A/N: Hello! (We'll just ignore the fact that I'm a bit late...)

Thank you for your support & please enjoy!

JAMES' P.O.V

JANUARY 1981

POTTER'S COTTAGE

"I still don't get it," Lily says, sitting down and sipping her tea, curled up on the sofa, her head on my chest.

Padfoot and Marlene are over, Moony's off doing business for the Order, Wormtail dropped by briefly to say hello and nobody's seen Alice since Christmas Eve.

"What do you mean?" Padfoot asks weakly, sat as far away from Marlene as possible. Or rather, Marlene is sat as far away from him as possible.

"You know what I mean," Lily says, pointedly, "why would you hurt Marlene like that? Why with Alice?"

"Do I really have to go through this?" he asks, running his hands through his hair.

"Yes," Marlene says, her hands gripped tightly around her mug but she hasn't drunk any tea yet, it's going cold, "I think you owe that to me, Sirius. That was my best friend and she's buggered off to Merlin knows where so I can't ask her."

"I don't think I owe anything to you, Marlene."

Marlene looks at him coldly, Lily glares at him and I try to keep a straight face and not get involved.

"Fine, but I know full well you've moved on and that you're just fine so don't you dare tell me anything different. We weren't in love; I can't remember ever being in love with you really –"

"Seriously?" Marlene asks, "You don't remember us being in love?"

"Do you remember it Marlene?"

"Well of course! We were in love… we were, weren't we? I – I loved you, I must have… I can't really… No. No, I don't remember it. Not really."

"Well, we'd had a fight, it was over something stupid and you were shouting, crying and screaming and swearing and you kept saying, over and over, that you wished you'd never been with me, you regretted the whole relationship, I was a terrible boyfriend, you thought I was ignorant to your feelings and I was listening to you and I was thinking, if I loved you, I would try to comfort you. I would tell you that I love you and that everything would be okay because our love is all that matters. I would support you, I'd probably be upset because you were upset but I wasn't. I realised that everything you said was true. Anyway, I was shouting back… I said some things I'm not proud of, yes that's true but more than anything, I was thinking what a waste of time this was. We weren't in love, hell, I could have been doing a million things right then – spending time with my godson for example, and I was listening to you saying the same fucking thing that you'd said before and I just thought, fuck this. I don't need this; this relationship has no future –"

"So you went to the bar, got drunk and slept with my best friend," Mar says bitterly.

"I caught you kissing some guy once," Padfoot says, looking at her, "a few weeks before, I wasn't even angry."

"You didn't say anything?"

"Would you have wanted me to?"

"I don't know! Why did you leave it so long? Why didn't you just end the bloody relationship?"

"I didn't think I had a good reason, you weren't sleeping with the guy –"

"How do you know?"

"Fine, maybe you were, so what? It's just my word against yours. Besides, I didn't like the idea of breaking up with you. It would be a lot of effort on my part, a lot of screaming and shouting involved… and I'd had enough. You're not the kind of girl you just say 'it's over' to. We'd been together years… I don't know. When you're as busy as we are, sometimes you don't notice that your relationship is crumbling. You don't notice until you take a step back and think it over. What do you want me to say? I shouldn't have stayed with you, we were both unhappy - I can see that now."

"So how did it happen," Marlene asks, her voice catching, "how did it come about? Did you arrange it?"

"No! What do you take me for? I was drunk, she was drunk… two people out of love with their partners, dejected and miserable - what do you think happened? There wasn't any attraction, no emotional connection, just two people trying hard to forget their problems."

"That's it?"

"Yes, that's it. That's all it ever was."

"I don't miss you, Sirius, I don't love you, I hardly care about you anymore but I used to. I used to feel something when I thought of you but now there's nothing… just an empty feeling and then anger because you slept with my best friend and I will never be okay with that. Never."

"I wouldn't expect you to be but tell me this, Marlene McKinnon, why is this all about me? Why is it always my fault? We're similar people; we make the same kind of mistakes. I know you slept with other guys, kissed other guys, flirted with other guys, I've witnessed it so what makes that okay? What makes that any better than what I did to you? There were other girls for me but there were other guys for you, too."

"Those were guys you didn't know, Alice was my best friend – you made it personal."

"Personal? Why can't you just accept that you're to blame for some of this? Why can't you ever just take the blame?"

"Here we go again," Marlene sighs, "always arguments with you, always."

"There! There it is again, you're putting it all on me! Prongs, tell her. Tell her she's being outrageous."

"I'd like to stay out of this thank you," I say.

"Um, James, did you leave that pie in the oven?" Lily asks, nudging me as she gets up and heads for the kitchen.

"Oh – yes, yes, we'd better go and check on that…"

We leave the room, the shouting becoming white noise.

"You know," Lily says, leaning on the kitchen counter, "looking at them makes me realise that we're doing pretty well for a married couple."

"You think?"

"Yeah… I mean we argue, but we don't argue every time we talk, not anymore."

"I don't understand how it fell apart so quickly."

"Sometimes that happens," Lily says, "sometimes you don't know when to let go because there's always that possibility, that little inkling of hope, that somehow, in some way, it'll all be fine in the end. Everything will sort itself out - but it doesn't. I learnt that the hard way."

"Do you still think about him sometimes?"

"In a way, I suppose, he's always there - in my nightmares, haunting me."

"I have nightmares too."

"I think that we all do," Lily says sadly, "that's the thing about war."

"War has a way of dividing people."

"It brings people together as well, though - families and friends."

I eye the hideous vase Petunia bought Lily for Christmas; it sits tucked away behind a stack of books.

"Even though sometimes I wish we didn't have to reach out to certain family members," I joke.

"Family always requires a little give and take," Lily says, smiling.

"A little," I grumble.

"We can't just get rid of it!"

"Why not?"

"Because that would be rude!"

"Would it? She'd never know."

"As tempting as that is, I don't like the idea of her finding out it's not on display."

"How would she find out? Can you really see her coming down here to our freakish abode?"

"Fair point," she says, laughing now.

"So can I?"

"Absolutely not, James Potter, I forbid you."

"You forbid me?"

"Yes."

"That's a shame," I say, pulling her in to me, "I happen to like things that are forbidden."

"Oh really?"

"Really."

We kiss, she tastes of tea and biscuits, her hands are in my hair, my arms around her waist. We used to share so many moments like this in Hogwarts, if somewhat secretly.

"James," she says, "we have guests."

"Who are arguing about their relationship."

"We need to help conciliate them."

"I don't think we do."

"Padfoot's your best friend."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Don't you think they'd benefit from a little support?"

"Padfoot can deal with it."

"Maybe so, but I don't think Marlene can."

"What does she care anyway? They both cheated on each other, they both agree they aren't in love, they both accept that the relationship is over – what's left to discuss?"

"She cares because he slept with her best friend. That's like Padfoot sleeping with me."

"But that would never happen."

"Well hypothetically, say that it did."

"I'd be very angry."

"With who?"

"With both of you, probably more annoyed with Padfoot."

"Why's that?"

"Because I'm in love with you."

"What if you fell out of love with me?"

"That would never happen."

"Say that it did."

"Then… I'd be completely furious with Padfoot and irritated with you."

"There… you see? That's what Mar feels."

"But she's over him, she said so… she's been sleeping with other guys."

"When you claimed to love me in fifth and sixth year, were you sleeping with other girls?"

"Only because you refused to give me a chance."

"What if it was different, what if we were together and you thought that this was what you wanted but it wasn't. What if we drifted apart?"

"I can't imagine that Lily."

"Fine, then think of it this way. You went out with Hestia, yes?"

"Yes…"

"But you were kissing and sleeping with other girls at the same time, right?"

"Maybe, do we really have to get into this?"

"Why did you do that?"

"Erm… I didn't love her, I wasn't really committed or anything, I didn't think she was either."

"What if she were to sleep with Padfoot whilst you were technically still going out with each other?"

"I'd be annoyed with Padfoot."

"Why?"

"Because you don't do that to your best friend's girlfriend, ever."

"Right, so would you be annoyed with Hestia?"

"Yes, but not rationally."

"That's why Mar feels the way that she does. She's lovely, don't get me wrong, but she's human – she's a hypocrite. Maybe she thinks she's let go but somehow she hasn't. You saw the way they used to be, very passionate and very physical. They weren't meant to be in a committed relationship – it just wasn't them. It made them miserable."

"Why do you get all of this?"

"I talk to people; I ask them how they feel because I won't know if they don't tell me. That's how. You have to ask people."

LILY'S P.O.V

APRIL 1981

"Oh for fuck's sake, Lily!"

"James will you please stop being so immature about this?"

"This again?"

"James, what the hell? Please calm down."

"You were set against me from the start!"

"Because you were a troublemaking bully! Where's this coming from anyway?"

"If I was so repulsive to you then what are you still doing here?"

Jesus Christ where is this coming from? Why is he shouting? I'm trying to have an adult conversation with him about what happened earlier today and he just explodes. We were out, shopping for food in a Muggle market – I wanted to show him where I used to shop for food when I lived in Cokeworth. Anyway, I was buying some apples and this guy started flirting with me and at one point he tried to touch me and James thought I was encouraging it. I told him that he was being ridiculous but he wouldn't let it go and now we're yelling at each other with Harry sleeping nearby – he's been sleeping heavily, oblivious to the fighting.

"Yes, I did think you were repulsive," I say at last.

"So what changed?"

"You did, I did. It happened before the epiphany. You made me see for the first time in a way I never had before. It was more than just perspective, when everything was changing so fast and my life felt like a disaster, you made it bearable. I won't deny it – we've had our fair share of rocky times in which I wondered if this row would be the last, if this one would be the one to spiral out of control. But even thought I doubted, even though I was unrealistically terrified, I knew we'd work it out – because whenever I wonder why the fuck I'm with you, whenever I doubt, all I have to do is look at you – just look, look at this wonderful person in front of me and that's all I need. There's no one else I'd rather share my life with. No one else I'd rather stay up until dawn playing cards with. No one else I'd rather sit with on a Saturday afternoon, drinking wine and kissing. I fucking love you James Potter and nobody, least of all that bloody market guy selling apples, is going to alter that."

James is silent a moment. He looks at the floor, then at Harry, sleeping away blissfully and then finally at me. There's that look in his eye, the one I fell in love with, the half-smile, half-smirk that I've come to adore and he kisses me.

"I'm an idiot."

"You are," I agree.

"But you're still here."

"Until the very end, James."

"I love you."

"I know."

Love is a beautiful thing.

SEVERUS' P.O.V

COKEWORTH GRAVEYARD

"This is where your mother is buried?"

I nod, trying to tune Narcissa out. I shouldn't have taken her here. It's only going to upset her seeing this – seeing me like this.

"Severus?" she asks, tentatively, reaching out to hold my arm.

"I'm fine."

"Severus… you know that it's okay to not be fine. You don't have to tell me why or anything… It's okay to hurt sometimes, to not be happy. It's okay to cry –"

"Please, Narcissa, please, don't."

"I'm sorry, I truly am. I can't believe… I've known you years and I never came with you. I never once thought about it. I never even considered the fact that your mother… I'm sorry, Severus."

She starts to cry. Fantastic. Now I have to comfort her. I look at her, trying to conceal the impatience on my face.

"I know what you think of me, Severus. I can see it in your eyes. You think I'm weak, you think I care too much, you think I'm a nuisance, you think I'm ignorant – that I don't understand. You think I'm one of them."

"One of them how?"

"You're just like everyone else! All they see is Narcissa Malfoy, prestigious lady, wealthy pure-blood, blood racist, Death Eater lover, dark witch… You claim to be different but are you really? Why can't you stop trying to make me be something I'm not?"

I say nothing, watching her cry harder and becoming more and more frustrated.

"I support you, support Bella, Lucius, Draco, my family and what do I get? You're all so bloody ungrateful, I wonder why I bother sometimes. You always criticise the Dark side for being prejudiced and racist when you're no better! Not at all. I care about you Severus but all you do is push me away. You pushed Lily away too and I didn't want to say this, because I thought it wasn't something friends said to each other, but now that I know what our friendship is worth to you – I will damn well say it. I think you're pathetic. Lily doesn't need your help, you think she does but she doesn't! It's you who needs her, not the other way around. It was you who ruined everything for the both of you, not her. It was you, all you! You do the same thing, again and again and I'm in the middle of it. I can't take it anymore, I won't take it anymore."

She storms off.

I think I've genuinely pissed her off.

Merlin, she's so much like Lily. Except she's not, not as much as I think she is. She has a point, that's true but Lily would cool off eventually and try to discuss it with me. Narcissa, on the other hand, will ignore me for days until I come grovelling at her doorstep. She's like me – we need to feel needed, we need others to make us feel important because we can't do it for ourselves. How pathetic is that?

I wander home alone, after leaving asphodels on the graves, thinking things through. Oh what a sorry mess this all is.