"We can't do that," Sirius reminded James. "If we touch those stones again, we could end up somewhere even worse… although I guess somewhere without Severus Prince would be an improvement."

James glanced towards the door to his and Lily's room, where Lily was currently sleeping. The potion Cait had given her had made her violently sick the night before, and so she was sleeping it off. Seeing her so sick had been horrible, especially since it could all be for nothing.

"It doesn't always work," Cait had warned Lily. "I should know."

She spoke lightly, but there was a bitterness behind the words.

James forced his mind away from the horrifying thought of Lily having to endure an unwanted pregnancy on top of everything else she had gone through, and focused on Sirius again.

"I'm not saying we should touch the stones… yet," James said cautiously.

Cait raised an eyebrow. "You want to go to Paris."

Sirius groaned. "You can't be serious."

"What other choice do we have?" James replied. "Apparently this Pascale Malfoy will only speak to us in person. We need to get home somehow, and we can't just hide here forever. Especially not now that we know…"

He trailed off. Graham had visited them about an hour ago, and it had been to deliver bad news.

"Severus Prince is alive," he told them. "He's injured, but he'll recover, and when he does, he'll be out for your blood."

While Graham hadn't explicitly said so, James suspected that he was partially sharing this news to warn them that they wouldn't be welcome at the Ferguson castle for much longer. James just wasn't sure how ready Lily was to be on the run again, and so he dreaded telling her they had to leave.

However, that dread couldn't compare to the dread of telling Lily that Severus Prince was alive.

"I'll see if Duncan will help us arrange a portkey," Cait said. "And perhaps I'd better write to Pascale Malfoy as well, to tell her to expect us."

She moved to a desk and began writing, leaving Sirius and James alone by the fireplace. Her quill scratched quietly on the parchment, but the noise only seemed to magnify the awkward silence between Sirius and James.

"I think I'll-" James began.

"Maybe I should-" Sirius said at the same time.

They both stopped talking, leaving them in awkward silence once again.

"Um… I'm just going to check on Lily," James said finally.

"Right," Sirius muttered.

As James walked into his room, he could see Cait eyeing them both with raised eyebrows. He ignored the clear question in her glance and closed the door behind him.

He hated this. Sirius had always been his best friend, the person he could talk to about anything. Now, something had broken between them, and he wasn't sure it would ever be fixed. When they had a purpose, or were around other people, they could easily fake normalcy. But when they were left to themselves, things were far from normal. There were no more jokes, no more easy conversation. James wasn't sure whether it was his fault, but if it was, he just didn't know how to fix it.

"What's wrong?" Lily asked sleepily.

James pulled up a chair to her bedside. "Nothing."

She gave him a look that clearly said she didn't believe him.

James sighed. "Actually… it's Sirius."

Comprehension was dawning on Lily's face. "So he told you."

"You knew?" James asked, outraged. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It wasn't my thing to tell," Lily said.

James groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"You're mad?" Lily asked.

In truth, James was mad. But Lily looked so tired and pale and in pain, and he couldn't bring himself to make things worse for her.

"No," he told her. "I just feel a bit stupid. Did everyone know but me?"

"I don't think so," Lily said. "He hid it well."

"I just wish things could go back to the way they were," James said.

"I know," she said quietly. "But James, he's your best friend. Even if things can't go back to the way they were, things don't have to stay the way they are now. Even if you don't feel the same way about him, you love him as a friend. Love is worth fighting for."

Finally, Lily was sounding more like herself. James felt a surge of relief.

"I don't know how to fix this," James admitted. "I don't know how to fight for this."

"Just be yourself. Be honest."

James nodded absently.

"Lily… I have to tell you something."

The small smile she was giving him slipped off her face at his serious tone.

"Severus Prince is alive."

Lily recoiled. "What?"

"It's okay, though, because-"

"No, it's not okay," Lily said, a steely note to her voice. "Why didn't you kill him?"

James winced. "Lily… I guess I was so concerned with saving you, I didn't think to… and…"

She listened to him flounder without sympathy.

"I thought you wanted him alive for Snape."

"I've been such an idiot," Lily muttered. "Sirius was right all along. If I'd just killed Severus Prince before, if I hadn't been so weak, I could have spared us both days of torture. I could have saved countless people, I-"

"No," James said, gripping her hand. "It isn't wrong to show mercy. I don't blame you. You shouldn't blame yourself."

"I do. I blame you, too."

"What?"

"There were three wizards there, and three of you. Three killing curses and we would have been fine."

"You can't mean that."

"I do," Lily snapped.

"You're not acting much like Lily."

"Well, maybe that's because the Lily from before was weak. I tried to reason with Severus Prince so many times," Lily said. "I begged him to stop hurting me. I tried to appeal to his humanity; he has none. He's a monster in every way. You have no idea what he did to me, James-"

"I think I do have some idea, actually," James snapped.

Immediately, he regretted his words. He'd been in that torture room for a day, rather than almost a week. He hadn't been raped.

"Mercy is for the weak," Lily said. "That's what he told me, when I begged him to stop… to stop…"

She took a shuddering breath. James realized he was crying.

"I'm not who I was before," Lily said. "And if you can't live with that, then you should just leave me alone."

Her bottom lip began to tremble, and her eyes were bright, but she didn't let the tears fall.

"I won't," James said. "Not unless you want me to."

She was quiet, and he waited for her answer with bated breath.

"I don't think you'll love me anymore. I'm too broken."

He gripped her good hand, hard. "I couldn't stop loving you if I tried."

Now, she did let the tears fall. "I'm so sorry, James… I'm sorry for everything."

James held her as she cried. Wherever Severus Prince was, James hoped that he was suffering.

That night, Lily whispered to him, "I have something horrible to tell you."

"What?" James asked nervously.

"When Severus Prince was torturing me… he wanted to know where we were from. I told him we're from the future, and that we came through those stones, and that's why we wanted to see Pascale Malfoy. I told him everything."

James felt a chill go down his spine. "So he knows about the stones?"

"I hope he tries to go through them. I hope he ends up somewhere horrible."

Lily sounded anxious, and when James lifted his hand to run it through his hair, Lily flinched away.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"It's fine," James assured her. "And as for the stones, what are the odds he'd go somewhere like the present? We'll be okay."

He tried to believe it, but it was a long time before he was able to sleep that night.

After a rather painful bath the next day, Lily felt a bit more like herself. Even so, she still felt like a shadow version of who she used to be, and she couldn't seem to quite put herself back together. There was something hard in her chest, a bitterness that she'd never felt to this extent before. As ridiculous as it was, the only thing that seemed to anchor her to her time before was her love for James, and even that seemed changed. His constant hovering nearby was starting to annoy her, and sometimes she faked being asleep just so he would leave her alone.

That afternoon, she actually did fall asleep and woke to a nightmare. Then, she was grateful to see James sitting in his usual chair, head leaned back as he slept.

He looked ill, too, she thought, so she decided not to wake him. Still, as if he'd sensed her gaze on him, he blinked his eyes open and offered her a small smile.

"I can't go to France," she blurted.

"Why not?"

"I don't have a wand," she said. She laughed unhappily. "Isn't that ridiculous? What sort of witch doesn't have a wand?"

Something passed over James's face, and she had the sense that he knew exactly where this comment was coming from. Would Severus Prince always remain this shadow between them, she wondered?

"Well, if not having a wand makes you less of a witch or wizard, I guess neither of us measures up," James said with a rueful smile. "I'd offer you mine, but, well…"

Lily felt her heart clench. "Oh. I'm sorry. I forgot that yours is still at Hogwarts."

"It's fine," James said. "We'll get new ones in Paris."

He said it casually, but Lily sensed the sadness underneath.

"That will be interesting," Lily said, forcing some cheer into her own voice. "French wands from the 1700s. We can see how they compare to our old ones."

And she wondered, too, if this would also become normal for them, this faking of cheer and normalcy. She hated it, but at the same time, the alternative was to cry all the time, and she didn't want to do that, either. She wasn't sure what she wanted. And poor James had no one to talk to about it, now, because she was a disaster, and Sirius was avoiding him. It was a horrible curse, Lily thought, for James to be married to her at a time like this. He was too good, and he didn't deserve it.

She closed her eyes again, feeling tears stinging behind her eyelids.

The night before they left for Paris, Lily joined James in the common area. He was surprised to see her, because she still rarely left her bed. Lily claimed it was because she was still tired and in pain, which James believed, but Cait had also suggested to him that perhaps she didn't particularly want to leave her bed, either.

Lily sat beside him on the couch and leaned her head on his shoulder, and for a moment, it felt like old times.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He had no words, so James tentatively leaned in to kiss her. He had tried once before, and she had dodged. Tonight, she let him kiss her, and she carefully kissed him back. It was far more cautious than it had been before, but it was a start.

"It's going to be a while before I'm okay again," she told him, after she had pulled away.

He caressed her cheek with his thumb, and she leaned into his touch.

"That's okay," he said.

And as he kissed her again, for the first time in a while, the world felt as though it had righted itself again. Lily was here, alive. She was solid and real and wonderful. She was his wife. And everything else didn't matter, not really. Everything else could be fixed, so long as he had Lily by his side.