a/n: the next few chapters will probably be in a different format than usual. The song is 'Inda' by Ken Oak Band.

Chapter 29: The Thing that you Need

Lilly stumbled through the Marauders' apartment floo hungry, and more exhausted than words. She had bruises and scrapes across her body, and the acrid smell of burned flesh surrounded her. She was twenty minutes late to the "in-house" dinner she and James had plans.

"Lilly! Lilly, are you alright? What happened?" James asked frantically as he gathered her up in his arms, running his hands over her body to check for wounds. Shaking her head, she stilled his inquiries with a finger of his lips.

"I'm fine," she said, smiling softly. "We just had some issues with some Death Eaters that we were rounding up. We're all fine."

James and Lilly sat down on the couch together. She leaned back into the plush pillows and sighed, watching James carefully as he buried his hands in his unruly hair. He sighed, shoulders hunched in a gesture of defeat.

She knew it was difficult for him, an Auror in training, to have to wait for his girlfriend to come home from fighting the foes he sought to protect her from. To see his Lilly, along with Gretchen, Tabitha, and Alice coming trudging in from whatever battle they had been in, looking world-weary. Alice was growing thin, the innocence in her face replaced by the anguish of witnessing to many deaths. Alice and Frank had just become engaged and were struggling to convince his mother that though they were young as Alice stated prettily, "in times like these, youth may be all we have".

Lilly leaned forward and wrapped her arms around James' waist, letting her head fall forward to rest on his back. It wasn't fair, she thought bitterly. It wasn't fair that others could live so happily in other times, and she had been given a time of war and uncertainty. She felt so isolated from her family. She could just picture her sister sitting happily at a normal dinner table with Vernon, discussing his day at work and the new wallpaper she had hung in the foyer. Lilly could only dream of a time when she and James could do that. Lilly rubbed her chin hard against James' back, the soft cotton of his shirt gently scratching her chin.

"I love you." Lilly said quietly, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck.

Sighing, James turned and stretched out on the couch, bringing Lilly with him. They stared into the fireplace, content to be in each other's arms and to dream of a life far away from the world in which they were living.

And that is how Sirius found them, hours later. Lilly curled up, asleep in James' arms. Quietly looking at his best friend and his newly befriended girlfriend, Sirius was slightly shocked when James opened his eyes and stared back at Sirius. James' hazel eyes had aged too quickly in the month they had spent in the "real world." They seemed more cynical, perhaps even wizened. But then, Sirius mused, they had all had to grow up. Breaking eye contact, Sirius grabbed a Butterbeer from the cupboard and sat down in his arm chair. Sometime during the night Remus joined them, sitting against the couch with his arms wrapped around his knees. They spent the night like that, facing the fire, jaded, tired, yet somehow optimistic.

"The universe is full of Reflections but you have eyes,

That can see in another dimension, all the things that I've tried to hide

All my thoughts are just useful thinking, you've found time to think of me

I guess it's true what they say in this lifetime,

You just might find the thing that you need."

Inda, Ken Oak Band.