massive thank you to himi! my love! and all my friends who put up with me saying anything ever about this fic. send me potential scene prompts over on tadasgay or shikinami on tumblr

11. (Mistakes aren't always regrets.)

On the day that Lily Evans meets her boyfriend's mother for the first time - properly, not just an awkward encounter in the great hall - it is a bright, sunny day despite the fact that it is the beginning of April. The sun lights up the grounds of the Potter manor as well as James's cheeks, and Lily can only imagine what it would look like in every other season of the year.

"Home sweet home," James says, just to see Lily smile. He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets, adopting a light stroll along the path leading to the front door as Lily marvels at the ridiculously grand hedges that are trimmed to look like animals.

"Your mother is amazing. Ridiculous and rich, but amazing."

"You never compliment me like that." He places a hand to his chest, mock-hurt.

Lily makes a strange noise that James takes for a laugh. "You don't deserve compliments. Your head is big enough as it is."

James cants his head in consideration. "I guess that's true. Don't say that in front of my mother, though, she'll just agree with you and offer you a summer cottage in Wales."

"You make that sound like a bad thing." She says dryly.

"You're here!" Interrupts a voice from the front step. The voice is attached to an old woman who is effortlessly dressed to the nines. She throws her arms wide, and when James makes a start towards her, she bats him away gently. "Why would I want to hug you? I hug you all the time. Oh, Lily, come here. How is it possible you keep getting more and more beautiful?"

Lily blushes, accepting her embrace, partly because it's polite and partly because Euphemia just looks so happy. "You're looking as lovely as ever, Euphemia."

"Nonsense. No compliments for me until I'm done with you. James, show her to the living room while I make the tea."

"Yes, mum." James says dully, linking his arm through Lily's and stepping through the door. James would be worried about all of Euphemia's doting if he hadn't inherited the same trait from her. "It's not as if she's already had the tea waiting for us." He says low enough for just Lily to hear. Then, "this is the hallway," he announces like a tour guide showing off a three-headed dragon, "which is where we keep our coats and our wills to live." He leads her forward, stopping at a set of pristine glass doors. "This is the living room, which we live our empty, loveless lives. You'll get the rest of the tour when mum wants us to go off and forincate."

Lily laughs as he slides the doors open. "I thought you liked it here." She teases. "Since when did this place become a hellhole of misery and trimmed leaf decorations?"

"He loves it. He's just sulking because I like you more." Euphemia calls from down the hall.

"She's not wrong," James concedes. He makes a sweeping gesture of the living room, which is bathed in golds and creams. Lily quite happily takes a seat on the ornate sofa, and James plops down beside her. He takes her hand and laces their fingers together.

"So," Lily says.

"So," says James.

"Is this going to be weird?"

"Probably. Want a cherry drop?"

"Alright." She reaches over to take one from the little golden tin on the coffee table with her free hand. "You know, I can't really imagine you sitting in here."

"I'm sitting in here right now, aren't I?"

"No, you're just a figment of my imagination. Whenever I try to picture you sitting here in any other scenario, your hair's slicked back with spit and grease and you're wearing some prancy outfit." She doesn't point out that the description sounds a lot like Severus, who coincidentally always looks like the last time he bathed was when he was born.

"So you're daydreaming about some other bloke?"

"Yeah, and his breath smells better than yours."

"Take that back," he says, mock-offended.

Euphemia walks in carrying a tray of tea, and Lily has half the mind to think that she was just standing out of sight and waiting for the right time to enter. "We don't have house elves around here," she says in explanation of something Lily doesn't quite get. She shoots James a quizzical look on the sly, and he waves his hands as if to say it's classic Euphemia behaviour. "Sugar?"

"Yes please."

"Me too." Pipes James.

"Oh yes, because in the month you've been gone I've forgotten how you take your tea. Biscuit, Lily? They're ginger."

"Lily's ginger," James adds.

Euphemia looks at him as if he's a toddler who's just recited Humpty Dumpty. "Thank you for that, James. If you're so desperate to be helpful, why don't you grab us some serviettes?"

James opens his mouth to protest but decides against it. He stands and walks backwards through the doorway, mouthing his apologies to Lily.

Lily thinks being stuck alone in a room with Euphemia Potter should be a nightmare, but she doesn't know how wrong she is until they quickly end up chatting about every embarrassing moment in James's life starting from the tender age of zero. She's always known that logically the greatest source of juicy gossip concerning James should be from his own mother, but she never realised just how true the sentiment rings until they're both giggling over the time he tried to set up his own muggle television and almost set the whole house on fire. Euphemia shoos James from the room every time he comes back to fetch this or that.

"We thought I'd die in childbirth," Euphemia says happily when their tea is at the dregs and Lily has sucked on one too many sour cherry drops. Euphemia looks at James, who has taken to just hovering in the doorway, and adds just as cheerfully, "sometimes I wish I had."

"Jee, thanks."

"But you still went through it anyway?" Lily asks. Something about Euphemia has Lily wanting to confess her own desire for a child, but she's well aware that James is standing right there and that she's only just properly met Euphemia (as if that's stopped Euphemia from telling Lily a detailed account of her painful periods). Even if she could, any words she'd say just feel wrong on her tongue.

"He was the closest I was going to get to having a child." Euphemia explains. "It's a shame it had to be him and not some beautiful little girl, but I'll take what I can get. Besides, I knew this little shit wouldn't be able to kill me."

"How so?"

"I'm his mother, aren't I?" She laughs. "Mother always knows best and all that. James, why are you standing? Come and sit down."

James lets out an over-exaggerated sigh and sits down next to Lily again, making sure to wiggle around until he's satisfied that Euphemia isn't going to kick him out.

"So," Euphemia says.

"So," says James.

"I'm getting a bit of déjà vu here." Lily remarks.

"You know what I think?" James asks.

"That is an impossible question," Lily replies at the same time as Euphemia resolutely says, "no."

"I think that introducing the two of you was either my best idea yet, or," he pauses on the word, a self-appreciating sort of smile on his lips, "my worst."

12. (I'd rather die terrified than live forever.)

There is an eerie silence that greets Lily when she arrives back at the safe house, and Lily knows something is wrong even before Sirius walks out of the makeshift sitting room, pale-faced and clammy.

"What's wrong?"

"Remus," he croaks out. He tries to take a moment to clear his throat, and his hand goes to his hair in a hopeless and lost action. "Injured. He's lost a lot of blood. Fenwick's dead."

Lily thinks Sirius should be livid, that anger should be hot in his eyes, and that nothing is more heartbreaking than watching Sirius fall to pieces. She walks forward to grab his shoulders, looking at him sturdily. "What happened? Are you alright?"

He leans forward to rest his forehead against Lily's, because Sirius never does hugs when he needs one. "What makes you think I know? They never tell us anything."

"He'll be alright," she says soothingly, as if a million thoughts aren't racing through her mind, slamming against the walls of her brain and trying to drown her in paranoid thoughts. She closes her eyes. "He's made of strong stuff."

It is not until that night when she lies awake in bed, with Sirius's back to hers, that she really lets herself think of Benjy. She thinks of waving to him across the Great Hall, of Benjy lending her his transfiguration notes when she was sick one week, of him clumsily asking her to dance with her in third year. People die in wars, she knows this, and she has lost her father and Mary's parents, but it has never hit her this hard until now.

She cries herself to sleep for the rest of the week.

13. (Don't try this at home.)

Lily gets a summer job at one of the six stores in her town, which doesn't really count because it's a post office.

She is in halfway through the summer between fourth and fifth year, and she knows that realistically she can't just waste her summer lying around in the garden and trying to do elaborate hairstyles on herself. She's also growing more and more aware of just how much her school books cost, and it's not just because of all of Petunia's not so subtle hints at the kitchen island every other day.

They are relying on one income now, and she can't let her mother overwork herself until she ends up in the same place as her father.

So Lily sits behind the counter at the post office, her hair sitting atop her head in a beautiful red crown. It is one of the simpler hairstyles she's learned to do, but she likes it because everyone thinks it must have taken a lot of effort, even though it consists of two regular braids and a lot of butterfly clips.

The building of the post office itself is a relic, and would probably be put in as a historical building if it weren't sitting in the middle of Cokeworth, a town that means nothing to no one. The air feels a bit recycled in there, but other than that it's pretty enjoyable. At the very least, it means she gets to send constant letters to Mary the muggle way for a discounted price.

She's just finished sealing an envelope to Mary, in which Lily is desperately trying to convince her to watch the Star Wars movies, when the bell above the door rings. She looks up, eyes wide with guilt as if she's doing something wrong.

The man who walks in is not old, maybe in his early-twenties, and he is handsome in a way that needs a bit of work from the viewer. His cheekbones are a little too sharp, too pointed, and something about him is off-center. It could just be his soul, but Lily is prepared to give a complete stranger the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, he's not likely to murder her. Just post a letter.

"Hi," she smiles politely, because she is paid to do so and because she is a nice person in general. "What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to buy a stamp."

His lack of manners only bothers her a little bit.

"Sure! Just one?"

He makes a vague noise of assent. She doesn't really know what it means, so she pulls out a pad of stamps instead. He takes a moment to look at the postcards on the side of the wall curiously – Cokeworth! The town where nothing goes on, ever! – and he doesn't even break his gaze with it as he walks toward the counter. Lily gets the impression that he doesn't talk or smile much, but then again, she's heard too many horror stories from other people in customer service for it to count.

"Anything else I can do for you?"

The man shakes his head. She tells him the price, slipping the pad of stamps closer to him. He fumbles in his pockets for a second, and when something big and round and shiny slips out of it, Lily's eyes are wide.

"Is that–"

He thrusts the appropriate amount of muggle money towards her at the same time as his foot covers the Galleon. "Thanks." He mutters, snatching the stamps and then the Galleon off the floor. He hurries out the door.

Lily can't wrap her head around it – another wizard in Cokeworth? It feels almost as if a rug has been pulled from underneath her, like the very foundation of her childhood has been flipped on its head. She and Severus had always felt special for it, like it was them against the world, because the only other magical person there was his mother, and she hadn't been good for much.

She never sees the man again, and she won't admit to seeking him out, but she doesn't stop thinking about him for a long, long time.

14. (Because a year can make a difference in puberty.)

It is five months into their sixth year, when James picks up her Potions book and hands it back to her, that Lily decides that she has forgiven him. She is many things – most of them varying degrees of positive traits – but she isn't a hypocrite. She can not hold him to the mistakes he made against her when they were children, not when there are far worse people putting up posters spouting Voldemort's agenda all around Hogwarts and running off to murder innocent people. To harbour a grudge against some silly teenage boy for throwing a prejudiced kid up in the air and later saving his life is not Lily's style. James is not a cruel person.

He laughs and jokes and still makes a fool of himself around Lily, but he hasn't talked to her properly, not in a long time, and Lily realises that she needs to forgive James, so that he can forgive himself.

15. (I spy with my little eye.)

Remus, who looks tired and in decent need of a shave, sits beside her on the couch. His clothes are still flecked with blood and his soul still smarted from the fact that he'd let himself get like this on a job. "How are you?" She asks.

"Tired and in decent need of a shave." He eyes Lily, but sideways, with his chin angled the other way. His face is softened by uncertainty and caution.

"I can see that," she says rather dryly. She brings her knees up to her chest, and she leans her cheek against one of her knees. "We both know I wasn't referring to that."

He doesn't smile. "I'm fine. It could have been a lot worse. It felt a lot worse."

"We weren't made for this war."

"I don't think anyone is." He sighs, a soft sound, and looks at her fully. She distinctly remembers a conversation where Sirius offhandedly told them what not to do when punching a guy in the face, and Remus replied 'I'll make sure to keep that in mind the next time I get in a fight'. Remus, ever the diplomat, and even more the pragmatic one, somehow always ends up covered in cuts and bruises. He puts his face in his hands, as if deciding for or against something. "Lily, there's something I have to tell you."

"What? That you've spent the last however many years trying to hide the fact that you're a werewolf and somehow expected me not to figure it out?" Because strangely enough, Lily knows a great deal about Remus, and he just has a tendency to forget that. It's possible Remus has always been aware of this, but has still clung to the hope that every part of him is an impenetrable secret, particularly when it concerns his little furry problem.

"Oh. Well, yes. How did you know?"

"You're not the only Einstein around here. It really wasn't that hard to figure out, what with your monthly disappearances and Severus in my ear all the time."

"And you just… kept it to yourself?"

Lily shrugs, smiling. "What else was I going to do? It's your business. I'd like to think I know you well enough to know that you'd prefer it if everyone was in blissful ignorance over it. Besides, if you ever feel like you can't really talk to anyone about your missions, I'm always down to give you a listen."

He stares at her like it's the first time he's ever seen her. "You – Thank you."

"Don't thank me for being a decent person." She cants her head as if to say 'come on, now'. "We're friends. Friends keep each other's secrets."

He keeps looking at her as if she's grown another friend, and Lily decides he needs to get used to the fact that people care about him. "Have you read this?" She asks, holding up Frankenstein. "It's really good. Give it a try some time."

He laughs, and he looks younger for it. "You're really something, you know that?"

She smiles, a little slyly, a little secretively. She feels the truth of it. "So I've been told."

16. (She just smiles with her teeth, and licks her lips when we get too close to the cage.)

Lately, Lily has been feeling empty. She feels like a breath of wind could knock her over, shatter her like she is made of glass, and she feels that James should leave her for someone more solid. Someone who can hold their ground. Someone who won't drag him through this war, because this is her life at stake, not his. She doesn't think this all of the time, though, but enough to hurt.

She wants to fill herself with him; she wants to believe that a hollow body can become a home with someone else cradled inside of it.

The light is as pale as she is through the window, the muted sun casting a light on both their bodies. She watches the contrast of their skin as he slides his hand along her arm lazily, tracing patterns she can't put a name or visual on. If she had to take a guess, she'd say it's a shitty rendition of a snitch, or a monkey wearing glasses.

"James?" She says, almost wincing at the high pitch of her voice.

"Mm?" He impulsively kisses her head.

"What would you do if you knew tomorrow was your last day on Earth?"

"Oh, that's easy." He replies without skipping a beat. "I'd go bowling."

For once, she isn't sure she's heard correctly. "Why?"

"Because I've never done it before."

She considers this. "Have you always wanted to?"

"No. But Peter told us about it once, because his muggle cousins came over and dragged him out during the Christmas break, and the way he described it made it sound kind of fascinating."

Lily makes a noise that indicates she doesn't find this line of thought as fascinating as he does. "You're just thinking about all those balls. Big, heavy balls."

"You got me there. What would you do?"

"Well, I was going to say spend it with you and our friends, but maybe I'll go play the superior sport just to spite you."

"Quidditch?"

"Field hockey."

James wrinkles his nose, but she can't see it. "I still don't get how that works."

"Then it's no wonder you find the prospect of bowling so interesting. Just because there's no flying involved..."

But the fact that he'd answered the way he had is doing odd things to Lily's brain. Maybe it's just the straw that breaks the camel's back, or maybe her period is coming soon, but she can feel her eyes welling with tears of sadness instead of laughter when she thinks about it. Her throat constricts, and she blinks and looks up to the light in a futile attempt to stop herself from crying.

James catches on after several seconds of silence. "Lily?" She doesn't say anything, so he sits up a little and pushes her hair away from her face. "What's wrong?"

Lily shakes her head, turning it so that she can bury it in his chest. He runs his hands through her hair and tries to rub soothing circles into her scalp. If anyone were to love her, full and whole, it would be James, because he spent years loving her without knowing it, and another few loving her and telling anyone who would listen. It's sweet and scary all at once. What she's saying is that it's sweet that someone cares just that much, and scary when you know there's an image built up of you in someone's head that could crumble at any second.

She's usually secure enough not to pay it any mind, but war has a way of creeping into people's bodies and corrupting their soul.

"I'm sorry," she coughs out after several minutes, tears streaming down her face. "I'm so sorry."

Lily doesn't know how to tell him that he should find someone whole, that empty people rot faster, that this war might kill her.

17. (You are not the first, and you will not be the last.)

Lily looks up at Amelia, clearly affronted. The walls of the alleyway seem to draw in closer to them and she holds her chin up higher in a fragile sort of way. Something like shame colours her cheeks, her collarbones. "I'm not trying to be special," she says, and deep down she knows that that is a lie.

Well, not entirely. She's ashamed of her participation in this war; ashamed that it isn't enough. Above all Lily wants this world to change, so that she can raise a child who won't have to fear that he will have to watch his mother – and eventually his friends – drop like flies; where people can leave their homes without fear that it will be the last time they do so.

But she wants her contribution to mean something. She doesn't want her sacrifices to go unnoticed, though she battles this idea every single day. No one is going to open a history book and search for Lily's name through a long list of others. They will just know that there had been a struggle, and that there were people there to meet it. She will give, and the world will give back.

Her sacrifices only matter to herself.

"I'm not." Lily says, more boldly this time. "And I hope for everyone's sake that I'm not the last one to stand up for what's right, either."

18. (Some things are meant to be, she says. I figure she just means her inheritance.)

"What are we even supposed to get? A kennel?"

Lily rolls her eyes, picking up a bottle of expensive looking hand-wash and putting it back down. "Don't be a prat," she says without any heat.

"Me, a prat? If that's your idea of a compliment, no wonder you ended up with James and not me."

"The fact that you can't stop being a prat for one second proves that you should be taking it as a compliment. No one does something so much if they're not sorry about it."

Roughly ten minutes earlier, they had just been about to set off to Petunia's wedding when Lily realised she hadn't gotten her sister and her groom-to-be a wedding present. The arrival of her wedding invitation weeks before and the news that she would not be a bridesmaid had swept any thought of giftshopping from her mind.

Needless to say, Lily is still hurt over it. At least she's done shedding tears over a long-lost friendship.

Lily also knows that regardless of whether or not she turns up with a gift, whatever it is, Petunia will find something within it to criticise. It is more for the sake of her dignity and the love she still has for Petunia that she had dragged Sirius into the nearest Tesco to find something ordinarily boring.

Sirius picks up a bottle of hair removal cream and tosses it into the cart that Lily is currently pushing. Lily shoots a look of skepticism his way. "You are not getting them that. Unless that's for yourself. Carry on if so."

"I know you're just jealous of my luscious locks. Flea spray?" He suggests. The savage smile and carefree attitude makes it seem like he's performing larceny. The fact that they're currently in the washing aisle in formalwear doesn't seem to help, either.

"You've already done a dog joke. We get it, my sister's a bitch. You don't need to tell me that twice."

"How about a bedazzled collar? Merlin. You're right. I can't think of any more jokes."

"Don't you turn into a dog every month?" She asks with the air of someone who already knows the answer. She contemplates the brightly coloured dish-washing liquid sitting on the shelf.

"Can you hurry up and pick something already? The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave."

With a sigh, Lily takes a can of fly spray and puts it into the trolley. They make their way to the checkout line. She puts the can and the hair-removal cream that they hadn't bothered to put back onto the counter, and just before the person on the till can finish tallying up the price, Lily grabs a bar of chocolate and adds it to the line. Lily hands over the muggle cash and it is over before Sirius can make some stupid remark about the whole thing.

As they make their way out into the world beneath a grey sky, Lily realises she is still pushing a trolley with only three things sitting in the corner of it. She wonders if they should have gotten some more things, but she can't imagine what else they would get.

"Hey, Sirius?" He looks over at her, and she points to the cart. "Get in there."

He cracks a smile, like she's a child who's just told a funny joke, but she just keeps pointing. He raises a brow. "Really, Evans?"

"Don't make this ugly, Black."

"James isn't here. How could we ever make this ugly?"

Sirius hops into the cart with the grace of a lion. He pulls his knees up so that he can fit properly, and ignores the way the bars of the underbelly poke into his bum. Lily pulls the trolley back, lining it up with something only she can imagine, and when she shoves the trolley forward he belts out a string of joyant swear words.

Lily lets out a laugh, though it might be more of a giggle. Either way, she kneels over with a fit of sniggers when he knocks into the trolley stand and crashes catastrophically over to the side. "Are you alright?" She manages to get out between laughter.

He gives her a thumbs up, awkwardly half-lying on his side inside the cart. Fly spray and hair-removal cream roll along the empty car park. She walks over to him, looking profoundly happy, and with one arm she lifts the hem of her pretty pink dress, and the other she offers out to him.

"You are amazing," she says, her face alight with content. "Let's get out of here."

19. (Love me when no one is looking.)

Lily Evans turns nineteen surrounded by all her friends, except for that bitch Marlene, who is off chasing Death Eaters and doing her civic duty. Lily loves her anyway. She tries to count the years on her face when she looks in the mirror, but she can not find them.

They celebrate in Potter Manor, partly because they don't trust any restaurants to not give them away right now, and partly because Euphemia will murder James if she doesn't get to see Lily on her birthday. The house is rich with perfumes and baking, and no one looks as if they've seen a sad day in their lives.

She is in the hallway when a hand shoots out to grab hold of her dress and pull her inside darkness.

She yelps as the door closes softly, blocking off everything but a small strip of light. "Calm down." says James, and she can hear the grin in his voice. "It's just me."

"You almost gave me a heart attack!" She thumps him lightly, but it's dark and she thinks her hand misses his chest and ends up somewhere on his arm instead. "Where are we?"

"Bathroom."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?" He says, an arm snaking around her waist and pulling her flush against him.

"You are ridiculous." She pats her hand around, looking for his face as her eyes adjust to the darkness. "Still, it beats a broom cupboard. Can we have a light on in here?"

"You don't just turn a light on when you're in the middle of a secret mission, Evans." He scoffs.

"You do when you can't see what you're doing, Potter."

There's a pause where she thinks he might kiss her, or stare at her for impossibly long seconds, and her breath catches in her throat. Instead, James turns on a light.

"Oh," she breathes, "hello."

"Hello."

"Fancy seeing you here."

He kisses her then, and she has no breath to make another sound. His kiss is soft and demanding, and she thinks that choking on him would be a very beautiful way to go. He moves his head, takes her bottom lip between his own, and she releases a breath. The kiss is slightly sloppy with desperation and the possibility of being caught, because they both seem to realise that they can only evade reality for so long.

Nothing can be perfect, she knows this, but if anything can be second best to perfection, it is this.

His hand curls into a fist at her hip, knuckles brushing softly against her dress. She pushes into him so that his back thumps lightly against the door. Her ears are full of the beat of her own blood and the voice of Sirius –

Wait.

"Are you done in there?" Sirius is saying, and Lily pulls away with an annoyed groan. James sighs through his nostrils, leaning his head back.

"No." James calls.

"Sounds like you are." Sirius replies, and there is the distinct sound of Sirius knocking against the door. "Hurry up. I want cake."

"Well they're not serving it in here!" Lily shrills. "Go away!"

"They're not serving it until you get your arse out here." Sirius corrects. "Don't make me tell Mrs. Potter on you."

"Do it!" James says. "She'll only tell you to leave us alone. She actively encourages us to close every door behind us."

Lily presses her mouth to his shoulder to stifle her giggle.

"I'll tell Mary."

"She'll only say the same thing!"

"Dorcas, then!"

"You'll tell me what?" Comes the faint cry of Dorcas, who's very obviously in another room entirely.

Lily eyes James warily and untangles herself from his arms. She opens the door, throwing Sirius a dirty look. "As the birthday girl, I decree that you're getting no cake."

"On what account?" He cries.

"On the account that you are nosy, selfish git." She says cooly. James shrugs at Sirius over her shoulder. "You're welcome to have the cheese and crackers."

"I don't want cheese and crackers." He replies indignantly. "James, I don't like your fiancée."

"Oh, hush. You love me. Come on." They follow her into the main room, where she gives an apologetic wave to Dorcas. She then takes a butchered piece of cheese and puts it on a cracker, and turns to place the combination onto Sirius's tongue.

"You're the worst." He says around it. "This cheese is really good."

The lights dim, and Lily's cheeks warm. Euphemia is standing at the doorway with a large sponge cake, smiling brightly. Lily almost believes that she has been waiting there ever since Lily initially disappeared.

The room bursts into a chorus of 'Happy Birthday', James crowing it the loudest, and Lily is stuck with the awkward dilemma of standing there with her hands on her blushing cheeks. The warm glow of the candles gets ever closer, eventually stopping in front of her and casts her in a firey light.

"Make a wish," she hears James say quietly to her.

She looks into the flames, looks at the people she loves the most in the world, and knows that this is what it means to be loved in return. That she carries all these people in the mantle of her heart. That she can't wish for anything more than for them to all be happy and safe.

That when she closes her eyes to make her wish, she doesn't feel closer to dying.

20. (I want to rob lumber mills and hospitals with you and just bewilder the hell out of people the way love should.)

Lily really realises her feelings for James through Marlene. She wants to thank God and Merlin for Marlene, for all that she does, for being her friend, for just being Marlene.

But right now she is in Hogsmeade with James, Marlene is nowhere in sight, and she is in a quaint little shop full of beautiful jewellery from all around the world. "This isn't really your thing, is it?" She asks, a smile on her mouth.

"What do you mean? Don't you think I'd look dashing in this, um, this thing." He holds up a nose ring enchanted to look like a moving snake. "I can pull anything off."

Lily doesn't disagree, and he's encouraged by how appreciatively she looks at him. "I meant buying for other people."

"I buy things for people all the time." He says defensively.

"In jewellery stores?"

"I can always start now." He shows her a pair of silver studs. "Do you think Sirius would like these?"

She points to a series of unmentionable rings. "No more than he'd like those, I suspect."

"Oh, you dirty girl."

Lily grins cheekily, but quickly pretends to be enamoured by a series of swinging monkey bracelets to hide her blush.

He moves through the expanse with ease, picking up this or that to take a closer look. It's difficult to feel hurried when he seems somewhat interested in all the little shiny things. "What are you looking for, anyway? A chastity belt? A promise ring? An engagement ring?" She can hear the frown in his voice.

"It's really silly." She says, erring on the side of nervous. "Every year I get Marlene another charm for her birthday."

"Oh, I always wondered what that thing on her wrist was. I thought it was half a handcuff. An idea for next year?"

She wanders over to the side where they keep the charms, all lying prettily on a velvet box and protected by a glass case. "Why, so I can lock her to me?"

"Something like that." He adjusts his glasses, peering over her shoulder to look at the charms on display. "Hey, these are pretty neat."

"Marlene's already got that one." She points to a little glowing ball of violet. "And half of them are ones I got in London, but I Charmed them myself."

"You're really good at Charms." He says admiringly.

"Aren't you in Transfiguration club?"

"Stalking me now, are we?"

"It's common knowledge that you tried to transfigure Darrell Creevy into a teacup to settle a debate over whether or not the Troll Exclusion was set in the 1400s or the 1500s. It was neither, by the way."

"Oh. Yeah. So when is Marlene's birthday?"

"Not for a while. But I really want to get this early in case I can't find anything better."

"Is that how you pick all your gifts, Evans?"

She waves him off absently. "I can't choose between her star sign or another glowy one. Help?"

"Why not get her the heart?"

"Because I think someone else might be more interested in giving that to her." She says a little too pointedly. She brushes her hair behind her ear to keep it out of the way. "Though maybe the one with double hearts is more romantic."

"I don't like where this is going."

She laughs. "It's not from me. I think Dorcas wants to give her something like that."

His lips form an 'o' shape. He takes a second to compose himself, then points at a little doe charm. "Get her that one. It's like your patronus, yeah?"

"How do you know about my patronus?" She asks, and it is not an accusation.

James shrugs. "You cast one that time after the train attack. You know, when they had to bring the Dementors in to do a sweep?" He doesn't mention the fact that neither him nor his friends know how to perform one. Yet.

She blinks, her heart warming at the fact that he remembers. There are roses in her mouth and rabbits kicking in her stomach, her happiness vibrating all the way down to her feet.

"Don't smile at me like that."

"Like what?"

"You're doing that slightly deranged grin you do when you're pleased with someone. It kind of makes you look like you're about to murder me."

She rolls her eyes lightly. "So I should go for the doe one, then?"

"Yeah, I reckon." He replies. All casual.

She walks up to the counter to ask the woman to get another charm exactly like it, walking in time to the beat of her heart – which is to say, quickly. She's never realised just how easy it can be with James, like she has spoken to him like this for years rather than just recently.

He is grinning when they leave the shop and into the green of Hogsmeade. There are cherry red leaves of what could be poison ivy lining the path of the main road, and she looks at them instead of him. "Thank you." She says.

"For what?"

"For helping me pick."

She looks up, and he is smiling.

"Any time." He holds his arm out, like a gentleman waiting to escort his lady. "Wanna go to Zonko's?"

She takes his arm. "Absolutely."