Sirius,

I would say that I'm sorry I haven't sent you anything meaningful since you left the castle, but I'm not really sorry at all. I don't know how we come back from this. Everything was fine—things were working—I knew what everybody's role in my life was, and they and I all seemed happy with that—and then you had to go and

And now you're talking to Lily every night? Lily? I know you practically pushed me to get together with her this year—wanted me to move on—but it's not like the two of you have a single thing in common, and all it's done is make me feel like my girlfriend is taking the side of the bloke who took advantage of my feelings for him to

I don't understand. I mean, I think I understand why you did it, but I don't think I'll ever understand how your priorities got so

It's like the Snape thing from fifth year all over again. When you mess up, it's epic, and I'm the one left to pick up the

xx

"Lily?"

As she stuffs the letter back in the rubbish bin where she found it and guiltily looks up, the first thing she thinks is, well, it could be worse: it's only Peter. The second thing she thinks is that she ought to feel absolutely sick with herself.

"Peter. Hey. I'm glad I caught you."

He's frowning. "You're supposed to be in Ancient Runes right now."

"I skived off."

"I can see that. That isn't like you."

"Well, I was hoping to get you alone, and I knew you had a free period while the rest of us had Runes. You're a hard person to chase down lately."

Peter shrugs. "I'm sick of being an accessory to everybody else's drama. You should know. They do it to you, too."

"We both know it's more than that, and you know I'm not going to say anything to anyone if you tell me what's going on."

Raising his eyebrows, he nods at the bin sitting at Lily's feet. "Or what? Are you going to go through my belongings looking for clues if I don't talk to you?"

Even as she colors furiously, Lily tries to maintain a shred of dignity. "How do you know what I was reading?"

"Because he wrote it and then threw it away last night when he thought I was sleeping," says Peter matter of factly. "I got up and read it after he started to snore."

"Why? I mean, if you're sick of everyone's drama, why go looking for it behind James's back?"

Peter looks torn up over something, and Lily holds her breath. She's getting the acute feeling that if, in the next couple of seconds, she says or does the wrong thing—even breathes the wrong way—

She can see it when something behind his eyes shutters closed. "Peter—"

"I'll see you at dinner. I just came up here to grab my Charms textbook for Flitwick's essay."

When Peter's gone, Lily buries her head in her hands. She'd hoped that she and Peter—but she shouldn't feel so disappointed. After all, with the way he's been acting lately, that went just about as well as she could have expected.

At least things are going well between her and Sirius, as bizarre as that may be, considering what he did to James—how James has always felt about him. Lily's started Flooing to see Sirius every couple of nights, and it's been nice, having somebody she knows she can actually talk to about Severus, even if she never says much about him. It was jarring in sixth year to go from spending all her time with Severus to doing it with James, especially considering how much the two of them have always hated each other and the way James used to treat Severus. Talking to Sirius about it makes her feel a little less unmoored, like there's still a thread of connection between who Lily was and who Lily is.

Sometimes, she can't even recognize herself anymore. Who is this girl who had sex with her best friend's tormenter? Sure, they haven't done that again since the once in sixth year, but she's still dating him—spending all her time with him—falling for him—

—and for what? So that she doesn't have to be alone? So that she can distract herself from remembering that she put all her faith, threw away every other relationship she could have had, for seven years for a bigot?

And it's strange, being in James Potter's orbit, because with James comes popularity, at least among three of the four Hogwarts Houses. Before Lily really knew James and his friends—before people started treating her the way they treat them—she never would have guessed how lonely it is to be popular. It's like everybody in the castle is looking at her without seeing her—like everybody believes she must be perfectly happy, perfectly content with her lot in life.

But she's not. She's really, really not.

It's because of this business with Sirius, she's sure of it. Before Sirius kissed James, Lily had managed to drown herself in James, to block out of her mind all of her doubts about him, but now…

January is creeping closer every day, and, as much as Lily's grateful to have had Sirius in her life the last few weeks, she's not sure how she feels about him coming back and being face-to-face with him and James at the same time again. It's one thing to talk to Sirius in the privacy of Mr. and Mrs. Potter's living room about his brother and Lily's ex-best friend—quite another to watch firsthand as he tries to mend his relationship with Lily's boyfriend, you know, the one he went and made out with the last time he was in the castle.

She exits the boys' dormitory shortly after Peter leaves it—there's no point staying up here while James and Remus are in Ancient Runes, not if Peter's avoiding her—but Peter isn't in the common room when she ducks back down there to chase after him again. She makes eye contact with Mary and waves, but Mary just flashes Lily a halfhearted smile and turns back to Genevieve and Adelaide. Lily's shoulders fall.

She ends up in the library, figuring she can study until it's time for dinner and then tonight's Floo visit with Sirius. She sets up shop at an empty table with her books and parchment and ink, but she can't focus: her head keeps jumping back to Sirius and James and Peter. She flinches every time she hears footsteps, but it's never anything but underclassmen poking around in the shelves without saying a word to her—until she looks up at half past four to find Regulus Black hovering just within range and coming closer every second.

"Today isn't the day for this, Black," Lily sighs.

"I heard you've been talking to my brother most nights." He takes another step toward her. "Is it true?"

His voice is nothing like the snide, cruel, taunting one she's come to learn over the years. Black sounds anxious, even vulnerable. In the back of her mind, Lily recalls what she said to Sirius—that maybe Black did what he did just to try to get Sirius's attention.

"Yes," she says guardedly.

"Is he okay?" The words come out as a whisper. "Is he recovering?"

"Do you want him to be?"

"I don't know anymore. I—"

He breaks off abruptly when another voice, a girl's, calls from behind him, "Regulus, what are you talking to this scum for? Come and help me find this book."

Black's looking raptly into Lily's eyes, but he tears his gaze away from her and says at a much more normal volume, "It's nothing, Raleigh. Be right there."

"Black?" He looks back at Lily, standing there dumbly with his mouth open a little, and she goes on, "Why did you do it? Why did Severus do it? What's the…?"

But Black doesn't answer her. "Tell Sirius to be careful," he says instead, and then he's gone.

xx

She doesn't tell James about her conversation with Black, not at dinner with Peter and Remus and not afterward, when the two of them are doing their rounds. If James notices that she's acting shifty, he doesn't mention it. But she's pretty sure he doesn't: he seems to be plenty distracted by his own problems.

They don't talk about the Sirius thing. It's not like they've never talked about the Sirius thing—it's more like they've talked it to death, and there's nothing left to say that isn't just going to rub salt in the wounds. Instead, James is focused tonight on Peter. "It's like he's here, but he's not here," he's saying now as they round a corner somewhere on the fifth floor. "He's still with us all the time, but it's like he's—checked out or something. I've noticed it, and Remus has noticed it, and you've noticed it, too, haven't you?"

"I have," she confirms, not really listening.

"He's moody and sullen and distracted, and every time Remus or I try to confront him about it, he just makes a bunch of cryptic comments and then shuts down. I'm just—it's just so frustrating. We can't help him or—or stop pissing him off or whatever it is we have to do to get through to him until he talks to somebody, but he won't do it. It's like he's determined to sulk in his own misery."

"I know."

James hesitates. "Don't tell me you're going to start doing the same thing as he's doing now."

"What?"

When she looks up, he's smiling. "Something on your mind you're not telling me?"

So he did notice. "Sorry. It's nothing."

"Please?"

And he's looking at her so earnestly, with such concern, that Lily can't help it: she spills—but not the thing she'd thought she was hiding. It takes even her by surprise when she says, "Are we ever going to be able to talk about Severus?"

The slight smile drips right out of James's eyes. "Snape?"

"When this thing started between us—when we became friends—we were in the same place. You were trying to understand how you could fit into Sirius's life now that he was dating Remus, and I was trying to understand when I stopped fitting into Severus's, and even though you'd tormented him, you still… you still respected how I felt. You even left him alone when Peter asked you to. But we don't… we've never… I just launched myself into your life and out of his. God knows how many hours I've spent listening to you talk about Sirius and Remus, and I'm not saying I didn't want to, but…"

"But I haven't done the same for you," says James quietly. "I just—what—expected you to mold yourself around me?"

"I'm not saying you did it on purpose," she hastens to add. "I'm not even saying you shut me down when I tried to talk about it because I didn't try, not really, but… I think maybe I should have. I think maybe it's been weighing on me more than I… it's what Sirius and I have been talking about, Severus and Regulus, and it's been—"

"You talk to Sirius about Snape?" he asks in a strangled sort of voice.

"Is that a problem?"

James hesitates. "No. No, that's not what I'm saying. I just… I guess I just figured you were talking to him about me."

"Well, that, too," Lily admits. "I'm sorry if you don't want—"

"I'm sorry I threw you into my trauma as if yours didn't exist," he interrupts. She falls silent, eyes wide. "I'm sorry if I made you feel… like you had to treat that part of your life like it didn't exist because I wouldn't make room for it. I'm not saying I'll ever understand what you—" He breaks off, takes a breath, and tries again. "I'm just saying that I'm sorry. If there's anything on your mind that you want to talk through, we can talk through it. We always can. It's what you deserve."

But suddenly, Lily doesn't want to talk about Severus, not anymore. Since she was nine years old, she's centered her life around boys—first Severus, now James and James's best mates—and where does Lily fit in all that? What does it say about her that she feels like the only two sides to her are the one that was Severus's friend and the one that's James's girlfriend? When you strip them away, what's left of her?