Lily felt so many people pressing in on her. She didn't know who she was hugging, who was patting her on the back, who was congratulating her and James. The faces she knew were few and far between and so she concentrated instead on holding on to James' hand tightly as they were pushed through the crowd to the dance floor. Music had again started playing over the heads of the guests.

The biggest part of the day was over. Lily and James were married. She could feel the weight of the ring on her finger, she could remember saying the vows and it hadn't been half as frightening as she had expected it to be. But now she had another big moment to get past.

Lily had never been a good dancer. When she was six years old, she, like many other little girls her age had begged her parents to get her dancing lessons and like all other girls she had picked out the little outfits and shoes and hairpins and gone to class. She had managed four lessons before she fell, sprained her wrist, got a bloody nose and refused to ever go back and she had taken up football instead. She had avoided dancing ever since but she was quite sure that it was some sort of wedding tradition that the bride and groom had the first dance and so she let James guide her into the middle of the floor as the chairs flew back onto the grass and small white tables appeared among them, draped with sheer white table clothes and white roses to match.

She had hoped that this particular tradition was not the same in the wizarding world as it was in her muggle world but her hope had been in vain. James had placed one hand on the small of her back and he was holding her other in his. She could feel the eyes of every guest on them and she gulped.

"Y'okay?"

He was watching her closely with one eyebrow raised and she wondered if the expression on her face was giving her away.

"I can't dance" she said quietly so that only he could hear. He chuckled and shook his head.

"Don't worry about it. Just follow my lead, I'm a great dancer."

Modest too. And they were off. She tried to move her feet as smoothly as he did as they swirled around the dance floor and though she knew that she had not quite pulled it off, by the time her eyes left James' there were other couples stepping forward and surrounding them and no one was watching her anymore.

She noticed that she was holding her breath and she let it out with a gasp.

James was grinning as he brought their dance to a halt at the edge of the platform.

"That was good" he told her, amused. But it wasn't over. Her father seemed to appear out of nowhere for the next dance. James shrugged and disappeared into the crowd, leaving her to suffer through what seemed like every single male guest at the wedding. Even Hagrid did his best, holding both of her hands in his, cutting a wide path through the other dancers as she balanced on his giant feet so that he couldn't step on hers. It wasn't until her dance with Sturgis Podmore had ended that she found a chance to escape.

Sirius appeared in front of her with a flourish and a familiar floppy smile on his face.

"May i have this dance?" he asked enthusiastically, grinning and moving his body and arms back and forth in a mock waltz.

"Oh, thank god!"

Lily took hold of the front of his robes and dragged him through the other dancers and onto the lawn where she collapsed at an empty table, drawing laughter from those who couldn't seem to take their eyes off of her for a moment. Sirius sat down beside her and folded his arms across his chest.

"I take it were not dancing then?"

She rolled her eyes, grabbed an abandoned bottle of fire whiskey from the center of the table and passed it to him.

"Cheers Lily."

The other marauders converged on them bearing food and drinks except for James who still seemed to be dancing. An old woman with yellow hair and matching dress robes was hanging off of him, seeming to be very intent on her young dance partner.

Lily heaved a sigh of relief. She was sick of making small talk with people she had never met and was happy to just sit with her friends, who didn't expect her to talk about the weather or her dress or in fact anything at all as they drank and laughed around her, occasionally passing her cookies or filling her goblet. She realized with a jolt that her friends now were people whom she had once hated and the boy that she had been best friends with as a child was now her enemy. War did strange things to people. She looked around at Moony, Wormtail and Padfoot in turn.

"Having fun?"

A hand on her shoulder made her jump. Another of the white chairs revolved in the air and fell between her and Sirius at the table.

James was greeted with wild congratulations from his friends, somehow resulting in him having a flagon of mulled mead dumped over his head.

Waving it away with a flick of his wand he swung a leg over his chair and took a seat. Lily watched him reach out and take hold of her goblet. He raised it, swirling the contents. His eyebrows came together and he took a swig. He glanced up at his friends.

"We've got the finest meads, goblin made wines and whiskeys in the country and you lot are over here drinking butterbeer?" he asked incredulously.

"Yup" Sirius replied, unconcerned. "Moony snatched them from the kiddy table." He exchanged evil grins with his friend and Lily couldn't help but wonder if they had replaced the butterbeer with something they shouldn't have.

"Good batch too" he said thoughtfully, imitating James' contemplation with his own goblet, taking a hearty sniff and a shrug, his face twisting in confusion.

" Why? Did you want one?"

James sighed and held out a hand, throwing the other arm over the back of Lily's chair. " Yes."

When she was little, Lily had loved fireworks. She had thought there was something magical about the exploding lights and sounds so high above her head. When she had learned that they were not magic at all, that they were in fact merely the product of heat, gunpowder and a few other chemicals that she had never heard of they had all but lost any interest. There had been no such thing as magic.

And then she had left the muggle world and joined the one to which she had truly belonged, where not only fireworks, but nearly everything was literally magical.

Lily shifted her head on James' chest and his arm tightened around her briefly. The ground was hard beneath them as they watched the exploding colors far above their heads. They gave sighs of delight at the various magical explosions of light and gasped as a huge green dragon took form in the sky and swooped down low towards them before exploding into a thousand bright streamers of color that melted quickly into the night sky. Cheers erupted around them. She could feel the vibrations in James' chest as he laughed along with the others and spoke with his friends over her head.

Very different sounding voices broke through her conscious and caught her attention as she lay there on the ground. Raising her head off of James she looked around and was slightly shocked to see every attending member of the Order gathered tightly against the back fence, leaning towards each other and conversing in low voices, appearing more serious even then they had earlier in the day. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but whatever it was wasn't good.

She made to stand up but James' arms constricted around her.

"Where are you going?" he demanded with a groan of longing. She kissed him swiftly but pulled away much to soon for either of their liking.

"I'll be right back."

Pushing herself to her feet she made her way towards the gathered Order. She could feel Moody's electric blue eye upon her as she approached and the group fell silent as she joined them. They watched her seriously, causing her to shift uncomfortably under their gazes.

"I want to know."

A particularly large explosion overhead lit their faces with red, making them all look slightly ill and deathly. Moody's face looked especially knarled and mangled in the strange lighting, both his normal eye and his electric one focused on her. Several of the others exchanged glances and Dumbledore watched her with a twinkle in his eyes, giving her the usual feeling that she was being x-rayed, but she ignored it.

"I've been seeing you lot huddled together all day, did you think that I wouldn't notice?"

She crossed her arms stubbornly and glared around at them all. Dumbledore was smiling faintly but he didn't look at her, but at Moody, a question on his wise face.

Moody nodded.


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