A/N: Hello everybody! I hope you didn't get too badly tricked on April Fool's Day and that your week's been going quite well. We've broken up for the Easter Holidays which is great but... I will be staying with my grandparents for the next week which means there might be no wi-fi which is a complete disaster. In short, it will be a while until you get an update and I'm lousy at updating anyway so...

I know this update is so long overdue and this chapter is kind of a filler but the amount of support I'm receiving is amazing so I had to write something. Please forgive any grammatical errors.

I own nothing, no copyright infringement is intended and all credit goes to J K Rowling who has blessed us all with her creation. (By the way, thank you skyemithrald714, your review greatly amused both me and my sister.)

Please enjoy & have a fantabulous day!

1 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING – JULY 27th 1978

(DAY AFTER THE WEDDING)

LILY'S P.O.V

"I know! Merlin, Sirius, just go to sleep!"

"I was asleep until you started rustling the sleeping bag and making a racket."

"That's not my fault! You were taking up all the room on the mattress!"

"Well maybe if you didn't insist on having all the sleeping bag –"

"I just don't want to freeze to death! Now can you stop being so difficult and get your own sleeping bag?"

"But this is my sleeping bag, you get your own."

"No, you get your own."

"No, you get your own."

"No."

"Well I'm not getting one."

"Then you can freeze to death."

"Maybe I will."

"Well you can't blame me when you wake up in the middle of the night with a cold."

"Why would I blame you?"

"You always blame me for everything."

"That's absolute bullshit, Marlene and you know it."

"Is it though? You never take responsibility for yourself."

"That is not true, I'm very capable."

"Give me an example."

"I will. There was the time when… you know what? I don't have to explain myself to you."

"There you go again, excuses, excuses. Blah, blah, blah, life's not fair, my life's so hard, you're never nice to me, blah, blah, blah."

"Well you're not nice to me."

"Aw, does ickle Sirius want some love and attention?"

"Stop being such a bitch Marlene, are you on your period or something?"

"Fuck off, you misogynistic twat."

"How am I being misogynistic?"

"How are you not? Just because I show my emotions and act like an actual human being does not mean I'm on my period. Are you sure you're not on your period?"

"There you go again! You always do this. Why do you keep putting me down like that?"

"Well I didn't know you were so easily offended."

"Why are you always so hypocritical? You show your emotions and that's fine because you're being an empowered woman but when I show mine I'm being a coward? How is that even fair? I think you're the one who's being sexist."

"Just shut up, Sirius! I can't deal with you right now and your constant whining. Do you know how tedious it is to put up with you?"

"Well if you find me that tedious then what the hell are you doing here?"

"I won't be here for much longer, that's for darned sure."

"You're a bitch."

"You're a bastard."

I sigh with relief, because at last they've stopped shouting at each other. I hear footsteps outside my tent which I'm sharing with James.

"Lily and James?" Marlene whispers.

"Yeah?" we both say together.

"Can James swap with me so I don't have to sleep in the same tent as Sirius?"

James holds back a groan.

"Please?" Marlene says.

"Alright then," James concedes and leans over to kiss me, "I'll see you in a bit."

"Love you."

"I love you too, Lily-flower."

I watch him go out of the tent and into Sirius' as Mar comes inside.

Once we'd sent a Patronus to Dumbledore, we'd set up tents just a few yards away from where we duelled the Death Eaters. We set up wards and secrecy charms to conceal ourselves from Muggles, wizards and witches and especially dark magic. The original sleeping arrangements had been: me and James, Sirius and Mar, Alice and Remus and then Wormy on his own (he insisted on having his own tent).

"Sorry Lils, I just couldn't spend the whole night with him. I love him but argh! He's so infuriating."

"It's okay," I tell her even though it isn't, not really. I had wanted some alone time with James.

"Mar? Lil? Can I come and sleep in your tent with you?"

I recognise Alice's voice.

"Sure, what happened?"

"Nothing," Alice says unzipping the tent, coming inside and then zipping it back up again, "I just didn't want to sleep with Remus."

"You didn't leave him on his own did you?"

"What do you take me for? A callous misanthropist? Remus went to share a tent with Sirius and James, so I came here."

"So he left you?"

"No, we reached a mutual understanding."

"Wow," Mar says, "look at you Alice, all mature and grown up."

"Hey, I can be mature and grown up when I want to be," Alice sticks her tongue out at Mar.

We rearrange the bedding to accommodate all three of us.

"So what was your fight with Sirius all about?" Alice asks.

"That's exactly it, it wasn't about anything. It was a completely unnecessary argument to have but every time we're alone together all we do is bite each other's heads off - and not in a good way."

Alice frowns, "how can you bite someone's head off in a good way?"

"Don't ask," I cut in before Mar can answer.

"Anyway, how are you Lily?" Mar asks, look at me concernedly.

"I'm fine, all things considered."

"What things considered?" Alice cocks her head to one side, as if studying me.

"Well… I seem to be encountering a lot of dark magic and torture and pain and suffering recently but other than that, I'm perfectly fine."

"You know when we were at Hogwarts?" Alice sits up, "what exactly happened all those times you went to the Hospital Wing? You kind of hinted at stuff, the fact that they hurt you but… I feel like you watered it down quite a lot. I'm guessing you didn't want us to think you were weak or you didn't want us to intervene or something like that. But Lily, we're not children anymore. You're not a child anymore, but that doesn't mean you should have to face everything alone. You've seen so much, experienced so things no child should ever have to see or experience. No person should ever have to go through the things you did. I know you think Mar and I won't understand but Lily… we're all fighting in this war and we're people too. We know what it's like to lose family and friends. We both know what it's like for something to fail and for you to think you screwed everything up and that it's your entire fault. I know what it's like to let go of a person who you've depended on for so long, trusted and loved. I don't claim to understand why you do the things you do or why you keep stuff from us, but Marlene and I won't judge you for it. You think we won't get it, but how can you know that unless you've tried? Please, Lily trust us."

I look at my hands. How could they possibly understand? How can I possibly tell them? It's really not as simple as telling or not telling. I want to tell them, I just don't know how. It's hard enough saying what I mean to James and sometimes, even to myself. Alice is right, of course she is, but is it right for me to tell them these things? My nightmares and the darkness that haunts me is a burden that is mine, and mine alone. But it's a lonely journey and I've been aching to tell them for so long…

"Well, for a start, I don't really know how to explain this but I'll do my best. So you know after the OWLs? When Severus called me a Mudblood? That's sort of where our friendship petered out. Up until then, we were friends, but he constantly accused me of associating with James and was always going on about the way James stared at me and how James fancied me. I thought he was just being protective and annoyed but now I look back on it, it was jealousy. Of course, having never actually felt jealousy before at that point, I was unable to recognise it. Especially since Severus had always been good at hiding his emotions and thoughts.

"Anyway, I guess that was the final straw. Afterward, I began to realise just how much Severus tried to protect me. Seeing as I made it quite clear to the rest of the world where I stood with him, the Slytherins began to target me along with the other Muggle-borns. Before that, Severus had made sure they never hurt me but now we weren't friends… well, that's where it all really began.

"Obviously, having lost basically my only close friend from my previous life as a Muggle, I was very upset and I did blame myself. I still do. For a while, I just went in a circle of missing him, hating him, being angry with him, hating myself and just general negativity. I wondered if I'd ever forgive him or myself. Bellatrix, Lucius and Severus then started targeting me personally. Severus kept going on about having something to prove. At first, it was just petty hexes and spells which I could easily defect. I was perfectly capable of dealing with them. Then they started using the Cruciatus curse on me which led to Severus using spells of his own invention. Mostly, it was Bellatrix and Rodolphus casting the curses and giving me scars but sometimes others joined in, all bearing a black mark on their forearms.

"I remember a particular incident when I was in the library with James; I left because he'd pissed me off or something and then Severus ambushed me, tied me up and led me to the Room of Requirement…"

I then launch into the explanation of how Severus had tortured me and left me to almost bleed to death. Then I describe to them my moments of great despair when my parents died, how it still hurts, further attacks from Bellatrix, Lucius, Severus and Rodolphus, the Epiphany of the Soul from my point of view, the Vereor attack, my jealousy toward Melanie Clearwater (something I grudgingly admitted), my forgiving Severus and the ignorant pricks, all my worries and anxiety about Tuney and the funeral, Dumbledore's perplexing advice about love giving me the strength when I need it most and most recently – the Mirror of Illusio Exitiabilis.

When I'd finished telling them my lifetime of secrets, there is a pause of silence then –

"Holy shit!" Marlene exclaims, "and you dealt with all this plus James, the war, the Marriage Law, my problems, Alice's problems, school and just general life? What the bloody hell are you made of?"

I can't help smiling a little.

"Well carbon, mainly –"

"Ha ha," Alice says dryly, "I can't believe it, Lily. I knew it was bad but… I didn't think it was this bad. You know this isn't normal, right? The amount of pressure you're under? Merlin, if I'd have known –"

"Look, don't go blaming yourself. It was stupid of me to hold it all in for so long."

"Now I see why you were such a cranky bitch sometimes," Alice says.

I scowl at her.

"Only sometimes," Alice says weakly.

"You know, if I'd gone through all that I'd be a hell of a lot more of a cranky bitch," Marlene says.

"I don't think that's possible," Alice says, grinning.

"Alright, Ms Perfect, just because you're jealous of how well I handle relationships –"

"Yeah, the lesson we all learn from Marlene McKinnon: if you want something to fail, just do what I do."

"Rude," Marlene says, throwing a pillow at Alice's head.

"Says you," Alice says, tossing it right back, twice as hard.

"Yes, says me," Marlene says, charming the pillow to repeatedly hit Alice on the head.

"Hey! Stop that!" Alice says as the pillow starts tickling her and she rolls around on the floor giggling.

I laugh.

"You too," Marlene says, charming another pillow to do the same to me.

I charm the duvet she's under to tickle her feet with its feathers and soon we're all in hysterics.

"Is it bad that we're in the middle of a war and all we're doing is laughing?" Alice says as the charms wears off.

"Nah," Marlene says, "I laugh in the face of the Dark Side. They're all so glum all the time, they need to learn to liven up. Besides, what are we supposed to do? Sit around being solemn soldiers for however long this war takes? I'm missing out on a normal life here, in fact, because of this stupid war; I may not even have a life tomorrow. So, I think I have every right to laugh all I want."

I smile because she's right – life is short but that's okay because at least the one I have is worth living.