"Your eyes aren't actually brown, are they?" Lily said, blinking into James's face, her torso draped over his, her legs trailing along a settee in the Potters' library where James sat upright beside and beneath her. "I think they're what people might call hazel."

She'd taken his glasses and James tried not to squint at her as he answered. "Hazel is what Mum calls them. I don't argue when people say brown though. It's not like it's important."

Lily cocked her head, leaning closer, until he looked just as blurry to her as she did to him. "Not important to most people, perhaps. But it is to me."

James spoke against her lips, "Speaking of eye colour appreciation, that green is - "

"Oh, for stars' sake," Sirius blurted from the far end of the settee. "I'm sitting right here."

"Yes, but why?" James laughed at him, taking his glasses from Lily. "Go all Padfoot and find Remus to scratch your ears if we're making you lonely."

Sirius choked on his exasperation. "I'm here because I need to talk to you, obviously. I've been trying to get your attention ever since I got back."

"Sorry, go ahead," James said, trying not to be annoyed as Lily straightened herself to sit beside him instead of half on top of him.

Sirius was still eyeing Lily peevishly.

"You don't want to talk in front of me," she said. "I get it. Your important matter is a bloke thing, isn't it?"

"Nothing so jocular, I'm afraid. It's - oh, you'll just tell her all about it anyway, won't you James. Fine. It's - it's that - " Sirius's head fell into his hands, long black hair curtaining his face.

"I know that sigh," James said, sighing himself. "It's a family thing. Did you run into one of them in town? Did they bother you?"

"Yes," Sirius admitted. "And it was worse than usual. Maybe worse than ever. It was Regulus."

James passed Lily over his lap as she complained about being perfectly able to stand and move herself. There was a giggling struggle, maybe a squeal, before James was sitting close enough to pound Sirius fondly on the back.

Sirius sniffed at him. "Honestly, James, if I smelled you coming my way in a dark alley, I'd expect you to turn out to be a girl who's been using Muggle soap all week."

"Not sorry," James said. "Now what's this about Regulus?"

"He's trying to recruit me," Sirius said.

James frowned. "Unpleasant to be sure, but nothing new."

"No, but the reason is new. They know about the map," Sirius said, "They know we're capable of that kind of tracking and surveillance. And they want it for their own purposes."

James grabbed Sirius's arm. "How do they know? Lily was the only person we told, and she didn't - . Peter - was Pete tricked into - "

"No, no. It was me, on accident, of course," Sirius confessed. "The last time I went home, I had the map. That Kreacher dumped my bag out right in the kitchen in front of the entire family. Said he wanted to get the washing, but of course it was a search. Regulus saw me dive for the map. I thought I got away with it at the time, but he must have come back to find what I was hiding. I don't know how he would have got the ink to reveal itself, but he did, and then he told his cronies all about it. Now they want us to join up and work for them making maps just like it for wherever they like."

"Never," James said, gripping Lily's hand as if the Death Eaters were storming the room in search of Muggle-born witches that very second.

"Right. That's just what I told him," Sirius said. "It's what I've always told him, and my parents, and my shrew of a cousin - everyone."

Lily hummed. "Why would your brother expect you to do anything but refuse him? It's not like your absence from the Death Eaters would make your heart grow fonder of them."

"What he said," Sirius began, "what my kid brother looked me in the face and said was that to defy him was to defy the Dark Lord. It was a threat. He didn't say it in as many words, but the message was clearly that we could come make the maps voluntarily, or else we would be forced to do it."

"That little blighter…" James said.

"Don't be too hard on him," Sirius said. "He was trying to be severe but he was still himself, tender, scared. In his way, Reg said what he did as an act of mercy. What's a threat but a warning, really?"

James was still muttering protests. "Force us into their service. That's rubbish - "

Sirius raised his head from his hands, eyes lit with anger. "Is it? It would have been bollocks last year but there're more of them this year. They've had time to plot and organize. They're stronger now - "

"Yes, but so are we," James said. "We're not the bleeding Marauders anymore. We're fully of age, all but out of school. Skilled and strong."

"That's exactly the issue, James," Sirius said, each of his hands clasped around James's forearms, pulling him slightly away from Lily. "We've grown up. We're also not a bunch of careless, troublesome trickster kids anymore. We can't be. We've got responsibilities, and futures we can sense the shapes of now. We've got - "

Lily had closed a hand over Sirius's as he held James's arm. "You've got me," she finished. "This is what you didn't want to talk about in front of me, isn't it Sirius? It's about me, the Mudblood girl who's like a chink in your armour now."

James and Sirius both winced at her use of the word.

"Don't you think of leaving," James told her.

"I'm not."

"And I'm not asking you to go either," Sirius said. "Quite the opposite. Don't leave, Lily. It was me who first saw that you and James have a destiny between you I wouldn't dare disturb. But do be careful. Don't go home. If you can't stay here, go straight to school. Don't wait for the holidays to end. Stay where you'll be safe until this madness dies down. Even if it takes until after graduation, I'm sure Dumbledore will know somewhere you could hide out."

"Hide out? You can't be serious?" she said, and they were actually so serious no one even mentioned at the unintended pun.

James groaned as he began to speak. "He's right, Lily."

Sirius fell back into the arm of the settee, relieved to have brought James along so quickly. Good old James. Now the task of convincing Lily to stay out of Cokeworth was out of Sirius's hands and in his.

And it was no small task. Lily gave a small growl. "Fine, I may very well be a target of theirs. I can't deny that. But how am I different from anyone else the Death Eaters might want to harass? I don't have magical parents, but I'm just as much a witch as any of you are wizards."

"Yes, no one questions that. How could they?" James was saying. "But you're on your own when you're in Cokeworth. The closest wizard to you there is Snape."

"I can handle Snape."

"Maybe, but he's a hindrance, not a helper," James argued. "As for us, we've all got help. Peter's got a whole house full of magical family to insulate him from harm. Remus has his parents, and all the protections they have to keep him in the house when he's transformed also serve to keep intruders out. Sirius and I have each other here, and this old enchanted house has so many protective charms built into it that, frankly, we may have forgotten about some of them. And then there's my parents - "

Lily scoffed.

"I know," James said piling their hands together on his knee. "They don't look like they're capable of much, but magical strength ages better than brute strength - "

Lily snatched her hands away, standing up. "Brute strength? You're saying my family are brutes?"

James's eyes widened, alarmed. "No, of course not. But you've got to admit when it comes to defending themselves, without magic all they have is - "

She raised an arm, summoning her coat. "Are all non-magical people brutes to the pair of you then?"

Sirius waved his arms, as if shielding himself with them.

"No one said that," James said, rising to stand beside her. "Now don't go off mad. I just finished explaining it's not safe out there."

"I do not take orders from you," she said, jamming her arms into her sleeves. "And I won't talk about this any more today."

"Lily - "

"You're not my custodian, nor my keeper, James Potter," she snapped, her voice quavering. "You're supposed to be my partner."

"How can you doubt - "

But there was no time for James to finish. Lily's wand was drawn and she was turning on the spot, apparating away. He lunged at her, quick as a chaser on a quaffle, spinning into her turn with her, grabbing at her arms in the instant before she vanished. The library twisted around them, out of sight. Falling as they traveled, they appeared in their new location not standing but lying down, Lily's back pressed to James's front.

"What are you doing, coming here?" she hissed in a whisper to him.

"Here? Where are we? I've never seen this place before," he said.

She shushed him. "If we can hear them, they can hear us."

There were indeed voices and footsteps, muffled as if travelling through walls or floors. James listened, puzzling over whose they were. He'd lost his glasses in their tackle, and all he could sense of his surroundings was that they were in a small, dim room with sloping ceilings, lying under a rectangle of light, like a window to a sky where the sun had just set.

"It smells nice," James said, tipping his face into her hair. "More than nice. Is this somewhere at your place? It doesn't smell like cigarettes, so..."

She huffed in frustration. "Yes, it's mine. Upstairs in my room, where no one smokes. I've thrown myself into bed to cry about Death Eaters and you acting like an overbearing git, and you've gone and spoiled it by tagging along."

James couldn't help but gasp. "We're in your bed? Where every night you dream about - "

"Sleep. It's where I sleep, James," she said. "I don't dream every night. And you know what the soulmate books say. No matter what I dream, it's not an astral projection of you. You have never truly been here before. Not magically, not physically."

His chin moved against the crown of her head as he swallowed. "But I'm here now. Magically and - and physically."

She said nothing, keeping still, her arms folded against her stomach, not yet finished being angry.

He loosed a long sigh. "I'm sorry we tried to tell you where to go," he said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I don't want to boss, but I'm scared. I'll own it. If anything happened to you, here by yourself, how could I live with that?"

"We can't talk this over right now. This isn't a manor house. Someone is bound to hear you." As she'd spoken, Lily had turned to bring them face to face. "Your glasses. Have you lost them?"

"Somewhere," he said. "Maybe here. Maybe at home. Maybe in that twisting in-between space we have to apparate through. That place must be packed with loose galleons and lost specs."

She sat up beside him. "Let me check around here for them before I send you off."

He started to sit up beside her.

She placed a hand on his sternum, holding him down. "You keep still. No excess noise. No creaking bed springs or loud footfalls. And anyway, you can't very well help find your glasses when you can hardly see without them."

James conceded with a quiet grunt, settling into Lily's bed as she felt the blankets and pillows in the dark for the hard edge of his glasses.

"You're not lying on them, are you?" she asked.

"I think I'd feel if - " James's whispered answer cut itself short. Lily had fastened both of her hands to his right flank and tugged hard, as if to look underneath him for the glasses. But his resistance was less than she expected, and she rolled him into her, knocking herself onto her back, her head on her pillow, his torso rolled onto her lap.

James propped himself on his hands, as if to roll off of her. The upward movement brought their faces level, his looking down at hers. The moon had risen in the window, the white light creating a shadow, carving a black outline along his forehead and cheekbones, his mouth. It was somehow surreal. And as she looked up at him, something changed, flashing through Lily's mind and eyes. This was the dream, its beginning. It happened here, like this. It was natural for him to be here, necessary. It was as if this happened all the time, and as if it had to happen now.

She hooked an arm around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. James came forward eagerly, hopeful and thankful for this sign she wasn't angry anymore. As he held himself above her, the kiss deepened quickly, as it usually did between them now. His voice sounded and she left off kissing to hush him again, pushing hard against both his shoulders.

He let himself be moved onto his back beside her, resigned to this fit of affection being over already. But it wasn't over. She was on top of him now, straddling his middle, too high to grind against him but tugging his shirt out of his waistband.

"Lily?" he said. "Lily, wait. Say something, love."

"What?" was all she said, desperate to touch his skin, sighing and falling against him as her fingers made contact, splaying on the smooth, warm, taut flesh over both of his sides, at his waist. It was all hers, all of it, and she purred as her hands tracked over James's contours, rising over his chest.

He groaned. "Say enough that I know you're not bewitched. Lily - stars, please."

Why was he like this, she thought, saying nothing. James didn't ask questions when he was in her bed. Typically, he said little, occupied with devouring her. And where were his hands? He didn't usually grab the sheets by fistfuls, leaving her untouched like this. No, in bed James touched her everywhere, exactly as she wanted, because she belonged to him and he knew...

"Lily, if someone comes in, I'm not going to be able to stand up right away," he moaned as she arrived at his mouth again, his shirt now hiked up to his armpits, her knees bracing his sides as she kissed him, her hands pressed to his pectoral muscles, his heart thundering against her palm.

"Lily, love, you have to speak to me…"

His voice wasn't right. It was shaking with desire but also with nerves. What did he have to be nervous about? It's not as if, after all this time, he'd never…

But it was. He wasn't bed-James, from her dreams. Not yet. And she wasn't sleeping. She was wide awake and this was real James, who had never had his hands inside her clothes, who said he loved her even without that. What had she done to him?

She sat back with a gasp, kneeling on one side of him, hiding her face behind her hair. "James, I'm so sorry." She peeked out of her hair to pinch the hem of his shirt between two fingers and pull it back to his waist.

He lay breathless beside her, chest heaving inside his shirt now, one hand twisted in his own hair. With his other hand, he patted her back. "Don't be sorry. But perhaps do explain yourself. Did you get bewitched just now? Last we talked about it, you said you didn't want to be pregnant yet, but - what was that?"

Still silent, she sat shaking her head. "I don't know. But it wasn't you. You did nothing wrong - "

He sat up and hugged her tightly but chastely against himself. "Neither did you."

"Didn't I?"

"Did it feel wrong?" he asked.

She frowned, thinking. "No, it felt - it felt like it did when I made the prophecy in your cellar. It was me, a powerful kind of me, and more than me too. It was that other presence, that "and" one from the first prophecy."

James scoffed. "Why would the cosmos waste a prophecy telling us we're going to do it someday?"

Lily swatted at his arm.

"Oh, now she's all prim again," James smirked.

She glanced at the door. Why couldn't this boy infamous for sneaking all over Hogwarts undetected manage to whisper properly in her bedroom? "You really need to leave," she said. "But I will tell you one thing, in case there's a next time, and you have to stop me again…"

James gulped as he waited for her to continue.

"I'm beginning to think your mum was right about something." She closed her eyes, gathering strength. "About a baby. Not that he'll be the chosen one, necessarily, but that soulmates are driven to have children together in a particularly powerful way. Just now, I felt like I had to be with you, and like I'd been with you a thousand times already."

It was too heavy of a topic and he had to lighten it. "A thousand? That boring?"

"No," she said, as seriously as ever. "Quite the contrary. James, we're going to have to be so careful or else..."

"We are careful," he said, holding her face in his hands. "You were straddling me in your bed with my clothes half pulled off and even then nothing got out of control - "

"No thanks to me."

"No, it was you," he said. "I didn't struggle free and apparate home, though I could have tried. Instead, I laid here like a babbling piece of meat until you realized what was happening and stopped on your own. You did that, Lily."

Her chin was shaking, on the verge of tears again. "Babbling piece of meat," she said. "I love you."

James cooed and held her close again, kissing the top of her hair. "Of course you do. You're my soulmate."

"Lil-lay!" someone called from downstairs.

"Coming!" she called back. "You've got to go. Now."

"What about you? You can't stay here alone," James argued.

"I can. I have to." She was shoving him onto the floor where he could apparate away. "One more night. I'll tell my parents I need to study for NEWTs and head back tomorrow."

"Promise me," he said, clasping her hand.

"Lil-lay!"

"Yes, just go!"

"Lily, you hopeless freak, get downstairs."

James vanished just as Petunia threw open the bedroom door.

James returned to his bedroom where Sirius was waiting on the sofa by the fire. He jumped slightly as James reappeared but was soon smirking.

"Looks like the pair of you made up then," he said.

James's hands went to his hair. "Does it?"

"Either that or you've been off getting mauled by some creature intent on untucking that stodgy Oxford shirt."

James squinted at his rumpled clothes.

"Here, you left these on the rug downstairs," Sirius said, producing James's glasses from his jacket pocket.

"Oh, thanks." James stepped up to take them.

As he did, Sirius sat forward as if slightly alarmed, sniffing at him. "Got a bit more heated than usual."

"Do you always have to mention it?"

Sirius laughed. "Sorry. No need to take your frustration out on me."

James collapsed onto the sofa. "I'm going to marry her, Rus. Not years and years in the future. Soon."

"It's 1978, mate. You don't have to marry her just so you can - "

"It's not a matter of having to marry Lily," James interrupted. "I want to. So badly. I feel almost like I already have."

"Well, you haven't," Sirius said. "And you're being ridiculous. I know Hogwarts doesn't make it easy to take a relationship to the next level - all those chastity charms everywhere. But especially now we can apparate out of the castle, there are ways around all of that."

"I don't need to get around anything. I need to marry Lily Evans and stay with her all the time." He dropped his fist listlessly on the cushion beside himself. "I feel sick being here without her in times like these, with the Death Eaters turning their eyes to people our age. I should be in Cokeworth tonight, keeping her safe until she goes back to school in the morning."

"At least you convinced her to go back. Well done," Sirius said. "I suppose that means we'll be going back too."

James nodded. "Yeah, I will be. You can do as you please, of course. Stay here with Mum and Dad as long as you like. This place is supposed to be your home."

"Nah, I'll go back," he said. "We should all go back. Maybe we can use the quiet time to find out more about this Order of the Phoenix thing. You can't tell me it's not named after Dumbledore's familiar. He must know everything about it."

"Yes, well he's not telling us anything."

"Not yet," Sirius said. "But they've got to stop treating us like infants and let us join in doing something. The Death Eaters are consuming their own young, after all. Why not our side?"

Lily lay in bed, restless, both glorying in the smell of James Potter on her pillow, and considering getting up to change the pillow slip so she could relax and fall to sleep.

She raised one finger and traced the grill of the window at her side. The glass was cold. Petunia slept at the warm end of the room. But Lily preferred the view in spite of the draught, even if it was just rows if drab, grey houses. There was sky enough above it. All at once, the glass rattled. She froze, listening, her fingertips still pressed to the window pane. Someone was outside, signalling to her with gentle blasts from a wand.

James must be back.

She sprang out of bed, reaching for the fuzzy brown cardigan he'd given her, then her wand before creeping outside.

The back garden appeared empty as she arrived. In the distance, a dog barked. It was colder outside than she thought it would be, wind cutting through James's cardigan, and him not yet springing forward to wrap her up inside his coat with him.

Lily hazarded a whisper. "Who's there?"

No one answered, though she thought she might have heard the crunch of gravel under the sole of a shoe. She raised her wand, the flesh on her arms pricking with cold and fear. "Come out," she ordered, no longer expecting James. "Come out or, so help me, I will hex the living daylights — "

At that moment, a swath of the black shadow on the wall of the house seemed to detach itself, and a figure stepped into the moonlight.

"Severus." Lily did not lower her wand.

"Lily," he nodded.

Her eyes darted around the yard. "Why have you called me out? Are you alone?"

"This time, yes," he said, stepping closer in spite of her wand.

At last, she lowered it. "What do you want?"

He sucked in a great breath through his nose. "I come with an offer. Unprecedented times are about to commence. We push toward a new world, but revolution never comes without a cost."

"Cost," Lily sneered. "What are you on about? Are you threatening me?"

He clucked his tongue. "No. I have come to help."

James's voice was in her mind. "He's a hindrance, not a helper."

Severus spoke over it. "Had I not properly aligned myself with rising powers, I, a half-blood child from this forsaken place, might have paid the cost myself. But as it is, I have developed skills and associations which make me valuable, worthy, powerful."

"Sev, you sound crazy."

In one long stride he was in front of her, holding both of her hands in his. "Listen to me. I've gone on at some length about your skills as a potioneer, and I've nearly convinced them to take you on in spite of your own lineage. Come with me now. After a demonstration, I'm sure they'll be won over. We'll show them you're a worthy exception to blood purity."

She tugged at her hands but he held them. "I am not interested in working as a potioneer for anyone, especially not your disgusting Death Eaters. Why don't you go ask Narcissa Black to do it?"

He let her go. "You're still mad about that, are you?"

"About you dumping me as your potions partner and swapping in Narcissa right in the middle of our OWL year just because Lucius Malfoy told you to? Yes, Severus. That was highly disruptive and cowardly and mean and you have never explained nor apologized - "

"I am sorry," he hissed into her ear. "It had to be done to get me into the position I now occupy. One from which I can help you."

"Don't help me," she said, stepping away, her arms folded, holding the cardigan closer. "I'm not pursuing a career in potions anyway. I'm doing divination."

Severus scoffed so loudly the distant dog barked again. "Divination. Rubbish."

"It's not. And I'm gifted at it - "

"No," he was shaking his head. "You'd throw away all you've accomplished in a hard magic like potions for stargazing and peering at smudges on dirty dishes?"

"All I've accomplished? You mean following potions instructions for class assignment, like recipes in a cookbook?" she raved. "Any fool with the sense to be meticulous could do it. Divination is real magic. Vast and cosmic - "

"Oh, to be sure," he sneered. "And what are your accomplishments there? Weather forecasts like a filthy Muggle on my father's television set?"

"I will have you know," she said, "that I already have a prophecy orb to my credit."

The sneer fell from Snape's face, and she knew she had made a terrible mistake in telling him about the orb. "Where is it. Show it to me." It was not a request.

"I don't carry it around in my pajamas, of course," she said, honestly enough.

"You're lying. Making a fool of me. There's no such orb," he insisted.

She said nothing, shivering in her parents' back garden, scowling into the distance.

His hands gripped her upper arms, and she was almost grateful for their heat. "You're freezing," he said. "Go inside. We will talk about this again once we're back at school. Think on it. Align yourself with this side now, or fall to it in the end." He released her, turning to go.

"One more thing," she said. "One thing you should hear from me before we're back at school. I'm with James now."

Snape spun on his heel to face her. "With? With James? James who?"

"James Potter," she said. "We're together. A couple. Peter's sisters have been telling everyone. Word of it is going to be all over the school by the time we get back so I - "

There was a crack so loud Lily threw herself on the cold ground, her hands over her head, expecting to be struck by lightning or the debris of a landslide. But nothing followed the noise. The echoes died and the garden was quiet again, not even a whimper from the distant dog. Severus had gone.