their lips to meet, but James refused to think about it.

"And who do you see yourself having a family with?" continued Lily, as if the silence had not lasted more than a second. Her tone was undecipherable, flat. Awaiting answers but not commanding. Hard on the surface, soft underneath. "Who is it that you love?"

"Who said there was someone I loved already?"

"Are you saying there isn't?"

"No. There is."

"Who?"

Her. She was his future and she knew it. He could tell from the way she was looking at him, her chin lifted, her eyes soft, she knew it. So why did she need to ask?

Perhaps she simply wanted him to say it out loud. Make it real. So he did.

"You. But I know it's impossible."

"Is it?" Her voice was breathy, shaky, and so beautiful as she leaned closer to him. James stopped breathing, because she was staring at his lips and because he could see each of her freckles on her sun kissed skin, and the delicate blush running over her cheeks, and because she leaned in even closer.

Inches separated them. Seconds.

When time stopped they were infinite.

A dream James was bound to wake up from.

A knock on the door made Lily jump, and she immediately reversed her motion and moved away from James. In a heartbeat, the moment was over. Shattered so fast it might as well have been a dream.

"Can I come in?" Marlene's voice, through the door, was quiet and hesitant.

"Yeah," answered Lily loudly as she sat back at her desk. She didn't look at James but he couldn't take his eyes off her. She would have kissed him. She would have kissed him, she had been about to.

"Sorry," said Marlene as she slid through the door she had cracked open and closing it. "The dorm room just felt really empty."

James barely took the time to acknowledge her presence, for his heart was hammering in his chest and he still couldn't comprehend what had just happened.

Lily had been about to kiss him.

Lily.

Him.