Lily stumbled out of her apparation and into the front garden of her parents' house. As the echo of her arrival died away through the hard-paved street, the night went quiet, no sounds of trouble in spite of Severus Snape's warning to look to save her own parents, not just James Potter's.

The quiet was uneasy somehow, and she had to be sure her mum and dad were safe. She let herself into the house. It was dark, silent, everyone asleep. She flicked on the lights to find Mitch's work boots at the door. He wasn't at the plant on a nightshift, he was here.

Without turning on any more lights, she found the stairs and made her way up. On the landing, Lily rapped softly at the bedroom door. "Mum?"

There was a rustle of sheets, the squeak of bed springs, and Cheryl's deep smoker's cough rattling herself awake. "Lil-lay?"

"Yes, hi. Sorry to wake you." She came through the door, letting herself fall over the foot of the bed in relief.

"What is it? What's he done?" Cheryl was sitting up, alarmed. "I was afraid it would be like this, marrying an 18-year-old spoiled rich boy. You leave with half of everything, Lily. Half. No matter what - "

"Mum, no. No, it's not James," Lily said, waving her hands. "It's just that there's political trouble in wizarding Britain right now, and I was worried it might have splashed on you. So I'm checking, and you're fine."

Mitch rubbed his eyes, rolling onto his back. "Politics? What's that got to do with us, or with you, for that matter. You're a schoolgirl. And where is Jim? Sending you out at night alone…"

"He's with his parents. You remember how frail they are. They're both quite I'll. I slipped out on my own while he got some rest," she said. "But there's nothing to worry about here. Go back to sleep. I'll see myself - "

At the moment, glass shattered in the bedroom window, flying inward, blasted from the street. The Evanes ducked their faces into the bedspread as the shards tore through the room. When the high squeal of the breaking died away, there was the sound of low, mad laughter from the garden below.

Lily sprung to her feet, wand drawn, the hair on her arms standing on end as she crept over broken glass toward the empty window pane.

"Come out, ye Mudblood slut! Come out and give yourself up or we're coming in to carve up yer filthy mum and dad."

Lily staggered as Mitch pulled her backward, both arms around her waist as if to carry her off like a naughty toddler. "Get back, love. You're not giving yourself up to anyone, not when they're smashing windows and speaking to you that way."

For a moment, she was limp in his hold, heart broken, realizing that Severus hadn't warned her about danger, he had set danger on her. He must have let these Death Eater thugs know she had gone home, apart from James, into a house full of vulnerable Muggles she would do anything to protect. For all she knew, Severus was standing outside with them.

She pulled at Mitch's arm, trying to free herself. "Dad, please let me go. I can handle them. Let me go out and you and Mum can be safe - "

"Be safe from who, exactly?" Cheryl called rolling off the bed and crouching on the far side of it, out of the blast zone. "Are those fine statesmen out there your wizard politicians?"

There was no time to answer. The room was lit green with a volley of hexes shot through the window, singeing the wallpaper. It was a diversion. Downstairs, the door splintered on its hinges, and the hall was full of more profane demands that Lily give herself up.

"Dad, please," she said as he hauled her up the stairs to her own empty bedroom, Cheryl pushing them from behind. "Let me go to them. Mum, listen to me. Tell him to let me go down."

Cheryl scoffed as they bounded up the stairs. "Not at all. I count three armed grown men against one teenaged girl with a magic stick. You'll stay with us."

Lily's parents bundled her into the upper bedroom, slamming the door closed and hefting Petunia's empty bed up against it, a barricade, upright like a second door.

The voices were in the stairway now, yelling at each other, arguing. "I said take her quietly. She'd have easily exchanged herself for her family without any violence. There was never any need for - "

"Shut him up," someone bawled. There was sick laughter and the thudding and grunting of something bony pushed down the stairs.

Hexes were flying again, blasting through the door, bursting into the smoking mattress, whizzing over the Evanes' heads as they crouched on the floor. Cheryl and Mitch fought to hold the bed in place, bracing it with their shoulders.

Lily sat up, firing back, flashes of red answering the green light.

"Get down!" Cheryl shouted.

"They're breaking through. I can't let them hurt you!" Lily called back.

The bed lurched forward with the force of the raiders outside, sending the Evanses scrambling to push what was left of it back into place.

"The cupboard," Mitch said to Lily. "That birthday gift you never opened from Jim, it's in the cupboard there. A flying broom. Take your mother and fly off. I can't make it work, but I know you can."

"But Dad, you - "

"Go!"

Lily crawled on her stomach to the cupboard door, flung it open, and found a brand new ridiculous luxury broom inside. It was longer than usual, something James must have picked out imagining them riding it together. She looked to where her parents were losing ground as they pushed at the bed to bar the door. The top half of the bed was blasted away, and the men outside were now visible through the gap, their wands raised, grinning and mad with cruel laughter.

They were coming.

"Stop! Alright, don't hurt them!" Lily called, raising her arms and dropping her wand to the floor.

It was over.

And then the house was shaking, a mighty crack ringing through it as James apparated into the centre of Lily's bedroom. Quidditch captain-like, his senses took in the entire scene as he stood barefoot in pyjamas bottoms and his school jumper on the rug. Lily's hands were already raised and he grabbed one and pulled her to her feet as she summoned her wand. Without a word they knew to link arms and cast a shield spell in unison, barring the door with a rippling, streaming force. The men outside shrank back, startled by the strength of it, its roar like a high wind, its light golden and shimmering. The air smelled of their singed clothes and hair.

But they were recovering their strength, bombarding the shield at close range, angry now, set on destruction and revenge.

"James, the broom," Lily said, holding the shield with her wand raised as he turned to Cheryl and Mitch.

"Yes," he said, feeling rather pleased with past James for leaving it in the house. It leapt into his hand and levitated in front of him. "Come on, Mitch. Up you get. I promised you a ride."

Mitch and Cheryl were getting to their feet, gaping wide-eyed and disbelieving between the roaring golden light and the floating broom. "Us? Get on the broom? Just - just like in a cartoon?" Mitch said.

James didn't understand but there was no time to sort it out.

"Quickly," Lily called over her shoulder.

Mitch and Cheryl straddled the broom behind James. "Hold onto me Mitch. Cheryl, hold him. Lily will come after you and keep you steady, as soon as the shield charm is down. But we're going to be moving quickly. Don't let go."

"James!" Lily called.

"Yes, now!"

She slashed at the air in front of herself, bringing the shield charm down and sending out a stupefying spell that sent the thugs hurtling backward down the stairs. They were yelling and swearing, regrouping and remounting the stairs as James maneuvred the broom out the window. It was made for two but carrying four, two of them Muggles, so he didn't dare jolt to top speed, as he would have if he was riding alone.

They were still moving slowly as they passed over the front garden. Below them stood one more wizard, his white face reflecting the streetlight and the light of a nearly full moon, his wand drawn and tracking them as they flew. As he aimed at them, Lily aimed at him.

"It's the Scissors boy!" Cheryl called.

Through the dim night, Lily and Severus Snape looked each other in the face, wands still raised, never lowering, but never firing either as James wheeled the broom out of sight.

"Everyone alright?" James called over his shoulder.

"Don't mind us, just drive," Cheryl called back.

"He's a fine flyer, Mum. You're perfectly safe," Lily said. "But it will get a bit cold and uncomfortable."

"Let me know if you need a rest," James said. "It's another twenty minutes to my house by air."

"Just go," Cheryl said.

He did, freezing himself in the March night air with nothing on his hands or feet, absorbing the brunt of the wind as his passengers huddled behind him.

Finally, the manor was in sight and James was setting the broom down on the lawn in front of the house. Mitch and Cheryl crumpled to the ground, tense and exhausted, still in their sleeping clothes and house slippers. Cheryl left her arms around Mitch's waist, her face in his back as they lay panting in the scrubby spring grass.

Not caring that her parents were close enough to watch, Lily threw her end of the broom down and rushed at James, leaping at him, her legs clamped around his waist as his arms clasped her. She was kissing him, hard and hungry on the mouth.

"You came. My perfect darling, you came and helped me save everything I care about."

James grappled with her legs, holding her up and asking her, "Yes, always. But why did you leave without me?"

She pulled back, smoothing his hair. "I'm sorry. I didn't expect a trap when I left. I just wanted to question Severus - "

"Bloody Snape - "

"And you came after me anyway," she said, her arms around his neck even as she set her feet back on the ground. "You knew right where I was and what I needed."

James blinked behind his lenses. "I did, didn't I. How - how did I do that?"

Cheryl and Mitch were pulling each other to standing. "Jim, your feet must be frozen solid," Mitch said. "Get yourself indoors, son."

Inside the manor, Jim took the Evanes to the room Peter used when he came to visit. He lit a fire while Lily made tea, and they all tried to work out what had just happened.

Lily sat on the rug by the fire and pulled James's still cold feet into her lap, cradling them in her hands. "So when he realized I was in town, Severus sent me home on a fake rescue mission. And then he sent the Death Eaters after me while I was on my own and they had a pair of hostages they could take."

"What, Scissors did that?" Cheryl said. "But wasn't he standing in the garden watching us leave without trying to stop us? I thought he'd come to help."

Mitch shrugged. "Either that or he thought better of turning his childhood mate over to the - the Death Eaters is what you call them?"

"It's what they call themselves," Lily said. "Poor Sev, he's not really one of them."

James scoffed. "Isn't he?"

Lily shook her head, as if waking up. "James what happened here to get you to us in time?"

"I don't actually know," he admitted, sliding out of his chair to sit with Lily on the rug, folding them both in a wooly blanket. "I was here in bed, suddenly not asleep but sitting up, sweating, heart pounding, and I realized Lily was gone and it was - wrong. It was so wrong. So I threw on some clothes, drew my wand, and apparated. I wasn't even sure where I was going. I just vanished - "

"To Lily's bedroom," Cheryl said. "I thought you people could only do that with places you've been before. Come on, Potter. When have you been in the girls' bedroom?"

"Mum, stop. He's my husband," Lily said.

"Sure, he is now, but - "

"Oh, please, mother - "

"It was a soulmate thing," James said. "It must have been what told me where to go. And the shield spell, that was soulmate magic too."

Lily took both of his hands. "Yes, the gold shield. That was marvelous."

"That wasn't just your ordinary magic?" Mitch said.

"No, Dad," she said, still beaming into James's face. "That was special. We cast it together, two of us making something powerful enough to stop three other people."

James let go of her hands and pulled her close. "This is why they're scared of us. Why they only ever attack us alone. Why we must stay together."

Cheryl sighed. "Well, that is lovely. But what now? Those Eaters have overrun our house."

"And I'm supposed to be starting seven days on at the plant," Mitch said. "I can call in with a family emergency for tomorrow, but after that - "

"You can't go back," Lily said. "Not right away. And maybe - maybe never again."

"Lily, we can't do anything else," Cheryl said. "Cokeworth is our life, our jobs. There are probably police at the house right now, wondering what's become of us. And then there's Petunia. We need to let her know what's happened."

Lily wrung her hands. "Two days," she said. "Call in sick and give us two days to sort something out. If you go back, those Death Eaters will pick you up again to trade you for me, and I won't say no. I'll go to them if it means getting you back. So stay."

Cheryl hung her head, smoothing the downy covers of the bed she sat on. "Two days. I don't know what it will change in that time, but since we've nowhere to go anyway…"

She trailed off, looking across the bed at Mitch. He shrugged. "Two days."

The manor was settling back into sleep. James had stolen into his father's bedroom and found his parents still sleeping peacefully. Though they sounded the same as when he left hours earlier, they looked worse. Monty's skin tone was no longer green but yellow, a colour someone more experienced than James would have recognized as the colour of imminent death.

Effie was more shocking. When she had greeted him earlier that evening, looking like herself but with marks of faded pox on her hands, she had been using a glamour. She wasn't able to sustain it in her sleep and James now saw the full extent of her illness. She was not at the beginning of the pustule stage, but at the end of it, most of the sores closed over, but her skin was now greening.

He looked at the clock on the wall. In a few hours, after the sun rose, he would call Aunt Bathilda, and hear from her what Effie had told him the doctors had said: that there was nothing more anyone could do.

He went back to Lily, to sleep.

Cheryl insisted on helping in the morning. Without any cigarettes, she was jumpy and cross and wanted to be working. She helped Lily as much as she could in a magical kitchen while James prepared an owl to send to Bathilda and Mitch did the washing up from the sad, tiny meal Effie had tried to feed to herself and Monty the night before.

Mitch whispered a swear at the dishwater. "Jim, I had no idea your parents had it so rough."

James hummed miserably. "It's a new strain of an old wizards' disease. It's only attacking the elderly so no one is too bothered about looking for a cure."

Mitch shook his head. "Awful. Just awful."

Bathilda arrived, lifting her eyebrows disapprovingly at the Muggle guests and getting away from them quickly, up to Monty's room.

"They won't eat this morning," Lily said. "Mum says that is a very bad sign. We haven't been able to wake Monty since we came."

"Your mother is right about the signs," Bathilda said. She stood over the bed. Monty didn't stir as she pulled at his eyelids and listened to his heart, her head hovering over his chest. She clucked her tongue as she covered his sleeping body.

Effie woke up but didn't seem to have the strength to sit up any longer. " 'Tilda," she said when she recognized her friend standing over her. "Is it time?"

Bathilda had taken her Dragon Pox booster as soon as word came that the Potters were ill, and without much fear, she took her Effie's hand. "Only you can tell me when it's time, my dear," she answered.

Effie's head moved, as if trying to nod. "When we've finished, give the sweetheart the book. She's been waiting."

"When you're finished with it, Effie dear. Yes, I promise."

She patted Bathilda's hand and fell back to sleep.

The day was slow and sad. Monty sleeping away. Effie was more wakeful. She opened her eyes as Cheryl leaned over her to wet her dry lips with a damp cloth.

"The sweetheart's mother," she said.

Cheryl breathed a laugh. "Is that what you call our Lily? Yes, that's me. I'm back here already. Can I get you anything, Madam Potter?"

"Effie," she rasped. "It's just Effie. Sit a while."

Cheryl nodded, moving to the armchair at the side of the bed.

"No, here," Effie said, patting the mattress beside her. "Sit here with us, mother sweetheart."

Cheryl uttered another laugh and sat on the bed. Effie was reaching, searching for her hand. She spoke. "Do your people have songs for times like these?"

Cheryl blinked. "Times like these? You mean, when someone's sick?"

"When someone dies," Effie said, hardly a breath. "Sing me your songs for when someone dies."

Cheryl sighed, glancing about the room to see if there was anyone else to do this. There wasn't. She and old Mrs. Potter, the mother of the boy who'd saved her and Mitch's lives the night before, were alone.

She cleared her throat. "I suppose I know one." She forced a cough and began. "Of all the money, that 'ere I had, I spent it in good company. And of all the harm that 'ere I've done, alas it was to none but me…"

Cheryl's voice grew in volume and confidence as she went, carrying through the room, out the door and into the corridor. And from there, as if borne by magic, it echoed through the main hall in the centre of the manor where, passing through, Lily heard it.

She followed the song, rising up the stairs, not noticing that James was trailing along, drawn by the sound himself. And behind him, Bathilda came. Lily stood in the door of Monty's bedroom, where Effie lay beside him, and her mother sat on the bed, a strong but husky alto voice, singing.

"But since it falls unto my lot, that I should rise, and you should not, I'll gently rise and softly call, goodnight and joy be with you all..."

The final notes faded to silence. Lily said nothing to disturb the pair of mothers. She stayed in the doorway, James's arms closed around her shoulders from behind, Bathilda standing next to him. Cheryl's shoulders heaved and she sniffed, her back to the door. She'd been told she couldn't catch the disease, so she lifted Effie's hand to her face, and kissed it.

"Jimsy," Effie said.

Cheryl whirled around, gasping.

"Sweetheart, 'Tilda," Effie said. "Bring the book. It's time."

Cheryl stood as the witches closed in. "I'll leave you to it. Goodbye, Effie."

Bathilda stood at the foot of the bed, opening a large book bound in navy blue leather. Lily stood close enough to read the title page: "Shade Magic."

"James, sit between them, please," Bathilda said.

He crawled up from the foot of the bed to sit between their now tiny, withering bodies.

"Take their hands."

He did as he was told, glancing at Lily uncertainly. She nodded, urging him to go along with it.

Bathilda drew her wand, her entire body swaying, her arm swooping in long stokes, her wand curving in loops, drawing signs for infinity, circles enclosing Monty and then Effie, each stroke crossing over James's head. The room began to hum and glow, almost as it had the day James and Lily were married in this house, not long ago.

The loops grew smaller, closer together, tightening, lifting Monty and Effie to sitting, then to kneeling on the bed on either side of James. He watched their faces, his head pivoting from one of them to the other. They were still themselves, still his parents, but their skin was smoothing, healing. Their hair was darkening, thickening. Effie was beautiful in a way he'd never seen before. And Monty - Monty looked like James himself.

Lily saw it too, and it took her breath away, Her hands gripped the footboard of the bed to hold herself up. A wind seemed to be blowing through the room though nothing was moved by it. Bathilda was speaking an incantation now, reading it from the open book.

Monty opened his eyes - no longer coloured cloudy grey but green, his mouth curving in a smile. Effie returned the look. And with their free hands, the ones not holding James's, they reached for each other. Bathilda's voice was low and loud, the incantation rising to its climax. Monty and Effie - young, shining, wonderful, happy - were pulled to each other, as if by a massive gravity. They moved closer and closer to where James sat between them. And when they met, light flashed outward from the looping infinities. It was gold, like the light from the spell James and Lily had cast together to keep the thugs away from her loved ones.

Their bodies fell back onto the bed, old and sick again, but their restored forms lingered in front of James for a moment. He looked at his hands and saw that their young, healed hands still held him. They smiled at him, mouthed words he couldn't understand before rushing at him, passing through him, soaring once around the room before passing through Lily, rocking her backwards as she held onto the bed. And then, they vanished.

Fleamont and Euphemia Potter were dead. Bathilda called for the undertakers to prepare them for a funeral, and James and Lily sat on the stairs in the manor's entrance hall reading the shade magic book. What he had never been told, and never asked, was that Monty and Effie were soulmates themselves. They had access to a magic that did not make them immortal, but since they died together with the spell at work, they could come and go from their afterlife, visiting the world of the living together as shades.

James felt the reality of the magic. His parents were gone, but they were not gone. It was more like they had withdrawn and were watching, waiting for him to need them. And most of all, he had the sense that wherever they were, at any moment, they were together, in love, powerful.

"But why did they want us to learn this?" he said, flipping through the book. "We are going to die someday. Of course we are. But will it be together? With wind and light and spells, like this?"

Lily was clinging to his arm, her head on his shoulder. "You tell me, James. You were part of that spell just now. Without you there, I don't think it would have worked. Without you, they'd be truly gone."

He let out a long breath. "We'll spend the rest of our lives studying this book, trying to figure it out, won't we."

She perched her chin on his shoulder. "Don't worry about it today, love. Let's just take care of the business at hand."

"Right," he said. "But I don't want to handle anything. I want to go back to the top of Gryffindor Tower, get in bed, and lie there with you for a month or two."

She kissed his cheek. "You are a darling. But we only got my parents to agree to two days away from Cokeworth."

He gasped. "That's right. What are we going to do with them?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. But if we don't come up with anything, they're going to go right back to sweeping up the glass at home, waiting for the Death Eaters to come at them again."

James hummed. "There's a cottage in Godric's Hollow that has everything you and I will need to live comfortably once we graduate. We don't need a huge old place like this, and we can take the money from selling it and - " He paused, squeezing her hand. "And we can send Mitch and Cheryl away, far away where they'll be safe."

She sat back, her eyes wide. "Far away? Like back to Switzerland? Or do you mean like Australia, or Canada, or South Africa?"

"Yes, not Europe at all," he said. "Overseas."

Lily stammered for a moment, beginning to say many things and stopping herself before finally nodding her head. "Yes we have to, don't we."

"We'll make it nice for them," James said. "Luxurious. No more night shifts for Mitch. No more working on a typing machine for Cheryl, unless she wants to. They can have as much money as they want from the sale of the manor. I don't care."

"They can disappear," Lily said, her eyes glassy with tears. "They won't know our children, or Petty's. But they won't die. They won't be tortured by Death Eaters. James," she said, fighting to swallow back tears, "I'm almost certain that Corban Yaxley person who was just here is one of them. Severus didn't admit it in as many words, but he didn't deny it either. Yaxley came here with a bio-magical agent and he infected your parents to get to us. They're closing in around us, and it's threatening everyone who can't protect themselves."

James took her face in his hands. "Yes, but that means we can beat them, and they know it. They're scared of us. And they should be. Did you see that spell? The gold shield? There was nothing they could do to get around that. It didn't so much as flicker until you let it down. So strong."

He kissed her lips and watched her face, waiting until she said, "Yes. We are going to win."

At the end of classes that day, Professor McGonagall called the lads to her office to tell them the Potters had died. Shaken and sad, they made their way back to their tower dormitory, slumping through the corridors, discussing immediate plans.

"So if the funeral is Saturday," Sirius was saying, "maybe we should turn up at the manor tomorrow night, to make sure James doesn't get too low. I think Monty and Effie would want it that way. They love - loved having us in the house."

Peter was nodding. "Yes, and it's a lot for Lily to have to mourn her in-laws in their first few weeks of marriage. A bunch of strange people will be at the house too. I reckon she could use our help."

"That's lovely of you both, really," Remus said. "And I'm sure you're right. But there's something else I need to do this weekend, unfortunately."

The three of them stood silently on the moving stairwell as it swung toward the tower. Sirius frowned, stunned for a moment that anything could be more urgent than comforting their newly orphaned best mate.

Then he remembered.

"It's a full moon," Peter said.

Sirius swore. "Right."

"It's fine," Remus said. "I'll lock myself in the shack and weather the night on my own. I've done it before. I'll survive and Dumbledore will restore whatever I wreck in the shack when I'm through. It isn't difficult."

Sirius pulled at his hair. "No, that's awful. Hang it, Remus. What bloody terrible timing."

Remus sighed. "Werewolf's worst enemy is always time. But don't worry about me this cycle. I'll manage," he said. "Frankly, I'm going to have to learn to manage without all of you, and soon. We've only got a few months of school left and when we're gone from here, I won't be able to keep calling on you to tend me once a month for the rest of my life."

Peter's nose twitched. "Why not? I don't mind it. I daresay neither do the other lads."

Remus dropped a hand on Peter's shoulder. "You are astoundingly good friends. Both of you. And that's why you need to leave me to go to James this weekend. His need is greater."

They were through the portrait hole and climbing the spiral staircase to their bedroom now. "Well, what about the other creature in your life," Sirius said. "Your Veela. I can't seem to scare her off, so why don't you put her to work? Make her sit with you while you're - erm, under the weather. Might be good for her."

Remus gave a low whistle. "No, Moony likes her far too much to risk that. He's a creature of appetite and I can't trust him not to - well, you know."

"So?" Sirius said. "Maybe it's high time Moony grew up."

Remus scoffed. "You know very well she needs to keep her virginity if she ever wants a traditional pureblood marriage. Even if she splits up with Malfoy, they'll just find her someone else with the same stipulations. No, I'd hate to be the one to have to try to explain all of that to a werewolf in love."

Sirius sneered. "A werewolf in WHAT?"

"Hang on, hang on," Peter was saying, hurrying to de-escalate a row. "The shack is continuous with the school. It's an outcrop of a Hogwarts tunnel. Dumbledore had it built himself. So the school's chastity charms should be in effect there, shouldn't they?"

Sirius tossed his bag hard against the leg of his bed. "Yes, they are. Trust me."

"Well, then Moony wouldn't be able to - well, you know," Peter said. "She'll be safe, as far as virginity goes. Won't do a thing about murder, but - "

"Look, just forget it," Remus said, falling facevdown on his bed. "You two go to the funeral, Narcissa can sit in the library studying for her NEWTs like a civilized person, and I can lock myself alone in the shack tomorrow night. And that, my dear lads, is the end of it."