Chapter Twenty-Eight: Love to Heaven is Fled

Lily had never been in a real duel before.

Oh, she'd seen them, of course – what pureblood hadn't? Bellatrix had been in one every other week, Sirius had been in one every other day, and even Narcissa and Andromeda had occasionally had to defend their honour.

But not Lily. She'd generally tried to stay out of these things, and where had it gotten her? In a duel with James bloody Potter.

Her mind turned cool and dark, her thoughts slipping easily into those jagged, melodious patterns she recognised from the night in Grimmauld Place when she had let him be tortured.

He wasn't trying to kill her – or even hurt her. That much she knew. She was always safe from him when it came to that, at least. Instead, she deflected a series of Jelly-legs Jinxes, Bat-Bogey Hexes and Body-Bind Curses, while he had to dodge her Freezing Charms and Tongue-Twisters. Right now, they were both in the initial Charms phase of the duel, where her greater proficiency was giving her the advantage. Which meant that any minute now, he'd be switching over to –

There. With a flick of his wand, he Transfigured the goblet on the floor into a great hissing snake. It rose up before her, undulating gently. Lily raised an eyebrow. She was a Black. Was he trying to lose this duel, or what? A quick Serpensortia produced her own snake, a thick green python, which wrapped itself around the other reptile. Both disintegrated into smoke.

But by then James had Transfigured a whole series of books into different things – a shower of glittering rain, another snake, a whip made of ice that melted even as it sang towards Lily, leaving only a splatter of rain across one cheek. She dealt with each with knifelike efficiency.

She was on the defensive. Not a good place to be. It was time to go on the attack.

Their confined surroundings meant they were limited to this little corner of the Library. No matter: she had a number of aces up her sleeve, and she played the first one now.

"Sectumsepra!"

It sliced through his Shield Charm with shocking ease, and James was a fraction too slow to dodge. He roared in pain as slashes appeared on his face and arms, bleeding profusely. She fought off a smirk.

A tiny part of her demanded shrilly to know what had happened to her, that she could inflict and revel in another human being's pain, but it was hastily stifled.

"That does it," he growled. His wand flicked in complicated little manoeuvres to seal the gashes up again.

"Does what?" she asked innocently.

Instead of replying, he silently moved his arm in a swinging arc. It seemed they had moved onto the nonverbal part of the duel. A shelf morphed into thousands of minuscule diamonds which proceeded to arrow towards her, as dazzling as they were deadly; impressed at the scale of the Transfiguration, Lily converted them into feathers just before they collided with her face. She was not as good at Transfiguration as he was and a single gem ricocheted off the curve of her cheekbone.

Oh, the pain. It set her nerve endings to dancing exultantly, her skin singing.

In the next millisecond she swept her wand out in front of her. James shifted to avoid her jinx, but found that he had miscalculated – it ended up hitting him where he had moved to. The bones in his calves abruptly disappeared and he collapsed to the floor, his wand rolling away from him.

Lily approached slowly. Her face was alight with triumph. She did not know it, but in that moment she was the mirror of her cousin Sirius.

"Petrifi –"

With a surge of strength James lunged across the floor for his wand.

"Stupefy !"

Lily dropped like a rock through air.

James sat up, panting. His legs were like jelly; he'd need Skele-gro if he wanted to do anything at all with them. He took a moment to look around their duel area. A shelf and its books had disappeared, there were scorch marks on the carpet where a Stunned girl was lying, and he was bleeding sluggishly, but he'd seen a lot worse.

He'd have to leave, of course. His cover was blown. Dumbledore would never accept him into the Order now. Lily would make sure of it. He looked at her comatose form, and his lips turned up in a rueful smile. Hadn't Sirius warned him not to underestimate her? To think she'd brewed Veritaserum, just for him, lain awake in her bed at night scheming of ways to entrap him…

He hoped she was obsessed with him. He hoped she was just as obsessed with him as he had always been with her.

James couldn't walk, so he flicked his wand at himself to levitate himself upwards onto his feet and took the two-way mirror from his pocket.

"Padfoot?"

Astonishingly, the mirror remained blank. He frowned. "Padfoot? Sirius? Sirius Black?"

The surface stubbornly showed him his own face, touched with hauteur and cruelty, but with tiredness edging his eyes.

James began to worry. Sirius had never not answered a summons on the mirror. Had something gone wrong?

Just as he was considering sending out a Patronus to Malfoy Manor, the mirror shimmered. "Finally!" he snapped. "Where on earth have you –"

He stopped. Sirius was grinning, wide and wicked and handsome, the grin that generally meant he'd done something terrible and gotten away with it. It made a pit of worry form in James's stomach.

He altered his question. "What have you done?"

"Why don't you come and take a look?" Sirius said. James took in what little of the surroundings he could see in the mirror behind his best friend's head.

"Sirius," he said slowly. "That's not Malfoy Manor."

"Indeed, no," he agreed.

"If I didn't know better," James said, "if I didn't know that you don't have a death wish, I would have thought that you are currently in Greenhouse Five. In Hogwarts."

"Keen observation," Sirius said admiringly. "What gave it away? No, don't tell me – was it the plants, by any chance?"

"Padfoot!" James hissed. "If Dumbledore catches you in here – if anyone catches you in here – we need to leave, now!"

Sirius's grin turned dark and spiky. "Not quite yet."

"What are you even doing here?"

"I got bored in the Manor," Sirius said. "Came to see you, since you were too busy hanging on my cousin's heels to spare a thought for me yourself." He affected an expression of deep pitifulness. "And who should I run into but… her." He swung the mirror around. James saw, lying curled at Sirius' feet, a flash of russet hair. Recognition sparked.

"Isn't that –"

"Marlene McKinnon," he said. His tongue caressed the syllables of her name. "Gryffindor. Half-blood. Beautiful."

"Lily's best friend," James murmured. Sirius's teeth flashed.

"That, too."

"Don't kill her," James said. "If you do, not only will Lily never forgive you, but Dumbledore will put out a price on your head. He'll stop thinking you can be redeemed."

"I can be redeemed," Sirius said, looking offended. "Or I could. If I really wanted to be. Speaking of Lily, where is she? Don't you dog her every step these days?"

"I haven't seen her today," James lied. Sirius had always known exactly how deep his fixation with his cousin ran, but he didn't need to know that James had taken to pretending a deficiency in Charms that was not wholly true merely to spend more time with her. "I want your word as a Marauder that you won't kill the girl, Padfoot."

Sirius sighed. "You have it. But you won't stop me having my fun with her, at least."

"As long as she's still alive at the end of it," James said, and cut the connection. He needed to move quickly.

He took a moment to imprint Lily's face as it was then on his memory; smooth, relaxed as he had rarely seen it in wakefulness, her long dark lashes resting fanlike on her cheeks. He bent to press a single kiss upon the wine-red spill of hair that haloed her head. Then the moment could be put off no longer.

"Enervate!"

Marlene looked up at the most handsome boy she had ever seen. "He was lying."

"Oh?" Sirius said, as he pulled her to her feet. "About what?"

"Not having seen Lily."

"I know," he agreed. "I could tell. Prongs has never been the liar of our little group. Neither have I, come to think of it."

She laughed and wound her arms around his neck. "Really? Who is, then?"

"Moony, oddly enough," Sirius said. "He's had a lot of practice, being a werewolf. Mmm…"

His hand made its way up her robes, fingers trailing lightly on her smooth skin. Marlene laughed but pulled away.

"Not now, he'll be here any minute! Besides, haven't you had enough?"

"I can never have enough of you," he said.

His tone was uncharacteristically serious, and she stood on tiptoe to brush a kiss across his full lips. "Nor I you," she said. "But you really have to go now."

"I suppose," he grumbled. His tongue dipped past her lips for one last sweep before they separated.

"When will I see you again?" Marlene asked.

"I don't get let out of the Manor much," Sirius said regretfully. "I only managed this little excursion because of Prongs. Don't look like that," he added when he saw her flash of disappointment. "Remember, not long now, then you'll be mine and we can be together without any of these… diversions."

"Not long now," she concurred softly. "Goodbye."

She put the fingers of her right hand in his mouth. He bit down just hard enough to break the skin, keeping eye contact with her, his tongue swiping at the beads of blood that formed.

He kissed her one last time. Was it his imagination, or could he taste her own life force inside his mouth, on his teeth?

And then he really had to go.

AN: Here y'all go! Don't forget to review. Not long until the end of the chapters I'd written now. Next up are a series of short 'interlude' chapters from other characters' POV - don't worry, they're not long, so I may post a couple in one go.

Continued Baking Adventures: My key lime pie was actually soooo good! I used the Jamie Oliver recipe. Couldn't whip the cream even though I did it for AGES though, so I just had liquid double cream with it... I also made a chocolate cake for my little brother which was pretty good :D

Review Responses

B: haha ngl, I'd totally forgotten James was only pretending to defect too until I read that chapter myself! And I wrote it so I can't be excused :P

Shruthi: Go to sleep! I love that you love reading them, but my chapters will be here for you tomorrow morning. Where do you live? Snape does exist in this fic, but he was never Lily's neighbour and so they never really met each other, since I basically see him as just skulking around if James and Sirius are winning all the glory in his House now. Does that make sense? Tell your sister the samosas were okay, not too bad - we used filo pastry instead of actual samosa pastry, so they were a bit weird and thick, but not too bad!

Ellie: Yeah haha I couldn't have Lily knowing everything JUST yet! Ahh no do you have any other grocery shops around except Morrison's? Tesco I think has flour still! I totally feel you on the missing human interaction thing. Glad you're getting your fix! Enjoy your day off tomorrow xxx