a/n: just a note, you might want to read chapter one again first.
fifty - young
Lily wonders about them sometimes.
She wonders whether they'll burn out and splutter, hurtling down like a comet, or whether they'll fade to a warm glow together, tumbling to Earth from their time in the stars.
She also thinks she ought not to drink sometimes, because she gets philosophical, and that never helped anybody in times like this.
James clears his throat and snaps her out of her thoughts.
"To Eoin," he says solemnly, and there's the dull murmur of assent. Lily vaguely remembers another day they were in here, but this time there's no addition from Sirius or chanting Quidditch fans; just the exhaustion exuding from the boys and girls fighting the war on behalf of their world.
They sit together, hands clasped tightly: Em and Mar and Mar and Lily and Lily and James, and Lily knows that Em is deliberately digging her nails into the palm of her right hand because that's where he should be sitting.
At some point someone brings some more drinks over and they give another toast to another fallen warrior and she leans back into the hard seat of the booth and wonders why they're still going. They're all so young and fighting so many and losing so many and winning so little, and it's on nights like this that she just wants to step out there without her wand and without her James, and throw up her hands and say, yeah. You know what? You win. I'm done.
But she can't. She can't, because they have to keep fighting, because if they don't fight then what are they?
And what did Dad always say? You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for everything.
James has promised her that he won't let her fall. He'll keep her up and he'll keep her from breaking and he'll keep her safe as long as she keeps shining, and when they're cocooned under the covers, shutting out the world, she believes him sometimes.
Together they stand.
Lily lowers her head and catches his gaze and he says that he loves her and Sirius calls him a pansy but doesn't roll his eyes like he used to and she smiles and her voice sticks in her throat. When they've all looked away she mouths it back: I love you, James Potter, she says, and his eyes twinkle again for the first time since they heard the news.
She swills the Firewhiskey in her glass and downs it, wincing. And then Sirius says, "You could still drink me under the cauldron, could you, Evans?" with his eyebrow raised.
Both she and James automatically reply, "It's Potter, now," and the familiarity makes her want to weep, but she smiles at him all the same and says, "Is that a challenge, Black?"
Later on they stumble out of the Dragon's Hide and the balding barman shakes his head as if to say kids.
(They are young, so young.)
She clings to James and Sirius walks on her other side and she props him up with some help from Marlene, and Remus throws his arm around Em, and she smiles gratefully. Gid and Fabian chat alongside Peter, and Alice and Frank are holding hands and smiling and they're all grieving but it's dawn now: the light filters through the clouds, and so begins another day.
a/n: so here we are. Massive massive thank yous to anyone who read or read and reviewed, it makes my day. Special thanks to we make paper cranes, isigirl, Tajee165, Super Cara and Bluemnms. You lot are the very best.