Disclaimer: Only the format, the story, and the ridiculousness are mine.

So Far: Over a year ago, Severus Snape and Lily Evans stopped being best friends. A bit after that, a stolen bear named Melody caused Lily to become extremely good friends with Sirius Black, who is James Potter's best friend. James Potter, who has finally admitted to himself and the rest of the Marauders that he still wants Lily, even though now they're friends again. Lily made up with Dorcas and Marlene and fought with Snape again. Petunia, Lily's sister, is dating Vernon Dursley. Remus was long-distancing for a short while with a Muggle girl named Natalie.

A/N: Though Dagenham is an actual London suburb (I used a random address generator), I don't live in Britain and have no clue what it's like. I took some liberties.

Chapter 26

Or

Of an Evans Party and Lily's Letters

Dear Sirius (the majestic is not the term I'd choose, honestly),

The first couple weeks of summer has been good to me thus far. Petunia and Vernon are disgusting as usual, but they – unlike previous holidays – have been spending most of their time at his parents' place. I think they're getting serious, Sirius.

Haha. Serious Sirius.

Marlene came over yesterday and we had tea. She brought you and Mary up, and I – God, I cannot believe this – I honestly had forgotten about your brief relationship last year. Merlin, that was odd. Thank God that went away.

Dad's still on that company trip. I haven't seen him in weeks, but he calls almost every day. Calling, by the way, is the act of using a phone, a machine one can use to communicate vocally over long distance. Think – sticking your head into the fireplace after using Floo Powder, only with less fire.

How's everyone on your side? Is Remus doing okay with the full moon coming up? How's Peter? Is James bored out of his mind without you around to make him go out of his mind?

And how are you doing, living on your own? Living the luxury life, are you? Can I come visit?

Lots of love,

Lily

Dear Lily Evans!

Your sense of humor is honestly childish and ridiculous. Not to mention unoriginal. Do you have any idea how many times James has made a pun of some sort out of my name? Do you have any idea how many times I've done that?

The four of us Marauders have, in fact, seen each other no less than four times since school ended. This, once in order to see my new flat, once in order to get plastered, once to get plastered at my flat, and one more time to get ice cream. The place isn't that luxurious – Uncle Alphard wasn't much of a spender. I could, however, probably live the rest of my life without working another day. It's amazing that there has only been one year of my life that I even had to consider getting a job after I graduate. To tell you the truth, though, I probably would have become an Auror. Don't tell James, he thinks I have a complex.

Do the two of you talk now? I've seen a couple of letters of yours on his desk. Didn't peek, I swear it.

He's fine, by the way. Not bored at all. Remus is… Remus. He tries to deal with this stuff alone, and honestly, outside of Hogwarts, there's not much we can do. Peter has been hung over for two days. Or he might have the flu. In any case, he's been throwing up a lot. The first time he did it was all over James' night clothes. I have pictures, should you wish to see them.

You could come visit next Sunday, if you want.

Sirius the Handsome

Sirius' flat didn't look like it belonged to him at all. It looked like it belonged to an aging bachelor with a taste for expensive wine and armchairs. It looked like it belonged to someone far too proud of his heritage to possibly be related to Sirius. And it was, one hundred percent, extremely luxurious.

"I'm getting rid of most of the furniture," Sirius explained as he unlocked the London flat. "And the decorations. I'm basically keeping about a tenth of all of Uncle Alphard's shit."

Uncle Alphard had a lot of shit, and most of it was expensive. Lily examined a scarlet armchair with golden lining and concluded that she was terrified to sit on any of it. "I feel like I'll make it dirty just by touching it," she said. "You didn't get any house elves with the place, did you?"

"Uncle Alphard didn't have any," Sirius replied, landing with a thump on the very armchair she had just examined, his legs stretched over one of the armrests. He didn't elaborate on why he didn't have any house elves. "Even if he had, I would have freed them."

Lily nodded appreciatively.

"C'mon," said Sirius, swinging his legs back to the floor. "I'll show you the rest of the place."

Besides the sitting room, there was a kitchen hidden behind a bead curtain ("Remus put that up last week, I don't know what he was thinking but I'm pretty sure he put a Permanent Sticking Charm on it"), a guest room ("This is is where Peter hurled all over James' feet. Turns out, I'm very good at cleaning spells. Who would've known?"), a library ("I'm pretty sure it's an Undetectable Extension Charm that makes it so big"), an empty room ("I think this was some sort of safe space where Uncle Alphard could experiment, but it was empty when I got here"), and finally –

"My bedroom."

The bedroom stood in stark contrast to everything else in the flat. It was almost empty, but wasn't similar to the empty room they had just passed through. Instead, it felt – it felt homely. There was a double bed, and the sheets looked slept in. There was a dresser, and the top of it was messy in a way that covered the entire surface but showed everything. There was a pile of dirty clothes in the corner. There was a door to a private bathroom.

It all screamed Sirius Black.

Suddenly, Lily felt incredibly comfortable, though she'd been unaware she was tense before. This was right. This was what Sirius' mind looked like: messy but in separate spaces. This was not part of a house, but part of a home. This was what his home was supposed to look like.

"Sirius," Lily said. "This is – "

He grinned. "Yeah." He, too, suddenly looked much more relaxed, as though, even without either of them noticing, he'd been afraid she wouldn't get it. But of course she got it.

Lily Evans and Sirius Black understood each other, after all.

Lily, Sweetheart –

How've you been? Your last letter was distressing.

Miss ya,

Marlene

Marlene –

The WHALE has been over every day the past week. Come rescue me STAT. Bring Dorcas and Mary if at all possible.

Lily

That morning, Marlene and a promise came in with the newspaper.

Marlene showed up early in the morning, coinciding with the daily arrival of the newspaper. The newsboy didn't startle at the sudden appearance of a young girl behind him with no warning; it was possible that he was not a morning person and was simply not awake enough to notice anything was odd, and it was possible that he simply didn't care. In any case, Marlene picked up the newspaper and passed it on to Mr. Evans when he answered the door.

"Hullo, Mr. Evans," she said, much too brightly for that hour of the morning. Mr. Evans grunted in response and let Marlene come inside. Lily was still asleep, as it was an ungodly hour to be awake for a normal teenager.

Apparently, Marlene did not have it in her to be a normal teenager.

"WAKE UP!" Marlene screamed outside Lily's bedroom door, and Lily did, in fact, wake up – but so did Petunia, who came out of her room screaming bloody murder at the younger girl for having interrupted her beauty sleep. This earned another scream from Marlene, and Lily let her escape into her room.

"Before you say anything – " Lily began.

"Ohmigod, that was a harrowing experience," said Marlene.

" – I didn't expect you to show up before seven am! The Daily Prophet owl hasn't even shown up yet."

"I was under the impression that this was an emergency situation," said Marlene indignantly.

Lily groaned.

"What was that? I didn't quite catch it."

"So's my sleep."

Marlene threw a pillow at her.

"Where's everybody else?" Lily asked after a while.

"Dorcas has work – did she tell you she got a job? She said she was bored – but she's coming after. Mary didn't say when she would come, but she promised she would."

Lily smiled.

VERNON AND PETUNIA ARE GETTING MARRIED

Join us in celebrating their engagement

July 17th 7 PM at 1 Ager Ave, Dagenham, Greater London

Hosted by Dursley Family & Household

Please RSVP by July 10th to Mrs. Dursley at same address

Sirius –

I know. I know. I KNOW. He proposed to her in his family's sitting room. She said yes and I want to hurl.

You can bring a plus one. Bear in mind that Mary is going to be there and don't bring someone too stupid.

Send the RSVP through me because I don't trust you to use Muggle post properly.

Please be there, if anything then for emotional support, and if not for that then for free alcohol,

Lily

RSVP:

Will be there w/ +1.

Lily –

Plus one will not be too stupid, but might be embarrassing. Will be there, mostly for the free alcohol, but also, for the emotional support.

I cannot believe that your sister, in fact, has no brain.

Sirius

"This is the ugliest thing I have ever seen," said Sirius. "Remind me what we're doing here?"

Sirius wasn't particularly far off in his assessment of the suit in front of him. The article of clothing in question was checkered, brown and blue, and had frills at the ends of it. At every single end.

"We're getting you a Muggle suit," said Remus patiently, "because you said you wanted to be respectable, and unlike some people, you don't have a private tailor to make a suit to your specifications – oh, hello." That last part, tinged with surprise, had been said to a young girl working at the shop. She looked about their age, and blushed at the sight of them. Well, we are quite handsome, thought Sirius.

"Hi – hi," she said, stammering. "Um – do you need any assistance?" Her eyes flashed to Remus. Sirius didn't know what to make of it.

"No!" said Remus in an oddly high voice.

"What?" said Sirius, looking at him as if he'd just fallen out of the ceiling. "Nah, lady, stay. We definitely do."

"We'll be fine without her, Sirius," said Remus, still harshly.

"O-okay," she said, vanishing in between the clothing. Now that's magic, thought Sirius. He turned to Remus and raised an eyebrow, and Remus didn't elaborate.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else," Remus suggested. "I don't think they have the best collection here."

Sirius considered it for a moment. Then he said, "Okay."

Remus startled. "What, really?"

"Yeah, mate," said Sirius casually. "As long as you explain why the hell you and that girl just acted like you were Snivellus and Prongs meeting each other at a graveyard."

Remus took a deep breath. "Fine. Fine. Well – that was, um, that was Natalie."

"Oh," said Sirius. He thought about it for a second and then ran deeper into the store.

"What are you doing?!" cried Remus. "Stop!"

But it was too late. Sirius had already run after Natalie, and Remus had no choice but to run deeper into the shop as well. Sirius heard the frantic footsteps of his friends following him and barely refrained from laughing outright. Catching up to the dark skinned girl, he tapped her shoulder and outstretched his arm. She turned around, startled, and he plastered his best most dazzling grin on. "Hello," he said, "I'm Sirius Black, one of Remus' mates from school. Nice to meet you."

She blushed, then hesitantly shook his hand. "Natalie."

"Oh, I know," he grinned. "I've heard not nearly enough about you. So, you still dating McDouche?"

"Sirius!" cried out Remus, sounding pained.

Natalie looked stressed.

Sirius simply continued grinning.

Potter

James –

Dear James,

James!

James,

I keep trying to write you and it doesn't work how did I even do this the last couple of times oh my God

I'm going to throw this in the trash anyway, so here it goes:

I like you. Merlin, I like you. But you literally just broke up with one of my best friends. Marlene, by the way, seems fine. She said the other day she doesn't regret dating you, but that it was never meant to last, and refused to add anything more, even when pestered. Believe me when I say, Mary pestered her. Mary, by the way, is dating a fifth year – I mean, an-about-to-be sixth year Ravenclaw. They're so annoying. He's there whenever we come over, and often comes with her when she's the one visiting. I'd forgotten that this is her usual self. I think she's finally over that whole gross thing with Mulciber. Or at least, she's better now. Getting back to her gossip-queen-bee roots. But she, turns out, is a good friend. I… I'm really glad she's better. And I suspect that it's actually a little your fault. But since I'm not sending this to you, I won't go into any details.

Merlin. It's not like I even know you that well. Not nearly as well as I know Sirius or even Benjy. By any shred of common sense, I'd be into one of them. But I don't think I'm ready to date anybody, anyway. I don't think I'm ready.

My Dad can't get away from his company retreat even for Petunia's engagement party. I don't know what he's doing there, and my mother can't give me any straight answers. It's fucking awful. He sounds so cheerful on the phone, if a bit bummed that he can't be there for Petunia's great day. But then again, he doesn't approve of The Whale any more than I do.

I keep thinking of my encounter with Snape on the train. I mean, I know that I've told him that we're not friend anymore a million times, but I think – I think this time he got it. And the odd thing is with the engagement and everything, I keep wishing he was here with me to make fun of it all so I didn't have to. Because he was allowed to be sarcastic and mean to Petunia, because she had always been that to him. But I'm not. I have to be supportive, and perfect, and –

Oh I just can't stand this

I miss Hogwarts. Everything there, even all of the drama of this last year, is so much simpler than being here.

(The previous letter was later placed in the fireplace of the Evans household and carefully watched until it was nothing but ashes. The following letter had been sent instead.)

Hey,

I hope your mother is feeling better. I know that she's not the youngest, but she's survived thus far – I believe she must have a few more years left in her.

My sister's engaged. That's weird, right? She's only a bit older than me, and she's already settling down. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Wishing your mother a speedy recovery,

Lily

Evans

Lily Evans –

Dear Lily,

Dear Evans,

Thank you for your

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit

Why is this so fucking hard

I know why.

Everything is fucking shit right now Evans. I know that you don't want to hear it but I love you and I miss you and I keep hearing about all the fucking murders on the radio and I want to do something about it. What am I supposed to do? I want to fight. How do I fight?

See. Everything is shit, even my circular thinking.

Who do I fight?

Sometimes I miss fighting with you.

(The previous letter was later crumpled up and thrown in the bin, quickly covered in food wrappers, and taken out with the morning trash. The following letter had been sent instead.)

Hey to you too, Evans.

Yes, I know about the wedding. Remus took Sirius the other day to get a Muggle suit, and, apparently, they ran into Remus' ex. It ended badly. They got the suit in another store, and it even isn't awful. Sirius hates it. He prefers jeans and a white T any day, but you probably know that.

My mother's feeling a lot better, but at her age, even St. Mungo's can't do much. She said thank you for your concern.

Have the wedding preparations started yet? The Potter family isn't a close-knit family, but it is a widespread one, and there's one every few months, usually. I've been exempt from attending ever since I was twelve and I started bringing Sirius along.

For obvious reasons.

Good luck,

James

He wasn't even really sure what he was doing here, anyway. It's not like Lily properly invited him or anything. Sirius had thought it would be funny to people watch, but, of course, the moment they arrived he'd disappeared to go do something that was probably inappropriate in some way or another. He hoped that it involved coming back with drinks. Preferably alcoholic.

The party wasn't taking place in the actual house, but rather, in a rather large tent constructed in the rather large back garden. Instead of being charming, it was choking; the air was stuffy and hot and unbearable and stank of suburban summer. There were no plants in this part of the "garden"; it had, rather, the vibe of a formerly forested area that had been cleared away to expand an existing clearing. And, the worst of it all, he didn't like the look of anybody at the party; most everybody was over the age of forty, and all of the people his age were so Muggle that it was practically already boring him. Coming here had been a bad idea.

So he wandered among the crowd, absentmindedly flirted with a girl he found to be attractive but not interesting, and eventually picked a seat and stayed there. There was dancing, and half-decent music, and no Sirius, and no food.

And, James noted, no sign of Lily, who really ought to be here.

Oddly enough, the first person he recognized – even though he didn't approach her – was Petunia Evans, soon to be Dursley.

He's never properly been introduced to her, but he'd seen her once when the Evanses had come to pick Lily up at the end of the year. And, of course, he'd memorized her face, just as he'd memorized everything else he'd ever learned of Lily Evans.

She looked nothing like Lily. In fact, she was her opposite in every way: dark-haired, tall and skinny, with a neck like a horse and a simply appalling nose (James really liked Lily's nose; it was cute and button-y). However, the most appalling thing about her, distorting any features that might have similarities to her sister's beyond recognition, was that she looked bitter. She looked mean. And worst of all, she looked unhappy.

Lily never let herself look unhappy. Lily wouldn't let herself be unhappy, especially not during her engagement party.

James saw nothing of Lily's kindness in her sister, and that was just a little tragic.

Petunia was soon joined by a whale of a man, far too fat and mustached to possibly be anything less than forty five years old. He was holding a glass of champagne, but didn't seem drunk as much as giddy.

Behind him was Sirius; James waved at him, beckoning him to come over, but all Sirius did was wink at him. He had his arm around someone –

Oh. Lily.

She was beautiful, of course, wearing a tantalizingly short and cleavage-friendly white dress. She had her hair braided, flowers imbedded in it. And she was smiling.

(That was probably thanks to Sirius. She always smiled when he was around.)

Their gazes met, and her shining green eyes widened with surprised. She hit Sirius lightly on the shoulder, and he pretended to be hurt. James knew Sirius had never told Lily who his plus-one was; James didn't quite know what to make of her reaction.

He stood and began walking closer, however, before he could reach them, he heard the booming voice of Petunia's beau – Vernon, was it? – say, "Petunia, dear, would you come over here?"

Petunia did. "What is it, dear?"

"Well," he said, and though he didn't seem it before, he was definitely drunk now. "Can't your slut of a sister produce something to cover herself up? She looks – she looks – "

Petunia hurriedly made sure her dress was neat and covering all the important bits.

"Like a slut," he finished, slightly slurring the ends of his words. "Shouldn't she be able to – to just change it? She should. She looks ridiculous."

"Vernon, dear, really – "

"Petunia, I really do insist – "

The lights flickered, and Vernon shut up rather suddenly, looking fearfully at Lily, who, fists clenched, turned around and ran out.

And James, being an idiot, followed her out.

It was, shockingly, a rather cool night. The evening had been warm and the party-tent had amplified that heat the longer the night wore on and the more people showed up. But Lily, in her short dress, was shivering even as she ran.

He ran after her. They were in the house now, in what was obviously a guest room – a bedroom with no personal affects. A bag with what was probably Lily's stuff was sitting in a corner –

Scratch that. Floating in a corner. In fact, everything in the room was floating – even James.

"Lily – are you okay?"

She shook her head silently, glistening tears surrounding her like diamonds. The magic was so strong, her magic was so strong – and she was out of control, magic was seeping out the cracks in her façade, and he was there, willing to endure all of it. For her. All of it was for her. "My sister just got engaged to a – to a creep," she was mumbling, and what she was saying was so loud it was all-encompassing, covering her like a protective blanket. She was shedding her protective shields, slowly, so slowly. "My ex-best friend is going to try and kill me eventually. And you're here. Of all people, you're here. You stayed. And I can't thank you enough."

"I'm sure everybody else – " James began, but he knew that he was lying. The rest wouldn't have come into this room. They would've – might've – done everything else, endured it all, but when Lily lost control, they would've run. And now she was standing there, hurt and magical and beautiful, and he was there. He had done all of it.

For her. All of it was for her.

"They wouldn't have come in here," she said. "We're floating, James. We're flying. What if we went somewhere else – what if we ran? What if we escaped this hellhole that we call a life…"

"Lily," he said softly, "come here."

And to his surprise, she did. She buried her head in his neck and he held onto her as strongly as he could, and she cried her heart out. He didn't know how long she was crying, there in his arms, or how long they stood in that room, but eventually he found that they were no longer floating. The magic, that primal magic which had been released within her, had calmed down. "We have really got to stop meeting like this."

She laughed, wiping tears away, and kept doing it long after there was no trace of them in her eyes. He held her hands in his. "Enough," he said. "It's okay."

She took a deep, rattled breath. "The past year or so – I've figured it out, you know. Starting with Melody." She laughed, and it was an awfully hollow, broken kind of laugh. She was so close to him, she was whispering, yet he could hear her clear as a bell, feel her breath on his skin. "I used to look at her and hope – hope that Tuney – Petunia, that is – that we might be friends again. But she doesn't – she didn't stand up for me. And she told him I'm a witch without telling me she told him. And now I look at Melody and all I think about – oh, James, all I think about is you, and how awful I've been to you, and how awful you were to me and to Sev – Snape. And I think – I think I'm starting to let go. I'm no longer holding on to a past that I have no use for. Petunia and Severus both." She was slowly pulling away from him, but this time, the walls around her were truly shattered. He could have seen her building them up, if she had done so, but she chose not to. She chose to show him the broken pieces, and maybe, one day, he would be able to help her mend them. Maybe they could mend their broken pieces, together.

"Why – I mean, this might not be the best time to ask – " she laughed at this – "but why were you friends with Sni – with Snape? I could never understand that. I mean, he was so – "

"Cruel, horrible, mean, a slimy git?" she completed his sentence for him. "No, you're right. But before we came here, to school – we met when I was nine. And he was different back then."

And she sat there, and she told him about two misfits who found each other against all odds, and about how he always told her how much it didn't matter, and kept telling her that right up until that day by the lake – the day that changed everything – and how angry she'd been at both of them, but she knew she could never forgive Snape. And she was calling him Snape more and more now, he noticed; he was no longer her childhood friend, Severus, in her eyes, but simply Snape. He had done too much to prove how much he wasn't that kid to be that friend anymore. And James never despised him more that in that moment – or pitied him more, because he could read the dying affection in Lily's eyes, affection for someone she knew didn't exist anymore. And once again, he held her, trying to hold her together, and let her tell him how much she needed him at one point, and how much it hurt her to say goodbye to him, and that she was doing her best to forget and move on but that it still hurt, almost a year and a half later, and that she feared that it would always hurt. And James couldn't help but picture broken glass, the kind that a simple Reparo couldn't fix, that a wave of a wand couldn't mend. This would take time, and the result wouldn't be the same as the original.

This healing had to be a process, slow. But maybe the result would be a beautiful a mosaic. And she would need someone she could trust.

And apparently, she'd chosen James.

This trust – realizing that James was worthy of it – was the second time Lily Evans changed her mind about James Potter. The third time was yet to come, but in the meantime, Lily Evans had a broken heart to mend.

A/N: Long time, no see! Life's been crazy, but it should, hopefully, calm down December 31st. So yeah, no update, once more, till January. Not that I'll have a lot of free time generally till I graduate, but there you go. Can you believe I graduate thisJune? Who ever thought I'd be writing those words on this story? I feel so strange.

That last part has been written for over a year, and so, naturally, it had to be edited heavily. I mean, there were several things that made no sense and part missing and of course, the plot is ever-changing, but I think it worked nicely in the end.

So yeah, Jily. Not so fluffy, but Jily nonetheless. Now that we've gotten rid of that pesky Marlene (hehehehehehehehe), we can really dive into that angst-ridden relationship. And don't you worry, there's plenty angst left. Also, the war is going to feature heavily from now on, if I do my job correctly, so hopefully less drama-for-the-sake-of-drama like I've been doing so far. The story is still going to be me writing it, so you know, I can't really avoid angst completely, but it'll take a backseat to more pressing matters, personal or not.

But hey, this story is called Of Three Times etc, and I've finally done the second time! The third one is pretty far away :P. I have a friend who pointed out that I'm taking awfully long to write about three simple would-be oneshots. But I'm an asshole. So there.

(For those wondering about the random publication of Changes when I said I'd be gone temporarily all of November, you should know that I'd been working on it most of October, and just put the finishing touches on it during a random weekend of November before deciding it was ready to publish. Believe me that I really really had no personal time during the past month. I spent all of my money on ordering pizza because I never left my room.)

Happy December,

JustGail