A/N: Cross-posted from Ao3, where you can find much more Jily content :)

The sky is smeared bloody when Lily's feet hit the ground.

She pants, arms closing around her stomach as she catches her breath. The winds scream here, shrill and high-pitched, and parts the grass like the Red Sea. She shivers in the field, which stretches in all directions, stopping only at the shadow of a town to the west and at the peaks of the cliffs ahead. On the eastern horizon, dawn breaks. It's spring, but her teeth chatter. She pulls her cloak tighter around her and begins checking her surroundings.

"Homenum Revelio." He's not here yet. She scowls. By her watch, they have – fifteen minutes. Not as long as she'd like to find an object they can't Summon, but it's doable. It would be more doable with a second set of eyes, bespectacled though they may be. But they have a long journey, and Lily knows full well if she works herself up too much now, they won't be to Italy before she's ready to snap his neck. She can't have that. She gives herself a moment for a deep breath – in, one, two, three – and gets to work.

The grass is knee-high and the air is thick with salt and sea. Lily wades through, thankful it didn't rain overnight. Back home a leak had sprung just before midnight, and her stumble out of bed had convinced Rupert - her ginormous ginger tomcat – that it was indeed time for breakfast. Despite the solution she'd put on it, inside her boot two of her toes remain quite violently purple from her nighttime wanderings. She's had five hours sleep, in the end, and now she's here, squinting as the day grows brighter.

For security's sake, they've not even told her what it is that she's looking for. They gave her a set of coordinates and a promise that she'll know it when she sees it. Her legs protest as she starts up the slope to the cliff's edge, whispering of sleep and giving up and how she could possibly conjure herself a nice pillow. She grits her teeth and keeps on, checking her watch again. He's late. If they miss this exchange, they're all but – and she's sorry to say it, but it's bloody well true – fucked. Their cover will come undone and they'll spend the next week making up excuses to the various authorities involved, never mind losing their lead. Her partner hasn't let her down in, really, years, but there's still some shiver of hesitation that stops her from trusting him. And for all Dumbledore and Moody prattle on about trust, they keep assigning her to quite possibly the only person she doesn't trust, of the motley crew that make up the Order of the Phoenix. They work well together, the others insist. They know each other inside and out. That's enough to make Lily snort, even here in an empty field at half past God-knows-too-early, because she really doesn't know him at all. And he certainly isn't well-acquainted with her insides.

"Evans!"

Lily's head shoots up, and a silhouette stomps down from the cliffs, one hand waving and the other holding a bulky item aloft. She says nothing and tightens her grip on her wand, muttering spells until she's sure – no concealment charms, no others primed for an ambush, no evidence of anything but what her own eyes can tell her. And besides, she thinks, who else would be so chipper at this time of the morning? Lord Voldemort himself wouldn't be arsed to come all the way out here just to kill some Mudblood at this hour. He might be insane, but he's not mental.

Orange shafts of dawn light the ridges of his face, and the deep tan of his skin almost glows. His dark hair is thoroughly unkempt, falling over the rims of his circular specs. He's already dressed for a holiday, and Lily doesn't know how the cold isn't threatening to break him in two, especially considering he's supposed to be the poncy southerner, and she the acclimatised industrial lass. Silky yellow robes, belted with a fashionable sash, fall over his shoulders and hint at the muscular curves of his arms and chest. They all keep fit in one way or another – the job becomes rather difficult if they don't – but James Potter is the sort to add another hour to his regimen for fun.

"Too easy, yeah?" he grins, and the empty milk pail swings in his grasp. "And five minutes to spare."

"Golly," Lily says dryly, shifting the heavy rucksack on her back. The wind picks up, whipping her hair around her face in a spray of salt and sea. She fishes a hairband out of her pocket and scoops her hair back. Potter rocks back and forth on his feet, bending and stretching his knees. Lily sidesteps his side-kicks before he even starts. He's had more or less the same routine since they were first forced to encounter each other in a regular basis, in their final year at Hogwarts. Every patrol and every meeting required his little warm-ups to start with. Some of the prefects joined him by the end of the year, jumping around and shaking out their arms and legs, but Lily had always leaned against the desk and watched with her arms folded.

Hair back, she embarks on her own routine; it's rather less showy than Potter's. She straightens up, takes a deep breath, and runs through the details of their task. Two weeks' 'holiday'; an illegal international Portkey from England to Italy, and then licit ones from Italy to Singapore and then to Australia. Their objective is supposedly simple: get to the pool. Poison the well. Hope Lord Voldemort is effectively deceived and doesn't show up right as they get there – because in that case, this is probably the last time Lily will ever be in England again.

She really tries not to think about that.

"Ready?" Potter asks, holding out the sack. Lily takes it with both hands.

"Roman Holiday time."

Potter's nose scrunched. "Sorry?"

"Never-"

An invisible hook catches her by the navel and tugs. The world spins furiously, a blur of blue and green and brown bleeding together like watercolours. She grips harder. Her stomach rolls. Something like laughter reaches her ears. Is Potter enjoying this? Lily is weightless, but in the way of jumping on a trampoline and reaching the peak and then that realisation that you're starting to fall. It's that fraction of a second distilled, when your stomach shoots into your mouth and your body lowers and you're praying you'll land on your feet. Lily's only been on a trampoline once, and for all the fun it's the fall that crystallises in the middle of the night. She flies in her dreams, but not for long.

Sand. Lily coughs up a mouthful of it. It's rough under the curves of her body, and stones press hard. She blinks once, twice, three times, and then starts to adjust. The sun blares down, and the sky is a wide, deep blue, cloudless and unblemished. She props herself up on her elbows, wiping her mouth, and finds that her hands are freckled with yellow grains. Panic pierces her. She rolls over and her heart skips. Her rucksack, fortunately, is only a few feet away, and looks relatively intact. Her head pounds. She shifts her weight and manages to dig a small hole into which she pukes.

"Water?" Lily looks up. Potter stands over her, haloed in sunlight, and holds out a bottle of water. Lily groans and takes it. She's careful not to let her lips touch the rim. A few sips and her breaths steady. His glasses are askew, but otherwise he looks just as put-together as he did before they left. Because that's fair.

"Are there people?" The question is belated, but she blurts it as soon as she thinks. Her head whips around. The beach seems empty. Potter pulls his wand from his pocket and mutters.

"Clear," he says. "Some up on the street, but they wouldn't have seen us." He jerks his chin. Lily follows his indication to the shoreside village, which isn't more than a cluster of faded bricks and red tiles, flanked by startlingly green bushes. A plume of purple smoke soothes her fears; Spiaggia Stregoni awaits.

He offers a hand and pulls her to her feet. Lily sheds her cloak and tucks it away. Her robes are still too warm by far, made of thick wool and partnered with stockings. Sweat slips down her brow. She turns over their next steps. They need to get to the village, they need to find –

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Potter says appreciatively, putting his hand on his hips and gazing down the beach. "I've never been to Italy."

This proclamation startles her. She looks sideways at him. "Really?" She clamps down on the second half of her response – aren't you rich? She's been to his house – once, for a Christmas party, mind, faceless in a crowd – and it certainly seems like the kind of place that would belong to frequent Italy-goers. The Potters, she imagines, would summer on the continent or on private islands, in spacious, chandelier-lit rooms with French doors and house-elves. The only place Lily has ever summered is in the humid Indian takeaway around the corner, sweating through a hangover. She and Potter have only been working internationally for the last three months, and she is reluctant to call hunting Grindelwald's old guard in Finland in February a relaxing holiday. The cold had been dire enough that Potter had offered her his cloak, and she'd been desperate enough to accept it.

"Really," says Potter, pulling her back to the present. "Mum prefers Greece." Naturally. Lily's envious of anyone with enough travelling experience to be able to have a preference.

"We should get going." She consults her watch. "Three hours until we ought to check in."

"It shouldn't take that long," Potter says.

"No, but it might."

The sand shifts under their feet as they make their way up to the village. Cats doze in the sun, and a Jack Russel with two tails lifts its leg on a bush. A man in shirtsleeves leans against a cream wall and smokes a pipe, watching them. It's quiet, as might be expected for a Sunday morning – and quietly magical. They step onto a cobbled road off the sand, and three lanes branch and twist through the little town. It makes Hogsmeade look bloated. Lily peers up one path, and robes flutter in the breeze, hanging on clotheslines strung overhead, from house to house. A woman in a pointed hat and dressing gown tends to a fanged geranium on her balcony. Lily shivers. It's small enough that it should fly beneath notice – but if for some reason it's flagged, the arrival of two English strangers will stand out like lakes in the desert. If she'd had it her way they would have arrived in Rome, but Moody had shot that down in seconds. The chance of being caught appearing out of thin air was much higher there, and a paper trail more likely to materialise.

"Alright?" Potter says, approaching the smoking wizard. "Ciao."

"Ciao." He is a wiry man of about forty, in a black hat with a pencil moustache. He turns away from Potter, but he doesn't give up.

"Parla Inglese?" Do you speak English?

"No." Potter looks over his shoulder at Lily and grimaces. Lily adjusts the straps of her hasn't, glancing nervously up the streets. The sooner they can leave, the better. Spiaggia Stregoni hadn't been a tourist destination since before the last war, almost fifty years ago. The witch on the balcony is watching them now. Where is everyone?

"Potter," she mutters, but catches herself; they can't risk anyone knowing their real names. She swallows and improvises. "Reggie?" And immediately curses herself. Stupid. They're not to use the name of anyone they know, either. "Reggie, dear?"

Potter finally realises she's talking to him. He turns around. "Er – what is it, erm, Amelia, darling?" He cringes at himself, and a little heat rushes to her cheeks at the diminutive. It's the most natural cover for a man and a woman travelling together – they sure as hell don't look like siblings, and explaining that they're only mates – and they aren't even that, really – will only draw more attention. A young couple travelling the world before settling down is unquestionably normal. But it's humiliating.

Lily forces a cheerful, happy-girlfriend smile. "I would love some… bread." Do they have sausage rolls in Italy? She doesn't take the gamble. Potter's brow furrows.

"Right. Of course." He looks back to the man. "Scusi. Dov'e si trova i negozi?" Lily has a guidebook in her bag, but it appears Potter read up for the both of them. Or maybe he just learned Italian on a whim. She has no idea what he's saying beyond the vaguest idea of the simplest sentences. The wizard sighs and drags on his cigarette. He points lazily up the middle lane. "Grazie."

"Grazie," Lily echoes. She starts up the street and is confronted by Potter's outstretched hands. He looks at her through his glasses and wriggles his fingers. Belatedly, Lily realises what he means. For the ruse. She takes his hand as lightly as possible, palms barely brushing. He flutters his eyelashes and pulls a sickly-sweet face. Lily bites back a laugh. The witch on the balcony is gone.

The path inclines up to the town square, where a small fountain rises in the centre. A stone witch lifts her wand to the sky, and water pours from it, flowing like the short rippling Romanesque dress she wears. Her hair is pulled back in a low bun, and a funny sort of crown sits atop her head, shaped like a –

"Crescent moon," Potter points out, lifting their clasped hands to point a finger at the figure. "It'll be Diana, then. A goddess." Lily shoots him a sideways look, frowning.

"We didn't learn that at – school," she amends, conscious that although the area's apparent desertedness may not be as it seems. Potter shrugs.

"We had a big library, and I had no siblings," he says.

"I thought you would've spent all your time flying about on your broomstick."

Potter smiles. "What was I supposed to do when I got mumblemumps? Mum practically chained me to the bed with a vat of soup until I got better." Despite herself, Lily laughs.

"Pe – my sister and I got the chickenpox at the same time," she tells him. "By the end of the week, our mother was ready to give us away for a half-pint."

"I didn't think you could get those sort of illnesses – if you're, you know." Magical. But his dancing around it is somewhat of a relief, because it means he knows they aren't really in private too.

"You have more resistance," she clarifies. "But if you're sharing a bedroom – well. I got over it quicker than she did, though, and mine was never so bad. Once I got over it I went to sleep downstairs on the sofa, and she crept out ion the middle of the night to give it to me again, because she was furious that she was still sick and I wasn't."

Potter squeezes her hand several times, which is weird and warm all at once. Teasing, she realises, taking in the crinkle of his eyes. "She sounds lovely."

"You really must meet her," Lily says. "If she's to be your sister-in-law one day." Potter chokes, and Lily grins.

They wander through the town for a while, up lanes and past rusty gates. Potter crouches to scratch the neck of a mewling kitten, and Lily gives a dog on its back a thorough belly rub. When she gets off her haunches, she almost reaches for Potter's hand, to keep up the ruse. But they're up one of the hills at the very back of the village, and there's no one around. She lets her hand drop. There are boundaries, after all.

People creep to life around eight, and Lily checks her watch anxiously. Two hours. How far away is it, anyway? They have, more or less, two hours until they need to be smiling and lying to government officials, and as best she can tell, they're on the opposite side of the country from where their deception is slated to take place. Brilliant. She'd suggested they do something deceptively simple, but Lieutenant Prick – who is digging a muesli bar out of his pocket for breakfast – and his comrades insisted on the most convoluted method possible. She is sure Dumbledore only agreed to it because he's an old man and didn't fancy wasting another hour on their jabbering.

"Shall we, then?" he says brightly, turning to her as the first of the shops put their signs out. Lily sighs and agrees.

"I don't get this," she complains, as they follow the slope down to the square. "Why give false names here? Isn't it better if we leave a trail for You-Know-Who of us being idiot holidaymakers? Shagging at every stop?" She cringes even as she says it, and she doesn't know why it came out of her mouth. Well – maybe that's not true. She wants to sound uncouth, and like this ruse is all below her – so what? Shagging's no big deal. Making other people think you've been shagging someone is nothing. Why would she care? She's a fancy-free shagger every day of the week. If anyone's going to have a problem with this arrangement, it's him.

The blush in her cheeks threatens to betray her.

"Shagging?" One brow arches inquisitively. She could hex him for it.

"Idiot couple," she says. "Not worried about some war or some cave. Only worried about -"

"Shagging?"

Stop saying that. She hates herself for bringing the word into the conversation. God, he must think she's thick. She feels like she is. "You get the point. Why can't – we – be here? We could have come over from England nice and giggly, stayed in a little seaside village, backpacked back. That'd be a strong false trail."

He stops dead, head cocking to one side, and his smile infuriates her.

"What?" Lily demands, searching his face. "Don't smirk at me."

"I'm not," he says, smirking more.

"Bullshit. You are too." It broadens again, and the sunlight glitters in his eyes, illuminating tiny flecks of gold. He digs in his rucksack and tosses a bit of card to her. Lily frowns and turns it over in her hands.

"But -"

He gives her an almost identical ticket – save for the little details. The first is for a 11:05 Portkey to the Wilhelmina Tuft Memorial Keyport, hand luggage only, for a Miss Lily J Evans. The second is for a 11:30 Portkey to Tekong Keyport, hand luggage only, for a Miss Amelia Snapdragon.

"Amelia," she murmurs. "That's why." Her brows knit. "Who the hell are you? And what sort of name is 'Snapdragon'? It sounds made-up."

"It's an old wizarding surname," Potter says. "Died out, so there's no danger to anyone if they go looking." He combs his thumb through his hair. "Except for us."

"So we," she says, "somehow got to Italy and are going back to the UK for the end of our rendezvous. But Amelia and -"

"Archibald," Potter supplies. Lily sighs heavily.

"- Archibald are continuing their romp to the next hemisphere."

"Not quite."

Lily stares. He cocks his head the other way.

"Singapore is in the northern hemisphere."

"Oh," Lily says faintly. "Well, point totally irrelevant, then."

Potter makes a sarcastic face. "Didn't you listen to our plan? You said you understood." Lily swallows.

"Of course I listened," she says, returning the tickets to him. "I was testing you." She starts a brisk walk. Potter keeps up with her infuriatingly easily, his long strides closing the gap.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"You've been practicing in case we need to activate our backup plan, then?"

Fuck. "Obviously."

He slips his hands into his pockets and grins. "Excellent."

They make for the bakery first. Potter's fingers brush against hers, and her heart thuds in surprise. He's keeping up the act. Lily ought to be more diligent. The shop was light and airy, and smelt of smoke and fresh bread. Lily traced her fingertips over Potter's knuckles. What would she be doing, if he were her boyfriend? She'd gone out with a few boys in school, and been on a few dates since then, but none of them had warranted international trips with their lives at stake. Lily's stomach somersaults. Why was that witch looking at them in that way? Who is she? While it's true that Voldemort has supporters around the world, the majority of them are based in Britain, or else have strong ties to the isles. She might not have paid attention to all of Potter's lengthy explanations, but she does remember that Spiaggia Stregoni was chosen specifically for its absence of any known sympathisers.

But, she supposes, that doesn't mean there absolutely aren't any.

It just means they're in the dark.

She loops her pinky finger around Potter's and squeezes as a warning. He stiffens, and blurts another phrase of Italian that sends the baker's girl diving to search through the cabinets. Potter looks into her face, his free hand tousling his hair. A question lies in his eyes.

'We need to go,' Lily mouths. He gives one short, sharp nod and squeezes her little finger with his. For all she hates his touch, at this very moment it is a burst of reassurance. They're in this together. Potter might be the last person she'd pick to be with her through thick and thin, but he's the one who's here.

They collect their pastries – Lily gives a muffled groan of approval as a bite dissolves on her tongue – and prepare for their next daunting task: the art of the approach. Ask around about transport. See if there's some friendly family whose carriage they can stowaway in, or else if they can hitch a ride with someone apparating to roughly their location. Of course, the keyport has an Apparition terminal, but neither Lily nor Potter have been there, and Apparating blind across a foreign country is seldom recommended. If they were closer – but not from this distance. Never mind that they'll be checking licenses, and while they have a cache of falsified documents, it's probably better to avoid the risk, if they can.

"Alright?" Potter asks, sidling up to an old man with three white whiskers upon his chin and bushy eyebrows. The man frowns at him. Potter doesn't seem to notice, and starts off on his Italian prattle.

"I speak English," the man interrupts. "I learned at war. Grindelwald." He makes a symbol with his hands to ward off evil. Potter bows his head.

"My uncle fought," he says. "At the Aegean Fields. And Port Despair." If the solemnity is faked, then Lily's a walking muppet. There's an honesty in the brown pools of his eyes that Lily instinctively trusts, and an edge to the plosives. They learned a little at school about the Global Wizarding War – Grindelwald's War – but mostly Professor Binns filled their lessons with goblins and risings and rebellions and International Confederations of whatsits. There's a war memorial in Cokeworth that over time turned into nothing more than a landmark to meet by before they snuck off to the lights of Liverpool or into some fit boy's parentless house - save for Remembrance Days, but in the wizarding world she's never seen even so much as that. Never so much as a gesture twisted by time and the freedom of peace.

"Despair," says the elderly wizard, tasting the word. "He lived?" Potter swallows, and the lines of his face pull tight. He looks at his shoes through his glasses.

"For a bit." His leg jerks in a half-bounce. "And then when I was thirteen, it got in." He and the old wizard's eyes meet. Lily lowers her pastry. The wizard murmurs something lyrical in Italian, and Potter seems to pick up on enough to recognise it.

"And in their thousands," he says, "came thy souls of Asphodel. Thus the sky saw naught but dark eterne, and waters raged in fear. Flee did currents and fish and salt, as His Reapers did draw near. Now autumn falls and comes again, but they shalt never know; those souls upon the riverbanks where the ashes look like snow. No hope of God, Eve's garden, Elysium, or rest; for they descended in their thousands and delivered worse than death."

Despite herself, the rhythm of his voice compels her nearer. The older wizard blinks long and hard.

"Which is written?" he asks. "On the tomb?" Potter looks up at him.

"'Come home,'" he says. "'Where no magic reigns greater than love.'"

Her hairs stand on end.

The Italian wizard – Onorato Gasparini, they discover – leads them to his home, only a lane from the square. Lily surreptitiously murmurs the Revealing Charm as they pass beneath the wooden frame of his door. Onorato frowns at her.

"Cautious," he says. Lily doesn't stow away her wand.

"Habit," she replies. "England's at war."

"Voldemort," Onorato says. "Yes. I hear." Lily draws in a breath, and Potter's fingers flex by his sides. Very few dare say the name out loud at home. But they continue inside, each step tentative. It's a small abode, filled with humming philodendrons and drying herbs. A white sink sparkles beneath a wooden with its shutters opened out onto the street; a spiral staircase stands patiently in the corner. A wooden cross hangs by a black-and-white photograph of five young boys in big coats and floppy hats and bare feet, who look grim until one nudges the other and the oldest scowls and they all start laughing. In the middle of the room, a large cauldron sits on the floor and bubbles ambiently. Lily peers in. It's only hot water. At Hogwarts, they were told to always begin with a completely empty cauldron, but she's read that places like Beauxbatons teach differently.

"You are hungry?" Onorato asks, taking a piece from bowl of fruit. "Pastry is no breakfast."

"We're alright," Potter says. "We need help."

"Help?"

"We've got two hours," Potter explains, leaning against a counter. Onorato draws a chair around the kitchen table, and gestures for them to do the same. Lily slips in beside Potter, so they sit shoulder-to-shoulder, facing this stranger who could prove their greatest ally or their worst enemy. "We need to get to Rome. Near Rome." Onorato's eyes narrow.

"Ah," he says. "Show me your arms." Lily looks to Potter and finds her hesitation mirrored in his face. He closes one eye and twitches his nose, and somehow, she gets his meaning. They turn back to Onorato, and James seizes the sleeves of his robes and pulls them up to his elbows. Blue veins fold beneath his skin like mountain ranges seen from the sky. On his left arm, a bruise wells in black and green halfway down. On his right, a faint scar jags down by his wrist. She remembers that fight – it's the work of Bellatrix Lestrange, who had been trying to take Sirius's hand and got Potter instead.

Potter's throat bobs as he awaits Onorato's verdict. For whatever reason, the men have decided to trust each other, but Lily feels it is as thin as her torn cuticles.

"Yes," Onorato murmurs, and says something else she doesn't understand. "And you?" his dark eyes fall on hers. She glances at Potter, whose head inclines slightly. It's alright. He's alright. Lily rolls back her sleeves. Her flesh is spotted with a stray freckle here and there – though mostly she has a penchant for crisping red – but otherwise is mapped only by the nervous stutters of her veins. She makes an effort to keep her face impassive. If he is looking for what she imagines he is, he's not going to find it. Even if Lily bore the Dark Mark, Onorato would still never see it. The Death Eaters aren't that stupid, but maybe that information hasn't trickled this far across Europe. Or maybe, she thinks with a chill, Onorato knows something they don't.

"Near Rome," he says, pulling his eyes from Lily's bare skin. She lets the cloth cover her once more. "It could be done. You seem of good heart."

"And you seem honourable," Potter replies. They size each other up, locked in some unspoken analysis. Lily wishes, for a moment, that she had never dismissed Snape when he spoke of teaching themselves Legilimency.

The memory stings like salt tears and tequila. She pushes him to the part of her mind where her sister and her friends from junior school and the Cokeworth Bakery languish.

Onorato's face inexplicably broadens into a smile, and he stands, brushing his hands together. "It could be done. It could be," he continues, and bustles into the next room. Lily casts an askance glance at Potter.

"What was that all about?"

He shrugs. "No idea. I just tried to look serious." His lips twist. "In the common noun sense."

"I gathered that from the grammar," she retorts. Her gaze flickers to the doorway through which their host has disappeared. Days past shudder through her in flashes of lightning; a supposed friend slipping into a toilet to summon half an army; the last time she'd ever seen Caradoc Dearborn. The world forgets to turn.

"Evans?" And it remembers again. The ruminations are as bad as the mutilation of her nails. Potter frowns. "Do we follow?"

Snap out of it, she tells herself. "Of course we do."

So it's shoulder-to-shoulder that they take off after Onorato, into what turns out to be a little courtyard. Lily is surprised; from the outside, the house didn't seem to have so much room. Onorato waits by a slender stone figure in the centre of the stones, which appears almost like a miniature version of the statue that dominated the square. But this one is –

"Mercury," Potter smiles. Lily's only reference for the word is the planet that plagued her all through fourth-year Astronomy. But Potter seems to shimmer with hope like a desert mirage, and she finds herself having to have faith in him.

"Do we need to pay?" she asks quietly. She would much rather hand over some of their gold than be indebted. A favour for a favour only brings bad luck, when you don't know if you'll live to return it.

"Pray," Onorato corrects. "I cannot decide if you pass."

Lily looks skywards, thinking of the reverend back home and the awkward Easter services, where she'd sung certain words as loud as she could and mumbled through the rest. Potter hesitates only a moment.

"Thank you," he says, and steps forward. Lily mimics.

"I read this might happen," he says in a low voice, reaching into his backpack. Lily is starting to wish she'd listened to him earlier. How was she supposed to know he wasn't talking rubbish? She shifts as he pulls out a white pillar candle. She's supposed to be the organised one; the one who thinks before she acts. Hasn't he always been the impulsive one? Doing things on a whim, just because he can?

"You read it?" she repeats under her breath. He frowns.

"I just said I did."

"But really?"

"Amy, dear," he says pointedly. "Shall we just light the candle and get a move on, darling?" Prat, she thinks. Dickhead.

"Is that what – erm – Cornelius would do?"

"Cornelius?" Potter's mouth works as he thinks. "That Ministry wanker?"

"No," Lily says quickly.

"Cornelius who?"

"My – my work friend, Cornelius."

"Your work friend?" Onorato's gaze feels like an indictment. Lily's mouth is running ahead of her thoughts, but there is some anger in the spaces between her heartbeats that she can't place.

"You met him at my Christmas party," she says, finishing the conversation. Lily reaches for her wand, anticipating the next step. Potter shakes his head.

"Have you got one of the Muggle things?" he asks. "For cigarettes?" Lily, once more, is flummoxed – it disconcerts her. Can I trust him? Her eyes meet his, and she tries to pick them apart, looking for some hint of dishonesty, for some joke being played. Maybe she doesn't know him well enough, because she comes up empty-handed.

"Yeah," she says weakly. Even without Marlene by her side, it's second nature to carry a spare, for when it's three in the morning and the other woman is ordering a turnout of pockets to find her 'pinched' lighter. (Lily has often found the supposedly-stolen object in Marlene's bootss, on a table somewhere, and, at least once, bobbing in a cistern.)

She retrieves it and flicks at the metal until it lights, a beam of orange dancing just beyond her fingertips. Potter positions the candle and she brings the fire to the wick. It begins to burn. Potter relaxes.

"Thanks," he says. "I forgot about that. I didn't know where to get one." He sets the candle into a small niche carved into the base of the statue – the platform upon which the figure stands. Potter looks back at the lighter. "It's pretty clever, isn't it? That Muggles can come up with that stuff. I'd be useless without my wand."

"You're useless with it," Lily blurts, without thinking. The words bite. Potter flinches, almost taken aback, and guilt floods her. She doesn't mean it. It's just the habit of saying the first mean thing that comes to her mind, when she's with him. She bits her tongue. An apology is owed. "Potter -"

"No," he says, and waves his hand. He wears his easy smile, but it's too forced – she can tell by his teeth. "We've got bigger hippogriffs to handle."

Her stomach tightens. A dozen excuses fling to her lips – she's tired, she's nervous, they're in a stranger's house, she doesn't know what the fuck is going on and every second that goes by without her understanding the whole picture brings her closer to puking – but nothing really does the trick. And there's no time to think any deeper about it, she tells herself. She can't take the words back. Potter's a big boy. He can deal with it.

(He shouldn't have to.)

(Shut up, brain.)

A gentle hand on her sleeve pulls Lily back to the present, and she kneels as Potter does.

"What are we praying for?" she whispers. "I don't know how to pray."

"It's like Apparition, I think," he whispers back. "Destination, deliberation…"

"I always hated that bloke," Lily admits. "I didn't want some vague, philosophical answer. I wanted to know exactly what to do."

"Life isn't like that, Evans." His smile has almost turned sympathetic, and it only makes her feel worse. "It's all about the heart."

"Bugger the heart."

Potter only shuts his eyes. Lily isn't that trusting.

But she tries to pray. She clasps her hands together and waits for some divine inspiration. Her mind churns through the preceding twenty-four hours - last night's tea, the cool morning, the Portkey. Potter's poem. None of which will deliver her to her destination.

Please, she thinks, but there's no addressee. Her eyes drift skyward as her stomach sinks like a stone. Please just let us get to Rome. We have to. If we miss our Portkey… It's not selfish, she adds, swatting at some unheard accusation. It's not about - about travelling, or wanting something exciting… We have to do this. If You-Know-Who gets there first…

But she still doesn't know who she's asking. She wonders whom Onorato wishes them to honour - the god of the crucifix in his kitchen, or the god of his courtyard? All gods are strangers to Lily Evans. All faith is foreign. As a little girl, she'd believed in her parents. Her father had lost his job and lost the house, and died; her mother's heart had frozen and she'd died, too, before Lily was even twenty. Maybe she had needed a god then, some deity to blame. She'd bunched her fists instead and told herself her parents hadn't meant to leave her. She'd once believed in Petunia, too, but that had fallen to pieces before she was old enough to understand the pain that crippled her sister each month. And then there had been school and Sev, intertwined like the serpents of a caduceus. Her last hopes. Sev had called her a Mudblood, and the school had worn the word on its stones when she was named Head Girl, til Potter supposedly hexed a sixth-year half to death. It had been a nice thought, but the writing was on the wall. The whispers had dogged Lily's every step, except when she reached the safety of the crimson-clad tower each evening.

Nothing, in the end, remains sacred.

Hurry up and bloody let us through.

Stone grinds on stone, and -

Someone pounds at the door.

"Fuck."

Lily is off her knees with her wand out in a second, until something grabs her arm. Her teeth clash together, muffling the scream. Potter has seized her by the wrist, but his eyes are still closed, and she's mumbling.

"Let go!" she hisses. "Potter -" Her eyes search for Onorato, but he's vanished, too. Her stomach curls. A trap? The statue stands imperious, above it all. The door bangs again, and someone shouts in Italian. No. Please, please –

The white light makes her ears ring, and for a moment she thinks it's over. They've snuck a jet of green light through a window and it's hit her and this is it.

In that case, why is she still afraid?

She jerks forwards, head spinning, and then she is spilling onto a crowded street. Her first instinct is to draw back, pulling out of the road. People hurry past with bags over their shoulders or smoke billowing from their lips, laughing and chattering and weaving around the others. The sun beams bright, half-blinding her.

"Amelia." Hot breath hits her ear. Lily's head snaps around, flailing for a moment at the name, forgetting. Potter wrenches her arm and drags her into the crush before she can so much as think. She stumbles after him, her pulse racing as she tries to keep up. His hand slips into hers – presumably so it doesn't look like a kidnapping. She begrudgingly takes it, their fingers interlacing. Where the hell are they? Buildings loom on either side, in shades of cream and coffee. Signs paper the walls that border the pavement, boldly declaring phrases Lily can't understand – except for 'BAR!'. Well, she assumes she knows what that means.

They've travelled. Cars whiz past, and on the other side of the street, a payphone waits patiently for a user. This is definitely not Spiaggia Stregoni. Her eyes flick awkwardly over their outfits. They stand out like sore thumbs. If whoever was after them at Onorato's gives chase, they'll be found in minutes.

"It must have been some sort of Legilimentic field," she mutters to herself. "Similar to wands, but wands are more finicky, of course. And somehow it's able to transfer that energy into Apparative magic – that's really complicated, that's precisely why Portkeys are so expensive – do you think Onorato enchanted it himself?"

Potter looks back at her. His hair is mussed thoroughly, and his smile is sidewards.

"We probably have -" he cautiously omits the word, "- chasing us down, and you're thinking about magical theory. And here I thought you were smart."

"You think I'm smart?" She snorts. "Is that why you keep leading me around like I'll wander into a gunfight if you're not touching me?"

"A what?" Potter's nose wrinkles. They're still walking, dodging expertly. Lily's thankful for her experiences on busy London tubes. "I'm leading you around because you looked like you were going to pass out. I thought you'd be more pissed off at me if I carried you."

Lily can't really argue. "You know I'm not an invalid?"

"I know," he says. "You're just slow."

"Oi!"

She's hot on his heels after that, following him around a corner and down a grimy laneway, cutting past bins and behind houses. She glances up at the sun and tries to draw a map of Rome in her mind – it's difficult to do, when she's not got a bloody clue where they're starting from.

"How do you know where we're going?" Lily asks. Potter laughs.

"I don't."

"What?" She tugs him back, and her fingers slip from his. She'd forgotten her hand was in his, but now her palm burns with the absence. She feels untethered. His fingers stretch, like they're adjusting too. "Ev – Amelia?"

"What's the point in running around blind?" she says. "We need to figure out where we are." She winces. "What does a magic statue classify as 'near'?"

Potter looks around. "We're still in Italy. I s'pose." Lily folds her arms across her chest.

"Unless we want to go and buy a street directory…" This is just brilliant. Potter fumbles with his wand.

"Point me," he whispers. It spins in his palm like a compass. Lily sighs.

"Great," she says. "As if we couldn't tell which way was north already." She gestures at the blazing sun in the eastern sky. Potter blinks.

"Oh. Yeah."

Lily taps her foot. They're running short on time. And the longer they stay in one spot, the higher the chance is that You-Know-Who finds them.

"You got your Apparition license first go?" she asks. Potter hesitates.

"Yeah."

Her lips tighten. She hates Side-Along Apparition. It makes her feel useless, and worst – how does she ever know if the other person is concentrating hard enough? How does she know that at the last moment, they won't be distracted by a – a – a bird, or something? And then they'll drag half of Lily to some shitty pub while her legs wander around back at the house. She Splinched herself in her first test – only a fingernail – but it frightened her.

She squeezes her eyes tightly shut and holds her hand out. "Before I change my mind."

"I – sorry?"

She peeks through her lashes. The confusion on his face only twists the fear in her stomach tighter. "We don't have a choice," she says. "We're running out of time, and they could be here any minute. We're not far enough from wherever we came out."

One hand goes to his hair. "You've never let me Apparate you anywhere. You used one of those cycle-thingies with a broken ankle rather than let me jump you down the road."

That had been one of the rare injuries that came after a party, not a battle. "Potter," she says, her voice straining. "Can you do it?"

His face hardens confidently. "Of course," he says, taking her hand. "Count to ten for me." She rolls her eyes. Do they have to do a bloody countdown? It makes her feel worse.

"One," she says. "Two, three, four -"

Crack.

Lily hits something and bounces back, spluttering. She clings to his hand, but her legs wobble. He grabs her by the waist and steadies her. They stand in a wooden hoop in a busy terminal. A sign hangs on the brick wall in five languages. The third from the top reads, 'APPARITION TERMINAL 2 HOOP 5'.

"Oh my god," she says faintly. "You did it."

Potter smiles. "Have a little faith."

She doesn't, but for whatever reason, she holds his hand as they step out of the hoop, get Potter's licence checked, and are waved into a line. For now, they're under their own names. Red rope cordons them into civility, and Lily and Potter join the queue for Departures – International. She should let go of him, but then, he's in no hurry to let go of her. He just lets his palm lie flat against hers, obscenely. One of the pillars that stretches to the roof is affixed with mirrors – she wonders if they see through Disguising Charms – and in the reflection, they could be some naïve young British couple. People who've never lost anyone. The line shuffles forwards, and Potter hums to himself. Lily stares at her reflection until she feels like she's floating. Is that what other people see? She looks too young. Her eyes seem to take up half of her face, and the look she hopes is defiant is as transparent as gossamer. And she's still holding Potter's hand. It feels too late now to let go; it'd provoke a question.

"Wow, they're good-looking." Lily's gaze flits up in annoyance, but Potter is grinning at someone. Frustrated, she follows his line of sight – to the mirror.

"Potter," she scolds. He preens, and she shakes her head, trying not to laugh. "My God. You're obsessed."

He winks. "Aren't you?"

The line moves again, and they're three from the front. Their reflection is obscured by a tall man in the queue next to them. Lily tucks a few hairs behind her ear.

"Should we get everything ready?" she asks him, her voice low.

"Good thinking."

He reaches into his bag, and Lily looks over the documents. She has a dead-eyed passport photo, and a stamp from the British Ministry of Magic gleams green in the bottom corner. She never bothered getting a Muggle one. She fishes her licence out of her pocket, and ends up with the one for driving. She lifts the little red cover, and her thumbnail skims the date. It's valid until the 30th of January, 2030. The year sticks in her throat. Seventy feels impossible.

"Next."

This part, at least, is straightforward; their passports check out and the tickets are in their names. Lily finally has an excuse to free her fingers from his. The Portkey home has been delayed by forty-five minutes; they're very sorry for the inconvenience, but please feel free to relax with a cup of coffee. After that they drift past a line of burly wizards and sit their bags on little tables. The men unbutton the clasps and jab Secrecy Sensors inside. Lily's heart thumps against her tongue. One pulls out a passport – from this angle, Lily can't tell if it's genuine or one of their fakes.

"What's this?" he asks, holding it up to Potter, who doesn't flinch.

"Passport, mate," he says. The wizard shoots him a hairy look, but keeps going.

"What are these for?" one asks Lily, holding up a sachet of finely chopped herbs.

"Erm, I'm a healing student," she improvises. "I like to make my own remedies… You know. For – that time –"

He practically throws it back into her belongings.

They frisk Potter's cloak after it alarms for half-a-dozen charms – all of which were placed by the manufacturer – and then they're free to go. A large blackboard displays the times and terminals from which the various Portkeys are leaving, three pieces of chalk writing so fast as to blur. Lily looks around. It's busy, but not like the city had been. People slouch on seats and read books that hover before their faces, turning the pages on their own. Owls fly overhead, from a handful of offices on the first floor to the friendly attendants by the roped-off squares Lily supposes the Portkeys leave from. When the droppings fall, a dozen mops swoop from nowhere and clean the mess themselves.

"Thirty minutes," Potter says, shrugging a shoulder towards the board. Lily swallows.

"Yeah."

They find seats. Lily takes out Amelia Snapdragon's ticket and passport, and calculates the star sign like she's fourteen and standing outside some grimy Manchester nightclub. Potter trots off and returns with an English-to-Italian Dictionary and a newspaper. A Quidditch team waves from the front. Lily's stomach aches.

A magnified voice calls for all those taking the 11:30 to Tekong, and Potter stows the dictionary and the newspaper away. He lines up behind her. She pinches the fabric on her sleeves and twists. What if it goes wrong? But she can't ask him that, not here. She tries to mimic his confidence – blazing, and tone-deaf.

Her turn comes. She flashes the ticket at them and prays they don't question it.

"Thank you," says the smiley attendant, in the tones of Norway. "Just a reminder that you must hold on to the Portkey at all times with at least one hand. The journey will last approximately ten minutes. We do not advise travelling by Portkey if you are expecting."

"No chance of that," Lily mutters, clutching the slip of parchment tightly. She hopes the attendant doesn't catch it. Well – if she were to be in a relationship, would she be supposed to hesitate there? To wonder?

"What are you thinking about?" Potter pops up behind her, eyes twinkling. Their first leg is almost done, and it's been surprisingly easy. Save for possibly leaving an old man to die. Lily's almost sick. What's happened to Onorato? Did he betray them? Is he hurt? Maybe it had nothing to do with us, she tells herself. Maybe it was a friend. She doesn't relax.

"Pregnancy," she tells Potter flippantly.

"You're -?" His eyes flicker to her stomach.

"No," she says. "I'm only twenty-two. Who'd be the father, anyhow?"

"Archibald?"

"Hilarious."

The queue finishes and the host comes in to run them down on basic safety features, none of which Lily processes. Then it's time. Potter offers his hand. Lily grips it tightly, despite herself, her heart pounding. One minute. One minute and they're out, they're done, and this particular jig, at least, is done. She watches the second hand on his wrist tick away. Her fingers dig into the handle of the Portkey. Please don't let me fall. Bile rises in her throat.

Potter squeezes her hand. "You look pale," he says casually. "Don't worry. It'll be over quick enough. Just hold on."

"I figured that one out," she replies. Tick, tick, tick. And ten to go.

"Hold on," the attendant says pleasantly. Lily does. Five, four –

"POTTER!" Someone screams. Lily looks. Matthew Mulciber parts the crowd and raises his wand.

"J-"

She lurches into the vortex.