Hi all, so I am back to this wonderful fandom with a new story! I am taking a delve into a fandom, an era and a couple that has always fascinated me and it's the James/Lily era.

This is the second part of the story that started in the Beginning of the End and these are the moments in the first Wizarding War and the build up to Harry.

This story will be twenty chapters long and some events/events that do take place might be missed.

Also spelling/grammar...not my best thing. Again keep that in mind when you read...please.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Please Read and Review.

And on a side note, I like so many other Fanfiction Authors no longer receive notifications via email about reviews/PMs etc. So if you do send any it might be a while, if ever before I get back to you. Please keep that in mind for it is not intentional-If anyone has a fix please let me know

I do not receive PMs anymore, if you have a question stick it in a review and I will answer it in the chapter notes.

So yeah this one is short because I don't really know how to write Petunia but I hope you enjoy this. Again what happened to Lily' s parents and the breakdown of her relationships with them are my own doing and nobody else's.

The End Of The Beginning

Chapter 6-Mind Games.

It's Christmas and the Marauders, Lily and Marlene share what they don't know yet but is their last Christmas the six of them. There Sirius asks Marlene a question and Lily begins to plan her wedding. Peter begins to play mind games.

It was Christmas and though they didn't know it yet it would be the last Christmas that they shared with each other. It was a hard to imagine it. The six of them, the six of them spending Christmas with each other and yet not know that they were dead already. They were playing at being alive, spirits and ghosts inhabiting the very dead bodies that they were doing their best to try and use.

They were dead men and dead woman walking and they were only eighteen, soon to be nineteen. In fact of some of them were already nineteen. And yet they were dead men and dead woman walking.

They just didn't know it yet.

But it was Christmas and it was their first one out of Hogwarts and so they did their best to make it work even when the world was burning down around them and there was nothing that they could do to stop it.

And it was…burning down around them. It was getting steadily worse and worse. There was nothing that they could do now. They were marked for death.

They had not known it. And if they had…well…maybe it was a good thing that they didn't. It gave them that Christmas period where the snow had stuck to the ground again and it gave them that Christmas morning that Lily and James and Sirius and Remus looking back knew that they would never forget.

What Peter thought looking back at that period of their lives none of them would ever know.

Again…maybe he was already aware that the people he was spending Christmas with were already marked for dead by Voldemort and by the Death Eaters then too. None of them had bothered to find out, there had only been one person who had ever really thought about what this Christmas meant.

And he was playing mind games.

It started off easily to the least obvious person, snide comments about how late certain people were. Questions about who was turning up for meetings and who wasn't and what was taking them so long. Questions about mission specs that he had no reason in asking. All done so beautifully that it was hard to keep track. All done so randomly that it was hard to keep track. If it had been anyone other than Peter Pettigrew asking the questions then it would have raised suspicions probably. If it had been anyone other than Peter Pettigrew dropping the comments into the conversations then it would have probably made people ask for an explanation. If it had been anyone other than Peter Pettigrew doing these things then even his closest friends would have put two and two together and it would have been obvious with what had happened. But that being said….when had anyone ever looked at Peter Pettigrew and seen spy.

When had anyone ever looked at Peter Pettigrew and seen anything other than…Peter Pettigrew. Peter Pettigrew the quiet, mousy friend who was sitting there eating his bowl of ice cream nice and quiet and slowly taking stock of everything and anything that was happening.

But this Christmas was a nice one though it was the last one they got to have and so James cooked (and when that failed they ordered food from the Leaky Cauldron) and they cracked open champagne and they drank and ate ice cream and laughed and played games and then Lily and Marlene began to go through the steady pile of wedding magazines while that shrinking she-devil on the radio kept getting louder and louder and louder.

"Shut her up Sirius" Marlene said quietly. "Shut her up on the radio I am not in the mood. Lily what do you think about this one?" and with that she held up a wedding magazine as Sirius turned off the radio and silence filled the apartment once more.

"I like that one but I don't like the bow on the back" she said shaking her head and James caught Sirius's eye and they both looked away at once grinning to themselves.

"And I like these flowers—"

"Clash with your hair"

Peter who was spooning another spoonful of ice cream into his bowl nodded.

"Yeah Lil you'd look like an idiot carrying those kinds of flowers down the aisle."

James tried to kick him but couldn't get his brain to move or his feet to move. He was too strung out on food and booze and was feeling pleasantly sleepy and warm and deliciously safe. It wasn't a feeling that he had very often so when he had it he clung to it with both hands and wrapped it around himself like a warm blanket.

Sirius gave a groan and then he stood up to gather the plates up with his wand and Marlene used hers to open the fridge and gotten the champagne out and cracked open the second bottle before they could say anything. This was their first Christmas as real adults, they could learn to enjoy it a bit longer if they had to.

She stood and followed Sirius into the kitchen catching the bottle and she poured six glasses by hand preferring to rather than magic which was something that didn't always work out. Case in point when James had tried to put his glasses on without magic and even now still stabbed him in the eye with the frame whenever he tried.

Sirius still laughed at it. It was nice to find things that he could still laugh at. Especially when they had woken up Christmas morning to the news that a Christmas Eve mass in Kidderminster had been set on fire with everyone inside of it in a direct attempt to provoke the muggles by the Death Eaters. Sirius didn't know what the grand plan was but if they weren't careful the Muggles were going to know about them and then it was going to be open warfare when they found out.

He could just see generations of Black family members thrashing around in the family vault at that.

He had not heard from Regulus in months. He didn't even know if his little brother was still in school. He didn't know if he had the mark on his arm or if he had found the courage to break away and forge his own path like Sirius had.

He didn't think he wanted to know the answer.

He thought he already knew.

But there was one question that he wanted to know the answer too. One question that he wanted to know the answer too. And this was a perfect night as ever to answer it.

"Marls?"

"Yes darling?"

"You ever think about it?"

"Think about what?" she asked turning to him her blonde hair in a knot on the bottom of her neck and she tugged it loose cracking her neck from side to side and letting the blonde curls tumble down over her shoulder and Sirius had to resist the urge to reach out and touch it.

"Marriage"

"Marriage? With you?"

"Well…yeah. You ever thought about it?"

For a second she stared at him open mouthed and he took in the rare and rather wonderful sight of Marlene McKinnon staring at him speechless in shock and he smiled his best and charming smile (so he had been taught and so he had been told) and she smiled back tilting her head and staring at him in that appraising way that when he had been thirteen he had found a little creepy and now at nineteen he had come to love.

And yes…it was love. It was love. Maybe it wasn't the grand love story that he always had known and had envisioned Lily and James to be but what he and Marlene had was just as grand and just as lovely.

"I don't know" she said finally. "Why don't you ask me again when this war is over?"

"Ah yes but we could both be dead by the time that, that happens" he said trying to keep his voice light when it was in fact the truth.

"Yes" she acknowledged, "Yes we could be. But I don't want to marry you because we might be dying tomorrow Sirius. I want to be with you because we might be dying tomorrow. Marriage should be saved for the aftermath. Besides…I'm not one hundred percent sure I believe in the concept of marriage"

Well that was a new one that he had not heard before.

"Really?"

"Well" she shrugged. "I love you and you love me so what does it matter if we have a piece of paper with our names written on it? Besides…it's a new age for a new woman and if you think I am going to stay at home and raise all your little babies for you while you go out and earn all the money then you have another thing coming. Sorry sugar but that is not the woman you fell into bed with"

He laughed at her then, laughed at her honesty and everything else that came with it and she laughed back. In truth though he would never, never admit this to James he had to see her point, marriage was alright if that was what you wanted but Sirius…well…call him simple…all he wanted was a nice home somewhere with a woman who loved him—with this woman who loved him. He didn't need the big white wedding to be happy.

"Come on" Marlene said with an eye roll, "You can ask me the question again when this is all over. If we are still alive I might be old enough to take you seriously when you bring up marriage after gorging yourself on three pints of ice cream"

"Hey I'd like to point out that Moony did nothing to stop that either" he said pointing the champagne glass at his friend who took it with a warm smile. Full Moon had not fallen on Christmas this year nor would it fall on New Year so Remus had a long time to look forwards to spending with his friends. Sirius thought that was wonderful, as Peter had taken to mentioning time and time again when he thought nobody was listening (and no doubt at a time where people actually were listening) that they never knew what was going on with Remus these days but he was gone for so long that it was always a guessing game when they were going to see him next.

Sometimes he didn't know what was going on with Peter.

To be honest he didn't care right now.

What that said about him as a friend he honestly didn't know.

To be honest he didn't really care right now either.

"So when do you join us again?" Peter asked taking his drink and looking at Marlene.

"January 16th, and I go January 3rd"

"Your parents must be happy to know that you are coming back home for a little while" Lily said throwing a bridal magazine at Marlene and she caught it with a grin.

"Yeah but nothing ever happens there, so I will come back begging for decent conversation. Lil you sure you can handle my stuff for the Order?"

"Told you I would wouldn't I?"

"Yes…yes you did" Marlene said with an eyeroll.

Neither one of them noticed Peter's eyes fliting from side to side taking them in as if he was committing the memory, the dates, the whole thing and he didn't know it yet but that was the first sign that he had realised. That…if he'd had followed through would have been the first moment where he could have stopped it.

Stopped Peter.

But he couldn't, he didn't. Not then.

Not until it was too late.

He caught Marlene's smile and she smiled back.

It was Christmas and though they didn't know it yet it would be the last Christmas that they shared with each other.

They were playing at being alive, spirits and ghosts inhabiting the very dead bodies that they were doing their best to try and use.

They just didn't know it yet.

But by January Marlene was dead and within eighteen months James and Lily would follow her, Peter would be 'dead' and Remus would be all alone. And Sirius…Sirius would be in a cell.

But it was Christmas. So they didn't know that their lives were already over.

Soon they would.

Oh boy, soon they would.

And there you go, I hope that you enjoy this chapter (as it was hell to write) and I will do my best to bring you the next one.

Next Chapter-Dumbledore wants to take a group photo. Marlene goes back to her family. The Death Eaters attack. And nothing, nothing is ever the same.