A/N: Hello! I hope you've had a lovely week so far. We're on half term holiday and I just got back which is why I'm updating! I'm really not very sure about this chapter so it may be taken down but it will probably stay. I feel as if when my characters converse, they always end up arguing. Also, this seems to be repetitive, we're always looking back at the past and I don't know, this chapter just has a lot of issues.

Anyway, I do not own Harry Potter, no copyright infringement is intended and all rights go to J K Rowling!

Thank you for supporting me and this story, we have 60 followers! I cannot believe it and 36 favourites. The views are extraordinary so thank you for reading, reviewing, favourite-ing and following. It means a lot.

Enjoy!

AUGUST 1ST 1978

POTTER'S COTTAGE

LILY'S P.O.V

"I don't believe this," Marlene says, through gritted teeth.

We're sat in the garden, around a wooden table on mismatched garden chairs, looking out onto the land attached to Potter's Cottage. I'm drinking tea; Marlene's drinking some kind of alcoholic drink even though it's only ten o'clock. Her legs are straight out in front of her, resting on an upturned bench. Marlene came over to help me move what little stuff I own to the Cottage. The Marauders have been shifting boxes of James' for the past few days, which seem to consist mainly of clothing and Quidditch related items. He owns more Quidditch jumpers than I own books, well maybe not quite, but still. Marlene and I are taking a break before we go back and help them. We're supposed to be fetching Butterbeer but we ended up talking. The Marauders won't really mind – it's been at least five hours since they've done any proper work. They've primarily been pratting around whilst Marlene and I got the most work done in the shortest space of time.

"I went over five times to apologise and she didn't answer me once. I've tried everything, sending letters, flowers, cards, chocolates and even on one occasion, a howler. Yet, no response. I understand that Diggory was a twat and she dated him, then he ended up messing her around and being a dick, and now she's upset because Sirius is insensitive and has the emotional maturity of a rock but why is she pissed at me? I've dated twats and they've messed me around, Merlin knows I've had my fair share of heartbreak and hurt but I don't get why she's blaming me!"

"You did kiss him back," I point out, reminding her of the kiss she and Padfoot shared in front of Alice.

"Yeah," Marlene sniffs, "but he kissed me. Besides, she's seen us kissing before, I don't get it."

I set my mug of tea down. "I don't get it either but maybe it's nothing to do with you or Sirius as individuals, rather you two as a pair, in a relationship."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe she's just jealous."

"Jealous?" Marlene repeats, incredulous, "why would Alice Smith be jealous of me?"

"Well, look at you! You're beautiful, compassionate, friendly, honest, brave, reckless and confident… Not to mention talented," Marlene blushes heavily, "plus, you're in a longstanding, passionate relationship –"

"So? You and James are in a longstanding, passionate relationship as well!"

"Maybe so, but she feels as if she has to compete with you and not me. I'm boring and traditional, you're vibrant and exciting. I don't know what goes on in her head. Tell you what, once we've finished moving the last box upstairs, I'll go over there with you."

"Thank you," Marlene says, "and you're not boring. You've got to stop saying that or people will start believing you." (An Abundance of Catherine's quote, fellow John Green fans!)

I smile, "thank you, but I really don't care what people choose to believe of me."

"I know- it's one of the things I love about you."

Sirius opens the back door, "Hey! Are you two going to stop nattering and bring us Butterbeers? I've already had to tell Remus and Wormtail off for gossiping, I don't need it from you two as well!"

"We're coming!" I shout back, "Anyway, why can't you get your own Butterbeers?"

"Because I'm lazy and incompetent, surely you know that by now Lily."

"Yep, just wanted to see if anything had changed over the past few weeks," I reply, walking toward the door.

Sirius grabs Marlene by the waist and plants a kiss on her cheek, "sadly no, I thought Marlene might make me a better person but no such luck yet."

"Hey, I'm not supposed to change your personality, you know," Marlene says, flicking his ear playfully.

"No, I know. It's one of the reasons I am indisputably in love with you," Sirius says as they lean in for a long kiss. I look away, feeling very awkward.

"ALRIGHT! Break it up!" Wormtail shouts from inside the house.

"Damn, how did he know I escaped?" Sirius curses as Wormtail stands in the doorway beside me.

"Padfoot, you're supposed to be fetching muffins and cucumber sandwiches," Wormtail says, scowling at him. (If you've seen The Importance of Being Earnest, you might get this reference.)

"Oh yeah… Sorry Marley, you know how it is, if you don't feed them, they start whining. I love you," he says before dashing off inside after Wormtail.

I head right inside the house with Marlene following after, slightly dazed. I can't help feeling like I intruded on a personal and private moment. Once Marlene is inside, I recast all the wards on the cottage. The war has impacted my daily life more than I'd thought it would. It's a surprise Marlene and I could go outside at all.

"Looks like the two of you have made up," I note.

"Well yeah, it turns out he's not as much of an immature git as I had originally thought."

"And he says you haven't changed him," I snort.

"I haven't! And he hasn't changed me!"

"Of course he has, that's what happens in a relationship. You round each other out. I heard what he called you, Marley," I say.

"Oh shut up."

"I haven't heard him call you that since you first started going out."

"We drifted apart for a while and then we got closer. I guess I started to trust him a lot more. Anyway, enough about me and Sirius, where is your useless husband?" Marlene asks.

"You called," James appears in the kitchen doorway, he swings himself forward, his body pushing through the doorframe, his muscles flexing as he does so.

"I'll leave you two a moment, I'm going to find Sirius before he ends up hurting either himself or somebody else," Marlene scurries off out of the room, giving me a wink as she disappears through the door, James steps out of the way to allow her to pass.

James walks toward me once she's gone.

"How is my lovely wife?" he asks, his hands on my waist, his lips brushing my cheek.

"Mhm," I say by way of response, kissing his lips softly.

"How do you like the cottage?" he asks, drawing away slowly whilst tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear.

"It's stunning; I adore it and the garden… It's wonderful, James."

"I'm glad you like it."

"Molly sends her regards," I add.

"Ah, and how is the Weasley brood?"

"They're good. I finally met the twins who are adorable, by the way. Three months I think Molly said."

"Wow, how many children so far?"

"Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George… five."

"I'm happy you can count," he smirks. I hit him on the arm.

"You're horrible to me."

"I know, but you love me anyway."

"Yeah, I do."

"You know, it occurred to me just the other day that I never proposed to you. We just talked about setting a date and voila, we were married."

"We have a habit of not really talking about these things, don't we?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, but we usually just rush straight into things and think about them later."

"I don't think that's true, we talk plenty."

"Yes, we talk perhaps too much but never about the big things."

"What are the big things?"

"Futures, families, relatives, pasts –"

"I've long since given up trying to talk to you about my past and dating history because you are so repulsed by it and uncomfortable with it and as for relatives, 'relations are simply a tedious pack of people who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die'." (This is an Oscar Wilde quote from the Importance of Being Earnest.)

"I am not repulsed by your dating history and don't think you can get around talking about relatives by using an Oscar Wilde quote!"

"It seems to work perfectly for you!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Face it Lily, you hate talking about Severus, Petunia, Vernon, your parents… How am I supposed to be completely honest with you if you don't tell me anything about what really matters or mattered to you? And don't deny it, you hate talking about my ex-girlfriends."

"And why do you think that is? I hate talking about it because it's painful and it hurts. I know well enough that I screwed everything up for my family and for Severus, don't think I don't blame myself. I hate myself and I have to live with the fact that it's my fault so many people are hurting and I don't need to be reminded of it! You think I need to talk about everything, but I don't. I'm trying to handle it and handle it on top of everything else and I really don't need this from you right now."

"You think it's just you? Everybody –"

"Please, James, don't you think I know it's not just me? Why else would I join the Order? Besides, if being with me is as stressful and infuriating as you make it sound, why don't you just leave?"

"I can't, Marriage Law, remember?" he scowls and I feel my heart break a little. Is this seriously happening right now? Would he really let me go? Does he not love me anymore?

"Merlin damn the Marriage Law! Look, I'll stay over at Marlene's –"

"No," he says urgently, "We're going to sit down and sort this out," James says, snatching my hand and pulling me into the living room.

I yank my hand out of his grasp immediately and I sit down on the sofa furthest away from him. Merlin, we'd just started to get a long and we were being all romantic and I was happy and then, as always, something ruins it. I could kick myself, if I only I weren't so petty about these things.

"I'll go first," James says clearing his throat, "Snivellus."

"What about him?"

"Why? Why did you put up with him, become friends?"

"Well," I sigh, "you remember how I lived in Cokeworth, a few minutes away from Spinner's End, right? Well the only friend I'd ever had was Tuney and whilst she was a good sister and a good friend, I'd never been friends with anyone else. I was about eight years old, perhaps nine when Tuney and I were at the park. We went to the park every day. Anyway, we were swinging on the swings and I was going really high because I wanted to see if I could touch the clouds. I really wanted to be able to fly that day, I can't exactly remember why, maybe it had been because some boy in my class had been picking on Tuney and when I stepped in to tell him to go away or whatever it is nine year olds said to bullies, he'd spat in my face. Anyway, so I jumped off the swing, as I usually did, and didn't hit the ground like Tuney would have if she'd tried, but glided. I loved doing it, because it was like flying and being free from all the anxieties that nine year olds suffer from.

"Tuney told me off, naturally, reminding me of what my mother had said about swinging and jumping too high but I remember not really caring. I then showed Tuney how I could manipulate the petals of a flower. Tuney had always found it very weird and unnatural so I tried to stop the magic as much as I could. Anyway, on this particular day, Severus was watching in the trees. Tuney wasn't all that fond of him because he lived in Spinner's End which is quite a rough borough with a lot of poverty. Tuney said what I was doing was freakish but Severus came out from where he was hiding and told me I wasn't a freak, I was a witch and I was better off without my Muggle of a sister. Tuney was quite upset, I think, that I wanted to listen to what he had to say though at first I was offended by him calling me a witch. Tuney was mean to Severus and as a nine year old, I had very set ideas about right and wrong. He explained to me that he wasn't being mean by calling me a witch but that he meant I had magical powers which is why I could do all those things.

"Tuney made fun of Severus' background and his clothes. I remember him being unwashed and quite dishevelled and that he wore ill-fitting clothes that, as I've heard quite a few people say, were so mismatched that it looked deliberate. It wasn't his fault. His parents were always fighting and his dad, who was a Muggle, was violent and abusive. He was very close to his mother, I know that much. Nevertheless, his parents neglected him and that was why he always looked tatterdemalion.

"At first, I felt sorry for him and I was fascinated by the Wizarding World and wanted to know more about it but then we developed a friendship. We bonded very quickly, I remember. I finally felt as if I'd found someone who understood me and knew about the odd things that kept happening to me. He introduced me to magic and told me all about Hogwarts. I was captivated and we became best friends.

"All sorts of things happened thereafter. When I got my Hogwarts letter, Tuney was jealous and she wrote to Albus asking him if she could go to. He was very kind about his response. Tuney found out that I'd read the letter which just made her more furious, that was when we drifted apart completely. So now you know why Petunia and I aren't close.

"When we were on the Hogwarts Express, I met you for the first time and my first thought of you was that you were a complete and utter idiot. Then I was sorted into Gryffindor and that put quite a lot of strain on mine and Severus' relationship. My friends hated him but I made excuses for him, I defended him and I knew he did the same for me. Marlene and Alice said that the gang he was in, led by Malfoy and Bellatrix were performing the Dark Arts and hexing people, specifically Mudbloods. I refused to believe it, it didn't sound like my Sev at all. He used to stand up for me a lot even though I thought I could stand up for myself perfectly fine on my own. Then his friends started to hex some of my friends like Mary Mcdonald. I was suspicious, I started to question him but he was always obsessing over you and the Marauders. He had this crazy idea that I fancied you. I told him it was nonsense, though," I say, seeing James' face,

"He felt like he had to compete with you and I didn't like how he talked about Remus. At the time, I couldn't care less about you, by the way. Anyway, he asked me to Slughorn's party and I was so excited. Then he kissed me… I don't know what I was thinking, going with him. If I'd ever felt anything more than friendship with him, then that was all gone. You and Padfoot crashed the party and I shouted in his face. That was hard to go back on, it was awkward for a while but we slid back into our friendship yet I was wary. He always had that look like he wanted to kiss me as he had done at the party and I found it uncomfortable. I told him I wasn't ready for anything like that which was true, I wasn't ready for any kind of relationship but what he didn't know was that I would never be ready for a relationship with him.

"He was wickedly good at the Dark Arts but he rarely talked to me about it. He spent more time with his Slytherin friends than with me and sometimes I'd overhear him making plans with other Slytherin students to hex Mudbloods. Still, I thought he could change, thought he would change but I was wrong. I knew what he did and Merlin knows I'm an awful person for saying it, but I wanted to believe that what he was doing was right. I wanted to support him, like a good friend would. But how do you support your best friend when what they're doing is so distinctively wrong? Besides, I still cared about him. I still do and it's not fair that he should have had to choose between what he believes in and me. I shouldn't have had to choose either but a choice had to be made.

"I was friendly with him and we both kept up our friendship, even if it was forced at times. Then it happened. You were taunting Sev and cursing him… I was at the lake and Marlene pointed to where you were with the other Marauders and I saw Sev's body being chucked around like a rag doll – I was absolutely furious. I stormed over there without a second thought and yelled at you. Merlin, it feels like only yesterday…"

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" I shout, pulling out my own wand.

"Ah, Evans, don't make me hex you," James says.

"Take the curse off him then!" I demand, pure anger rising up in my veins. They'd crossed the line this time. James takes off the curse and Sev collapses. I hope he's okay.

"There you go," he says to Sev, "You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus –"

"I don't need help from filthy Mudbloods like her!"

"Lily?" James' voice snaps me out of my reverie with a sharp jolt. I look at his face and I know he was remembering the same thing.

"Sorry. He called me a Mudblood and that was that. I knew he'd changed. He tried to apologise and maybe I should have forgiven him but I just couldn't. I distracted myself, convinced myself, even, that a life without him would be better. I was miserable and then, then I started to like you. Even though you drove me up the wall that summer, waking me up at six every day and teasing me relentlessly, I really started to like you.

"From that very first kiss, I felt something but I wasn't sure what it was. You made everything more bearable but because Sev hated you, I felt like I as being a bitch by liking you so I tried to hate you instead because it was easier. Pushing you away, that hurt me almost as much as Sev pushing me away. I can only imagine what it was like from your end.

"Then you started to hate me back, or pretend to," I say hastily, watching his expression, "we weren't flirtatious anymore, we were insulting each other and it was tearing our friends apart –"

"Don't you know what it was like for me?" he asks, cutting me off, "let me just say that in that time, I was being selfish. I thought that if you wouldn't love me, then life wasn't worth living so I made myself worse and you hated me for it. I hated myself for it, too. I know I've said it before but I mean it, I forgive you for everything and I love you Lily, no matter what."

"I forgive you too, I already had and you know I love you. I've told you why I became friends with Severus and you know the rest, the torturing thing but something I never told you was how jealous I was of your girlfriends. I'm not disgusted by them, I just don't like being jealous because it feels petty. I promised I'd go over to Alice's with Mar, I'll talk to you later?"

"Of course," he says, a little dazed.

"I love you," I say.

"I love you too."

JAMES' P.O.V

Wow. Lily just told me her life story basically and she admitted that she was jealous. I'd heard it from others, like Molly for example,, but to hear her openly admit it is something else.

I love her, I know I do, and I will never stop loving her.