"The art," Severus says Lily next morning, before the assembled Resistance, "is called legillimency. It is an arcane art, more dependent on the person than any spell or memorization. I am proficient enough with it myself; most death eaters have come by some form of defence against it or another."

"Occlumency," Regulus says. "Of course. I'm trained. We're not the only ones who have used legillimency, you know. The other side had it as well."

"Who's this we you're talking about?" Lily asks sharply. "Unless I'm sorely mistaken, the 'other side' is us, and if Sev knows how to do it, then we do have it."

Regulus looks surprised by this, but inclines his head. "I suppose that is technically correct."

"Nothing technical about it," she replies.

"Regardless," Severus says, moving his gaze from her back to Regulus, "We will have to train you in the art, Lily, before we can make any sort of move. We cannot risk your mind giving our secrets away."

Sirius stands, and waves his wand. Lily had prepared breakfast again for the four of them, Severus not wanting to experiment with egg preparation before these new allies. She is confused, for a moment, why Sirius is casting a spell-but then the dishes begin marching out the door.

"Oh. Thank you," Lily says, surprised and rising as well. "Here, I'll give you a hand. Show you where things are in the kitchen." She looks from Regulus to Severus. "You'll show me how to do it, then. I'm a quick study. We won't be a minute, don't plot too much without us."

Severus nods and gives a little cryptic frown, but turns back to Regulus, and they begin a heated discussion about some sort of Dark thing that completely goes over Lily's head.

Lily and Sirius exit, and they follow the floating dishes in silence, watching them shuffle themselves through the air at the behest of his wand. It is Sirius who breaks the silence.

"I promised James I'd take care of you," he says. "I know that you don't remember it-or me, or us-"

"I remember you, Sirius. We went to school together. I just don't remember being friends with you." Her tone is light but she's watching him for a reaction.

He winces, but not in a way he tries to hide. "I know. But-"

She cuts across him and opens the door to the kitchen, blocking his path. "No. Listen to me." He opens his mouth to protest, but she raises a hand and he shuts it again. "Sev and I talked it out. I believe he put the memory charm on me to help me. I don't think it was good or selfless, but he did it to keep me safe. All of this-everything," she gestures around to the house, her wand, her apron. "Everything is to keep me safe. I don't agree with it, or what's been sacrificed in the name of my safety, and I think he's overprotective and a bit mad, but there it is. His intentions are good, and I've helped set those intentions on something greater than just keeping both of us safe. He's valuable and talented and he's on whatever side I'm on. And," her voice raising to keep him silent, "the memory charm is breaking down."

He looks flabbergasted. "It can do that?"

"He never was very good at charms." She smiles and then pushes through into the kitchen, setting the dishes to washing themselves and beginning the rest of the tidying-up.

"Lily," he begins, sounding pained.

"Oh, skip it," she says breezily. "I know what you're going to say, that he's a terrible, bad man, that I don't have to stay here like this, that I've already suffered enough and I don't have to fight or train or whatever difficult and life-threatening thing you think I'm too weak and damaged and female to do."

"I-" He shakes his head. "That's about the size of it, yeah."

"I'll be fine. As for Sev-he is a bad man. Terrible. But do you want to try to handle him? Or leave him to Regulus? I've done the maths on this. I have to be here to keep him working. Besides, we work well together, always have." She pours herself more juice and leans her hip on the table. "And it's not like Regulus hasn't done the same horrible things in the service."

"That's not-you can't compare the two."

"How's it different, then?"

Sirius crosses his arms. "I went to Regulus and convinced him. Reg never wanted this. He never wanted enslavement or total dominance. He just got caught up."

"And so did Sev."

"You didn't see how he was."

"Yes, I did. Or are you forgetting that we were best friends almost all the way through school? Awfully strange, that; if he were changing my memory, he didn't touch anything incriminating about himself. Not calling me mudblood after fifth year, or hexing Gloria in the middle of sixth, or that awful Christmas prank that group of Slytherins pulled-nothing."

"You wouldn't know if it were missing," Sirius says.

"I would. It'd be coming back now, anyway, and it hasn't."

There's nothing for him to say to this, so he sets the clean dishes drying themselves on a dishtowel, and she helps, putting them away by hand.

Sirius is watching her, and he thinks he's being surreptitious, but she can feel him boring holes through the back of her old 1979 Quiddich World Cup shirt. It's almost as if he's expecting her to break down crying in a flood of tears. She turns to him, polishing a wine glass.

"Sirius, I don't know what sort of woman I was, what sort of woman you think I ought to still be, but I'm a solider. I've been looking for an opening for the past three years and in the meantime, I've been safe and healthy, which is more than I can say for other muggle-born witches. Until you came to me, it seemed like the whole thing was ironclad, and Sev couldn't do anything but-delay his tasks for the Dark Lord." She puts the glass down. "But now here we are." She tosses the towel over her shoulder, smiling up at him, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you for coming. Just because I don't need saving doesn't mean you haven't helped."

He looks at her hand and swallows, and then shudders, as if he's just had a terrible thought and he's trying to shake it physically. And suddenly his arms are around her and his chin is on her shoulder. He's breathing into her hair hard like he's trying not to cry.

She doesn't have the heart not to embrace him in return. He is full of breath and warmth and a certain vulnerability in all the ways Severus isn't, and she rests her cheek against his broad shoulder. She is reminded suddenly or holding onto the tiny, shaking body of a homesick muggle-born first year, scared witless over the presence of ghosts in the castle. "It's okay," she whispers, not sure what else to say. Of course, she knows what's wrong. It's what should be wrong with her. "I'm sorry."

He shudders again, and pulls her against him hard for a moment, and then lets her go. "No-no, I'm sorry." He passes his hand across his mouth and shakes his great shaggy head slowly. "I miss him. James, I mean. I miss him as much as you-as much as you will." He passes his hand across his face again, and when his mouth emerges, it's a tight smile that looks full of effort. "Seeing you, like this, like you both were-it just reminds me of him."

"Of course it does." She puts a hand atop his head and musses his hair. "I wish there was something I could say to help, but all I can tell you is that we're working to destroy the people who murdered him."

"Of course," Sirius says, and his smile gets a little easier and less wistful. "You're his Lily all right. Whether you know it or not."

She has a few choice thoughts about this, namely that she doesn't want to belong to anyone, but she keeps her mouth shut. No need to upset him further. "Come on. The boys will miss us."

"Wait," Sirius says, catching her arm.

For a moment, she almost thinks he's going to kiss her. For a moment, it almost seems as if he is stumbling over this thought as well, but instead he pulls something silvery out of a deep pocket on his cloak.

"Dumbledore had this when James died. It's an invisibility cloak. It should be yours."

She touches it. It feels like woven rainwater, like solidified clouds. "Won't you need this?"

He smiles. "My disguise is perfect. Reg never goes anywhere without his faithful dog."

She can't take her eyes off it. It's beautiful, and it's something else too-she recognizes it from nights of having it around her shoulders, running swiftly and silently up the boys dormitory staircase with the thrill of disobedience and lust running hot through her veins, and the boy at the top of the stair waiting for her- "Thank you," she says finally, and tucks it into an unused mixing bowl under the kitchen sink.

She doesn't want to tell Severus about the cloak. It is an ace up her sleeve, an exit strategy, a final way to keep the fight alive in herself if everything goes to hell. Which, Lily knows, it very well might.

When they re-enter the sitting room, Severus and Regulus are discussing the availability of basilisk venom versus the use of Fiendfyre and other methods of destroying horcruxes. Sirius paces while they speak, and Lily takes her seat again, trying to follow the conversation. There's no use pretending either Lily or Sirius can be of use here; neither knows any real Dark magic, nothing of this magnitude. Finally there is a lull, and Lily interjects.

"This is all well and good, but we've told you what we found out from Slughorn. Chances are, there's seven. Can't destroy them til we find them. What do you know about their locations?"

Regulus glances at Severus, as if expecting him to reprimand her for speaking out of turn, but Severus' face remains impassive. With a hint of annoyance in his voice, he answers. "I have reason to believe that Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange have each been entrusted with one horcrux each. I do not believe they know the true nature of the artifacts they posses, but they have been instructed to guard them most carefully, and have so far done so." Regulus watches Sirius pace for a moment, and then continues. "This makes stealing and destroying them much more difficult. If the protections were inanimate, as they were with . . . the one I discovered . . . they could be defeated in a straightforward way with no one being the wiser. This will require more cunning."

Lily raises an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Bella's absolutely mad, mostly," Sirius mutters.

Regulus nods ruefully. "Her wits are . . . not entirely about her."

"What happened?"

Regulus looks at his folded hands, on the table. "She was captured by the last loyal faction of the Ministry after it fell and tortured for information. Starved for days and subjected to Cruciatus curse for hours at a time. When we finally liberated her and smashed the last stronghold the Minsitry had, we healed her body. But her mind . . ."

"She's barking," Sirius says bluntly.

Regulus shoots him a hateful look. "Sirius. A little respect."

"For her? She was a murderous bigot before and a madwoman now."

"Her lucidity is somewhat impaired," Regulus continues, biting his words off sharply and ignoring Sirius, "but she appears to have something like the Sight, now."

"Voldemort's favorite pet, as if she wasn't before," Sirius grumbles.

"Sight? Like a seer?"

"In a fashion. She also has a nasty tendency to see through disguises and disillusionment charms. If one is to deceive her, one must do so with cunning rather than magic."

Lily nods thoughtfully. "Lucius, then, should be easier to get past. I imagine it should be easier to visit him for a-a business related reason?"

Severus nods. "I agree."

Sirus looks for a moment like he wants to disagree purely to be contrary, but he wavers and then nods as well. "We think that makes the most sense, yeah."

"Then it's settled." Regulus rises. "I think we have enough to work with for me to look into the destruction while you and Lily look into procurement."

Severus stands as well. "We will send news as it transpires and keep the hearth quiet otherwise. Too much communication is suspicious."

"Agreed." With a nod, Regulus returns to the hearth and steps in. Sirius shoots Lily a smile and follows as a dog, and they disappear together in a whoosh of emerald flame.

After their departure, Severus stands and turns his face toward her to give her a strange look.

Lily smiles up at him bemusedly. If he wants to know something, she's going to make him ask.

Finally he says, "What did you and Black talk about?"

"Do you mean Sirius? There were two Blacks, you know." She shrugs, thinking of the cloak. "He thinks you're evil and wants to whisk me away and keep me safe."

Severus scowls. "And what did you tell him?"

She sidesteps the question. "He wants the same things you want, you know."

"I beg to differ."

"Oh, come on. If you thought for an instant you could get me off this let's-destroy-he-who-must-not-be-named thing and put me out to pasture, you would. Am I wrong?"

He pushes his chair back under the table and doesn't answer.

"That's what I thought."

"You didn't mention what you told him." His voice is quiet and cold, but there's a tiny tremor underneath.

She snorts. "I told him to sod off."

One corner of his mouth moves upward. "He didn't look told off."

"That's because I, unlike you, know how to say things nicely."

He inclines his head in agreement. "If you're ready, I have some time today to begin Occlumency with you. Tonight I'll dine with Lucius and see what I can learn."

"Delighted." She offers her hand and he takes it, pulling her lightly to her feet. She's in an excellent mood.

They go to the front hall, which is clear and empty, and Severus casts a few wards to prevent a wayward spell hurting the wall.

He tells her how to close her mind, how it's only the sort of thing that can be practiced and not so much described.

"Grief," Severus says, "Is one of the better ways. Sincere grief shuts down the mind entirely. This can be redirected toward disabling only the memories that might contradict."

Her good mood doesn't last long under the strain of performing legillimency. They work through most of the afternoon, dredging up useless and upsetting things from the bottom of her mind, things she had almost forgotten. An hour in, she is fighting with Petunia, running through a teenage argument with her mother, sobbing into father's flannel shirt when she broke her leg, sitting through the terrifying night in the emergency room when her father had his heart attack and holding hands with Petunia for the first time in years-

He breaks the spell again, for what feels like the hundreth time, and pain floods her face again. She rubs her eyes.

"That grief. Try to hold onto that."

"I'm trying."

Neither of them are saying it, but both of them are thinking it-that this would be much easier if she could remember the loss of Harry and James. He's got an annoyed little frown on, the same frown from when she would be particularly obstinate about a piece of Dark magic or a piece of rule-breaking he wanted to do. "You have to try harder."

She raises her wand. "Just do it, Sev."

He casts the spell again and there they are, outside of the Gryffindor common room, both of them, and she is furious, absolutely livid, and saying, save your breath! I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.

And there's Severus, across from her, much closer than he is now, much younger as well, and the desperation in his voice, I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just –

Slipped out? It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends-you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you? And in the righteous anger, she can almost see him again, across from her, shaken by her words then and still shaken by them now, and how right she was, she was completely right in every way, she was right, and he is gaping like a fish both in front of her in the memory and in front of her now. I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine.

No-listen, I didn't mean-

--to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different? And with a surge of triumph, the spell is weakening, she sees her opportunity, and she climbs through the portrait-hole again, and pushes back, hard, against him-

And then, a memory from Severus' mind, so unfamiliar, so alien-

There's nothing so special about her. Nothing. Her eyes are too far apart. She's too loud. She's obnoxious. She's bossy. She too friendly, too open with everyone. She's discarded you without a second glance, and you are a fool for sitting here and-

There is a feeling of pressure in the throat, the messy phenomenon of snot and tears shed loudly behind layers of dense silencing wards in an unfamiliar dorm room she had only been in a few times, before he was ashamed of her. The memory lives behind the green curtains around the bed and on a dirty pillowcase, fists full of sheets and anger and betrayal. A faint, traitorous voice deep inside him that he deserves every bit of this misery, every bit of this awful hole in his chest, and there is so much filling-in to be done. Pack the wound. Stitch it shut. Heal it the long way, like the filthy half-muggle you are-

-And he is on his knees, and she is watching him across the floor. They both come back to the present but she still sees herself as he sees her: terrifying and beautiful, pale and brilliant and victorious, always victorious, always triumphant, over everything.

There is nothing quite so vulnerable, so vicious as this sincerity, this keening remorse inside him.

"Was that," she chokes out, "Did I see-"

He stands, fast and instantaneous, and his face is white and trembling with something like rage. The tip of his wand is glowing red, then white-hot. He spins, disabling the wards with a sharp crack, and marching out of the front hall, up the stairs, to his laboratory.

If she had been any younger, any more foolish, if her headache hadn't been his fault, she might have called after him, begged for forgiveness. But she was right. She was right the whole time. His suffering doesn't change any of what he's done, then or since. That blame is his.

"What, so my memories are open season but I see a bit of yours and all the sudden-" she calls after him, following him up the stairs. She watches him move into the laboratory and follows him through.

From his bench, he snarls back, "That was private."

"So was everything you saw in my head!"

He stands there, still and angry, glaring. He's too far away to see it, but she knows his jaw is twitching.

"Get over yourself, Severus Snape!" Lily snaps. "If you're going to storm off like an angry teenager every time I make any progress-think about it for more than a second, I threw you out of my brain and back into yours, that's progress-then this isn't going to work, and I'll have to train with someone else." She takes a breath, trying to calm her anger. "I don't want to train with someone else, Sev, but I have to if you can't handle this."

There's a long, silent moment between them.

"You don't have to train with someone else."

"Good. Now come back down here." She sighs, rubbing her face. "We'll take a break. I'll make some tea and-oh-" Lily stops and her hand moves to her mouth. "Sev-"

He follows her gaze to the cage. The mouse-no, the transfigured spoon that they turned into a mouse-is laying on its side and laboring at breathing. It's staring at Lily. She moves to it, putting out her hand, opening the little cage and lays her hand on its side, gently stroking it. It's in pain.

"I'm sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry," she murmurs to it.

The mouse gazes up at her, takes one great shuddering breath, and then goes still.

With her wand, she turns the tiny, furry body back a spoon-but whether it's due to its time as a mouse or her own rusty transfiguration skills, the spoon has a great crack down the middle. She holds it up and out to him. "The poison works. If you're going to back out-if you're not going to try to stop this-"

He looks at her for a long moment, his face blank, closed. Finally, he blinks, and nods. "I'm with you. I'll let them know the poison is ready."