Friday 4th May 1979

Garage, London, 19:30

Sirius frowned as he stood in front of his motorcycle. This was it. His maiden voyage. Well, not exactly his maiden maiden voyage because, of course, he had had lessons on his motorcycle and all so he would know how to actually ride the damn thing. But this was the first time he was going to ride it without anyone there at all. No instructions. No careful watching. No nothing. It was just him and his motorcycle.

Yep. Just him and his motorcycle. Nothing stopping him. Except his own mind. Which was doing an awful lot of overthinking. What was he, turning into Moony?

He knew he could ride it. That's why he had 'passed' his lessons. He could do this. He had driven around in endless circles. He had driven through the streets of London. That more than proved that he was ready to do this by himself, right?

Right.

Yeah. He could do this.

Then why did he feel so nervous?

Sirius gave himself a shake. He was being ridiculous. He could do this. He would do this. It was no different than the last times he had done it. Just, this time he was... by himself. He looked around him and saw that no one was laying any attention to him.

He just had to swing a leg over it and sit in the seat. That was all there was too it. And then start it up and actually ride it somewhere, of course. Still, nothing to it.

Yet, he was still standing beside it, staring at it. It was a nice motorcycle. All gleaming metal. Sirius got a thrill just looking at it. And he was going to get a thrill riding it if he could just get on the damn thing.

Right, he cracked his knuckles (which were encased in some very snazzy leather gloves, if he said so himself). He was going to do this. Was he a Gryffindor or not? He was. Which meant he was courageous. He was brave.

He swung his leg over and settled himself in the seat. Right. Here he goes. On the count of three.

One.

Two.

Three.

He started it up and kicked off his feet. And he was going! He was really going with no instruction from anyone else.

"Yesss!" He couldn't help but cheer as he drove out of the garage in a cloud of fumes and dust.

Tuesday 8th May 1979

Evans Home, Cokeworth, 15:00

Lily was currently stretched out on her sofa re-reading 'Pride and Prejudice'. It was always a fun read. Mrs Bennet was hilarious and poor Mr Darcy. The only reason why this was something of note was because she hadn't really had a chance to relax and read recently. Professor Flitwick had her looking over lesson plans and learning techniques and there were some things that she learned in the Department of Mysteries that just begged for further research (though, no experimentation after that incident with the window).

It was just a relaxing sort of evening. Which was nice to have every once in a while.

The peace and tranquillity were broken by James suddenly apparating into her living room with the loudest 'crack' she had ever heard from apparition.

She leapt off the sofa and was about to scold him for the dirt and Merlin knows what else was shedding off his Auror robes when she saw his face.

It was drawn and pale and somehow vaguely green-tinged all at once. And then he swayed. Lily knew what that meant and dragged him into her kitchen and pushed him towards the sink.

He retched and then threw up. Violently. What on earth had happened?

He kept his head over it for a long time, eyes closed. Long enough that Lily got worried even though he wasn't throwing up anymore. Then he straightened up and stepped away.

He wasn't like anymore but he still didn't look good. Grey was not a good look on him.

"James?"

"It was... awful," he got out in gasps, like he was trying to hold back tears. "Awful."

He retched again but nothing came out.

"What was awful?"

"Raid... went wrong... dead. So many dead."

Lily didn't need to hear anymore to guess what had happened. She gently led him back into the living room and made him sit down. He immediately buried his face in his hands as his shoulders shook. She rubbed them, staying silent until he felt like talking.

"He was right in front of me," James said in a distant voice. "And then he wasn't. Then there was bit of him..."

Lily couldn't help but shudder, her own imagination filling in the gaps. And James had watched this happen. He had been right there. How was he so together? What was she supposed to do?

"And we kept fighting them but they were gaining on us and-"

His recollections were disjointed and didn't make much sense strung together but they painted a horribly vivid picture.

Eventually he petered out and stared off into the distance, not seeing anything except what had happened.

"But you're alive," Lily said quietly, holding his hand tightly. "You're alive."

"Yeah," he said almost bitterly. "I'm alive. And loads are dead. Why?"

"Because the Death Eaters are awful, James. They don't care about anything except their agenda even if it means destroying everything."

"I had near misses," he said suddenly. "Spells whizzed past me. Horrible ones. Curses."

Lily's heart leapt to her throat and she clenched his hands tighter to assure herself that he was still there.

"So many near misses..."

It was like he didn't care about that; he was still speaking in that distant tone. He lapsed into another silence, processing everything. Lily couldn't let herself relax; her mind was buzzing with what James had just gone through. How was she supposed to help? Would anything help? A cup of tea seemed so silly at a time like this...

"Marry me," he said suddenly, his voice stronger.

That made Lily freeze in stroking his hair.

"Excuse me?"

James stiffened for a moment and then he sat upright, a strange yet earnest look in his eye.

"Marry me."

Lily leaned away slightly from him. "So, you did say that?"

James opened and closed his mouth and then nodded his head sharply. "Yes."

Her shock was quickly replaced by anger. Boiling anger.

"That's not something you joke about, James Potter!"

She shoved him away from her and stood up. She thought he was better than this now. She thought, well, she thought that...

James scrambled to his feet as well.

"I'm not joking, Lily."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not. I'm really not."

Lily didn't believe him. Couldn't believe him. He was just messing around like he always did.

Je scrabbled around in his pocket and when that brought nothing up, reached for his bag that he had dropped on the ground when he had apparated in. He was more successful this time as he produced a small box.

"I wanted... I wanted to give this to you for ages now," he got out, face red with the effort.

She gently took it off him, confused and a weird butterfly feeling in her gut. There was only one piece of jewellery that type of box would be good for.

"It's a promise ring," he explained before she could open it.

"A promise ring?"

"Yeah." He suddenly became very shy. "I mean. Uh. Well, it's for promising to be each other's when you're not quite ready to be married yet. Or when your betrothed to someone young but want to show that you're taken."

"But you just proposed?" Lily said, feeling awfully confused.

"Yeah, but I, I hadn't been planning on it. I mean I have planned it but not planned it planned it. It was going to be when we were a bit older. If we were still together. I wanted us to still be together. I was going to give you this ring all properly and stuff until we grew up a bit, maybe in a year or so and-"

He said something more but Lily couldn't take it in. He could see the rest of his life with her? He was planning on proposing? In a year?

"Look, this isn't a joke," he said, his voice going serious. "I want to marry you. I do. I want to be married to you and live together and have kids and just be together for the rest of our lives."

"We're twenty, James. Twenty."

That was too young, wasn't it? This was rushing into things. Yes, she loved James. Of course, she did.

"Yeah. We're young. And I didn't want it to be like this. I wanted to make it special."

"Then why are you doing it like this?"

"Because life's so short. Anything can happen and-" he trailed off and shook his head. Somehow Lily knew what the end of that sentence was and her gut twisted at the thought. She didn't want to lose him. He closed his eyes and opened them again. "We love each other, don't we? I love you."

"Yes, and I love you. But that doesn't mean we should just get married!"

"Why not?"

"Just... I..."

Lily didn't know how to answer that. Yes, she loved him. He's she could see herself married to him. Yes, she wanted to eventually be married to him. But right now? With all this chaos? And wasn't it rushing things? This couldn't be good, could it? Yet, something in her was saying this was very right. Was it right?

"So, will you marry me?" He asked earnestly with wide eyes

Lily let out a wet laugh. "You don't even have a ring."

Saturday 12th May 1979

Diagon Alley, 09:00

"Sirius, I don't think you understand how big a problem this is."

"Oh, I do," Sirius assured him between bouts of laughter and tears.

"Then don't laugh!"

"An emergency on your part doesn't mean any urgency is required on mine."

"There is if you are supposed to be helping me!"

"Which, in case you haven't noticed, I am."

James grumbled but went quiet. Because it was true. Sirius was here to help. He was actually quite interested in helping, unlike Remus who just snorted at him and said "Good luck with that". Yes, Remus was very unhelpful in situations like these.

"Okay, you just need to calm down and think properly about this."

"Calm down? Calm down?" Yes, his voice rose to hysterical levels but James felt like it was warranted. "How can I calm down when I have to propose properly to someone I've already proposed to?"

Sirius gave him an unimpressed look as James breathed heavily. Yes, he was worked up but could you really blame him? No, you couldn't. And Sirius just didn't understand.

"First thing first. How exactly are you going to propose?" Sirius asked him, getting down to business.

"I didn't know. I've made it all weird," James said in dismay, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I can't leave it too late or else she'll think I was just joking around."

"So, as soon as possible?" Sirius determined.

"But I want to make it special."

"Of course, you do."

"Proposals should be special!"

"Yes, I know," Sirius said soothingly. "That doesn't mean it has to be a big thing."

"But it's Lily. She deserves something big."

Sirius tutted at him. "Exactly. This is Lily. Which is why it shouldn't be a big thing."

"Oh yeah."

Yeah, she definitely wouldn't like something big or over the top for a proposal. She'd probably think that he was joking again. No. That wouldn't do. It had to be perfect for her. Something romantic and even a little bit cheesy (she liked it when he got cheesy on her, sure, she swatted him away but there was always a smile on her face). Something quiet and small. Personal. Yeah, he could do that. He had a plan in mind. But he couldn't use that plan if he didn't have a ring.

But that was why they were in one of the best jewellers in Diagon Alley. His father got his mother jewellery from her and she was fussy when it came to her jewellery.

"Just, give me your opinions on the rings," James instructed.

Sirius shrugged. "Sure. That's why I'm here."

James took that as his cue to start looking around. Why were there so many rings? There were so many options. So many. Sure, he could ask the jeweller to bring him out a tray of ones with certain properties but he didn't even know what properties he wanted the ring to have.

Though there were some nice-looking ones. Sparkly ones. Discreet ones. Pretty ones. Probably not the terms he should be using but still.

His hands hovered over the tray of ones with emeralds set in them. They reminded him of Lily's eyes. Though, Lily's eyes had more sparkle in them. Obviously.

James picked one up that had a gold band and let it catch the light. Oh, pretty.

Sirius let out an incredibly loud exasperated noise.

"No, look. Don't get that," he said, making him put a ring down. "That's awful and not even good quality."

"It's gold, isn't it?" James asked. "How is that not good quality."

"Trust me, it's not."

Okay then. James put the ring down. And another one. And another one. Sirius vetoed each and every one.

"It's a good thing you're with me, Pads, or else who knows what I would be picking out."

Sirius shuddered. Which James thought was a bit dramatic. He wasn't that bad. Sirius was just very fussy. Though, fussy with good taste.

"Probably something absolutely horrific. How do you have such bad taste?" Sirius demanded.

"How do you even know this stuff?"

There were just so many things to take into consideration. The cut of the gems. The metal. The quality. The style. And who knows what else, there was bound to be things that he was leaving put. It was difficult to keep everything straight.

"How do you not know this stuff? What I'm telling you is the basics!" Sirius said in surprise. "Wait until you have to think about band widths and engravings and the like."

James groaned. There was even more to consider? He wasn't going to survive this. Something caught his eye again. On second thoughts, maybe he would. That ring looked even better at this angle.

"James, I told you that there was no way in hell that you are getting Lily that!"

Drat it. And James genuinely thought it was a good ring.

"You shouldn't be allowed to get married with this little knowledge on rings." Sirius said, shaking his head as he dragged James out of the shop.

"You are making this far more complicated than it needs to be, Padfoot."

He had actually liked some of the rings in there.

"You are the one making this harder," Sirius disagreed. "Because you have no idea what you are doing!"

Well, technically that was true but he didn't have to be so mean about.

"Get in," Sirius said, shoving him into her another jeweller.

Just how many of these were there? But James did as he was told and started looking at rings again.

Sirius made him put down each and every single one. And he had a reason for all of them!

"Come on, have some class, Prongs."

"I'm going to count to three and so help me, you better have put that ring down."

"Sparkly does not always mean better!"

"Again, with that gold one? No!"

"That looks like something out of a Christmas cracker. Try again."

And it was the same thing in the next jewellers. Who knew what the clerks thought of them?

"You do realise you're leaving with one ring and not five you can't decide between?"

But they were all so lovely, he simply couldn't decide. And then, of course, Sirius made the decision anyway.

"None of them are any good anyway. Walk away."

"Maybe we should go get food and return," James suggested as his stomach rumbled loudly. "You can't make a decision on an empty stomach."

Sirius disagreed with him.

"No. No food until we get a ring. I'm not joking."

They were going to be here until they shrivelled up if Sirius had his way. Nothing was making him happy. Maybe James should have brought Remus with him, Sirius was just becoming unreasonable.

"Look, we can come back another day. Fresh eyes and all that," James tried again.

"No, we are not coming back another day for this. It is either today or nothing."

Right. He had created a monster. Just great. Well, there was nothing else to do but forge onwards. And hopefully upwards.

"I'm here to help you not for you to try rings on me."

Granted, that had been an act of desperation. James' thought process was that maybe he could identify a nice looking one if he saw it on someone's hand. He certainly wasn't having much luck when it was on a display.

James eventually threw his hands up in the air in defeat.

"There's nothing here or anywhere!"

This was their fourth jewellery shop. Or was it their fifth? James didn't know. They all looked the same to him. And Sirius kept grabbing him and pulling him everywhere. He didn't exactly get a choice in where he was going. And speaking of that, how on earth did Sirius know where he was going? It was like he had all these amazing jewellers memorised or something. Both in Diagon Alley and in the muggle world. Well, it was only one in the muggle world but still. How did he know?

"I would've told you to just take Lily instead if I knew it would take this many hours." Sirius said, shaking his head as he leaned against a wall. "My feet hurt."

So did James', now that he thought about it but that wasn't important right now, he'd worry about that later.

"I can't do that!" James said in a scandalised voice. "She can't know what I'm going to propose with!"

"I'm pretty sure she's also not meant to know that you're going to propose," Sirius pointed out. "Yet you're doing that."

"Come on, Padfoot. There has to be something."

"Isn't there something in your family vaults? There's bound to be tonnes of jewellery in there."

"Well, yes," James admitted. "I gave Lily the Potter family promise ring."

"Of course, you had that on you," Sirius said with an eye roll.

James ignored him and forged ahead, "But I want her engagement ring to be something that's solely for her, you know?"

"Fair enough," Sirius agreed after thinking for a bit. "But what now?"

James chewed on his lower lip and thought about it.

"Let's go back to that first shop," he decided. "I think I know what I should be looking for now."

Wednesday 16th May 1979

Hogsmeade, 20:30

Severus frowned as he allowed his friends to led him to the Hog's Head. This was a suspicious place to have an official meeting. He still wasn't fully convinced that his friends weren't pulling a joke on him. They were fully capable of it, after all.

Like, seriously? Okay, he could well believe that Dumbledore had some sort of secret organisation. That was a very Dumbledore thing to do. That wasn't the surprising or unbelievable part. No, that solely belonged to the idea that he wanted Severus to join whatever this organisation was.

It all sounded quite suspicious, mainly because they couldn't give him any sort of details. It was all hush hush. Though he did have to admit that he was intrigued.

They gave him a sharp shove towards the door.

"Aren't you coming as well?"

Lily shook her head. "We've already gone through it."

Wait, what was there to go through? But they didn't give him a chance to question them further as James gave him another shove though this time, he ended up inside.

It seemed like both forever and seconds passed when he emerged again, blinking at how dark it had become. That was a lot of information.

"We all felt like that after we left his office that first time," Lily said sympathetically as he rubbed his head and groaned.

"I didn't," James bragged.

"James, you managed to chew you nails down to the quick because you were overthinking it. It was disgusting."

Severus couldn't help but chuckle at that. Especially since James gave Lily such a betrayed look.

But at least what he was feeling was normal. He wasn't being weird or anything.

"I always thought he didn't like Slytherins," Severus admitted. "He never seemed to care much when we were in school."

Which is why the House having the unspoken motto of always sticking up for each other outside of the Common Room. It was just common sense when everyone was against you.

Sirius scrunched up his nose in a look that meant he was thinking of his family.

"Yeah, my parents used to say that Dumbledore never trusted Slytherins. They were proud of that."

Sounded about right. To both points.

"But he trusts me?"

"He had to think about it," James said with a shrug. "But we put in a good word for you."

"Several," Remus added.

Something didn't sit right there and none of them were looking at him.

"Please tell me that you didn't browbeat the great Albus Dumbledore into making me join?"

"...no?"

"Guys!"

"Look, he really, really does want you," James was quick to say. "No one can make Dumbledore do anything. Really? Dumbledore?"

That was true. Severus had to laugh at the stupid face James pulled. Okay, maybe this was legitimate. Maybe Dumbledore did see him as a possible viable member of this Order. That was pretty cool. Yeah. Severus stood up and bit straighter. It was cool.

"And it will be great. We'll all be together. No secrets or anything." James said happily.

"Wait, you are going to join, aren't you?" Sirius asked suddenly.

They all stopped and turned around to stare at him. It was creepy and intimidating at the same time.

"Of course!"

Monday 21st May 1979

Auror Office, 11:30

Marlene was busy with paperwork today. Or, trying to look busy with paperwork without actually doing a lot of it because, let's be honest, who really liked doing paperwork? Except that bloke Crompton but he was regarded as a bit odd.

It was just is boring. Especially since she had had so many days "out in the field" as it were. Which was really just a fancy sounding term for patrolling magical areas and settlements. Not really exciting until a Death Eater showed up. Which they didn't do as much as she thought they would. Still, endless walking still beat doing paperwork.

"McKinnon."

It was Moody. She scrabbled out of her chair and stood up.

"Sir-"

"Don't 'Sir' me."

"Of course, sorry."

"Don't apologise either. Sign of weakness."

She blinked at him. "Right."

"Busy?"

"No, si- I mean, no. Well, I have paperwork but-"

"Good," he cut across her rambling. "Means I can talk to you."

Not that anything could stop Moody from doing whatever he wanted.

"I just wanted to tell you that there's no room for childish nonsense on this Auror Force," he told her, almost sounding like he was scolding her. "Doesn't matter that you're training was pushed through fast. You ship up or nothing."

She gave him a look of confusion. What was this all about? She couldn't help but bristle slightly at the tone.

"Uh-"

"I know all of you are younger than you would normally be," he continued. "But that's no excuse. Everyone's had to grow up fast in this war and there's no exceptions."

Marlene nodded along her agreement. None of this was news to her. Did some parchment-pusher tell him to tell all the recently graduated trainees this? It sounded like her was reciting some sort of policy or something.

"I can be mature," she assured him once he stopped and looked at her expectantly.

She could! They were all adults here. She could get over some petty childish dislike. Hopefully. Or she'd just stay out of Alice's way so she wasn't tempted.

He gave her a long look before nodding and grunting.

"Good. Because you two are paired up tomorrow. Knockturn Alley."

What?