June 30th, 1976

Lily follows Marlene's example when she doesn't bring up her birthday again. That's not to say that the subject isn't broached with others; indeed, Marlene seems insistent to act as though everything had been normal, as though Doc hadn't rushed off to fight barely an hour after lunch and left the two girls alone. When they return to the McKinnon household the next day (Lily don't see Doc at all; Marlene tells her when she wakes her that he'd left for work already), Marlene's family doesn't seem surprised that she doesn't discuss the day in great detail, and her reply owls to birthday wishes from the other Gryffindors read lightly from Lily's vantage point over her shoulder. Only perceptive Margaret comes close to suspecting anything out of the ordinary, but she's careful to only mention it when neither her parents nor her siblings are around.

"So you had fun?" she prompts, hanging on Marlene's arm and almost whining.

"Yeah, sure. You've met Doc; he's great," says Marlene, waving a hand vaguely and trying, unsuccessfully, to tug her arm out of her sister's grip.

Margaret persists, "But there was that Death Eater attack—it was all over the papers this morning, made the cover of yesterday's Evening Prophet. He's an Auror, isn't he? Didn't he have to go in and help?"

"Moody gave him the day off," replies Marlene a little too sharply. "Don't you have some kind of prank to plan with Matt?"

"Didn't we tell you it's on you?" huffs Margaret, but she lets go and runs off to find her brother without further comment.

At Lily's enablement, Marlene continues to act almost too normal, and she has Lily convinced by the end of the week that most of her birthdays are, at least in part, spent alone. Even the next time she sees the Gryffindor boys—at another Quidditch game hosted by the Prewetts—Marlene doesn't flinch, even when Black sweeps her into his arms with a whispered "happy birthday, Leigh" but leaves her empty-handed. Potter, too, notices nothing, making mere small talk instead: "You got my gift all right, Marlene?"

"Of course—you should have expected that, with Lily delivering," Marlene scolds him playfully (Lily is happy to find that her blush isn't nearly as bright as it would have been a few weeks ago). "Thanks so much for the tickets! The letter was lovely, too—it was sweet of you."

Potter grins and tackles her in a hug as well, once Black lets go. "Have a good birthday? I was sorry I couldn't see you, but I know you always spend the day with your uncle…" An uncle—so that's how she passes Doc off at school.

"Oh, no, don't be. It was wonderful," she assures him. With his face buried in her shoulder, he doesn't notice the unusual brightness in her eyes. Still, Lily finds it appalling that the only person to catch on to something funny is a fourteen-year-old without a real understanding of the war.

Potter pulls back and surveys her (though, obviously to Lily, not closely enough). "I'm glad," he says, and he sounds sincere. "I'll see you on Wednesday, then? Eight o'clock."

"Eight o'clock," Marlene repeats, smiling, before she darts off to join her team with Black.

It feels like eight o'clock on Wednesday can't come soon enough. Though being around the other Gryffindors still makes Lily a touch uncomfortable, it's hard not to get excited when she's never been to a concert before, let alone a wizarding one. Besides, Potter's been bearable all summer thus far, and she's more than a little curious to meet his parents—and she's put off inviting Lupin to Tuney's wedding far too long.

She puts off packing until the day of, so that she won't get too far ahead of herself. "Should we bring sleeping bags?" she asks Marlene as she throws together a knapsack for the night: pajamas and Muggle clothes for the morning, a hairbrush and clip, toothbrush and toothpaste…

"Believe me, we won't need them," scoffs Marlene as Lily searches frantically through her trunk for dental floss. "We'll be in the guestrooms."

Guestrooms? "How big is this house, exactly?" she asks Marlene, finding the floss and tossing it in with her things.

Marlene just smiles, zipping up her own duffel bag (why it's necessary for one night's worth of personal items, Lily's not entirely sure). "Big enough to accommodate a lot more than five guests," she says simply as she watches Lily make a final scan of her sack before slamming it (and her trunk) shut. "Ready to go?"

"But it's only seven-thirty," Lily protests mildly, checking her watch.

Marlene laughs. "As if that would ever stop them from showing up early." Lily remembers, suddenly, back to that first day of summer, when Potter caught her early in the morning in Marlene's kitchen, still in her pajamas. It feels like so long ago already…

"Fair enough," she accepts, tossing the knapsack over her shoulder and straightening her robes. "You're sure you're supposed to wear wizard robes to this? It seems a little suspicious, a congregation of wizards in bizarre attire—"

"Trust me," says Marlene loudly over Lily's mumblings about the Statute of Secrecy. "You'll look sorely out of place wearing anything else, except maybe a Peverells T-shirt, and you don't have one of those, do you? Let's go," Marlene decides as Lily's shaking her head and sighing.

She joins Marlene at the much-frequented hearth and helps her lug her duffel bag into the fire with her after she's tossed in her Floo powder. "Helene's Manor!" she bellows into the flames, and Lily soon follows suit.

After the journey, she stumbles out of a rather spacious fireplace into a room with cream walls and hardwood floors that squeak under her flats. "Marlene?" she calls—she doesn't answer.

Hitching up her rucksack, she steps through one of the room's two doors into what looks to be an ornately decorated ballroom. Uninhibited by the classmates she's not quite ready to get to know, she gasps audibly and walks to the center of the room, pushing to the back of her mind the better sense to go back through the other door and look for Potter or Marlene. After a brief glimpse at the wide, mullioned windows—while Lily appreciates beauty, she's never been much interested in architecture—she lays down her sack and starts to revolve on the spot, dancing with an imaginary partner.

She trips and falls mid-leap when there's a knock on the door, and she spots Remus Lupin looking embarrassed in the doorway. Feeling rather foolish, she rubs her bum and winces as she gets up. "Er—hello," Lily greets him self-consciously. "I came out of the fireplace there, and I didn't want to get lost, and—"

He smiles, shaking his head, and comes into the ballroom. "Don't worry about it. There's about twelve fireplaces in this place hooked up to the Floo Network; it was bad planning on James's part not to pick you and Marlene up. We only went looking for you because Marlene found us in the living room—she's been here before, so she knows her way around. We didn't realize you'd come so early, else we'd have found you by now." Lily bites her lip, still feeling uncomfortable. "You're all right?"

"Yeah. I dance a fair amount at home; my bum can take it from experience," she jokes, cracking a timid smile. Lupin grins back and extends a hand, to which she simply stares, wide-eyed.

"Honestly, Lily," he teases, grabbing her dangling hand himself, "you didn't think I'd catch you dancing like that and get away without sharing your expertise, did you?"

Lily blushes and takes his hand, joining him in a basic box step. "If Potter catches us like this—"

"James would have done the same thing," says Lupin earnestly. All things considered, he's probably right.

"You know, Lupin—Remus," Lily correct herself at his glare, "speaking of dancing, I've been meaning to ask you—would you like to be my date to my sister's wedding?" He raises an eyebrows. "Well, not my date, exactly—she didn't even send me an invitation, we're not on the best of terms, but according to my mum, the invitation would have been made out to 'Lily Evans and guest,' and Severus and I—"

"Breathe," advises Lupin, and Lily breaks off, tripping over his feet. "What's the date of the wedding? Because if it's this weekend, I've already made plans—"

Relief washes over her: is that a yes? "No, it's on the eighteenth, but we'd be staying at my house that whole weekend."

He doesn't hesitate for long. "I'd love to come," he assures her, spinning her in place.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Thanks," Lily says gratefully, squeezing his hand. "Think we should be getting back?"

Lupin nods and leads her out of the ballroom. "I can't believe you Flooed into the ballroom antechamber," he says to himself as they pass through the room Lily came through—she jogs to catch up to him, having gone back into the ballroom for her knapsack. "Almost everyone comes in at one of the living or dining rooms…"

"One of them?" she says curiously, trailing him down a narrow hall and continuing down a winding staircase.

"Yes, well, it's a huge manor," Lupin admits, breathing a little harder than normal as they spiral down. "It was bought into James's family about a century and a half ago; it used to be Helena Ravenclaw's, and you can imagine what kind of wealth she inherited from her mother to build this place."

"Helene's Manor," Lily repeats under her breath, and Lupin nods, reaching the landing. "But wouldn't it be in the family of Ravenclaw's heir?"

Lupin turns around and shoots her a surprised look. "Ravenclaw doesn't have an heir," he informs her. "From the number of times I've seen you carrying around Hogwarts, A History, I'd think you would know that. Anyway, James's mum was a Ravenclaw."

Lupin leads her out of a wider hallway into a large living room, where Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and Marlene are seated. "Lily Evans, lady and gentlemen," presents Lupin, grinning at her. The ensuing cacophony of greetings makes Lily blush again as she drops her sack on an end table and herself in the armchair next to it.

Pettigrew waves to her from one of the loveseats, and Black comments, "Good of you to join us, Evans. T-minus two hours…"

She gives them both a small smile, then directs her attention to Potter. "Thanks again for the tickets and for letting us stay and everything," she tells him, even as he ruffles his hair with chagrin. "You really didn't have to go out of your way like that."

"'S no problem," he assures her, grinning, as Marlene thanks him again for the "amazing" birthday gift. Lily notices that she and Black are on opposite ends of the room, even though everyone here knows about them. Getting up, Potter adds, "Now that we've located you, care to choose a room to sleep in tonight?"

Lily shrugs and gives the others a parting wave, grabbing the bag and following him out into the hall. "All the bedrooms are on the fourth and fifth floor," Potter's saying, and Lily sighs as she heads back up yet another staircase with him. At her expression, he chuckles and decides, "In that case, we'll put you on the fourth. There's ten bedrooms, though if you want a private bathroom, you'll have to go up to the fifth… no, I didn't think so. And of those ten, three are already taken by me, Remus, and Peter—Sirius, Marlene, and my parents are on the fifth—so you'll have seven to choose from… that enough of a selection for you?"

"This house is brilliant—would you mind much if I moved in with you?" Lily says breathlessly as they mount a second staircase.

Potter laughs loudly and grabs her hand, kissing it (she pulls back in mock disgust). "Moving fast, are we, Red? And I thought you'd at least allow me the liberty of kissing you first."

"Not since you've already allowed yourself that liberty," she chides him, making a show of wiping her hand on her robes. "Besides, haven't you heard? Lupin and I are madly in love."

Potter stops abruptly; Lily promptly smashes into his back and expect to fall the very long way back down to the ground floor, but he grabs her hand again just in time, this time with an iron grip. "You and Remus?" he says, his voice strangled.

Lily raises her eyebrows. "I was kidding. You don't honestly think anyone I refer to by surname has a shot with me, do you?" Potter laughs nervously, then breaks out into the start of a real smile—which quickly fades to a sort of open-mouthed confusion. (Presumably, he'd thought he might have a shot—then realized that she still calls him Potter.) "And it's not a date, exactly, but I'm bringing him to my sister's wedding."

"I thought I was your default fake date," mumbles Potter, not budging. "I thought—"

"Check back with me on that after we've become mates," Lily suggests. "Do you mind…?"

He looks around wildly and runs his fingers through his hair, harrowed. "Right," he says to himself, "right…" and without another word, he whirls around and practically marches back up the staircase.

Lily tears after him, her backpack whipping behind her as they curl upwards. "What, now you're cross with me because I invited Lupin to a family function? Honestly, Potter, it's not like we're betrothed or anything; what right do you have to—"

"I don't know about you, Red, but I consider us mates," he retorts—but he sounds wearier than he does angry. "And I thought that if you could stand to pretend to date me for a full day to McKinnon, then you'd be more than happy to invite me as a friend. How many times have you ever even talked to Remus? Four? Five?"

"I'm supposed to bring a guest, not necessarily a mate. A month ago, I would have invited Severus, but since that's not exactly an option and you lot have never treated me right when it would have been, I've got to start from scratch with picking my mates, haven't I, and I'd rather start with someone I don't already have a history of animosity with!" Lily bursts in a rush.

They've stopped again, having reached the landing of the manor's third story, and Potter is just staring at her—staring like he's never really seen her before. "I've never wanted anything but friendship from you, Red," he says intently. (Lily snorts derisively.) "I mean, of course I think you're attractive—I've thought that since first year—and I'll be the first to admit now that I know you better that I've approached you the wrong way before, but I've only ever tried to be open with you, and for months you've shot me down, and I take it because you're worth the effort and the trials and the mood swings for the rare moment when we're in a good place, you know? Because we always hit a good place, every now and then, for a couple days or maybe a week or two at most, but then something like this happens where you shut me out without any good reason, and I—"

"God, will you quit trying to play the guilt card and taking everything so personally? Or are you just dragging out your monologue because you love to hear yourself talk?" she half shouts at him. "I don't see how my inviting Lupin to Tuney's wedding has anything to do with me supposedly shutting you out, and I really don't see how you've ever thought that we've been in a good place before with you tormenting Severus all the time, but there's one thing you're right about—having approached me the wrong way before. I shouldn't even have come here today, I should have known you'd get around to antagonizing me sooner or later…"

"Antagonizing you?" For the first time today, Potter's tone shifts to resentment. "Like I'd really try and antagonize the girl I've been chasing after for all this time? Like I wouldn't rather be snogging you senseless than having you pick fights with me when I get the rare chance to see you?"

"If you're really that fond of me, you aren't doing a very good job of making me believe you," she spits, crossing her arms.

In the time of about half a second, he goes from glaring at her to grabbing her—cradling her head in one hand, looping the free arm around her waist, and breathing her in. It's softer than the grope Lily would have expected from him, but she doesn't give herself long enough to identify appropriate adjectives before she shoves him away, fuming. "What in the bloody hell was that, Potter? Did I give the impression that it's all right to touch me?" she nearly shrieks, practically shaking.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Red—did I misunderstand you when you told me to prove that I'm fond of you?" he says. "Because my words and subtler actions haven't seemed to cut it all year."

She clings, shaking, to her rucksack. "Yeah, because it's so easy to believe you fancy me after you told the whole bloody school in third year that I'm a stuck-up tight-arse and you can't stand being around me. Just take me up to the fourth floor."

"Stop acting like I hate you," he shoots right back. She rolls her eyes but doesn't complain, so he turns on his heels and jogs up the final flight of steps. "The doors at the ends of the hall are bathrooms," he says, his voice clipped and bitter. "I'm guessing you'll want a room away from mine?"

A flicker of something like hurt flashing through his eyes at Lily's nod, but he leads her to the right of the stairs and throws open the second to last door on the left. "You think this'll work?" She nods again, barely looking into the room as she tosses her sack on the bed and proceeds to follow him down all four flights of stairs without a single word from either of them.

The tension only eases at the end of the concert—during the last song, in fact—when Potter asks Lily to dance to (what else?) "Moontrimmer" with him. Though still inwardly fuming about the fight, she can recognize an apology when she sees one, even if it takes a rather unconventional form—but then, that's to be expected from Potter. So with a somewhat fabricated huff on Lily's part, she accepts the invitation, then bursts into laughter when he unceremoniously pulls her into a fast-paced jitterbug in the middle of a rock song. "Where'd you learn to dance, Potter?" she asks, giggling, as they attract a considerable number of stares.

"My mum forced me to take lessons," he says easily, looking surprised that she's keeping up. "What's your excuse?"

"Childhood hobby—I forced my mum to let me take lessons," Lily says right back, grinning.

He shifts quickly to the tango just when Lily's getting into it, claiming that the jitterbug "really isn't my comfort zone"—but she doesn't complain, just tries to keep time to the music and hopes that Marlene isn't paying them any attention. Potter sings softly throughout the song, and she catches pieces of the lyrics when he pulls her close.

I know I'm in too deep, but soon you will see…

Most of The Peverells' songs are short—under three minutes, even—but they don't get out of the concert (which started at ten, mind you) until nearly midnight. Though Potter has backstage passes for them, Lupin persuades him to head straight home; indeed, the pallor of his skin and bags under his eyes convince Lily that he must be ill, but when she asks, he just shrugs and says he's not used to staying up late.

So they head for the nearest fireplace and squeeze their ways through, each accepting a pinch of Floo powder from a bored-looking usher. "You'd better go in with me, Red, don't want you getting lost again," Potter instructs Lily, and she nods and steps alongside him into the green flames.

They come out in another anteroom, but not the same as before—there's a loveseat pushed about a meter away from an adjacent wall, and the walls are painted rosy-red. "I don't know what it is about you and these fireplaces, Red," he says, dumbfounded. "Everyone comes out at the living room…"

"Where does this room lead?" Lily inquires, her shoes clicking against the wood floor.

"Study," says Potter shortly. "D'you want to take a look around? We've got a huge collection of Muggle books, you know."

She perks up at the Muggle mention. "Fiction or nonfiction?" she asks, following him inside.

The study is pitch-black, but after a bit of rummaging on a mahogany desk close to the doorway, he's able to light a gas lamp. A smile involuntarily crosses her lips; clearly, Potter was understating. The "study" is roughly the size of the Hogwarts library's Restricted Section, judging from the times she's been there for coursework, and is furnished up to its (very high) ceiling with bookshelves crammed full of ancient-looking books. "All right, it's official, I'm definitely camping out here sometime," she says frankly; Potter snorts with laughter and hangs in the doorway as she browses through the rows of shelves.

"It's mostly nonfiction, but there's a shelf of fantasy fiction somewhere in the back," he tells her. "Mum's always been fascinated by Muggle fantasy—thinks that what they dream up about magic is riveting."

Lily laughs softly, running her forefinger over a dusty line of books. "I went through a fantasy stage myself before Hogwarts," she murmurs. "Right after Severus told me I was a witch. Tuney and I must have checked out every fantasy novel in the public library…"

"Snape?" intones Potter. She turns to face him; he's gone stiff, his knuckles white from his grip on the desk.

Lily quirks an eyebrow at him. "I thought you knew about me and Severus—you were quick to throw that in my face on the first day of the holidays."

"No—I did. I do," he asserts, looking down. "You just caught me off guard, that's all… Red, how far did—how close did you and Snape get, by the end?"

She's startled by his tone of voice—James Potter, of all people, is not known for self-consciousness. "Well," she begins, reluctant to continue; Severus is a wound she hasn't had time to heal. "He—he was my best friend, you know that. We got off on the wrong foot, actually—Tuney was there, and she didn't take to him… but he kept seeking me out, and we would just—we'd talk, all day, for three years. He never… I just can't wrap my head around it, you know? The blood prejudice. It wasn't ever an issue with him until Hogwarts, and he'd always tell me not to listen to what people said about my parentage, that it didn't matter… he was just Sev, when he was with me. A little awkward, maybe, but mostly just shy. He was always so sweet…"

Lily doesn't realize until Potter steps forward with his handkerchief outstretched that her eyes are welling up. She offers him a choked laugh and dabs at them hastily, grateful not quite to be crying. "Thanks," she says, embarrassed.

He just nods and shoves his hands in his pockets with the handkerchief that she hands back to him. "None of us could ever understand what you saw in him, you know," Potter admits clumsily, after a while—she hasn't the slightest idea how long.

"I know," she confirms, turning her head. "You wouldn't know—he was almost a different person, whenever he was around me. He could be a great man, if not for his friends; they're such awful influences on him…"

After what feels like forever, Potter suggests, "You reckon we should get to bed now? They're probably all wondering where we've got off to."

"Right, yeah," Lily agrees, waiting as he turns out the light. The study is thrown into darkness again; she keeps close to his heels and tries to remember the path from here to the staircase leading to the fourth floor. "Promise you'll take me back here tomorrow?"

Potter chuckles, but he's learned his lesson about stopping her in stairwells and doesn't slow down. "You're awfully flighty, aren't you, Red? Hate me, then love me…"

She shoots him her discomfited smile—the one with the bitten lip that's half the size of her usual grin—and she doesn't apologize for the fight, because apologies no longer feel necessary.

In her borrowed bedroom—it's much larger and better furnished than she could have expected, now that she has the patience to look around—Marlene is waiting for her when Potter drops her off. Lily can tell that he's hovering out in the hall as she orders, "Details, now," and she catches his light chuckle before she pointedly closes the door to him.

"There's not much to tell, really," Lily fibs, rummaging through her knapsack for pajamas and underpants.

She can tell, though, that Marlene's not convinced. "Oh, and you think none of us heard you two rowing in the stairwell earlier? You quarrel, you barely look at each other for two hours—then you're dancing at the concert and disappear for an hour after? I doubt that you got Jay lost in his own house, Lily."

"It's been an hour?" Lily asks casually, checking her watch and starting to untie her robes. "Must have lost track of time… felt like ten minutes, really." By the look on her face, Marlene is unimpressed. "All right, all right… we fought and made up, you know that, and then we came out in the antechamber to a study full of Muggle fantasy and nonfiction. I got a bit caught up in browsing the shelves, and then Potter made me go to bed. That's all—it is!"

Marlene sighs, disgruntled—apparently, Lily spends enough time in the Hogwarts library to pull off the lie. "You two have a bizarre relationship. Honestly, you couldn't get any rockier with the bloke…"

"You know, technically, I could," Lily points out, tugging on her outgrown nightshirt. "We could be like you and Black."

Marlene throws one of Lily's pillows at her, who deflects it by bouncing it off of her dressing gown, which she stretches out like a net. "You were all over Potter and Lupin tonight, but you didn't dance once with Black, even though everyone in this house knows why you chose a room on the same floor as his," Lily observes, wrapping the dressing gown around her shoulders and plopping down next to Marlene on the unnecessarily king-sized bed.

Flushing, Marlene retorts, "At least I have the decency not to flash my love life all over the place. You can't say the same for yourself, I'm afraid."

Lily throws the fallen pillow back at her; Marlene squeaks in panic, then lapses into giggles. "Potter has nothing to do with my love life! I don't even have a love life."

"Really? So Snape never once tried to lay one on you all those years—?" She wiggles her eyebrows (rather comically, Lily must admit).

"Marlene!"

She sighs contentedly, rolling onto her stomach. "I never thought we'd get here, you know?" Marlene says. She continues in response to Lily's confused expression, "To the part where we can gossip freely about things like boys. Not only would I never have expected your hormones to develop that far—"

Lily bombards her with another onslaught of pillows. She's prepared this time, though, and barely even flinches. "I figured that if you ever connected with any of the girls, it would be Alice."

"Alice?" Lily repeats, startled. "Really? I mean, not that there's anything wrong with Alice, but she's just so…"

Marlene fills in the blanks for her. "Perky, brainy, insufferably perfect. God, Lily, the two of you are practically twins."

Lily blushes a little—she wouldn't have phrased it exactly like that. "I was going to say 'placid.' It's unnerving, really. It's like she doesn't have any weaknesses—"

"You know, you act the same way most of the time," Marlene informs her, glowing. "I always thought that out of all of us, you'd probably latch onto Alice and drive everyone else mad for the rest of time, but you've actually turned out to have a personality, you know that? I wouldn't have pegged you to have one before now, honestly."

Rolling her eyes, Lily shoots back, "Yeah, thanks. You're not as shallow as I thought, either."

Indignantly, Marlene scoffs, "Since when do people think I'm shallow?"

"Well, you don't exactly go around admitting that you have actual depth to people—it makes you look flaky," Lily confesses.

This time, when Marlene hits her with the pillows, it's full-out war.