Previously in the Darklyverse: Sirius quit the Gryffindor Quidditch team. James's parents contracted spattergroit, and when he visited his mum over the break, he confided in her that he was involved in Elisabeth's and Millie's deaths. Marlene and Mary had a blowout fight about Marlene putting Lily before her. Emmeline bonded with Mary.

Revised version uploaded 29 January 2022.

xx

February 11th, 1978: James Potter

Hufflepuff flattens Gryffindor at their Quidditch match on Saturday. James and the other Chasers can't seem to keep possession of the Quaffle long enough to get it through the goalposts, the Beater team just isn't what it was before Sirius quit the team, and their Seeker loses to Benjy Fenwick, who is Captaining the Hufflepuff team this year and catches the Snitch twenty minutes into the match.

The one good thing is that, with Ravenclaw losing to Slytherin two weeks earlier, all four teams are roughly equal in points, which means that Gryffindor still stands a chance to win the Quidditch Cup this year, assuming that they perform well enough against Ravenclaw and neither Hufflepuff nor Slytherin scores too many goals in their match coming up in May. James reminds his team of this bracingly in the locker room after the match, then tells them to go on ahead to the common room—he's going to fly for a while before heading back.

True to his word, he actually does take his broomstick back out and soar into the air, unlike times past when he would tell his team he was doing this but instead transform into Prongs. The wind feels sharp and biting against his skin, but he doesn't care. He races as fast as he can get his Nimbus to cooperate from one end of the stadium to the other, wishing it could whip away his worries, but it's just a broomstick—it's no match for James's mind.

Elisabeth should have been here today—it should have been her leading her team to victory over Gryffindor, as much as James hates to admit it—and Millie, likewise, should have been here commentating the game. It's partly James's fault that they're not—his and the other Gryffindor seventh years' and Dorcas's. He doesn't know how much longer they're all going to be tormenting themselves with guilt—at least until they graduate and get to go on actual Order missions, probably. Forever, maybe.

His parents are sicker than ever. It doesn't exactly come as a surprise to James—spattergroit is notoriously contagious and usually fatal—but it's still not easy to find that his mother is too weak to write letters and now has to dictate her words to the Healer they've hired to care for them. Mum and Dad both insist that they aren't feeling too bad, but James doesn't believe them; for every letter he opens from one of the two of them, he wonders if it's going to contain news of at least one of their deaths.

So he has limited patience that night when he retreats to the dormitory early and finds Sirius already up there ready to rant about his problems with Marlene. "I get that it's hard on her," Sirius is saying, "but she left me—she can't do that and just expect me to put my life on hold on her timetable. And besides, it's not like I'm not hurting either, you know? Just because—"

"Padfoot, mate," James interrupts, using all of his energy to remain calm and conversational, "not that I don't sympathize, but can we maybe not do the teen drama thing right now? Just give me one night off. Tomorrow, you can rant to me as much about Marlene as you'd like."

To Sirius's credit, he doesn't looked pissed at all by this. "It's about the game today, isn't it?"

"I don't care about a bloody Quidditch game, even if we lose—"

"I meant about Elisabeth and Millie not being there," Sirius clarifies.

James drops his shoulders. "Partly. And—my parents aren't doing so hot, either. Dad sent another letter today. They keep trying to make it sound like they're going to bounce right back and be fine, but…"

"Listen, man, I'm really sorry about what's going on with them," Sirius says. "What can I do? What do you need from me?"

He sort of just wants to drink himself into a stupor, but it wasn't fun coming back from that last year when he dabbled in it, and besides, he doesn't think he deserves to numb this pain—not the pain about Millie and Elisabeth, anyway. "Just let me sit here without having to say anything," James says finally. "Some quiet company sounds nice."

"You sure you don't want me to go find Wormy and Moony? Peter could play guitar for us; he's getting better at it."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Thanks, though," says James.

So he lies there reading while Sirius lies on his bed sketching idly, and they don't talk, and it's the most peace James gets all day.

xx

The next day is Sunday, which means sitting around the common room writing Charms essays and drinking butterbeers while watching the snow fall outside. Peter picks at his guitar like he's come to do every day. James wouldn't call him good yet, but he's at least improving—James can make out chord progressions and everything now. An owl with a letter from Emmeline's sister nearly brains itself against the window that James hurries to open and pass along.

Emmeline, weirdly, has been spending a lot of time with Mary, who seems to be avoiding Lily and Marlene. It's not a partnership that he would have expected, but he gets it: Emmeline seems to be trying to be less dependent on Peter, and if Mary is on the outs with Marlene, with Alice hanging with Dirk Cresswell all the time and the boys usually together, that just leaves Emmeline for her to stick to.

Anyway, given that Em and Peter are still close, this has resulted in the four Marauders, Emmeline, and Mary spending a lot of time together, which—James has never been particularly close to Em or Mary, so it's a little strange for him. Sure, he's been friends with them both since they were eleven years old newly at Hogwarts, and he visited Em a few times while she was in the hospital. But he hasn't had a lot of one-on-one conversations with either of them, which probably makes it a good thing that they're spending time with him in a group, where he doesn't feel pressured to come up with all the conversation.

Still, there's some weirdness between all of them. Take, for example, anytime that Marlene's name comes up in conversation. Peter mentions something about some funny thing she said at breakfast the other day, and James could swear that the room instantly gets a bunch of degrees colder. Remus and Sirius look at each other, and Mary and Em look at each other, and James is left awkwardly making eye contact with Peter and fighting the impulse to tell them all to just get over it already. They all love each other here, even if they hurt each other sometimes—why is it so hard for everybody except James to remember that?

He's a little hesitant to tell Lily how he feels—she's in the thick of it with Marlene these days, and James doesn't want to make her feel like he's patronizing Lily for being there for her friend—but she keeps asking what's wrong the next night, until he finally figures he may as well just tell her, and then does so.

"I'm not trying to be an arse," he says sheepishly. "I know Marlene—and everybody—is going through something right now, and I don't want to—you know, trivialize that. But it's hard to be patient when people are dying, some of them our fault, and we're busy worrying about what? Stupid friend drama?"

"I was just talking to Emmeline about something like this recently," says Lily, looking thoughtful. "She was saying how, like, it's easier to throw yourself into the dramas that don't matter than it is to face up to the really big, bad stuff that we don't want to face. I know it probably doesn't make any sense that we're all fighting each other instead of focusing harder on what we're doing for the Order, but—I'll be the first to admit that thinking about the Order makes me feel powerless, because we're not doing much yet, and definitely not enough to make up for what happened last year."

"That's fair," says James. "I just feel like a… a…"

"Zoo animal," supplies Lily, but James frowns.

"What's a zoo?"

"Oh, sorry—it's a Muggle place where they put animals on display in cages and things for people to look at."

"That sounds horrible," James says.

"That's the point, though, isn't it? Everybody keeps whispering about us trying to figure out what we did in May, like our lives are on display for them, and we're stuck in a place where we can't do anything about all the injustices around us. So we, you know, narrow our concerns."

It's a somber moment, but James smiles a little and says, "You're so smart."

Lily immediately blushes. "I—thanks."

"How are you doing, anyway? I know you've been taking care of Marlene a lot and that you're trying to be there for Em and everything, and I just—I don't want you to wear yourself out."

"I'm okay. Thanks for noticing," she says. "Like I said, it's easier to take care of everybody's personal problems than it is to worry about—about what I'm doing in the world. It has been kind of hard balancing their needs against each other, though. Mary and Marlene had some kind of huge falling-out, and I know that leaves me as—almost Marlene's only good friend at this point, and I think even though she's angry at Mary, she's also really lonely without knowing Mary is there for her. And Em—I'm not a trained professional. I have no idea whether anything I'm saying or doing for her is helping or hurting. I don't know what she needs. Whatever it is she needs, I don't think she got it in St. Mungo's, but I don't know if she's still in that dark of a place, if we need to be on watch like we were planning before we got caught, if… and then it doesn't help that Mary is tagging along with Em everywhere, so Marlene is avoiding both of them, which means I can't get to Emmeline much of the time to begin with. It's just a mess."

"Can I do anything to make it easier on you? I could reach out to either one of them more, so that you're not constantly juggling people."

"I think—if you could get to Emmeline some of the time, that would help. That way Mary can go off with you two and I can focus on Marlene. Honestly, I don't think Marlene wants to be around most anyone else right now."

He raises her hand to his lips and kisses it. Lily smiles a little and adds, "I'm sorry that I haven't really made any time for you lately with everything going on. I feel like I'm being pulled in a bunch of different directions, and I don't know what to do."

"You're doing everything you can, and that's enough," says James. "I'll still be here when the dust settles, okay? Or when you get tired and need someone to lean on. Whenever, really."

"Yeah, but with your parents…"

He shakes his head. "It's okay. Really. I'm sick of just listening to myself think about them—I don't need to talk about them constantly, too."

"But—you're holding up all right? I don't mean what they're going through isn't hard on you, but… if you needed to talk about it, you'd know you could talk to me, right?"

"Of course," he says with a small smile, and he means it.

"James, I'm sorry I…"

"You have nothing to apologize for. It's going to be okay. It's okay, Lily."

And he means that, too. He already misses his parents every second of every day, and he hates himself for squandering all the time he could have had with them—but James thinks he's finally, at least, coming to grips with things being what they are. He lost time, that's true, but he's writing to them several times a week now, and—he got to see Mum and speak to her over the break. When he did, she still loved him; she was proud of him; he told her about joining Dumbledore as a vigilante, and she was understandably upset, but she didn't hate or blame him. It's not like James isn't terrified or even like he doesn't have any regrets, but… at least now he's crossed regret at keeping something so major a secret from Mum off the list.

"You're so good to me," Lily mutters, and she leans up and kisses him.