Hello all! M back! Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, favourited and followed this story. Hope you are liking where it goes. And a special thanks to Paulaa90 for reviewing both chapters.

Just mentioning: I don't have a clinical idea of amnesia, how it happens and how to deal with it. What I am writing is just my own idea; it might be incorrect, but I hope you don't mind.

For those who are excited about finding out who hurt Lily, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it won't be focused on much. I will tell who did it, but this story...it won't depend much on that. Anyway, moving on to the next chapter...

Enjoy!

Chapter 3 – Flickers

"What are you doing?" Lily asked as Sirius sat down at the coffee table and laid several books and parchments in front of him. Sirius had talked to her about various things throughout the afternoon, and by now, the initial awkwardness and hesitation that Lily had about her had long since abated. Sirius had been astonished at how quickly she had warmed up to him when it had taken her nearly six and a half years to do so last time; but he was very glad of that; he couldn't possibly afford to wait six years for her to come around to him. Now, she looked just as comfortable around Sirius as she had been at school this year. Had it not been for the harsh fact that she still appeared clueless when he asked her about something at Hogwarts, he would have dismissed the events of the morning as just a bad dream.

Sirius kept wondering what the cause of Lily's memory loss could have been. Since she remembered nothing about her life first year onwards, let alone the events of the morning, there was no point in asking her about it. On the contrary, telling her about the attack might disturb her. Sirius was walking a very fine line with Lily Evans, and there was no way he could let the balance be broken. And besides, he thought, what would that lead to? Although his hand still twitched now and then towards his wand, reflecting his desire to search out who had hurt Lily, it would be a pointless endeavor. Lily was a muggleborn; Sirius wasn't unaware of the dangers they faced in the current scenario. Any sadist pureblood (likely his dearest cousin) might like to hurt her just for a laugh. Revenge wouldn't be effective at all; what he had to do was stay with Lily and try to get her back to normal. So he looked up from his work, focusing on her question.

"Doing my homework," he said. "The professors haven't been very merciful in assigning work."

She chewed on her bottom lip, looking worried. "But how am I supposed to finish my work?"

"You don't have to worry about that, Lils. I will do your homework too, and transform my handwriting to yours."

Lily's eyes widened in awe. "You can do that?"

He nodded.

"Thanks!" she screamed, and ran over to him, tackling him in a tight hug. "You are the best, Sirius!"

He laughed as he pried her hands off him, and ruffled her hair. "No need to thank me, Flower. The rest of the Marauders and I have done this plenty of times."

She watched quietly as he wrote line after line on the parchment. It was really exhausting work. He finished his transfiguration essay (Write three feet on the various aspects of human transfiguration) as well as Lily's.

Then he moved on to Potions. Potions had never been his favourite subject, nor was it something that he excelled at it, although he did well in almost everything that he took without studying much. The essay was a particularly tricky one. As he struggled over correctly explaining the method of brewing Amortentia and its effects on a person, Lily watched on carefully.

Currently he was trying his hardest to remember the ingredient to be added after giving the potion a clockwise stir. Unfortunately, however much he racked his brains, the cursed ingredient would not come within the grasp of his consciousness. He scratched his chin with his quill, thinking hard. Suddenly, Lily spoke up.

"Wormwood," she said.

"What?" he asked absently, not quite following her.

"You have to add wormwood next, you know," she elaborated.

Her words finally penetrated through to his brain, and his jaw dropped.

"H-how did you know? How – do you – do you remember?"

She looked just as baffled as him now that he asked. "I...don't quite know," she said slowly. "It just...sort of – came up suddenly in my head, I suppose."

Sirius nodded in a dumbfounded fashion, his brain working rapidly. "Okay, Lily, I'll ask you some questions in these subjects, let us see you can remember anything further."

He began asking her different things that the professors had taught them, easy ones first, and then moving gradually to more difficult topics. Nine out of ten times, he was delighted to find, Lily answered the questions correctly. By the time the clock struck ten, she had managed to write off her own essays, mostly by herself.

"Dinner time!" Sirius sang out, rolling up the parchments. Both of them were drunk with happiness at the sudden success.

Lily followed him eagerly to the table, and sat down facing him. As they sat munching on their baked potatoes and steaks (nothing in comparison to the cooking of the house elves at Hogwarts, but quite edible) Lily asked, "So, Sirius, are you friends with Sev?"

Sirius' face clouded over, and he glared at his plate. It was so unfair that she could not remember any of her friends, not even her boyfriend, but she remembered that snivelly git.

"No," he said shortly.

"Oh. Why not?" Lily asked curiously.

"For...a variety of reasons. We don't quite get along with each other," he refrained from going into details, afraid that if he started badmouthing his bitter enemy, he won't be able to stop.

"Er – am I?" Sirius looked up to see tentativeness and apprehension in her green eyes.

"No, Lily," he replied quietly. "You were once, but not now."

The bitter lines on Lily's face became more prominent.

"But why?" she asked, looking like a child trying to figure out a complex puzzle. "He seemed to be a nice guy. He was the one who first told me that I was a witch."

Sirius was surprised at this piece of information, but he ought to have expected it. After all, he had seen the two sticking together when they first boarded the Hogwarts Express, and it looked like they had been friends for years.

Focusing on her question, he answered, "He...his priorities changed. He got other friends, whom you did not approve." He tried to leave the conversation at that, not wishing to tell her about the incident in the fifth year, but one look at her face showed that his explanation was not quite satisfactory. So he sighed, and went on. "And in our fifth year, he called you a – a you-know-what."

"A you-know-what?" she asked, confused.

"A – a –" he could not bring himself to say it; he had sworn to never use the word ever since he was a child, when he had found that the blood of muggles and muggleborns were not a shade less red than his own. "– a mudblood." he whispered, hating himself for saying it, even though not for insulting someone.

Lily winced as if someone had physically wounded her; her eyes shut tightly, and tears began forming beneath the closed eyelids.

"Lily! Lily, what's wrong?" Sirius asked, moving to her side and gripping her shoulders even as the tears began trailing down her rosy cheeks.

"I – I remembered," she said between sobs. "His voice – Sev – no, Snape's voice. It w-was so cold, so harsh. And I felt the pain, humiliation and anger; oh God, Sirius, he's so terrible!"

"What did he say, Lils?" Sirius asked, rubbing soothing circles on her back.

"'I don't need help from mudbloods like her!'"

Sirius nodded. "And – nothing else that you remember?"

She shook her head. Sirius decided to give the interrogation a rest. He was somewhat relieved that James' part in the episode (and his own, too) had not been revealed to her; that woukd completely flip her carefully built friendship with him, and maybe James' chance of getting back his girlfriend would be gone forever. His hatred for Severus Snape, on the other hand, had just increased tenfold. Lily did not deserve such pain even once, let alone twice. He wiped the tears away from her face, and cupped her chin with his hand.

"Don't cry, Lily," he said softly, and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Everything will be alright. Now go to bed, it's late."

She nodded and went off to his bedroom, which Sirius had let her have, while he himself lay down on the couch, and turned out the light.

It was about half an hour later, when he had just fallen asleep, that he felt a soft touch across his cheek. The gentle fingers moved across his hair, and he subconsciously moved his face closer to the hand, sighing at the softness of the contact.

"Sirius!" a voice whispered through the dark.

"Mmhm," he mumbled, his senses still not awake.

"Sirius, please wake up," the voice spoke again, and this time he was poked lightly on the chest. He opened his eyes to see a pair of bright green eyes blinking at him through a curtain of dark red hair.

"Lily?" he asked, peering at her through the dark. "Didn't you go to sleep?"

She shook her head. "Couldn't sleep. I – I had a nightmare. Would you –" she hesitated. "Would you mind sleeping with me in your bedroom? It might help."

Sirius stared at her nervous expression, and the thin layer of sweat that had accumulated on her brow. He grinned at her. "Of course, Flower, all you have to do is ask. But let me tell you," he added with a smirk, "I tend to take up the entire bed when I sleep."

Lily cracked a smile. "Not to worry. I kick."

He laughed, and following her to his double bed, flopped down beside her.

"Night, Lils," he murmured as his eyes closed.

"Goodnight, Sirius."

-o0o-

The next morning, Sirius opened his eyes to find Lily curled up against him. Her petite frame was nestled against his burlier body, her face buried into his chest. His arms were protectively wrapped around her waist.

Sirius could feel his face go red. Thankful of the fact that no one was watching, he extricated himself from the girl's side carefully, so as to not wake her up. He thought what James would do if he found out that his girlfriend had slept with his best friend (however innocent the act might be), and shuddered. He brushed his teeth and walked into the kitchen.

It was nothing, he tried to convince himself, nothing more than typical elder brother behaviour. She was scared, and so I helped her sleep. There's nothing improper with that.

Yet he could not shake off the feeling that he had done something quite wrong.

He had just popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster when the doorbell rang. He stretched, and ruffling his hair (a habit he seemed to have picked up from James), went to the door. A mousy haired salesman was standing outside, looking at him hopefully.

"Good morning, sir," he said in a squeaky voice. "I am from Livefree Life Insurance Company, and –"

"Life insurance?" Sirius echoed.

"Yes, sir, and –"

"Get out!" Sirius shot back. He did not have the patience to deal with another of those idiots, not after what his last encounter with one a day ago had cost him.

"But sir, I –"

"Don't you understand plain English?" he roared, his patience at an end. "I – am – not – interested! Now get the hell out of here." And he shut the door on the man's face.

Swearing under his breath, he got back to the kitchen, to find Lily already there, frying eggs in a pan. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, and she was still in her pyjamas. She looks adorable, thought Sirius, as his eyes soaked in every visible detail about her, and then instantly berated himself for having such traitorous thoughts.

"Good morning, sunshine," he grinned. Lily raised an eyebrow at the nickname, but smiled all the same.

"'Morning, Sirius," she greeted. "What had your knickers in a twist this early?"

"It was one of those stupid life insure or something guys," he said through clenched teeth.

"Life insurance," Lily corrected him.

"Yeah, whatever. What is a life insurance, anyway?" The salesmen had given him voluminous explanation of the concept, but none of those had ever gone through his head.

"They ask you to submit a sum of money to the company, and in case you die or get injured, the money that you submitted, along with extra funds, is given to your family."

"What a silly idea," Sirius commented. "Why would I save up money to be given after I am dead?"

"You could have got one done, you know," Lily said. "Although it's a muggle thing, it might help your family."

"I don't want anything to do with my family," he hissed. Lily looked surprised.

"Why? What's wrong with them?"

Sirius was about to snap at her, but then he remembered that she had no memory of how horrible his family was.

"We just...don't get along," he said, not wanting to bring about the topic of blood purity in front of the redhead. "I ran away from my home last year. I live with James now."

"Oh," was all she said. There was a tentative silence between the two.

"It looks like you have covered breakfast." he said, eyeing the toasts and the eggs, hoping to change the subject.

"Yeah," she replied brightly. "I felt like stirring up something nice. You can help if you wish."

Fifteen minutes later:

"Sirius Black, don't you dare touch the custard mix again!"

"I was only tasting," Sirius pouted.

"You already had two handfuls. We won't have any left if you keep going on like this!"

Sirius simply smirked, and inched his hands closer to the bowl half full of the dessert.

"Oh no you don't! I swear, Sirius, if you lick the custard again I'll –"

With a devilish grin, Sirius looked directly into Lily's green eyes, and pulling up a fistful of the sticky, sweet goodness, shoved it into his mouth.

SPLAT!

Something wet trickled on his hair, and raising his fingers to his dark locks, he found them covered in egg yolk. He narrowed his eyes at the girl at the opposite end of the kitchen, who was doubled up in laughter.

"Now you have done it, Evans," he said. "Get ready for your punishment." And he shoved a fistful of flour at her.

Half an hour later, the kitchen was a complete mess, and so were its two inhabitants. Sirius had egg in his hair, his shirt was drenched orange juice, and his face was speckled with white. Lily on the other hand, resembled a ghost, covered head to toe in flour, and had custard on her nose. Both of them were panting with the sheer use of energy, and each was clutching their stomach, laughing at the spectacle that was the other.

"Oh God," Lily wheezed. "You look like a clown!"

Sirius mock scowled. "Watch who's talking! You look like a bloody ghost." He noticed the custard on her face, grinned mischievously, and closing the distance between them with a couple of strides, licked it right off her nose.

Lily stiffened, her mouth forming a small 'o' as she stared at the wizard in front of her.

"What?" Sirius smirked, licking his lips. "The custard was too delicious to be wasted." He inspected his now orange shirt. "I'll just go and clean myself, okay? You'd better do it too. And then we can clean this mess." He waved his arms in the general direction of the kitchen, and giving her a dazzling smile (as dazzling as is possible with egg dripping off your hair), walked off towards the bathroom. He did not notice Lily's cheeks flush as red as her hair as she stared at his retreating figure, her lips still parted.