A pile of dishes stared at Lily Evans, and Lily Evans stared back.

Her wand was feeling very heavy in her back pocket, but she didn't reach for it.

"Does she not know how to wash a dish?"

Vernon Dursley was very bad at whispering. Or maybe he wanted her to hear him, Lily couldn't say.

"She's not the greatest dishwasher," her mother conceded. Then, with a worried tone to her voice, she called, "Lily dear, you will wash those dishes, won't you? By hand?"

"Yeah Mum, I've got this."

Because she did, in fact, have this.

"Oh, you have an electric dishwasher?" Vernon peered into the kitchen, craning what little neck he had. The bushy caterpillar posing as his moustache quivered on his lip each time he opened his mouth.

"No," Mr Evans addressed Vernon for the first time that night. "The only automatic dishwasher we have is our Lily here." He gave a booming laugh that was definitely not his normal laugh, and stuck out his chest a little more than he already had.

Vernon seemed confused. "If you don't have an electric dishwasher, then why ask Lily if she will wash them by hand? I mean, how else would she wash them? Magic?" Now it was Vernon's turn to let out a booming laugh.

The Evans family all gave Vernon uncomfortable smiles. Except Lily, obviously. She was much too busy washing dishes and hating Vernon Dursley with everything she had.

Vernon cleared his throat, filling out the silence a little bit. "Well, I had best be off," he announced eventually, standing at his full height.

Mr Evans stood too, walked over to Vernon chest-first, and they shook hands. "That's a shame," Mr Evans told him with a straight face somehow. "What are we losing you to?"

"My sister, Marge, needs my support right now. She's going through a rather tough time."

Lily's mother's eyes filled with concern. "Goodness, what happened to her?"

"Her new dog, Terror, passed away."

Mrs Evans sighed and leaned back, shaking her head. "How awful. What was the cause?"

Vernon cleared his throat again.

"She sat on it."

Now that put a smile on Lily's face.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoO

The pile of dishes was still not even halfway washed, but Lily didn't care anymore. Nothing could ruin her good mood.

"Marge killed her dog," she sang quietly. It was getting late, and her parents had already gone off to sleep. "Marge's dog is dead."

She was definitely in a good mood.

I don't need help from filthy little mudbloods like her!

"Terror got sat on, Terror got sat on, dah, dee, doo, dah, day."

Lily, I said I was sorry a hundred times. You know I didn't mean it.

"For there once was a dog named Terror."

Will I at least see you around before term starts? We can go to Diagon Alley together!

"And Terror had a very good life."

But we always go to Diagon Alley together! Lily, don't you see? This is exactly what Potter wants!

"But my sister's boyfriend's sister killed him."

Lily. Lily, please!

"And soon she'll be his wife."

Lily!

She looked at her reflection in a plate.

"You know, Evans," she told the plate, "You're not too hard on the eyes."

She wiped the plate off, and looked at it again.

"Not too hard at all," she decided.

Alright, Evans?

Humming her little tune, she put the plate aside and picked the next one up.

"Terror got sat on, Terror got sat on."

Yes, she was in a very good mood indeed. After all, things could only get better going forward. So what reason could anyone possibly have to not be happy?

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"I am terminally ill," said Mr Potter.

James and Sirius stared at him in stunned silence.

"I found out two weeks ago."

He leaned back in his seat, and drummed his fingers on his desk. It was polished wood. Everything in Mr Potter's study seemed polished. It wasn't tidy by any means, with folders and memos and books strewn about the place, but there was some sort of order to the madness. The books were stacked, the memos were grouped alphabetically, and the folders were color-coded. A messy, yet polished system.

"W-What do you mean?" James eventually croaked. "Wizards don't get 'terminally ill', only Muggles do. There must be a mistake."

Mr Potter surveyed James for a moment from behind his desk. Sirius was still speechless.

"You're quite right, James. So then tell me how this is possible."

James stared at him hard, sitting forward in his seat. "Last month," he said slowly. "In the Prophet, it said you led a raid on the Goyle residence."

An encouraging nod from Mr Potter.

"Only one casualty," Sirius said quietly.

Mr Potter sighed now, and gave them both a sad smile. He ran a hand through his hair, messy and dark though peppered with grey. "You two are among the brightest boys Hogwarts has ever seen, I'd wager."

"Lethargic, weakened, no appetite," James listed off quickly, not listening.

"He sleeps for fifteen hours a day, one meal a day, with paling skin," Sirius added, matching James' urgency.

The two boys looked at each other, frowning.

"What are those symptoms?" James wondered.

"A variant of Spattergroit?"

"Can't be, the skin wouldn't pale. Could it be a curse?"

"I don't think so. The curse would have to be Dark Magic to be this strong, and the Goyle raid had no arrests."

"Don't bother, boys," Mr Potter cut in, taking his glasses off and inspecting them. "I was seen to by St Mungo's best, and they couldn't identify the cause."

"Is that right?" James stood suddenly and turned to Sirius. "Send word to Remus and Peter. Tell them to come immediately. I'm no potions expert, but I'll see what books we have in our main study and I'll brush up as best I can before they get here."

Sirius nodded and stood, too.

"Boys."

It was the loudest they had heard Mr Potter speak for a long time. Now that James thought about it, since he and Sirius had come home for the Summer his father hadn't raised his voice once.

"Boys, sit. Please."

James and Sirius were still for a moment, but after a quick glance at each other, they slowly took their seats again.

Mr Potter ran a hand through his hair again. Not for the first time, James was struck by how much it seemed like he was watching an older version of himself sitting behind that desk.

"I didn't tell you this just to have the four of you cook up some hair-brained scheme to help me." Mr Potter's tone was matter-of-fact, demanding the two boys to understand. "I'm beyond helping. This illness will kill me before long."

"I'll find a cure," James said immediately.

Mr Potter snorted. "What a great idea. How did the St. Mungo's staff not think of that?"

"Lack of imagination, I'd expect," James hypothesized.

"We are quite imaginative," Sirius nodded.

Mr Potter sighed once again. "Don't waste your time. Please, if nothing else, don't waste your time, boys. With the talents and resources the two of you have, no, the four of you have, you can make changes to the world the likes of which an old man like myself could only dream of. You're both young. You have whole lives ahead of you. Please don't waste your time."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Sitting on the roof of Potter Manor, James was afforded a lovely view in the moonlight. The house-elves kept the garden maintained to perfection. Trees were sculpted into lions and hippogriffs and dragons, enchanted lanterns floated around the estate, shining yellows and golds and reds across the extensive lawn. It was a kaleidoscope of Gryffindor spirit and Potter-ness that James would never get tired of. He didn't like flaunting his wealth, but at times like these he couldn't help but marvel at it.

"I thought I'd find you up here."

It was Sirius. James didn't need to look. He'd really expected Sirius to find him before long, anyway.

"Hey, Padfoot."

Sirius sat down next to him.

They were quiet for a good few minutes. Sirius gazed up at the stars, searching for something. Whatever it was, he didn't find it.

"We could still do it, you know."

James knew what he was talking about, but he waited for Sirius to elaborate anyway.

"Find a cure, I mean. Moony and Wormtail would be here in a heartbeat, and you know there's nothing the Marauders can't do."

James waited a long moment before he answered. "It would be a waste."

Sirius hesitated. "A waste of time?"

A nod. "That's what the old man said."

They were quiet for another few minutes. Thinking and looking. Processing.

Predictably, it was Sirius who broke it again. "My dad, or at least my biological one, once sat me and Reg down when we were kids," he said, his tone the sort one would use when talking about the weather.

James hadn't heard Sirius tell a lot of stories about his father, and listened with surprised interest.

"He told us 'The Grindylow without horns must be put down, its defect removed from the gene pool. Those with more are worth more.' I thought at the time it was a lesson about how to breed Grindylow. Turned out to be Pureblood propaganda."

James snorted. "Sounds like a real role-model."

"Yeah. Well, no, he was the worst. I'm well shot of him, mate."

"Right. And so your point was...?"

"Didn't really have a point," Sirius admitted. "Just thought I'd share it."

James didn't know what to say to that, and Sirius seemed to guess that James wasn't much for talking just then. James relished this silence, needed it, at least for a moment.

The red and gold lanterns seemed to paint the grounds of Potter Manor with a melancholy brush that night. Shadows and silhouettes popped out to James as he gazed across the property, bringing memories to the forefront of his mind, unbidden, that James wasn't particularly keen to delve into.

But delve he did. Into duels in the corridor, nights in the forest, beating Peter with pillows in the dorm room, and his own advances of one particular redhead.

Ideas collected in James' head. Less than ideas, really. More of just gut feelings. Feelings that he was doing it all wrong, somehow. That so far, he had only done the opposite of what his father had just advised: wasting his time. For the life of him though, he couldn't quite figure out why. He was perfectly happy with everything he did. Maybe he just wanted... more?

James hoped his best friend could make something of it all.

"Padfoot?"

"Mhmm?"

"We need to do better. Be better."

Sirius said nothing.

"There's a war out there. And it's going to kill my Dad. Sirius, are we really going to spend our last two years at Hogwarts pranking First Years and cursing Slytherins? Is that the Marauders' legacy? Is that the best I can do?"

Still nothing.

"Granted, I don't have any better ideas, but... you said it yourself. We're the Marauders. There's nothing we can't do. Right? So let's do... more."

It wasn't coming out the way he wanted.

"More how?" Sirius asked at last.

James grimaced. "I'm sort of just hoping we'll figure it out as we go. But surely for a start it can't hurt to, I don't know, be nicer? You know, to First Years, or Slytherins... and First Year Slytherins."

Sirius considered this for a moment, before responding.

"If a First Year is a snotty little brat-"

"Then we can prank them."

A pause.

"And Snivellus?"

James grinned. "I think we can still make time for an old pal like that, don't you?"

Satisfied, Sirius nodded. "That's all a Marauder can ask for, my dear Prongs. I'm all in. So what sort of mature rot are you thinking?"

A wry smile. "You should know, Padfoot old boy, that I don't think about mature things before I do them. Otherwise I'll just talk myself out of it."