Hi, so here is another chapter and I hope that you enjoy it. This is short but it builds up to the main crux of this story. I hope that you enjoy this one and I will bring you the next one sooner rather than later.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine just the manipulation of the storylines of Lily and James's parents.

And here we are, we get to the crux of the story and I hope you enjoy it.

Please Read and Review.

And again apologies for the shortness of the chapter.

The Beginning Of The End

Chapter 11-Moonlight Desires.

As our main plot begins, James, Lily, Sirius, Marlene, Remus and Mary go to Hogsmeade on their January night trip. One moment everything is golden and then…then all hell breaks loose. Again a slightly shorter chapter and from Lily's point of view only.

January 13th was crisp and clean, a perfect day. Cold but not too cold and yet there was a hint of snow in the air that made them all smile. It was cold within the castle but the fires were burning (both in the press and in the castle) and Lily wrapped a dogtooth wrap around her shoulders as Marlene finally tied her hair in a loose, messy knot at the base of her neck and Mary pulled on her boots.

They were nice boots, dark brown, chocolate coloured leather and she smiled when she saw them. Lily liked footwear as much as she liked books and she knew the mark of good shoes as much as the next shoe obsessed girl did.

"We ready?" Marlene asked applying another coat of mascara.

"Ready" Lily said tying her wrap around her. Mary did up the final lace.

"Ready" she said and so the three Gryffindor girls (Tallulah being in detention) went down to the Great Hall.

Dumbledore was waiting for them.

"I hope" he said as he eyed all of the seventh years with his blue eyes that seemed to know what each and every one of them was feeling, thinking and planning to do (if that wasn't a withering thought then Lily didn't know what was). "That each and every one of you understands that this privilege is a gift. Misbehave and you will not get it again. You are expected back at one AM. At the latest. Anything or anyone coming through the gates at a later time will face the most severe of severe punishments. And do all enjoy yourselves."

And that was the end of that it seemed because Dumbledore waved them off and they went, all four houses, all four of them prepared for a night on the town.

Well, Hogsmeade at any rate.

"Lily" James said coming down the pathway and Lily who had been planning to sip her first firewhiskey paused letting Marlene, Mary, Sirius, Remus and Peter go past in a haze of giggles and laughter.

"Hello James"

"Do you mind if I walk with you?"

"Of course I don't"

"Then…then I'm going to walk with you" was all James said and so he fell into pace with Lily and the two of them walked down the snow covered path towards Hogsmeade.

"Lily?"

"Hmm?"

"I wanted to say…I guess I wanted to say thank you for—"

But she cut him off because the idea of James trying to say that he was sorry for all that had gone before them, gone after them and for that Christmas where his mother had died had been enough for her to gouge his eyes out with a rusty fork. Lily had known exactly what he had been going through those days that had turned into nights and the nights that had once again turned into days.

"James please don't apologise for that. For any of it. You lost your mother…it is a wound beyond healing"

James nodded and he turned his head away as if he was trying to battle his mind against the onslaught of emotions that were heading towards him.

"You know I lost my Dad" Lily said finally. "I was fourteen, about to be fifteen and I lost my Dad and…and since then my mother has all but checked out of being a parent. And my sister…well…my sister thinks I am a freak. She doesn't even want me to turn up to her wedding never mind being in it because heaven fucking forbid her muggle husband have to come face to face with what he calls, 'One of My Lot'. And here I am…trying to put one foot in front of the other as a muggle born witch in a world where muggle borns are being hunted down. You know I was with you for two and a half weeks and my mother genuinely didn't realise I was gone? I came back and she thought that I had been with friends but she didn't know who and she didn't care either way. Most mother's would have eradicated the very ground that most of their children walked on if they'd have pulled that shit but my mother? No she turns around and says, thank God Lily, Petunia is out and I need you to go to the Post Office and get me another bottle of whiskey"

She took a deep breath aware that the bitterness had seeped into every pore, every fibre, every essence of her being but she carried on anyway because with every word she felt lighter, she felt as if she was purging herself of some kind of nightmare, some kind of deep trauma that she had kept buried inside of her for too long. She wanted out. She wanted out and she wanted to run away from it all. And yet here she was telling James Potter, a man that had been the bane of existence up until a few months ago everything and anything to do with past. All the dark secrets that were locked down inside of her.

Because she trusted him. Out of all of the men it was him that she trusted and it was him that she wanted to be with and after six years of constantly chasing she felt confident enough to let herself be caught.

She'd had two gulps of vodka from Tallulah—who had insisted that she send her classmates off in style—and she thought that she was beginning to feel the after effect.

It wasn't the same but it was all she had.

"James" she said turning around and facing him before he could say anything.

"What?" he said breathlessly. It was snowing and it was coming down around them in thick clumps.

"Please don't feel sorry for me"

"But I have too Lily" James said as if it was the most obvious feeling in the world. "I have to feel it for you because if I don't then it's rage. It's rage for you and the hell that you've been facing at home. Nobody deserves to be treated like that least of all you. Seriously. If your mother and sister cannot see you for the most wonderful human being that you are then fuck them."

Lily laughed a little but it was the words that she needed to hear (though she would not admit them to anyone—a girl had to have some skin in the game after all). She needed to hear him get what she was talking about. She needed to hear him understand. She needed him.

Fuck this was getting very, very complicated.

Seriously why didn't they just scrap Divination and Muggle Studies and while they were at it the Study of Ancient Runes. Instead teach them all how the opposite (or the same) sex worked. That was what they all needed. A lesson on how to understand the complicated nightmare that was being the age of seventeen. They needed that.

She was Head Girl after all. How hard would it be to sell Dumbledore on this idea?

She was pulled out of her thoughts by James who tapped on her chin a little with the pad of his finger and it was so soft that she thought she was imagining it.

"You in your head Lily?"

"Damn straight I am"

James laughed.

"It's a place I wish that I could be in" he says softly and then his lips are coming down on hers and he's kissing her and she's kissing back and it doesn't matter, nothing matters, nothing matters else but this and she presses close to him winding her hands through the dark strands of hair and pulling him close to her. James for the most part is incredibly enthusiastic and his kissing skills are perhaps the best that she has come across.

To be fair though it's not like Lily didn't know this going in. Gossip in the girls bathroom is rife and even though she tries not to listen she knows that James is rumoured to be a good kisser.

And she doesn't know what a good kisser is because she's never really had much experience but she thinks that this must be what a really, really good kisser must be because he pulls her close and tugs his arms around her waist and his hands are on her lower back and fuck it Lily feels brave enough to let her wrap drop to the floor and she takes his hand and puts it on her ass.

James doesn't miss a beat. His mouth pulls back for a second to take a breath and then his mouth is down her jaw, pressing kisses into her neck and sucking on the pulse point. The hand on her backside gives a squeeze and she feel…something…flood straight through her knocking her for six and it takes all her considerable willpower (or lack thereof) to continue gripping his shoulders.

They move backwards until they are up against a tree and James hoists her closer so that she is pressed up against every line in his body and a part of her feeling the hardness between his pants and knowing that she is wet in much the same way, wants to throw caution to the wind. She wants to pull back and tell him to take her there and then on the snowy ground. Whatever this is it is the new face of desire and she's never felt like this before. She wants to eat him, drink him, she wants to put him down on the floor and have him take her and never let her go.

James for the most part seems to understand that.

That or Lily is completely insane which is…you know…not out of the realm of possibility.

But that is the moment that it ends.

Because all good things have to come to an end.

And at this moment here, when her future is mapped out in a haze of seventeen year old desire, that is the moment that it all goes to shit.

Because that is the moment that the Death Eaters decide to strike.

One moment the sky is gloriously star clad and empty and the next minute there is an eruption that has them both pulling back and looking up at the sky. Something is being formed and it takes Lily a second to realise that it is the skull and the snake that has come to mean the symbol of the Death Eaters, the symbol of Lord Voldemort. The symbol of impending war.

For a second that will be frozen in memory for a long, long time they both stare at each other and the sky and then there are the whizzing sound that is the sound of broomsticks coming in from the sky and then suddenly there is nothing else but the sound of screaming.

"Shit" James said pulling back his face white. "Shit. Sirius"

She realises what is going on even as she is still clasping his shoulders.

"Marlene. Mary"

"Yeah" he says pulling out his wand and she pulls out hers and then they are running down the path, wrap forgotten, coat forgotten, everything forgotten. James turns over his shoulder and blasts…something at the direction of the castle and Lily takes a moment to realise that it is something with antlers and something that is shimmering white but before she can do anything they reach the main gate of Hogsmeade and she has to steel herself against what she is seeing.

Because it is a bloodbath.

Already it is a bloodbath.

And their friends are trapped in it.

"Together" James says squeezing her hand and Lily nods. It takes her a second to respond.

"Together" she says squeezing his hand back and the green eyes meet the hazel ones and the two teenagers know that nothing will ever be the same again.

But screams rent the air and world will never be the same and so Lily Evans and James Potter go forwards, wands outstretched into the fight and their lives (already marked short) will never be the same again.

But they don't know it yet.

That in itself is a blessing for another time.

And there you go, I hope you enjoy and I will do my best to bring you the next chapter for another time.

Next Chapter-Sirius and Marlene attempt to have a moment when the night goes to hell in a hand basket (Parallel chapter to this one)